Traditional pop music
Encyclopedia
Traditional pop or classic pop or standards music denotes, in general, Western (and particularly American) popular music
that either wholly predates the advent of rock and roll
in the mid-1950s, or to any popular music which exists concurrently to rock and roll but originated in a time before the appearance of rock and roll, and its offshoots, as the dominant commercial music of the United States
and Western culture
. (For a definition of "Traditional pop" see.) The terms pop standards or (where relevant) American standards are used to denote the most popular and enduring songs from this style of music. More generally, the term "standard" can be used to describe any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
and Hollywood show tune
writers from approximately World War I
to the 1950s, such as Irving Berlin
, Victor Herbert
, Harry Warren
, Harold Arlen
, Jerome Kern
, George Gershwin
and Ira Gershwin
, Richard Rodgers
, Lorenz Hart
, Oscar Hammerstein
, Johnny Mercer
, Dorothy Fields
, Hoagy Carmichael
, Cole Porter
and a host of others. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon
known as the "Great American Songbook
".
The big band era
further developed the genre of "pop standards". Bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey
, Cab Calloway
, Benny Goodman
, and Count Basie
continued to innovate. Big band singers, who had previously been considered instrumentalists and were rarely singled out, now became huge stars, like Frank Sinatra
, Doris Day
, Ella Fitzgerald
, and Dinah Shore
.
The genre was embodied by a remarkable and diverse group of singers, writers and stylemakers. Jazz pioneers Louis Armstrong
, Duke Ellington
, and Paul Whiteman
first popularized jazz music among a diverse audience. Meanwhile the Tin Pan Alley
and Broadway
songwriters popularized the "Great American Songbook
". Soon afterward, radio introduced millions of Americans to the same songs, often written by artists like Hoagy Carmichael
, or sung in a more soothing, personal style by crooner
s like Rudy Vallee
or Bing Crosby
.
The distinction between pop standards and the broader popular music of the aforementioned time period lies in an enduring appeal of the greatest of these songs, long after their time of being "chart hits," although methods for measuring commercial appeal changed greatly over the course of the twentieth century. The songs of classic pop may also be said to possess certain ineffable qualities, including but not limited to an ease and memorability of melody, along with wit and charm of lyric. The greatest of the classic pop writers achieved this with regularity; at the same time, many classic pop standards, such as "Learning the Blues" by Dolores Silver, "Willow Weep for Me
" by Ann Ronell
were that era's version of the one-hit wonder: songs from writers who never again delivered an eventual standard.
In later decades, the standard-bearers were bands and orchestras led by such luminaries as Guy Lombardo
, Nelson Riddle
, and television friendly singers like Perry Como
, Rosemary Clooney
, Dean Martin
, and the cast of Your Hit Parade
. Many artists made their mark with pop standards, particularly interpreters like Ella Fitzgerald
, Billie Holiday
, Frank Sinatra
, Doris Day
, Frankie Laine
, Nat King Cole
(originally known for his jazz piano virtuosity), Lena Horne
, Tony Bennett
, Vic Damone
, Johnny Mathis
, Barbra Streisand
, Peggy Lee
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
, Mel Tormé
, Sarah Vaughan
, Eydie Gorme
, Andy Williams
, Nancy Wilson, Jack Jones
, Rita Reys
, Steve Lawrence
and Cleo Laine
.
In other genres, artists such as Patsy Cline
in country music
and classical music performers like Victor Borge
, made their biggest impact in creating crossover pop, or by performing on pop music shows like Toast of the Town.
Many contemporary performers have worked in the style of classic pop including Harry Connick, Jr.
, Linda Ronstadt
, Michael Bublé
, Diana Krall
, Stacey Kent
, John Pizzarelli
, Ray Reach
, Karrin Allyson
, Madeleine Peyroux
, Jane Monheit
, Maude Maggart
, as well as those known as cabaret
singers such as Andrea Marcovicci
and Bobby Short
.
s considered to be their parents' music, traditional pop, was pushed aside. Popular music sung by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and their contemporaries was relegated in the 1960s and 1970s to Las Vegas club acts and elevator music.
