The document provides a timeline of major events and developments in pop music from 1944 to 2009. Some of the key events included Elvis Presley's popularization of rock and roll in 1956, the rise of Motown in the 1960s led by acts like the Supremes and Marvin Gaye, the launch of Radio 1 in 1967 which helped popularize pop music in the UK, Madonna releasing "Like a Virgin" in 1984 which boldly addressed sexuality in pop, and Lady Gaga writing "Bad Romance" in 2009 while viewing pop music as having art and commerce meet at its creative peak. The timeline traces the evolution of pop music over decades and highlights influential artists and moments.

1. TIMELINE OF POP MUSIC
By Amy Hutchinson

2. 1944
 Columbus day riots:
Frank Sinatra is Pops biggest star. Hysteria produced by his concert
on 12th October 1944

3. 1952
 The pop charts began in postwar Britain when Percy Dickins of the New Musical
Express telephoned 20-odd shops asking for a list of their bestsellers. Coming out on top
with Here in My Heart was crooner Al Martino, who kept the No 1 spot for nine weeks
on the first UK chart based on record sales. Martino later starred as Johnny Fontane in
The Godfather – a character said to be based on Frank Sinatra.

4. 1953
 How much is that doggie in the window? Becomes a smash hit.

5. 1956
 Elvis Presley turns into Elvis the Pelvis live on tv.

6. 1958
 Phil Spencer plans to build his wall of sound.

7. 1959
 Larry Parnes appears on panorama
Who would you sooner see sing, Billy Fury or a bloke called Ron? Larry Parnes – the first
major UK music manager – had a gift for renaming the pop idols on his roster to add a
dash of glamour. In a sense, he was the 50s' Simon Cowell, and the issues around pop
svengalis (Was he manipulating his young stars? Did they deserve their success?) were as
relevant on Panorama's stern 1959 feature about Parnes and his "golden boys" as they
are now.

8. 1959
 Cliff Richard promises to lock up his living doll in a trunk
Cliff was the UK's first rock star but within a year of his first hit with Move It, he was joined by
a new band, the Drifters (later the Shadows), to record a version of the Lionel Bart number,
Living Doll. It marked the arrival of a softer sound and a more family-friendly image, and sold
more than a million copies. It was the first of Richard's 14 No 1s. (And in 1986, it returned to
the top, in a memorable version recorded with the Young Ones.)

9. 1960
 For the first time the Beatles create their own look

10. 1961
 Motown gets its first number 1
The US postal service might not seem like the most romantic of subjects for a pop record, but
Motown could inject magic into any situation. The Marvelettes's debut single, Please Mr
Postman – later covered by the Beatles and the Carpenters – described the high anxiety that
comes with any teen love affair and gave Motown its first US No 1, only a year after Berry Gordy
had merged his Tamla and Motown labels and changed the group's name from the Marvels to
the Marvelettes. It was no fluke – during the next decade the Detroit label scored dozens of top
10 hits, thanks to the likes of Smokey Robinson, the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. And while the
Marvelettes never reached No 1 again, they notched up two further US top 10 hits (Playboy and
Don't Mess With Bill in 1962 and 66 respectively), though neither captured the trials of
adolescence quite like the fervent Please Me Postman.

11. 1963
 Pop dances onto tv
Pop on TV in the mid-60s was the chaotic and brash Ready Steady Go! – the audience
milled about the studio while cameras pushed through; artists performed from four
stages. It was a weekly party of pop, rock and soul. The singers were the stars but the
audience was almost as big a part of the show.

12. 1965
 The Monkees form

13. 1965
 The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson listens to Rubber Soul
As Brian Wilson later recalled, the Beatles' sixth album was the first release he'd ever heard
where every song "went together like no album ever made before". It proved a huge influence
on the set of songs that then became the Beach Boys' next album, Pet Sounds, released in May
1966. Paul McCartney later called Pet Sounds his favourite album of all time; it also marked the
end of an era – because no set of songs thereafter could ever summon such a sense of
innocence.

14. 1967
 Sandie Shaw becomes the UK's first Eurovision winner
The barefoot Sandie had been a regular on TV shows such as Ready Steady Go! and epitomised the
"swinging 60s". But sales of her records were declining by 1967, and despite her concerns that it wasn't
cool, plus the BBC's misgivings that she'd been cited as the "other woman" in a divorce, she was invited
to represent the UK in that year's Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She won, with Puppet On a
String, cementing the country's on-off love affair with the competition for decades to come.

15. 1967
 Radio one launches
And good morning everyone," it began. "Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1." Tony
Blackburn was sitting in the breakfast show chair and the first record he spun was Flowers in the
Rain by the Move, followed by the Bee Gees with Massachusetts. Smashing. Other DJs on the
fledgling station, launched simultaneously with Radio 2, included Kenny Everett and Simon Dee,
both of whom, like Blackburn, had cut their teeth on the pirate stations. Much else followed.

