Analysis of the Pop genre

The History of Pop

Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the Western world during the 1950's and 1960's as a softer alternative to Rock and Roll. However, the term 'pop music' was first coined around the middle of the 1920's. Pop music is electric and often borrows elements from other styles such as Urban, Dance, rock, Latin and Country. Factors within pop music include short to medium-length songs, as well as the employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes and hooks. Some of the most well-known Pop artist's include The Beatles, Michael Jackson, ABBA,The Black Eyed Peas and Beyoncé. Pop now accounts for the majority of modern-day music and dominates the charts; It's generally described as commercial friendly, marketable and memorable with either vocals, lyrics, instruments, or a combination of all three. The ultimate goal of pop music is to give a visually coherent representation of the sound for the audience.

There are many instruments used to produce pop music, including a variety of guitars, bass, piano's, drums, amplifiers, electric piano's, electric keyboards and polyphonic tape playback keyboards.

Pop music incorporates themes such as love and relationships, inspirational, partying/clubbing, hooking up and struggle. This is usually paired with a narrative. These ultimately come together to form the typical Pop song.

Whitney Houston- I Will Always Love You (1992)

The American singer, actress, producer and model, Whitney Houston, released her pop song 'I Will Always Love You' in 1992 after her unforgettable rise to international prominence; it then became one of the best-selling singles of all time. Although Whitney is known for her R&B songs, this particular performance won a Grammy award for 'The best pop music video'. The artist was one of the most successful female singers and was also pop music's best-selling music artist to ever come into light; with an estimated 170-200 million records sold worldwide.

While analysing the song, 'I Will Always Love You', I was able to identify some key aspects of the music video that adhered to the conventions of the pop genre. For instance, the artist expresses her love for another individual through the lyrics and video. It's clear that the music video is set in an airport, to which she says good-bye to a loved one. This use of mise-en-scene consequently gives the audience a basic narrative to follow in order for them to connect with the song on a personal level. This convention also gives a visually coherent representation of the sound for the audience. Therefore it ultimately creates a link between the lyrics, scenery and main theme of a typical Pop music video; love, relationships and struggle. 

Another convention employed in the music video was the camera angles that were used. By adopting shots such as medium close-up's, the audience is able to determine who is the main focus of the video. In the clip above, Whitney is shown as the main character as only her head and shoulders are able to be seen. This is accompanied by a pull focus camera shot, which blurs the artist's surroundings; thus forcing the audience to focus on Whitney and the lyrics she is singing. This encourages the audience to pay attention and follow the narrative shown within the pop music video, which is a clear convention of the pop genre.
Later on in the video, additional camera angles such as mid-shots are used to put the focus on the two main characters within most of the scenes, as shown in the screenshot above. This adheres to the main theme 'love and relationships' within pop music videos as we are able to interpret that the two individuals are in a loving relationship, due to how close they are standing next to each other, this creates an intimate atmosphere.  

Beyonce- Sorry (2016)
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress born and raised in Houston Texas. As a solo artist, Beyoncé has sold over 16 million albums in the US, and over 100 million albums world-wide; making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The artist's album, 'Lemonade', was released in 2016 and included the pop song, 'Sorry'. However, it has been argued that this particular music video had a modern twist in terms of the typical pop genre. 

Although one of the themes of pop music is 'struggle', it's less common to be expressed as the most typical themes in pop music videos is 'love and relationships'. Beyoncé uses conventions such as props with the use of mise-en-scene, to exemplify the 'struggle' theme. For instance, smashing the bat onto what looks like the audience's screen shows the viewers that artist is attempting to express her emotions, which in this case is anger. This briefly links to the alternative theme 'love and relationships' as the artist exaggerates how love and relationships can end badly. Thus giving it the modern twist that I introduced in the beginning paragraph. 

Through time, pop music costumes have varied depending on the narrative in each music video. In this case, Beyoncé and the other women wear very unique and colourful outfits that stand out against their surroundings. This technique is powerful and is used to show that women can also be dominant. This adhere's to the theme 'inspirational' as it brings feminism into light. For instance, a sociologist named 'Fran Ansley' (1972) expresses that "Women are takers of shit". Beyonce could be addressing this problem by inspiring women to not be submissive to the power and dominance of men within society.
In addition, the Pop song uses typical thumping rhythms created by drum beats, synthesizers and bells that adhere to the pop music genre. These factors combined make the pop song memorable and marketable.