Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral , and accessible.
88-541: Eurythmics were a British pop duo formed in 1980, consisting of Scottish vocalist Annie Lennox and English musician and producer Dave Stewart . They were both previously in the Tourists , a band that broke up in 1980. They released their first studio album, In the Garden , in 1981 to little success, but achieved global acclaim with their second album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1983). The title track became
176-473: A chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse . The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions. Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often "that of classical European tonality , only more simple-minded." Clichés include
264-565: A Motion Picture . On 7 November 2005, Eurythmics released Ultimate Collection , a remastered greatest hits package with two new songs. One of them, " I've Got a Life ", was released as a single and reached No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart as well as spending three consecutive weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play in the US. Lennox and Stewart appeared on a number of TV shows to promote their new compilation album, which
352-504: A Stranger" were also released as singles at this time. During 1993, a live album entitled Live 1983–1989 featuring recordings from various years throughout Eurythmics' career was also released. In 1992, Lennox released her first solo album, Diva . The album was a critical and popular success, entering the UK album chart at No. 1 and achieving quadruple platinum status (more than any Eurythmics studio album had done), as well as producing
440-560: A baby and to consider a life after Eurythmics. Accordingly, the duo had very little communication with each other from 1991 to 1998. In 1991, Eurythmics' Greatest Hits collection was released, entering the UK album chart at No. 1 and spending a total of 10 weeks at that position, plus 8 weeks in New Zealand and 7 weeks in Australia at No. 1 as well as becoming a massive worldwide seller. New remixes of "Sweet Dreams" and "Love Is
528-479: A blonde chanteuse and as an Elvis Presley clone. It also featured cameo appearances by Hazel O'Connor, Bananarama (including Stewart's future wife, Siobhan Fahey ), Kate Garner of Haysi Fantayzee , Thereza Bazar of Dollar , Jay Aston and Cheryl Baker of Bucks Fizz , Kiki Dee , Jacquie O'Sullivan and the gender-bending pop singer Marilyn , who would go on to musical success of his own that same year. The upbeat, calypso-flavoured " Right by Your Side " made
616-475: A considerable number of musicians, notably a series of albums with Jah Wobble and David Sylvian , two younger British musicians who shared his interest in blending pop music with experimental recording and sampling techniques. Other collaborators include U.N.K.L.E. , Brian Eno , Eurythmics , and German Neue Deutsche Welle band Trio . In 2009, after a problematic time with the record company that had been gradually re-releasing his albums on CD, Czukay began
704-699: A couple. During the period that Lennox and Stewart were in the Tourists, and later as Eurythmics, they were managed by Kenny Smith and Sandra Turnbull of Hyper Kinetics Ltd. They recorded their first album, In the Garden , in Cologne with Conny Plank (who had produced the later Tourists sessions). The album, released in October 1981, mixed psychedelic , krautrock and electropop influences, and featured contributions from Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit (of Can ), drummer Clem Burke (of Blondie ), Robert Görl (of D.A.F. ), and flautist Tim Wheater. A couple of
792-461: A cover of the 1968 Sam & Dave hit "Wrap It Up", performed as a duet between Lennox and Green Gartside of Scritti Politti . The duo quickly recorded a follow-up album, Touch , which was released in November 1983. It became the duo's first No. 1 album in the UK, and also spawned three major hit singles. " Who's That Girl? " was a top 3 hit in the UK, the video depicting Lennox as both
880-539: A dark and powerful sequenced synth bass line and a dramatic video that introduced the now orange crew-cut Lennox to audiences. The song reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart , becoming one of the year's biggest sellers, No. 6 in Australia, and later topped the Canadian chart and US Billboard Hot 100 . The band's fortunes changed immensely from this moment on, and Lennox quickly became a pop icon, gracing
968-399: A light entertainment and easy listening tradition. Pop music is more conservative than other music genres such as folk, blues, country, and tradition. Many pop songs do not contain themes of resistance, opposition, or politics, rather focusing more on love and relationships. Therefore, pop music does not challenge its audiences socially, and does not cause political activism. Frith also said
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#17327768000291056-407: A music researcher, states pop music as any type of music that a person has been exposed to by the mass media. Most individuals think that pop music is just the singles charts and not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical , jazz , rock , and novelty songs . As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately. Therefore,
1144-565: A new album, Peace , which was released in 1999. The single " I Saved the World Today " reached No. 11 in the UK Singles Chart, and a remix of " 17 Again " gave the duo their first chart-topper on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The band also embarked on a world tour, dubbed the "Peacetour", to support the album. The tour started on 18 September 1999 at Cologne's Kölnarena and ended on 6 December 1999 at
1232-456: A new collaboration with the Claremont 56 record label, releasing vinyl-only remixes of tracks from earlier albums, as well as some new recordings. This approach changed Czukay's plans for his back catalogue, so that the original albums Der Osten ist Rot (1984), Rome Remains Rome (1987) and Moving Pictures (1993) are no longer being reissued (in the case of Moving Pictures , because