A major change in popular culture came in 1983 when singer Linda Ronstadt
, then considered one of the leading female vocalists of the rock era elected to change the direction of her career. She collaborated with legendary orchestra leader Nelson Riddle and released a hugely successful album of standards from the 1940s and 1950s, What's New
. It reached #3 on the Billboard pop chart, won a Grammy
, and inspired Ronstadt to team up with Riddle for two more albums: 1984's Lush Life and 1986’s For Sentimental Reasons. The gamble paid off, as all three albums became hits, the international concert tours were a success and Riddle picked up a few more Grammys in the process. Ronstadt's courage and determination to produce these albums exposed a whole new generation to the sounds of the pre-swing and swing eras.
Using the Ronstadt prototype, rock/pop stars singing traditional pop music for a large commercial market has become accepted and bankable. Some examples include Cyndi Lauper
, Sheena Easton
, Queen Latifah
, Willie Nelson
, Joan Osborne
, Rita Coolidge
and Rod Stewart
, all of whom have made forays into this once-shunned territory.
In recent times, there appears to have been a union of rock n roll with traditional pop, as many current pop stars and musicians use rock and roll instrumentation but with arrangements and compositions in the spirit of predecessors from the earlier era. An example of this is vocalist Michael Bublé
's interpretation of The Beatles
' rock and roll hit, "Can't Buy Me Love
", performed in more traditional pop arrangement.
in the mid-1990s in the United States helped to enhance the revival and interest in the music, style, and performers of popular music prior to rock and roll, such as the Rat Pack
and recording artists associated with exotica
, although the latter has only a cursory connection with classic pop traditions of the past.
At present, the history or historiography of traditional pop music is still a moving target, with vocalists continuing to appreciate these timeless songs. In recent years, Rod Stewart
has concentrated on reintroducing the "Great American Songbook
" to a large scale audience in the same manner Linda Ronstadt
did twenty years prior. His first album from the songbook series, It Had to Be You... The Great American Songbook, reached #4 in the U.S. pop chart, and its success led him to release three more albums in this vein. These commercial successes show not only the fine craftsmanship behind the creation of these types of popular songs, but also the desire and enthusiasm the public has when presented with a great song and melody.
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
that either wholly predates the advent of rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
in the mid-1950s, or to any popular music which exists concurrently to rock and roll but originated in a time before the appearance of rock and roll, and its offshoots, as the dominant commercial music of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. (For a definition of "Traditional pop" see.) The terms pop standards or (where relevant) American standards are used to denote the most popular and enduring songs from this style of music. More generally, the term "standard" can be used to describe any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
Origins
Classic pop embraces the song output of the BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and Hollywood show tune
Show tune
A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
writers from approximately World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
to the 1950s, such as Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, Harry Warren
Harry Warren
Harry Warren was an American composer and lyricist. Warren was the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song eleven times and won three Oscars for composing "Lullaby of Broadway", "You'll Never Know" and "On the Atchison,...
, Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
, Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
, Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
, Oscar Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
, Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
, Dorothy Fields
Dorothy Fields
Dorothy Fields was an American librettist and lyricist.She wrote over 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films...
, Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagy Carmichael
Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.Alec Wilder, in his study of the...
, Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
and a host of others. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon
Canonical
Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. Canon comes from the greek word κανών kanon, "rule" or "measuring stick" , and is used in various meanings....
known as the "Great American Songbook
Great American Songbook
The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
".
The big band era
Swing Era
The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...
further developed the genre of "pop standards". Bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, and Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
continued to innovate. Big band singers, who had previously been considered instrumentalists and were rarely singled out, now became huge stars, like Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, and Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...
.
The genre was embodied by a remarkable and diverse group of singers, writers and stylemakers. Jazz pioneers Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, and Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
first popularized jazz music among a diverse audience. Meanwhile the Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
songwriters popularized the "Great American Songbook
Great American Songbook
The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
". Soon afterward, radio introduced millions of Americans to the same songs, often written by artists like Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagy Carmichael
Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.Alec Wilder, in his study of the...
, or sung in a more soothing, personal style by crooner
Crooner
Crooner is an American epithet given to male singers of pop standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, either backed by a full orchestra, a big band or by a piano. Originally it was an ironic term denoting an emphatically sentimental, often emotional singing style made possible by the use...
s like Rudy Vallee
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
or Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
.
The distinction between pop standards and the broader popular music of the aforementioned time period lies in an enduring appeal of the greatest of these songs, long after their time of being "chart hits," although methods for measuring commercial appeal changed greatly over the course of the twentieth century. The songs of classic pop may also be said to possess certain ineffable qualities, including but not limited to an ease and memorability of melody, along with wit and charm of lyric. The greatest of the classic pop writers achieved this with regularity; at the same time, many classic pop standards, such as "Learning the Blues" by Dolores Silver, "Willow Weep for Me
Willow Weep for Me
"Willow Weep for Me" is a popular song composed in 1932 by Ann Ronell, who also wrote the lyrics. It is mostly known as a jazz standard, but it was a Top 40 hit for the British duo Chad & Jeremy in 1964.-Notable recordings:...
