EVERY GENRE PACKAGES: What's Popping (14 January 2025)

how it feels to listen to a glorious, high-octane, universally resonant pop tune

What’s Popping: A Guide to Pop Genres

The word “pop”, beneath its glossy, straightforward connotation characterizing music that dominates charts, is really one of those impossible, nebulous musical terms. For some, it describes an ethos of musical creation, like SOPHIE’s definition of pop as the “loudest, brightest thing possible”, or delineates a particular sector of the music industry focused on wider appeal. For others, it evokes particular styles, which depend on temporally and culturally-specific hallmarks but with commonalities such as shorter song structures (though traditional Arabic pop’s odysseys question that notion), catchy melodies, and a certain feeling of assurance.

In levenslied, I also describe pop genres that are pop in “its most commonplace, simplest form can stand on its own merits without having to be conscious of its own identity as pop and greater than itself. That’s the pop we hear at the grocery store, that unites taxi drivers with corporate bigwigs and everyone else, the music we share without intending to share. This is the music that ends up being an important part of national identity, too, one that can bond countrymen without getting into the weeds.” It seems there are some relevant points amidst my late-night lunacies of last year’s daily articles.

Shuffling through this category of genres from last year’s column will inject you with a bit of poptimist zeal, and demonstrate how fascinating and worthy it is to peer into pop’s looking glass for its genres’ insights into triumphant musical ideas, social phenomena, media structures, and the creativity it takes to win the hearts of large and broad audiences.

Regional Tales

Cantopop (Hong Kong / southwestern China), C-pop (China, Taiwan), K-pop (where do you think), Britpop (UK), Traditional Arabic Pop, Kuduro (Angola), Zouk (French Caribbean), Dangdut (Indonesia), Coupé-décalé (Côte d’Ivoire), City Pop (Japan), Highlife (Ghana), Nederpop (Netherlands), Levenslied (Netherlands), Romanian Etno, Doo-Wop

Alternative Approaches

Chamber Pop, Twee Pop, Space Age Pop, Hypnagogic Pop, Alt-Pop, Flamenco Pop, Pop Punk

Dance Pop Glory

Nu-Disco

Puzzling Popifications

Countrypolitan, Bhangra, Afropiano

Also

Big Music

Coachella Pop