1320-498: A pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015. Before the progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music. Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing. This situation declined after
1408-444: A portable mini-synthesizer that Lennox and Stewart decided to become a duo. Calling themselves Eurythmics (after the pedagogical exercise system that Lennox had encountered as a child), they decided to keep themselves as the only permanent members and songwriters, and involve others in the collaboration "on the basis of mutual compatibility and availability". The duo signed to RCA Records . At this time, Lennox and Stewart also split as
1496-460: A separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class." The latter half of the 20th century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred. Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art. Since then, certain music publications have embraced the music's legitimacy,
1584-413: A solo career. Czukay had been sidelined due to creative disputes and his failure to progress as a bassist, admitting his shortcomings on the instrument which he had taken up "almost by default" in the early days of Can. After his departure from Can, Czukay recorded several albums. One of his trademarks was the use of shortwave radio sounds and his early pioneering of sampling , in those days involving
1672-516: A solo recording career in 1992 with her debut album Diva . After almost a decade apart, Eurythmics reunited to record their ninth album, Peace , released 1999. They reunited again in 2005 to release the single " I've Got a Life ", as part of a new compilation album, Ultimate Collection . Eurythmics have sold an estimated 75 million records worldwide. Their awards include the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist in 1984,
1760-475: A string of five hit singles. She followed this up in 1995 with her second album, Medusa , an album of cover versions. It became her second No. 1 album in the UK, reaching double platinum status both there and in the US. Stewart, meanwhile, released the solo albums Greetings from the Gutter (1995), and Sly-Fi (1998), but neither was commercially successful. In the late 1990s, Eurythmics reunited and recorded
1848-416: A tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments ; and seeks to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms. The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element , a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure . The structure of many popular songs
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#17327768000291936-427: A thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US. The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization , modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism , or a more general process of globalization . One of
2024-488: A trend referred to as " poptimism ". Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on traditional pop , an American counterpart to German Schlager and French Chanson , however compared to the pop of European countries, traditional pop originally emphasized influences ranging from Tin Pan Alley songwriting, Broadway theatre , and show tunes . As
2112-462: A video for each song. This was largely a concept piece, following characters portrayed by Lennox, specifically one of a frustrated housewife-turned-vamp (as exemplified in " Beethoven (I Love to Listen To) ", a UK top 30 and Australian No. 13 hit). The brazen, sexually charged rocker " I Need a Man " remains a Eurythmics staple, as does " You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart ". Much less commercial than
2200-577: A while as a music teacher. Initially Czukay had little interest in rock music , but this changed when his student Michael Karoli played him the Beatles ' 1967 song " I Am the Walrus ", a psychedelic rock single with an unusual musical structure and blasts of AM radio noise. This opened his ears to music by rock experimentalists such as The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa . Czukay co-founded Can in 1968. He played bass guitar and undertook most of
2288-581: A worldwide hit, reaching number two in the UK Singles Chart , and number one in Canada and the US Billboard Hot 100 . Eurythmics went on to release a string of hit singles and albums, including " Love Is a Stranger ", " There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) " and " Here Comes the Rain Again ", before splitting in 1990. Stewart became a sought-after record producer, while Lennox began
2376-425: Is all the collective clubs around the world. Radio is just doing its best to keep up." Songs that talked of escapism through partying became the most popular, influenced by the impulse to forget the economic troubles that had taken over the world after the 2008 crash . Throughout the 2010s, a lot of pop music also began to take cues from Alternative pop . Popularized by artists such as Lana Del Rey and Lorde in
2464-652: Is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below (...) Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Besides, Frith also offers three identifying characteristics of pop music: light entertainment, commercial imperatives, and personal identification. Pop music grew out of
2552-597: Is largely the story of the intertwining pop culture of the United States and the United Kingdom in the postwar era. — Bob Stanley According to Grove Music Online , "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures". Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed
2640-462: Is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country , blues , and hillbilly music . According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ,
2728-430: Is that of a verse and a chorus, the chorus serving as the portion of the track that is designed to stick in the ear through simple repetition both musically and lyrically. The chorus is often where the music builds towards and is often preceded by "the drop" where the bass and drum parts "drop out". Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form , with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks , and
