Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s, previously deriving from rock and roll. Pop music is diverse and often borrows certain elements from other styles such as rap, dance, rock, R&B and country. Pop songs are generically short to medium-length songs (approximately 3-5 minutes long) written in a basic format with repeated choruses, melodic tunes, and hooks. The phrase “pop music” was first created around the middle of the 1920s, it meant a piece of music had “popular” appeal with its audience.
Pop songs are usually written about relationships, heartbreak or love as these factors allow the songs to reach a wide audience as the audience will commonly be able to relate to the lyrics of the song. Pop songs are commonly targeted towards teenagers and young adults, so therefore the lyrics of these songs and the music videos express themes that are associated with young people. Many pop artists themselves are also in the same age demographic as their audience, which helps to engage their audience as the artists will appear easy to relate to.
Throughout pop music videos the artists are conventionally dressed in stylish clothes that represent the current fashion trends, and are portrayed as happy and carefree throughout the video. Depending on the songs, many artists (particularly popular female artists) are portrayed as sex symbols to their fan-base, so are featured in revealing outfits or very little clothing. For example, on the 9th September 2013, Miley Cyrus released the music video to Wrecking Ball where she was filmed naked for the majority of the video, and later on in revealing shorts and a crop top. The video broke the record for the most viewed video in 24 hours, and has since been knocked off the top spot by Nicki Minaj's Anaconda music video who was also featured in very revealing clothing throughout the video. The music video also contained multiple sexual themes throughout the footage. However, this record has yet again been beaten many times, and the current record breaker is Adele's music video Hello.
Female artists are also conventionally featured wearing heavy makeup and are often featured with a male partner or love interest which relates to the lyrics within the song. Male artists are portrayed in a similar way with a female love interest, and depending on the artist's reputation many male singers are often featured topless in certain shots of their videos. For example, Justin Bieber is a highly popular artists with the current generation, and in his music video What Do You Mean he is featured with his female love interest, and both of them are shown topless in multiple of the shots.
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