" by Ann Ronell
Ann Ronell
Ann Rosenblatt, known as Ann Ronell was an American composer and lyricist best known for the jazz standard "Willow Weep for Me" .- Biography :...
were that era's version of the one-hit wonder: songs from writers who never again delivered an eventual standard.
In later decades, the standard-bearers were bands and orchestras led by such luminaries as Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, Nelson Riddle
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...
, and television friendly singers like Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
, Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, and the cast of Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade, is an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or...
. Many artists made their mark with pop standards, particularly interpreters like Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
, Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
(originally known for his jazz piano virtuosity), Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Vic Damone
Vic Damone
Vic Damone is an American singer and entertainer.- Early life :Damone was born Vito Rocco Farinola in Brooklyn, New York to French-Italian immigrants based in Bari, Italy—Rocco and Mamie Farinola. His father was an electrician; and his mother taught piano. His cousin was the actress and singer...
, Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
, Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Eydie Gorme
Eydie Gormé
Eydie Gormé is an American singer, specializing, with her husband, Steve Lawrence, in traditional pop music, in the form of ballads and breezy swing. She has earned numerous awards, including the Grammy and the Emmy...
, Andy Williams
Andy Williams
Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
, Nancy Wilson, Jack Jones
Jack Jones (singer)
John Allan "Jack" Jones is an American jazz and pop singer. He was one of the most popular vocalists of the 1960s.-Overview:...
, Rita Reys
Rita Reys
Rita Reys is a jazz singer from the Netherlands.At the 1960 jazz festival of Juan Les Pins , she received the title 'Europe’s first lady of jazz'.-Early career:...
, Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence is an American singer and actor, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as "Steve and Eydie"...
and Cleo Laine
Cleo Laine
Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, DBE is a jazz singer and an actress, noted for her scat singing and vocal range...
.
In other genres, artists such as Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
in country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and classical music performers like Victor Borge
Victor Borge
Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...
, made their biggest impact in creating crossover pop, or by performing on pop music shows like Toast of the Town.
Many contemporary performers have worked in the style of classic pop including Harry Connick, Jr.
Harry Connick, Jr.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. is an American singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor, and composer. He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with...
, Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé
Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...
, Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, Stacey Kent
Stacey Kent
Stacey Kent is a Grammy nominated American jazz singer.- Background :Kent attended Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey. Her paternal grandfather was Russian. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and moved to England after her graduation...
, John Pizzarelli
John Pizzarelli
John Paul Pizzarelli, Jr. is an American jazz guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and bandleader. He has had a lengthy career as a recording artist, performing for a variety of labels that include Telarc Records, RCA Records and Chesky Records, among others...
, Ray Reach
Ray Reach
Raymond Everett Reach, Jr. is an American pianist, vocalist and educator residing in Birmingham, Alabama, now serving as Director of Student Jazz Programs for the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, director of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame All-Stars and President and CEO of Ray Reach Music and Magic City...
, Karrin Allyson
Karrin Allyson
Karrin Allyson is an American jazz vocalist. She has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, and has received positive reviews from several prominent sources, including The New York Times, which has called her a "singer with a feline touch and impeccable intonation."-Career:Allyson grew up in...
, Madeleine Peyroux
Madeleine Peyroux
Madeleine Peyroux is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Peyroux is noted for her vocal style, which has been compared to that of Billie Holiday....
, Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit
Jane Monheit is a jazz and adult contemporary vocalist for Concord Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Michael Bublé, Ivan Lins, Terence Blanchard and Tom Harrell, and has received Grammy nominations for two of her recordings.-Early life:Jane Monheit was raised in Oakdale, New York...
, Maude Maggart
Maude Maggart
Maude Maggart is an American cabaret singer and recording artist who performs throughout the United States and Europe, but most often in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City.-Biography:...
, as well as those known as cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
singers such as Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
and Bobby Short
Bobby Short
Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.He...
.
The advent of rock and roll
With the growing popularity of rock and roll in the 1950s, much of what baby boomerBaby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
s considered to be their parents' music, traditional pop, was pushed aside. Popular music sung by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and their contemporaries was relegated in the 1960s and 1970s to Las Vegas club acts and elevator music.
