Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal
and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry.
It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are
typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local audiences. The
original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period
in the United States.
Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music," the two terms are not
interchangeable. Popular music is a generic term for music of all ages that
appeals to popular tastes, where as pop music usually refers to a specific
musical genre. |