Popular Music history

The Popular Music History

Definition of popular music

To begin with, definition of popular music may vary. For instance, Cambridge Dictionary defines popular music simply as “the kind of music with words and a strong rhythm that many young people enjoy listening and dancing to. ”
According to the definition taken from Cambridge Dictionary it may be claimed that popular music has been present on Earth ever since the first regular beat and dance moves did by man.
Before the time of globalization (approximately the end of the twentieth century and on) each country in the world had its own strong popular culture, which in most cases started to decline with the rise of rock and roll in the middle of the twentieth century. Nowadays, the domestic popular music of European countries is in the shadow of the world popular music mostly made by English speaking production. The Spotify ‘Europe Official TOP 20 Chart ’ includes nine artists with the American of British origin, two Canadian artists and one Australian.
A universal definition for the meaning of the word ‘popular’ is not to be answered simply. The reason for that is, as Middleton (1990, p. 3) mentions in his book, “what I think is ‘popular’ you may not”. The conception of the word ‘popular’ is very subjective. Also, the conception changed throughout the years. To this topic, Middleton (1990, p. 3) adds: “In the first half of the nineteenth century, songs for the bourgeois market (including what we would now call ‘drawing-room ballads ’) were described as ‘popular songs’, the intended implication seems to have been that they were good (that is, well liked by those whose opinion counted). Older senses survived, too; and, under the impact of Romanticism, ‘popular songs’ could in the nineteenth century also be thought of as synonymous with ‘peasant’, ‘national’ and ‘traditional’ songs. Later in the century, ‘folk’ took over these usages from ‘popular’, which was transferred to the products of the music hall and then to those of the mass market song publishers of Tin Pan Alley and its British equivalent.”
A conflict between what is ‘popular’ and what is ‘artistic’ may also arise. Middleton (1990, p. 4) states that if ‘art’ music is generally regarded difficult and demanding, then ‘popular’ music must be defined as simple and accessible or facile. The point may be made that many pieces of art, for example by Handel, Schubert or Verdi's arias, have qualities of simplicity and it is by no means obvious that the Sex Pistols' or Frank Zappa's work are accessible, simple or facile.

The popular music history

Popular music may be dated many centuries back as it was already stated in the previous chapter.
The beginning of popular music how people perceive it today may be considered the end of the nineteenth century when music publishers started to rent offices in the New York Tin Pan Alley area. In 1912 the American Society for Composers (ASCAP) was founded to protect songwriters. Among other important inventions and changes from the beginning of the twentieth century invention of the ‘musical’ (by integrating music, drama and ballet and setting it into the present) may be mentioned (Scaruffi 2013, p. 6) as well as the first signs of black music (Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith) that appeared with the first jazz record cut in New York in 1917. It was just the beginning of the black music era with the first blues musicians, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson.
The music industry grew also in Great Britain. Scaruffi (2013, p. 7) states: ‘In 1929 Decca was founded in Britain as a classical music company, and RCA purchased the glorious Victor Talking Machines. In 1931 EMI, formed by the merger of Gramophone and the British subsidiary of Columbia, opened the largest recording studio in the world at Abbey Road in London.

