Traditional pop (also known as classic pop and pre-rock and roll pop) is

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...

that generally pre-dates the advent of

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "

Great American Songbook The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined canon of significant early-20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes. Definition According to the Great American Songbook Foundation: The "Great American Songbook" is ...

". More generally, the term "

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

defines traditional pop as "post-big band and pre-rock & roll pop music".

Origins

Classic pop includes the song output of the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

, and Hollywood

show tune A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, 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 to the 1950s, such as

Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russi ...

Frederick Loewe Frederick Loewe (, originally German Friedrich (Fritz) Löwe ; June 10, 1901 – February 14, 1988) was an Austrian-United States, American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including ''Br ...

Victor Herbert Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is be ...

Harry Warren Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna; December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981) was an American composer and the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song ...

Harold Arlen Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck; February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film ...

Jerome Kern Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) 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 ...

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

and

Ira Gershwin Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 2 ...

Richard Rodgers Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most ...

and

Lorenz Hart Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was an American lyricist and half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include " Blue Moon", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Bewitched, Both ...

Oscar Hammerstein Oscar Hammerstein may refer to: *Oscar Hammerstein I (1846–1919), cigar manufacturer, opera impresario and theatre builder *Oscar Hammerstein II Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (; July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) w ...

Johnny Mercer John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallich ...

Dorothy Fields Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1904 – March 28, 1974) was an American librettist and lyricist. She wrote over 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films. Her best-known pieces include "The Way You Look Tonight" (1936), "A Fine Romance" (1936), "On th ...

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...

, and

Cole Porter Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to ...

Mid-1940s to mid-1950s: height of popularity

Frank Sinatra (1944 CBS Radio publicity photo)

The swing era made stars of many popular singers including the young

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...

Dinah Shore Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during ...

Jo Stafford Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop music singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classi ...

Perry Como Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (; May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an Italian-American singer, actor and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years, after signing ...

Peggy Lee Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalis ...

Patti Page Clara Ann Fowler (November 8, 1927 – January 1, 2013), known professionally as Patti Page, was an American singer and actress. Primarily known for pop and country music, she was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female ar ...

, and

David Whitfield David Whitfield (2 February 1925 – 15 January 1980) was a popular British male tenor vocalist from Hull. He became the first British artist to have a UK No.1 single in the UK and in the United States with " Cara Mia", featuring Mantovani an ...

, and

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

. Two notable innovations were the addition of string sections and orchestral arrangements and more emphasis on the vocal performance. The addition of lush strings can be heard in much of the popular music throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In the early 1950s, as the dominance of swing gave way to the traditional pop music era, many of the vocalists associated with swing bands became even more popular, and were central figures in popular music.

Late 1950s to 1960s: decline

In the late 1950s, rock became a popular and prominent musical style. However, some pop singers who had been popular during the swing era or traditional pop music period were still big stars (e.g., Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin, and Bing Crosby). Some of these vocalists faded with traditional pop music, while many vocalists became involved in 1960s vocal jazz and the rebirth of "swing music"; the swing music of the 1960s is sometimes referred to as

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

and was, in essence, a revival of popularity of the "sweet" bands that had been popular during the

swing era The swing era (also frequently referred to as the big band era) was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been aroun ...

, but with more emphasis on the vocalist. Like the swing era, it too featured many songs of the

. Much of this music was made popular by

Nelson Riddle Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. (June 1, 1921 – October 6, 1985) was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many world-famous vocalists at Capitol Records ...

and television-friendly singers like

Rosemary Clooney Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002) was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the song "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as " Botch-a-Me", " Mambo Italiano", ...

Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool". M ...

, and the cast of ''

Your Hit Parade ''Your Hit Parade'' was an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1953 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During its 24-year r ...

''. Many artists made their mark with pop standards, particularly vocal jazz and pop singers like

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

, Show 22.

Doris Day Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sent ...

Frankie Laine Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American Singing, singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to hi ...

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

(originally known as a jazz pianist),

Lena Horne Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of th ...

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birth ...

Vic Damone Vic Damone (born Vito Rocco Farinola; June 12, 1928 – February 11, 2018) was an American traditional pop and big band singer and actor. He was best known for his performances of songs such as the number one hit " You're Breaking My Heart", an ...

Johnny Mathis John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum s ...

Bobby Darin Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American musician and actor. He performed jazz, Pop music, pop, rock and roll, Folk music, folk, Swing music, swing, and country music. He started his car ...

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...

Sammy Davis Jr. Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the ...

Andy Williams Howard Andrew Williams (December 3, 1927 – September 25, 2012) was an American singer. He recorded 43 albums in his career, of which 15 have been gold certified and three platinum certified. He was also nominated for six Grammy Awards. He hos ...

, Nancy Wilson,

Jack Jones Jack Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *Jack Jones (American singer) (born 1938), American jazz and pop singer *Jack Jones, stage name of Australian singer Irwin Thomas (born 1971) *Jack Jones (Welsh musician) (born 1992), Welsh mu ...

