Conventions in Pop Music Pop music aims to appeal to a general audience rather than a specific demographic. It focuses more on production quality and sound over live performances. Pop songs typically have an upbeat, positive vibe and follow a verse-chorus structure, attracting listeners through memorable melodies. Over time, pop music has evolved from acoustic to more manufactured styles while retaining influences from rock and incorporating current trends.

1. Conventions in Pop Music

2. Conventions in Pop Music
- Clean cut
- Appeal to the general audience of music listeners (no clear audience)
- Focused more on the production and sound of the music for the radio rather than live
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music
Mainstream style
Often used to encourage dancing due to the consistent and catchy rhythm and beats
Usually songs about love/relationships and recently, partying; the songs are about 3-5
minutes long
Pop music usually has a positive vibe
There are links between their music videos and songs
The musicians follow current trends rather than setting their own
Most UK radio stations play pop music
Pop music is usually showcased via the radio or through magazines
Follows the verse-chorus-verse structure and attracts to the audience via memorable
melodies
Over the past 50 years, pop music has evolved from acoustic, and hardly manufactured to
tacky, repetitive, manufactured and energetic today.
Derived from rock and roll music in the 1950’s- this may be why pop songs currently
include a good rock sound.

3. How Artists Are Presented in Pop
 The female artists in the pop industry are presented in a very
seductive and sexual way to gain the male gaze. This is done
by the make up and costumes worn by the singers.

4. Outfits
 Hair and makeup is often used as a
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reflection of the artist’s feelings in
the music videos made.
They wear bright colours to reflect
on the positive attitude/vibe of the
music
They wear stylish and often designer
clothes, but they make it seem
casual or laid back.
Females: Skimpy clothing, a small
amount of accessories, dresses, high
heels; or Formal wear such as gowns
and high heels and many accessories.
Males: Laidback style- leather
jackets/snapbacks/trainers/ varsity
jackets/jeans/t-shirts; Smart stylesuit/waistcoat/shirt/tie/trousers/for
mal shoes.
Male pop artists tend to have beards
and/or tattoos now to reflect an
edgier side.
Female pop artists may have a few
tattoos, however they may wear wigs
or dye their hair to match a trend or
to express their feelings.

5. The Past & Present
Here is an image of
Britney Spears
performing one of
her songs live over
10 years ago. In this
image she is shown
to be wearing limited
makeup, straight hair
in no particular style
, flat trainers and a
red jumpsuit with
only her arms and
the sides of her waist
showing.
Also here is an
image of Beyoncé at
an awards
ceremony also over
10 years ago. She is
seen here with
long, sleek and
curly hair
, complemented by
little makeup and a
dress .
However after 10 years, both Britney
and Beyoncé have become more
sexualised in their music videos, award
ceremonies, photo shoots, etc.
In the picture of Britney, she is seen to
be surrounded by a group of other girls
in her music video in leotards and knee
high, high heeled
boots, alternatively, Britney is wearing a
two peice suit consisting of a crop
top, fish net tights and knickers.
In the picture of Beyoncé, she is shown
to again have a crop top on, knickers and
a pair of strappy high heels. Her hair is
sleek and her eyes are sultry.
Both these images differ to the pictures
of themselves ten years ago because
they have evolved with the music and
industry. The industry has made them
wear more sensual outfits to gain a
wider male audience through the male’s
gaze.

6. Videos
 Stereotypically doing what teens ‘enjoy
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doing’, e.g. partying/raving, having
sex, messing around.
Female pop artists usually wear skimpy
outfits and act seductive way in order to
seem ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ to the audience.
Compared to ten years ago, the outfits have
become a lot more revealing for
example, Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”
Largely performance based- they either have
a story line that it follows (either with the
singer/band or with a completely unknown
person) or a dance routine or a mixture of
both.
They often include numerous props and a lot
of editing for example, in front of green
screens (i.e. Rita Ora’s “Radioactive”) or
integrated text ie. Cher Lloyd’s “Swagger
Jagger”
They usually illustrate the meaning of the
song.
Extreme lighting is used to give the feeling
of the music video a bright outlook, again
promoting the idea of pop music being
positive, happy and upbeat.

9. General Knowledge
Pop music (an abbreviation of "popular") is a type of music genre
The target audience for pop music is a general audience as it aims
which begun in the 1950’s, evolving from rock and roll.
to reach out to everyone who listens to music. Pop artists do this
In general, pop music is a very upbeat and electrical sounding
by adding different sounding elements to their music, for
type of music. They often include elements of
example, adding rap artist to feature in their songs or by adding a
dance, urban, rock, country and Latin. The songs often follow a
dance style beat to apply to the dancers. The psycho-graphic
verse-chorus structure and are about 3 - 5 minutes long.
category would be ‘Aspirers’ and ‘Mainstreamers’; the socio-
The most well known pop artists originate from either the United
economic categories for pop music would be C1,C2,D and E; and
Kingdom or America. However in recent years, sub genres of pop
finally the demographic categories would be ‘age’, ‘gender’, ‘social
such as K-POP are becoming more known all over the world, for
class’, ‘lifestyle’, ‘religious beliefs’, ‘education’, ‘hobbies and
example, Psy. For British artists to become world known, they
interests’, ‘disability/ability’ and ‘attitude’.
usually have to ‘crack America’.
Many artists have been successful at this. Some of these include
Adele, One Direction, Leona Lewis, the Spice Girls and the Beatles.
In order for my magazine to be successful I will include people
from the USA and UK.
Social media over the past five or so years has become an
advertising platform for pop artists to share their work to the world.
This can be done using websites such as:
Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Vevo, YouTube and any MTV channel
on the TV. The advertising an be done, for example, by adding an
advert before a YouTube video advertising their new album or new
single release and a store link to iTunes. I could use some of these
logos to let the audience become interested.