The first half of the twentieth century

Just before the World War I. Luigi Russolo, the Italian ‘futurist’, published his work L'Arte dei Rumori, in which he proclaimed noise to be the sound of the 20th century, and especially noise produced by machines, such as his own ‘Intonarumori’. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 7) In the following decades, people invented remarkable machines essential for the next evolution of music. Scaruffi (2013, p. 7) states: “In 1916 Henry Cowell composed quartets using combinations of rhythms and overtones that are impossible to play by humans. In 1920 Eric Satie composed music not to be listened to (‘musique d'ameublement’, furniture music), the first form of ‘ambient music’. In 1928 Maurice Martenot invented a new electronic instrument, the Ondes-Martenot. In 1927 the Russian composer Leon Termen performed the first concerto with his ‘theremin’ and in 1930 invented the first rhythm machine, the ‘Rhythmicon’. In 1931 Edgar Varese premiered a piece for percussions, Ionisation. All of these people were considered little more (or less) than eccentric characters, and widely ignored by the musical establishment. Instead, they were correctly predicting the future. Without their ideas, today there would be no ambient, electronic, industrial or disco music.”
All these events and inventions foreshadowed the direction in which the music industry would soon move and what would sooner or later come – the electrification.
During the times of the Great Depression (1929-1939), two most important instruments for the rock music were invented. The electric guitar was invented in 1931 by Adolph Rickenbacker and two years later Laurens Hammond invented the Hammond organ. In the late thirties, the ‘big bands’ started to be very popular. A decade later, Black music was on a rise with one of the representatives Robert Johnson. After Leo Mintz in 1939 opened a record store in Clevelend specialized in black music that he served to the white audience. As a result, black music found audience beyond the ghetto. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 8)
With the success of the Louis Jordan track Choo Choo Ch'Boogie (1942) a new style arose. Scaruffi (2013, p. 8) comments it: “That was, de facto, the birth of rhythm'n'blues. Few people noticed it, but Carl Hogan played a powerful guitar riff on Jordan's Ain't That Just Like a Woman that, ten years later, would make Chuck Berry famous.”
In the times of the World War II the music industry developed in various directions. In 1942 the Bing Crosby’s hit White Christmas became the best-selling song of all times (and remained it for another fifty years). Also, during the war several labels and music companies were founded such as Savoy (1942) and King (1943) were formed to promote black music. Capitol was founded in Hollywood, the first major music company not to be based in New York (1942), and Mercury was founded in Chicago (1945). (Scaruffi 2013, p. 8)

The post second world war era

The end of the war, victory and economic growth contributed to the good mood of the society which helped popular music. Between 1940-1949 the style of the play on instruments changed, the electric instruments spread, and a lot of new inventions saw the light of day. Most important of which those by Les Paul (‘echo delay’, ‘multi-tracking’ and other studio techniques).
At the end of the fifth decade of the twentieth century, in 1947 the Billboard writer Jerry Wexler coined the term “rhythm'n'blues” for this new genre of blues after the Muddy Waters' 1946 Chicago's electric blues release. A lot of labels were born to promote black music at several places around the United States. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 9)

Rock'n'roll

The term “rock'n'roll” is commonly considered to be an invention of a white Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who started a radio program called “Moondog Rock'n'Roll Party” that broadcasted black music to an audience of white teenagers.
African Americans created new exciting music and so independent labels started to record African American artists for the white audience. Nevertheless, USA was still a racially-divided country and many people did not want to listen to the black music. Therefore, the producers looked for a white man who would become a new star. It was a widely known fact that it was impossible for an African American to ever become as famous as for example Frank Sinatra. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 11)
Sam Williams, the founder of Sun Records in Memphis (Tennessee), made his famous statement: "If I could find a white man who sings with the Negro feel, I'd make a million dollars." (Scaruffi 2013, p. 11)
One of the first rock'n'roll bands are considered to be the Comets formed by the singer Bill Haley. Bill Haley's Crazy Man Crazy entered the Billboard charts in 1953 as the first rock'n'roll song that achieved it.
In the post-war years, other genres also gained their place under the sun. Hank Williams turned country music into a serious art. Scaruffi (2013, p. 11) mentions also other new music genres: “In 1952 Roscoe Gordon, a Memphis pianist, invented the ‘ska’ beat with No More Doggin'. Charles Brown's Hard Times (1952) was the first hit by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to enter the charts and marked the beginning of a new era for pop music. The Orioles' Crying in the Chapel (1953) was the first black hit to top the white pop charts. The following year saw the boom of a new kind of black vocal harmony, doo-wop, inaugurated by the Penguins' Earth Angel (1954) and by the Platters' Only You (1955).”

New inventions of the fifties

The Gibson guitar was invented by Les Paul in 1952. Only a year after, Leo Fender invented the Stratocaster guitar (1953). The first juke-box machines began to spread around the USA since 1951. The most important invention for turning popular music into a global matter was yet to come. In 1954, a Japanese electronics company TTK (later Sony) invented the first transistor radio. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 12)