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2816-727: The 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. They were inducted by U2 's the Edge . Billboard Music Awards Brit Awards Grammy Awards MTV Video Music Awards Music & Media Year-End Awards Pop music Identifying factors of pop music usually include repeated choruses and hooks , short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse–chorus structure ), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much of pop music also borrows elements from other styles such as rock, urban , dance , Latin , and country . The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although
2904-778: The Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1987, and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1999. They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Lennox and Stewart met in 1975 in a restaurant in London, where Lennox worked at that time. They first played together in 1976 in
2992-630: The London Docklands Arena (which was filmed and released on video and DVD). All proceeds from the tour went to Greenpeace and Amnesty International . The year 2000 saw numerous European festival appearances by Eurythmics (at Germany's Rock am Ring, among others). In 2001, Stewart performed with U2 for the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert. In 2002, he collaborated with Bryan Ferry on his album Frantic . In June 2003, Lennox released her third solo album, Bare , which
3080-434: The barbershop quartet-style harmony (i.e. ii – V – I) and blues scale -influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function . In October 2023, Billboard compiled a list of "the 500 best pop songs". In doing so, they noted the difficulty of defining "pop songs": One of
3168-453: The punk rock band the Catch . After releasing one single as the Catch in 1977, the band evolved into the Tourists . Stewart and Lennox were also romantically involved. The Tourists achieved some commercial success, but the experience was reportedly an unhappy one. Personal and musical tensions existed within the group, whose main songwriter was Peet Coombes , and legal wrangling happened with
3256-435: The American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries , whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics. Some of these trends (for example Europop ) have had a significant impact on the development of the genre. The story of pop music
3344-652: The Beatles ". The event was recorded at the Los Angeles Convention Center on 27 January 2014, the day after the Grammy Awards. They performed the Beatles song " The Fool on the Hill ". Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, billed as Eurythmics, performed at Sting's 30th We'll Be Together benefit concert in aid of his Rainforest Foundation Fund on 9 December 2019 at New York City's Beacon Theatre . The group played " Would I Lie to You? ", " Here Comes
3432-602: The Eurythmics soundtrack (including the song " Julia ", which was heard during the end credits). Nevertheless, the record was presented as "music derived from the original score of Eurythmics for the Michael Radford film version of Orwell's 1984 ". Eurythmics charged that they had been misled by the film's producers as well, and the album was withdrawn from the market for a period while matters were litigated. The album's first single, " Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) ",
3520-670: The Love of Big Brother) was not included in this re-release campaign as Virgin Records holds the rights to that album. Also in 2005, Eurythmics were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame . In 2007, Lennox resumed her solo career with her fourth album, Songs of Mass Destruction , which was a top 10 success in the UK and the US. In 2009, she released her first solo "greatest hits" package, The Annie Lennox Collection . The same year, Lennox stated that although she and Stewart remain friends, she does not foresee any further Eurythmics projects in
3608-527: The Rain Again ", and " Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) ", before returning to join in the finale performance of Journey’s " Don't Stop Believin' " along with the night's other performers. Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart performed as Eurythmics at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California performing "Would I Lie to You?", "Missionary Man" and "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" as part of
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3696-505: The Top 10, and " Here Comes the Rain Again " (No. 8 in the UK, No. 4 in the US) was an orchestral/synth ballad (with orchestrations by Michael Kamen ). In 1984, RCA released Touch Dance , an EP of remixes of four of the tracks from Touch , aimed at the club market. The remixes were by prominent New York City producers Francois Kevorkian and John "Jellybean" Benitez . Also released in 1984
3784-615: The US Hot 100 chart and went all the way to No. 1 on the US Album Oriented Rock chart (AOR). Revenge would eventually certify double Platinum in the UK and Gold in the US, and spend 40 weeks in the Australian top 10 where it reached No. 2. The band went on a massive worldwide tour in support of the album, and a live concert video from the Australian leg of the tour was released. In 1987, Lennox and Stewart released
3872-406: The album Savage . This saw a fairly radical change within the group's sound, being based mainly around programmed samples and drum loops (Lennox would later say that where Revenge was more of a Stewart album in sound, Savage was more of a Lennox one). Lyrically the songs showed an even darker, more obsessive side to Lennox's writing. A video album was also made, directed by Sophie Muller , with
3960-517: The band's management, publishers and record labels. Lennox and Stewart felt the fixed band line-up was an inadequate vehicle to explore their experimental creative leanings and decided their next project should be much more flexible and free from artistic compromise. They were interested in creating pop music, but wanted freedom to experiment with electronics and the avant-garde. It was in a hotel in Wagga Wagga , Australia, while playing around with
