{"id":1498,"date":"2026-02-02T08:42:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/?p=1498"},"modified":"2026-05-04T16:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:49:35","slug":"a-short-history-of-pop-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/a-short-history-of-pop-music\/","title":{"rendered":"A short history of pop music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ariana
Ariana Grande<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A short history of pop music, from blues, soul, gospel and jazz music, through rock, hip hop, funky and disco to modern commercial, and rap music. And now that is summer time you can visit our page about The most beautiful summer songs from 1960 to 2024<\/a>, many famous of them in Italian!<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.<\/span>
\n Berthold Auerbach<\/span><\/p>\n

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.<\/span>
\nBob Marley<\/span><\/p>\n

Music – it’s motivational and just makes you relax.<\/span>
\nTaika Waititi<\/span><\/p>\n

There is the music of Heaven in all things.<\/span>
\nHildegard von Bingen<\/span><\/p>\n

The only truth is music.<\/span>
\nJack Kerouac<\/span><\/p>\n

Without music, life would be a mistake.<\/span>
\nFriedrich Nietzsche<\/span><\/p>\n

Sic mea fata canendo solor \/ ut nece proxima facit olor. (By singing I console myself for my sad fate \/ like a swan close to death).<\/span>
\nVarious Authors, Carmina burana, 13th century<\/span><\/p>\n

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.<\/span>
\nCharles Darwin<\/span><\/p>\n

Music makes one feel so romantic \u2013 at least it always gets on one\u2019s nerves \u2013 which is the same thing nowadays.<\/span>
\nOscar Wilde<\/span><\/p>\n

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.<\/span>
\nFrank Zappa<\/span><\/p>\n

Music… can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.<\/span>
\nLeonard Bernstein<\/span><\/p>\n

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.<\/span>
\nAldous Huxley<\/span><\/p>\n

Where words leave off, music begins.<\/span>
\nHeinrich Heine<\/span><\/p>\n

You know the drum was the first instrument besides the human voice.<\/span>
\nBilly Higgins<\/span><\/p>\n

I love the percussion. It’s a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It’s your whole body doing it, you’re doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You’re this whole motion machine. <\/span>
\nShalom Harlow<\/span><\/p>\n

My definition of hip hop is taking elements from many other spheres of music to make hip hop. Whether it be breakbeat, whether it be the groove and grunt of James Brown or the pickle-pop sounds of Kraftwerk or Yellow Magic Orchestra, hip hop is also part of what they call hip-house now, or trip hop, or even parts of drum n’ bass. <\/span>
\nAfrika Bambaataa<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A short history of pop music<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To understand where pop music comes from we have to start from Blues. This is a genre and musical form that originated in African-American communities in the \u201cDeep South\u201d of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from a fusion of traditional African music and European folk music, that incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.<\/span><\/p>\n

The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. The blue notes (or \u201cworried notes\u201d) which are often thirds or fifths which are flatter in pitch than in other music styles, are also an important part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect called a groove.<\/span><\/p>\n

The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after emancipation of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. <\/span><\/p>\n

The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta and Piedmont, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock evolved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we can pass to soul music. This is also a genre of African American popular music that led to many later genres, from funk and dance music to hip hop and contemporary R&B. It developed in the USA in the late 1950s from African American church music called \u201cgospel music\u201d. After slavery ended in 1865, African Americans weren\u2019t welcome in the churches of white Americans, so they built their own churches and sang Christian songs with African-American vocal styles and rhythms. They sang joyful, up-tempo gospel songs while clapping and moving to the beat, and they sang slower gospel songs that expressed deep feelings like yearning for God\u2019s love. These different styles led to the two main styles of soul music.<\/span><\/p>\n

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