16. 1975
Abba rescue their career
In April 1974, Abba won the Eurovision song contest with Waterloo and the world fell
for the Swedish band's charms, the song turning into a global hit. But their future success
was far from certain: to the public, they looked like classic Euro one-hit-wonders

17. 1975
 Boney M define Europop
Move over Bill Grundy – the most scandalous pop TV appearance of 1976 was Boney M
doing Daddy Cool on Musikbladet, Germany's Top of the Pops. Bobby Farrell's wild
gyrations – and the band's revealing costumes – did more than jump-start their career.
They sparked the look and ethos of Europop. Eye-popping costumes, gravelly spoken
bits, big-lunged divas singing outrageously catchy nonsense – everyone from Snap! to the
Black Eyed Peas has used this formula and they all owe a debt to Boney M

18. 1978
 Blondie records Parallel lines
Although rooted in the New York punk scene, Blondie were the finest pop band of the era, with
this their pinnacle, as good an advert for the city's musical credentials as Tin Pan Alley or the
Velvet Underground. Debbie Harry might have been the poster girl but, as the album's opening
tracks (Hanging On the Telephone, One Way Or Another, Picture This) underlined, top-flight
songwriting was Blondie's real strength, with Heart of Glass even bridging new wave and disco.

19. 1984
 Madonna releases ‘Like a Virgin’
Madonna started 1984 a disco chick with a reasonably well-received debut album to her name. Then she
released Like a Virgin. Although it also combined nightclub-friendly beats with catchy melodies, its tone
was dramatically different. On the cover: a picture of the singer wearing a belt with the contentious
slogan "Boy Toy". Inside: a handful of songs that set her apart from every female singer who had come
before. One was Material Girl, which boldly stated that, in her world, love came a distant second to
money; another was the title track, which, in the context of a euphoric love song, confidently referred to
her sexual history, something mainstream pop girls simply hadn't done before.

20. 1984
 Band Aid record ‘Do they know its christmas?’
If you were assembling a team of pop stars to tackle famine in Ethiopia, Culture Club, Duran
Duran and other 80s stars more familiar with hairspray than hardship might not be your first
choice. But Band Aid's incongruous lightness of touch would prove a strength, especially
compared to the earnestness of the conscience-led pop that followed. The first step on Bob
Geldof's path to canonisation was also marked by him badgering Mrs Thatcher into refunding
VAT on all sales.

21. 1993
 Spice girls form
The Spice formula was simple: the band's ordinariness was played up – they were
presented as cartoon girls next door, making the most of what they had. Each was given a
nickname and an image, helping fans to identify with one or another of them, and their
choice of Wannabe as their first single was even cannier: it was about the importance of
putting friendships before romantic relationships, a message guaranteed to appeal to the
prepubescents who comprised a large part of their audience. They were assertive,
wisecracking and feminine, and the girl power slogan snappily tied the whole package
together

22. 2003
 Apple launches Itunes store
With the music business still suing fans for piracy, Apple steamed in and gave them what
they've always wanted: instant access. Selling 25m tracks in 12 months and passing the
10bn mark before the end of the decade, iTunes' impact on labels, retailers and the album
format is well documented. The upside for digital natives reared on instant gratification is
not yet properly documented but, to paraphrase its original definition, what could be
more pop than something so low cost, transient and mass produced?

23. 2001
 Pop Idol
Simon Fuller had taken the Spice Girls to a new level of superstardom after taking over as
their manager, but for his next trick, the pop svengali did something far more sinister: he
reinvented the talent show contest for the modern age, and spawned with it Simon
Cowell. Of course, Fuller had drawn heavily for inspiration on Popstars, the TV series
that produced Hear'Say; and to begin with, Cowell just seemed like one of the gang,
settling in cosily beside fellow judges Pete Waterman, Nicki Chapman and "Dr" Fox. But
soon the show took on a momentum of its own, with the country captivated by the final
showdown between Gareth Gates and Will Young. Cowell pushed hard for Gareth to win.
It didn't happen; if only that should have augured well ...

24. 2005
 Take That announce their comeback
Who'd have guessed that there was such pent-up demand for a Take That reunion? Even the band
themselves didn't anticipate the reception that greeted the announcement that they were back – possibly
for good – and were going on tour. Because previous reunions of ex-pop sensations such as Duran
Duran hadn't exactly shaken the world, there was no reason to expect that Take That's gigs would sell out
instantly, leading to a record deal and a string of No 1 albums and singles

25. 2009
 Lady gaga writes ‘Bad Romance’ on the bus
Most musicians see the pop world stretching out before them and they consider it as a
long line with art at one end and cash at the other. They set a limit on how far in each
direction they are prepared or able to go, and they get to work. In 2009, Lady Gaga
decided that this world was not flat. In fact, from her vantage point orbiting pop, she
could see the line between art and commerce bending round so that the two extremes of
art and commerce met at the top. She stuck a flag in that spot at the top and called it Bad
Romance.