'A background to the Music Industry and some basic theory'

POP MUSIC GENRE

'Girls Aloud epitomise the shiny trash aesthetic of pop music'

Genre - 'classification of a text according to its style and context, and its form and manner of production.'

Pop music involves the widest range of genres of texts in comparison to most other medias. 'Genres are continually being invented, crossed and revisited, and all the process of categorisation is an important one for the producers and fans of the music alike.' 

Generally speaking most music falls into the following categories:

• Pop (including global categories)
• Dance 
• R&B 
• Hip-hop/Rap 
• Rock 
• Punk 
• Country & Western 
• Folk 
• Jazz 
• Blues 
• Latin 
• Gospel 
• Reggae 
• New Age 

These categories usually have sub-genres and different mash-ups. Yet each of these genres have unique musical characteristics. This could be anything to do with the rhythm  instruments used for melody, lyric and vocal style. There are also other factors such as clothing, hair and lifestyle. Genres have specific audiences and sites weather its nightclubs, radio stations and when your listening to your own music. 

Genre and Artist Image

Image is key for an artist. Without even realising it we judge people and categorise them before they have even started singing. Look can be as generic as sound. 

Adele, whose classic pop styles of 1960s and 1970s. She is often photographed as wearing classic retro clothing suggesting she is a serious, soulful artiste in old school mode. 

Genre and Sales

We all have our own music taste and we tent to restrict ourself to a certain style of music and not really interested in buying anything outside that genre. Everything these days is organised into genres. If you go into HMV all the albums are sorted into genres even online music streamers (like spottily) reply on your past genre choices in order to keep playing you new music you might be then interested in buying.