Popular music can be defined by several criteria in several different ways. For example it can be defined historically, by the means in which it is preformed, produced and marketed or the way in which it is consumed. Popular music can be categorised by class, audience and cultural capital. However each of the above methods of categorisation, definition and analysis have their own floors.
If for example we were to define popular music as mediation between high and low art, where do we place Nessun Dorma performed by Pavarotti that became a number one chart hit in 1990 following its use as the world cup anthem or the dance tracks that make use of samples from opera or orchestral pieces for example the techno remix of Beethoven’s symphony number five, first movement.
Looked at in terms of industry and quantitative measurement, we encounter problems when it becomes clear the what sells is not always good or that popular e.g. the ‘Crazy Frog’ or ‘Flintstones Theme Tune’. Popular music can only be defined by acknowledging the wide spread of cultural, ideological, class, industrial and technological elements that form the ever changing, fluid entity that is ‘popular music’.
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Slim your posts down (223 words is too many - I told you it was difficult). Watch your spelling (floors should be flaws) while this is a blog it still matters. Other than these problems this is actually quite a good post.
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