Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a revival of popularity and influence in the late 2000s.

History

Early 1980s

During the early 1980s, British artists such as

Gary Numan Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, he released his d ...

, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and

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helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers.

21st century

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...

' influential fifth studio album '' Blackout'' (2007) incorporated elements of the genre, catapulting electropop to mainstream significance. The media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of different electropop stars, and indeed the times saw a rise in popularity of several electropop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artists named were of the electropop genre.UK gaga for electro-pop, guitar bands fight back
, ''The Kuwait Times'', January 28, 2009 Lady Gaga had major commercial success from 2008 with her debut album '' The Fame''. Music writer

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on music ...

noted that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s". The Korean pop music scene has also become dominated and influenced by electropop, particularly with boy bands and girl groups such as

Super Junior Super Junior (; stylized in all caps), also known as SJ or SuJu, is a South Korean boy band formed by Lee Soo-man, the founder of SM Entertainment in 2005. They are also dubbed by the media as the "King of Hallyu Wave" due to their prominent ...

, SHINee,

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and

Girls' Generation Girls' Generation (), also known as SNSD, is a South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment. The group is composed of eight members: Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, and Seohyun. Originally a nine-piece ensembl ...

. Singer Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit said in a 2009 interview that while playing electropop was not his intention, the limitations of dorm life made the genre more accessible. In 2009, ''The Guardian'' quoted James Oldham—head of artists and repertoire at A&M Records—as saying "All A&R departments have been saying to managers and lawyers: 'Don't give us any more bands because we're not going to sign them and they're not going to sell records.' So everything we've been put on to is electronic in nature." In 2019, Kenneth Womack wrote that singer and songwriter Billie Eilish had "staked her claim as the reigning queen of electropop" with her critical and commercial hit album '' When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?''.

References

Bibliography * {{Electronica 1980s in music 1990s in music 2000s in music 2010s in music 2010s fads and trends Electronic music genres Pop music genres British styles of music

History

Early 1980s

21st century

See also

References