4048-573: The charts. In September 1985, Eurythmics performed "Would I Lie to You?" at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. Eurythmics released their next album, Revenge , in 1986. The album continued their move towards a band sound, verging on an AOR -pop/rock sound. Sales continued to be strong in the UK and internationally, but were somewhat slower in the US, though " Missionary Man " reached No. 14 on
4136-626: The covers of numerous magazines including Rolling Stone . Their previous single, "Love Is a Stranger", was also re-released and became another chart success. The video for the song saw Lennox in many different character guises, a concept she would employ in various subsequent videos. The album's working title was Invisible Hands (as was a track left off the album), inspiring the name of the British independent company Invisible Hands Music — known for releasing music by Hugh Cornwell , Mick Karn and Hazel O'Connor . The album also featured
4224-775: The decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration , unnatural reverb , and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector 's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek 's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados . At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched electric guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians. A 2019 study held by New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar
4312-424: The duo retreated to Chalk Farm in London and used a bank loan to establish a small eight-track studio above a picture framing factory, giving them freedom to record without having to pay expensive studio fees. They began to employ much more electronics in their music, collaborating with Raynard Faulkner and Adam Williams, recording many tracks in the studio and playing live using various line-up permutations. However,
4400-504: The duo's transatlantic chart domination in 1985, and contained four hit singles: " Would I Lie to You? " was a US Billboard top five hit and Australian No. 1, while " There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) " (featuring Wonder's harmonica contribution) became their first and only UK No. 1 single. The feminist anthem " Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves " (a duet with Aretha Franklin, though originally intended for Tina Turner ), and " It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back) " also rode high in
4488-459: The early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term "pop music" was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of
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#17327768000294576-448: The early 2010s and later inspiring other highly influential artists including Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift , it gave space to a more sad and moody tone within pop music. Holger Czukay Holger Schüring (24 March 1938 – 5 September 2017), known professionally as Holger Czukay ( / ˈ ʃ ʊ k aɪ / ), was a German musician best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can . Described as "successfully bridg[ing]
4664-428: The former more accurately describes all music that is targeted for mass appeal (compare art music ) and includes many disparate styles. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music . David Hatch and Stephen Millward describe pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk music". David Boyle,
4752-470: The future. In an interview with Reuters in September 2012, Stewart was quizzed on whether a new Eurythmics album is in the works, to which he replied: "We're not talking about one right now, but never say never." He added that he was considering developing a musical based on the music of Eurythmics. Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart performed as a duo for " The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to
4840-464: The gap between pop and the avant-garde ", Czukay was also notable for having created early important examples of ambient music , for having explored " world music " well before the term was coined, and for having been a pioneer of sampling . Czukay was born on 24 March 1938 in the Free City of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk , Poland), from which his family was expelled after World War II . Due to
4928-578: The genre evolved more influences ranging from classical , folk , rock , country , electronic music , and other popular genres became more prominent. In 2016, a Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that, compared to 1960s pop music, contemporary pop music uses a smaller variety of pitch progressions, greater average volume, less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety. Scientific American ' s John Matson reported that this "seems to support
5016-409: The home. By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV , which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal". Multi-track recording (from the 1960s) and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been used as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music. During
5104-510: The instrumental track " Lily Was Here " (featuring saxophonist Candy Dulfer ). The single reached No. 6 in the UK and the Top 20 throughout much of Europe and the US, and top 10 in Australia. A soundtrack of the same name was also released, produced and largely written by Stewart. He formed a band called the Spiritual Cowboys , releasing two albums with this group in the early 1990s. Lennox took time off from her career to have
5192-414: The late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of Internet stars. Indie pop , which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a record contract from a major label. The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in
5280-401: The late 20th century that became global superstars include Whitney Houston , Michael Jackson , Madonna , George Michael , and Prince . At the beginning of the 2000s, the trends that dominated during the late 1990s still continued, but the music industry started to change as people began to download music from the internet. People were able to discover genres and artists that were outside of