Rock'n'roll as a phenomenon

Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock (1954) became a so popular it turned rock'n'roll into a nation-wide phenomenon. It was also the first rock song used in a movie soundtrack.
Chuck Berry appeared in 1955 and after his three riff masterpieces Roll Over Beethoven (1956), Rock And Roll Music (1957) and Johnny B. Goode (1959)became an icon across generations.
When Sam Phillips met Elvis Presley, Phillips' dream came true. He found his man and Presley-mania was begun in 1956 with Heartbreak Hotel. Scaruffi (2013, p. 12) comments on the Presley's success: “Presley's success was certainly important in enabling hundreds of kids to play the music of the blacks. White rockers were finally tolerated, and even promoted by the majors. They (or, rather, Sam Phillips' production) defined ‘rockabilly’, a style whose singer sang in a stuttering and hiccuping style, accompanied by a small combo of slapping bass and frantic guitars, while the whole was captured using two recorders to produce an effect of "slapback" audio delay. Rockabilly songs were simulated bursts of lust.”
Rock'n'roll changed (not only) the American society. The sixth decade meant the widespread mass marketing, diffusion of the radio, consumerism, increased racial integration and the sexual revolution. Also, music became more than a universal language. Scaruffi (2013, p. 14) describes the genre as it follows: “The tone of rock'n'roll was certainly different from the traditional tone of popular music. The sentimental, the tragic and the comic tones of popular music became (respectively) erotic, violent and sarcastic. That ‘was’ a teenager's view of the world.”

The new genres

At the beginning of the seventh decade, it looked like rock'n'roll died. Other genres started to show such as ‘ska’, ‘raggae’, ‘dance crazes’, ‘instrumental rock’, ‘exotica’ (of which Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat launched ‘calypso ’, and in 1959 the Drifters' There Goes My Baby introduced Latin rhythm to pop music).
To the romantic multi-part vocal harmonies for which later bands such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Shadows etc. were famous Scaruffi (2013, p. 19) introduces the Shirelles' Will You Love Me Tomorrow as the single that coined the vocal harmonies that take an essential part in the surf music and Mersey beat.

Surf music

The term ‘surf music’ was used for the first time in 1961 by Dick Dale who commented his instrumental rock'n'roll with the use of the word ‘surfing’.
There are two waves of the surf music. The first wave is called the ‘instrumental surf’ with typical reverb-drenched electric guitars played to evoke the sound of crashing waves. Vocal surf, what the second wave of surf music is called, took some elements of the original surf sound and enriched it with vocal harmonies. The second wave is therefore distinguished by having vocals. The representatives of the second wave of the surf music are The Beach Boys.
The biggest boom of the surf music came with the success of the Beach Boys’ record Surfin’ which was released in December 1961. The album brought fame to the surf music and California and both became more relevant (California appeared on the map of rock music). Surf music may be recognized by its innocent sound, musically by a strong rhythmic and melodic element. Nevertheless, the surf music bands were able to play this innocent music with fineness and admirable vigor which one would never say that was possible. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 19)
The Beach Boys are the representatives of the second wave of surf music distinguished by having vocals. The songs may have various topics but most of them have one thing in common – the beach, girls, surf, sea, sunshine, coastline etc. The main reason for choosing the name The Beach Boys was, according to the singer Brian Wilson, that they wanted to be identified with the interests of young kids.

Mersey beat

According to the Collins English Dictionary this genre is defined as “the characteristic pop music of the Beatles and other groups from Liverpool in the 1960s ”.
Scaruffi (2013, p. 22) sums up creation of this new genre and the rise of The Beatles as follows: “The Beach Boys' idea of wedding the rhythm of rock'n'roll and the melodies of pop music was taken to its logical conclusion in Britain.” Other approach to the origin of the Mersey beat mentioned by Scaruffi is: “When the Liverpool bands replaced the instruments of skiffle with drums, bass and electric guitar, skiffle mutated into a new genre, that was renamed "Mersey-beat" (from Liverpool's river).” (Scaruffi 2013, p. 22)
The second great swindle of rock'n'roll became The Beatles in 1963 when ‘Beatlemania’ hit Great Britain and in 1964 spread through the USA and most of the world. The difference between the hype around Elvis and the then ‘Beatlemania’ lied in the ‘cult’ followers of elvis. The Beatles had a mass following and sold records in quantities that had never been dreamed of before them. (Scaruffi 2013, p. 22)
‘Beatlemania’ got even behind the Iron Curtain though with delay. Notwithstanding, whole young generation of The Beatles’ contemporaries had their heroes and wanted to be in a band like them and do music like them. To the date, many of bands from following generations have got influenced by their music and personalities.