Rita Reys Rita Reys (born Maria Everdina Reijs; 21 December 1924 – 28 July 2013) was a jazz singer from the Netherlands. She was promoted as "Europe's First Lady of Jazz". In the 1980s, Rita returned to the American Songbook, recording albums such as ...

Steve Lawrence Steve Lawrence (born Sidney Liebowitz; July 8, 1935) is an American singer, comedian and actor, best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as " Steve and Eydie", and for his performance as Maury Sline, the manager and fr ...

Liza Minnelli Liza May Minnelli ( ; born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy ...

and

Cleo Laine Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth (born Clementine Dinah Bullock; 28 October 1927)The Battle of New Orleans (in 1814)" and "

North to Alaska ''North to Alaska'' is a 1960 comedic Western/Northern film directed by Henry Hathaway and John Wayne (uncredited). The picture stars Wayne along with Stewart Granger, Ernie Kovacs, Fabian, and Capucine. The script is based on the 1939 play ' ...

" by

Johnny Horton John LaGale Horton (April 30, 1925 – November 5, 1960) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Initially performing traditional country, Horton later performed rockabilly songs. He is best known for a series of history-inspired narrat ...

were far more popular with teenagers than with adults. In addition to the vocal jazz and/or 1960s swing music, many of these singers were involved in "less swinging", more traditional, vocal pop music during this period as well, especially Sinatra and Cole. The diverging tastes between the baby boomers and older Americans of the 1960s led to one of the earliest schisms in

music radio Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio. Mu ...

. Whereas rock dominated

contemporary hit radio Contemporary hit radio (also known as CHR, contemporary hits, hit list, current hits, hit music, top 40, or pop radio) is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by ...

(top 40), traditional pop formed the basis of middle of the road (MOR). In terms of 21st century radio formats, the top-40 hits of the 1950s and 1960s are played on

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...

stations while the traditional pop hits are the province of adult standards (with some exceptions); due to aging demographics, both formats are fading in popularity in favor of

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...

and gold-based adult contemporary, respectively.

Advent of rock and roll

With the growing popularity of

in the 1950s, much of what

baby boomers Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. Th ...

considered to be their parents' music, traditional pop, was pushed aside. Popular music sung by such performers as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and their contemporaries was relegated in the 1960s and 1970s to television, where they remained very popular, Las Vegas club acts and elevator music. Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra continued to have many hit singles and albums until the late 60s, however. Nashville country music borrowed heavily from traditional pop sounds in the late 1950s as

Music Row Music Row is a historic district located southwest of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Widely considered the heart of Nashville's entertainment industry, Music Row has also become a metonymous nickname for the music industry as a w ...

sought to limit the growing influence of rock and roll on the genre; it remained popular until both the

British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...

, the deaths of two of Nashville's biggest country stars (

Patsy Cline Patsy is a given name often used as a diminutive of the feminine given name Patricia or sometimes the masculine name Patrick, or occasionally other names containing the syllable "Pat" (such as Cleopatra, Patience, Patrice, or Patricia). Among I ...

and

Jim Reeves James Travis Reeves (August 20, 1923July 31, 1964) was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville Sound. Known as "Gentleman ...

) in separate airplane crashes, and the growing influence of West Coast country music pushed it aside beginning in 1964. In 1983,

Linda Ronstadt Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...

, a popular female vocalist of the rock era, elected to change direction. She collaborated with legendary arranger-conductor

and released a successful album of standards from the 1940s and 1950s, ''

What's New What's New may refer to: Entertainment Music * What's New? What's New?" is a 1939 popular song composed by Bob Haggart, with lyrics by Johnny Burke. It was originally an instrumental tune titled "I'm Free" by Haggart in 1938, when Haggart was ...

''. It reached No. 3 on the ''Billboard'' pop chart, won a

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

, 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 determination to produce these albums exposed a new generation to the sounds of the pre-

swing Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing rid ...

and swing eras. Since then, other rock/pop stars have occasionally found success recording traditional pop music. Notable albums include

Rod Stewart Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling ...

's '' It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook'',

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album ''Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of ''Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (197 ...

's '' Stardust'',

Chaka Khan Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Qu ...

's ''

Echoes of an Era ''Echoes of an Era'' is an album by American R&B/jazz singer Chaka Khan, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White, released in 1982 on Elektra Records. On ''Echoes of an Era'', the group interprets jazz standar ...

'' and

Carly Simon Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, memoirist, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), " The Right Thin ...

's ''

Torch A torch is a stick with combustible material at one end, which is ignited and used as a light source. Torches have been used throughout history, and are still used in processions, symbolic and religious events, and in juggling entertainment. In ...

''.

Revival

The appearance of the lounge subculture in the mid-1990s in the United States helped to enhance the revival and interest in the music, style, and performers of popular music before rock and roll. Many contemporary performers have worked in the style of classic pop and/or easy listening swing.

References

External links

PopularSong.org Online Magazine

{{DEFAULTSORT:Traditional Pop Music Pop music genres

Origins

Mid-1940s to mid-1950s: height of popularity

Late 1950s to 1960s: decline

Advent of rock and roll

Revival

See also

References

External links