5368-501: The main purpose of pop music is to create revenue. It is not a medium of free articulation of the people. Instead, pop music seeks to supply the nature of personal desire and achieve the instant empathy with cliche personalities, stereotypes, and melodrama that appeals to listeners. It is mostly about how much revenue pop music makes for record companies. Music scholar Timothy Warner said pop music typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance;
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#17327768000295456-514: The mainstream and propel them to fame, but at the same time smaller artists had a harder time making a living because their music was being pirated. Popular artists were Avril Lavigne , Justin Timberlake , NSYNC , Christina Aguilera , Destiny's Child , and Britney Spears . Pop music often came from many different genres, with each genre in turn influencing the next one, blurring the lines between them and making them less distinct. This change
5544-448: The manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system". Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s with televised performances, which meant that "pop stars had to have a visual presence". In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers in the developed world could listen to music outside of
5632-683: The master tapes have degraded beyond repair). Instead, most of the tracks are being remade and newly organized as limited edition vinyl releases. In 2018, it was announced that Czukay's work was being released in a box set , Cinema , including his solo works, collaborations, and unreleased material. It was released in March 2018. Holger Czukay was married for nearly thirty years to the German painter and singer Ursula Kloss (known professionally as Ursa Major, and later, as U-She), with whom he collaborated on numerous multimedia pieces. Ursula Schüring (as she
5720-403: The mid-1960s, pop music made repeated forays into new sounds, styles, and techniques that inspired public discourse among its listeners. The word "progressive" was frequently used, and it was thought that every song and single was to be a "progression" from the last. Music critic Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop,
5808-462: The painstaking cutting and splicing of magnetic tapes . He would tape-record various sounds and snippets from shortwave and incorporate them into his compositions. He also used shortwave as a live, interactive musical instrument (such as on 1991's Radio Wave Surfer ), a method of composition he termed "radio painting". Czukay also stated "If you want to make something new, you shouldn't think too far beyond one certain idea". Czukay collaborated with
5896-802: The pop music styles that developed alongside other music styles is Latin pop , which rose in popularity in the US during the 1950s with early rock and roll success Ritchie Valens . Later, Los Lobos and Chicano rock gained in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s, and musician Selena saw large-scale popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, along with crossover appeal with fans of Tejano musicians Lydia Mendoza and Little Joe . With later Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music. Latin pop hit singles, such as " Macarena " by Los del Río and " Despacito " by Luis Fonsi , have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts. Notable pop artists of
5984-400: The popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was "better", or at least more varied, than today's top-40 stuff". However, he also noted that the study may not have been entirely representative of pop in each generation. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra. Since early in
6072-448: The possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith , pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it
6160-503: The reasons pop can be hard to summarize is because there’s no real sonic or musical definition to it. There are common elements to a lot of the biggest pop songs, but at the end of the day, "pop" means "popular" first and foremost, and just about any song that becomes popular enough...can be considered a pop song. In the 1940s, improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and, ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized
6248-422: The recording and engineering for the group. During live performances Holger wore his signature white gloves using them while playing bass to protect his fingertips for tape editing, and also to absorb sweat. Rosko Gee , former bassist of the British band Traffic , joined the band in 1977, with Czukay handling only tapes and sound effects on the album Saw Delight , his final LP with the group before departing for
6336-425: The songs were co-written by guitarist Roger Pomphrey (later a TV director). The album was not a commercial success (though the debut single " Never Gonna Cry Again " made the UK charts at No. 63). Lennox and Stewart then activated their new Eurythmics mode of operation by touring the record as a duo, accompanied by backing tracks and electronics, carted around the country by themselves in a horse-box. During 1982,
6424-578: The term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced". The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles , The Rolling Stones , ABBA , etc." Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in
6512-409: The term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that
6600-560: The three new singles they released that year (" This Is the House ", " The Walk " and " Love Is a Stranger ") all performed badly on initial release in the UK. Although their mode of operation had given them the creative freedom they desired, commercial success still eluded them and the responsibility of personally running so many of their affairs (down to transporting their own stage equipment) took its toll. Lennox apparently suffered at least one nervous breakdown during this period, while Stewart