A major change in popular culture came in 1983 when singer Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, then considered one of the leading female vocalists of the rock era elected to change the direction of her career. She collaborated with legendary orchestra leader Nelson Riddle and released a hugely successful album of standards from the 1940s and 1950s, What's New
What's New (Linda Ronstadt album)
What's New is a Grammy-nominated, Triple Platinum-certified, 1983 Jazz album by American singer/songwriter/producer Linda Ronstadt consisting of nine songs of Jazz music. It represents the first in a trilogy of 1980s albums Ronstadt recorded with the bandleader/arranger Nelson Riddle...
. It reached #3 on the Billboard pop chart, won a Grammy
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
, and inspired Ronstadt to team up with Riddle for two more albums: 1984's Lush Life and 1986’s For Sentimental Reasons. The gamble paid off, as all three albums became hits, the international concert tours were a success and Riddle picked up a few more Grammys in the process. Ronstadt's courage and determination to produce these albums exposed a whole new generation to the sounds of the pre-swing and swing eras.
Using the Ronstadt prototype, rock/pop stars singing traditional pop music for a large commercial market has become accepted and bankable. Some examples include Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...
, Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
, Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
, Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, Joan Osborne
Joan Osborne
Joan Elizabeth Osborne is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her song "One of Us". She has toured with Motown sidemen the Funk Brothers and was featured in the documentary film about them, Standing in the Shadows of Motown.-Biography:Originally from Anchorage, Kentucky, a suburb...
, Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American vocalist. During the 1970s and 1980s, she charted hits on Billboard's Pop, Country, Adult Contemporary and Jazz charts.-Career:...
and Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, all of whom have made forays into this once-shunned territory.
In recent times, there appears to have been a union of rock n roll with traditional pop, as many current pop stars and musicians use rock and roll instrumentation but with arrangements and compositions in the spirit of predecessors from the earlier era. An example of this is vocalist Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé
Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...
's interpretation of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' rock and roll hit, "Can't Buy Me Love
Can't Buy Me Love
"Can't Buy Me Love" is a song composed by Paul McCartney and released by The Beatles on the A-side of their sixth British single, "Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That".-Interpretation:...
", performed in more traditional pop arrangement.
Current adherence to traditional pop
The appearance of lounge subcultureLounge music
Lounge music is a retrospective description of music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a type of mood music meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place — a jungle, an island paradise, outer space, et cetera — other than where they are listening to it...
in the mid-1990s in the United States helped to enhance the revival and interest in the music, style, and performers of popular music prior to rock and roll, such as the Rat Pack
Rat Pack
The Rat Pack was a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean...
and recording artists associated with exotica
Exotica
Exotica is a musical genre, named after the 1957 Martin Denny album of the same title, popular during the 1950s to mid-1960s, typically with the suburban set who came of age during World War II. The musical colloquialism, exotica, means tropical ersatz: the non-native, pseudo experience of Oceania...
, although the latter has only a cursory connection with classic pop traditions of the past.
At present, the history or historiography of traditional pop music is still a moving target, with vocalists continuing to appreciate these timeless songs. In recent years, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
has concentrated on reintroducing the "Great American Songbook
Great American Songbook
The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
" to a large scale audience in the same manner Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
did twenty years prior. His first album from the songbook series, It Had to Be You... The Great American Songbook, reached #4 in the U.S. pop chart, and its success led him to release three more albums in this vein. These commercial successes show not only the fine craftsmanship behind the creation of these types of popular songs, but also the desire and enthusiasm the public has when presented with a great song and melody.
Singers and groups generally associated with traditional pop
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See also
- Pop musicPop musicPop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
- Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal AlbumGrammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal AlbumThe Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album is an award presented to recording artists at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
- Great American SongbookGreat American SongbookThe Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...
- Show tuneShow tuneA show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
- Jazz standardJazz standardJazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
- Blues standardBlues standardA blues standard is a blues song that is widely known, performed, and recorded by blues artists. The following list identifies blues standards and some of the blues artists that have recorded them...
- Sentimental Journey: Pop Vocal ClassicsSentimental Journey: Pop Vocal ClassicsSentimental Journey: Pop Vocal Classics was a four-CD album issued by Rhino Records in 1993.-Volume 1 :-Volume 2 :-Volume 3 :-Volume 4 :...
(four-CD album) - Tin Pan AlleyTin Pan AlleyTin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
- OldiesOldiesOldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....