Pop 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 pop music was shorted from the term popular music.  Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to.

British pop music emerged in the 1950s. It was a style of music which was seen as an alternative to American rock ‘n’ roll.  British pop music has changed a lot since the 1950s.  Over the years, more and more people have owned a radio or TV meaning that music has become more accessible for everyone.  With the introduction of music videos on MTV in the 1980s, pop music continued to be heard by more people and was an increasingly successful commercial opportunity.   Today, online platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify are making it even easier for artists to share their music and build an audience.

Rock music is a general term that covers many different genres of music which have developed since rock and roll in the 1950s.  

Maybe more than any other genre, rock is defined by a single instrument: the electric guitar. Before rock, electric guitars played a minor role, mostly as a backing instrument for large jazz bands. But throughout the early 1900s they became more and more popular with blues musicians. The electric guitar was a great instrument for a small band – by hooking up to an amplifier, guitarists could make a sound loud enough to compete with drums and mic’ed up vocals.

Genius guitarists like B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix explored the unique sounds that electric guitars could make. They didn’t just use amplifiers to get louder – they also played with the tone and character of the instrument itself, using electrified sound as its own kind of instrument. Hendrix, for example, famously used the scream of amplifier feedback in his solos – a sound that would be impossible to achieve with any acoustic instrument. He also pioneered the use of distortion or “fuzz,” which today is the signature sound of rock guitar.

Although the blues evolved in the southern states of the USA from the late 19th century, it has lots of musical influences from Africa. The majority of blues musicians had descendants from Africa who were transported to America in the slave trade and were forced to work on plantations in the South, and factories in the North.

Slaves would sing work songs while working the plantations and religious spirituals in church. Combined with the African rhythms, these musical styles were the foundation of blues.

Blues music is characterised by sad melodies and even today the expression having the blues means you are feeling gloomy. Early blues music was very slow and emotional using simple harmonies with a vocalist accompanied by a guitar. Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson made the blues style very popular in the 1920s. By the 1940s and 50s, the style had developed further and included a range of other instruments. This style was called rhythm and blues, r'n b', and was usually played on electric guitar and bass.