6688-420: The tour (both on and off-stage) were interspersed with promo videos for Eurythmics' 1990 video album We Two Are One Too . After strenuous years of touring and recording (Eurythmics had released eight studio albums in eight years), a rift had developed between the duo and Eurythmics disbanded, although no formal notice was given. Stewart began writing film soundtracks and had a big international hit in 1990 with
6776-471: The turmoil of the war, Czukay's primary education was limited. One pivotal early experience, however, was working, when still a teenager, at a radio repair-shop, where he became fond of the aural qualities of radio broadcasts (anticipating his use of shortwave radio broadcasts as musical elements) and became familiar with the rudiments of electrical repair and engineering. Czukay studied music under Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1963 to 1966 and then worked for
6864-501: The two previous albums, Savage was mostly ignored in the US, although rock radio in more progressive markets supported "I Need a Man". In the duo's native UK however, the album was a top 10 success and was certified Platinum. In 1989, Eurythmics released the album We Too Are One , which entered the UK Album Chart at No. 1 (their second No. 1 album after Touch ) and gave the duo four UK Top 30 hit singles. The album
6952-629: The use of digital recording , associated with the usage of synthesizers , with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity. By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by electronic dance music . In 2018, researchers at the University of California, Irvine , concluded that pop music has become 'sadder' since the 1980s. The elements of happiness and brightness have eventually been replaced with electronic beats making pop music more 'sad yet danceable'. Pop music has been dominated by
7040-467: Was Eurythmics' soundtrack album 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) . Virgin Films had contracted the band to provide a soundtrack for Michael Radford 's modern film adaptation of George Orwell 's Nineteen Eighty-Four . However, Radford later said that the music had been "foisted" on his film against his wishes, and that Virgin had replaced most of Dominic Muldowney 's original orchestral score with
7128-402: Was a Top 5 hit and certified Platinum in the UK. On 14 November 2005, the duo's label, RCA, re-released their eight studio albums in remastered and expanded editions featuring rare B-sides , remixes and unreleased songs. The remasters were made available separately with expanded artwork, and also together in a collector's box set , entitled Boxed . However, the 1984 soundtrack album 1984 (For
7216-524: Was a return to the rock/pop sound of their mid-80s albums and was certified Double Platinum in the UK, and reached No. 7 in Australia, but was less successful in the US (although the single " Don't Ask Me Why " grazed the Billboard Top 40). Other singles from the album included " Revival ", " The King and Queen of America " and " Angel ". Accompanying the album, the duo conducted their Revival world tour from 8 September 1989 to 25 January 1990. Parts of
7304-718: Was a top 5 hit in the UK, Australia and across Europe, and a major dance success in the United States. The duo's next album, Be Yourself Tonight , was produced in a week in Paris and spent 4 weeks at No. 1 in Australia. It showcased much more of a "band style" and a centred sound (with an R&B influence), with real drums, brass, and much more guitar from Stewart. Almost a dozen other musicians were enlisted, including members of Tom Petty 's Heartbreakers , guest harmonica from Stevie Wonder , bass guitar from Dean Garcia , string arrangements by Michael Kamen, and Lennox singing duets with Aretha Franklin and Elvis Costello . It continued
7392-841: Was a top-five hit in the UK and the US., with three tracks reaching the top of the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. She also recorded the song " Into the West " for Peter Jackson 's film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , where it appeared as the closing theme and earned Lennox the Academy Award for Best Song . In November 2003, Eurythmics played three songs at the 46664 in Cape Town , South Africa, for which Stewart
7480-459: Was called after marrying Holger Schüring under his real name) died on her 55th birthday (28 July 2017) after having been severely debilitated by illness for over a decade. On 5 September 2017, Czukay was found dead in his apartment, converted from Can's old studio in Weilerswist , near Cologne. The New York Times reported that he had died on the same day, but the cause of his death was
7568-457: Was epitomized in Spears' highly influential 2007 album Blackout , which under the influence of producer Danja , mixed the sounds of EDM , avant-funk , R&B , dance music , and hip hop . By 2010, pop music impacted by dance music came to be dominant on the charts. Instead of radio setting the trends, it was now the club. At the beginning of the 2010s, Will.i.am stated, "The new bubble
7656-793: Was hospitalised with a collapsed lung . MTV has paved the way for a host of invaders from abroad: Def Leppard, Adam Ant, Madness, Eurythmics, the Fixx and Billy Idol, to name a few. In return, grateful Brits, even superstars like Pete Townshend and the Police, have mugged for MTV promo spots and made the phrase "I want my MTV" a household commonplace. —Anglomania: The Second British Invasion , by Parke Puterbaugh for Rolling Stone , November 1983. Eurythmics' commercial breakthrough came with their second album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) , released in January 1983. The successful title track featured
7744-403: Was one of the primary organisers. They played an unplugged version of "Here Comes the Rain Again", " 7 Seconds " with Youssou N'Dour and "Sweet Dreams". Stewart collaborated with Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger on the soundtrack to the movie Alfie , released in 2004, including the critically acclaimed " Old Habits Die Hard ", which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song from
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