Elvis Presley and Pop music

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The Development and Evolution of Pop Music
Introduction
Pop music, a colloquial for popular music is a social musical genre that borrows heavily from other musical genres like hip hop, jazz, and blues to develop a special entertainment platform. Pop music can be performed with an electric dance or with social musical tools. One of the most influential pop music artists was Elvis Presley who made significant contributions to the pop music industry. This paper looks into the brief history of pop music and the contribution Pressley made in the Pop music industry.
The Origins and the Pop music Genres
Pop music has recorded history that stems from the late 19th century. However, major commercialization of the music genre have records from the early 1930s century when Tin Pan Alley’s publishing studios blended their renowned skills in the development of opera, foxtrot, and ragtime alongside cakewalk and show tunes to venture into the development of the musical genres as indicated by Scaruffi.com. According to newworldencyclopedia.org, the Ragtime genre was originally African-American genre. Later, it transformed into Swing Musical genre that was a precursor of Jazz. Blues that was played using the electric guitar and the Rock, n Roll genres all combined in the studios to give rise to the pop music in between the 1890s and the 1930s (Mauch 1).
Pop music development and use were largely dominated by few big bands that controlled up to 85% of the best songs and the biggest hits between the years 1937 and 1941.

According to scaruffi.com, most of the songs at the time were written by the band leaders and members of the bands. The publishing houses, therefore, had no much revenues from the songs. A lot of focus was also on the band leader whose people regarded as the maestro of the songs. However, the Second World War brought in lifelines and a window of opportunity to the pop songs. From the post-war period, pop music was recorded and used in areas outside the US including Europe especially in France. Laïkó was the Greece’s versions of the pop music, a classical comparison to the Turkish fantasy music. The popularity of the pop music reached out to the Middle Eastern countries with Iran raising the sultan of pop music, Vigen Dredgerman.
The Contributions of Elvis Presley to the Pop Music Industry
The pop music industry has produced some of the greatest artists on of all time, with Elvis Presley playing a significant role in its development. Having been born in 1935, he rose to become the greatest pop artists who produced world record holding singles. Presley’s success in the pop industry stemmed from his unique qualities in the voice, the costumes and dressing styles as well as his stage dances. It is, therefore, important to look into the artist’s contribution to the pop music industry into details.
Unique Features about Presley
Presley’s style of pop music was unique in that he got his influence from the church. Being a devote Pentecost, he got inspiration for rock and roll famous music from the lyrics and the beats he got from attending church services. However, he successfully developed songs in the categories of rhyme and blues, rock, and roll as well as gospel. His ability to combine different styles even on the same stage left most of his fans demanding for more albums and singles. He ended up producing over seven hundred songs. His records like “Heartbreak Hotel,” still features the top ranked top pop music singles in America (Cooper and Cooper 72-7). Presley was among the few unique artists who could not be held by the racial barrier in the development of his musical career. He was able to get inspiration from both the black Americas like ‘Big Mama’ Thornton and ‘Big Boy’ Crudup. On the other hand, he also got inspiration from the white renowned pop artists like Bill Monroe and Ernest Tubb. As a result, he was able to infuse the cultural divide that existed in the pop music in America landscape (Guralnick 46-9). His resulting song, therefore, found wide acceptance among all the American communities, unlike most other pop artists who either fully identified as black or white Americans.
Special features with Presley
To Presley, appearing on stage and delivering an electrifying single was not just a spontaneous matter, but an activity that required early preparations and timely planning. His performances were characterized by choice costumes and clothes that would coincide with the pop performance occasions. The costumes also matched his personal grooming that saw him even dye his blonde hair to give a fine finish on his stage appearance. These were unique attributes that could not be identified on any other pop music start, and that is why many people have compared the success of the musician to that of Michael Jackson. Presley is also the king of pop to many of his fans.
The artist was among the very few who were able to write their pop music songs. This is an attribute that many people did not have in the pop music industry. The ability to write and sing out own songs to great success illustrated the deep level talent that a musician possessed.
Presley had dance styles that many people described as “sexy.” At the time of his performance, sexy dance styles were considered immoral, and so he was highly criticized on the same. On the contrary, he found as much following as the critics and many people believe that his choice of songs and the dance styles were even far more appealing than what the critics would say. The artist remained to be one of the most uniquely talented and very influential in the pop music industry.
The Influences Presley Had On the Followers and Fans
Presley was not only music but was also a TV actor. In the year 1956, the artists signed TV deals that would see him star in some of the Hollywood movies. This was a unique feature that much other pop musicians could not possess. He used the platform for creating a significant name for his music brand. Many fans who identified him on TV followed him to the musical rhymes and were able to form and give him a great audience.
He believed in the simplicity of his music. Therefore, Presley was one of the artists who used the least amount of instrument variation in all genres of his music. He used Vocals, piano, and guitar as the major instruments to produce high-quality musical tones, rhymes, and codes. From his work, his level of influence is far reaching. There are notable musicians who got the direct influence from Presley including Cliff Richard, the Beatles, and many other musicians.
Presley was one of the pop musicians who got to benefit from the exponential growth of the pop music in the industry. His sounds found great relevance in the jukeboxes, the radio stations, and the computers, thus creating a high level of sharing capability.
Many people may not remember the enormous contributions that Presley made in the pop music industry, due to the low profile that the musician liked to take. However, his contributions are significant and notable. His attempt to infuse the white and the black pop music as one of the greatest achievements of his music career. He was also highly talented in the vocals, and dance. However, his dancing styles were commonly criticized for lacking morals, though the society came round and embraced his ideals.
Conclusion
Pop music has a rich history that has been developing and evolving for a long time. The development of the musical genre has been affected by the social and racial setups as well as the available instruments that have played a significant part in its development. Moreover, the genre, like other musical genres have borrowed a lot from other musical genres like jazz, rock, hip-hop, and blues. The development of technological innovations like the jukeboxes, the radios, and the computers improved the efficiency of pop music recording, storage, and distribution, thus further fueling their popularity. Many artists have performed high-quality singles, tracks, and harmonies in the genre of music including bug names like Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, Maria Carey, boys II men and Westlife. The pop music remains a common piece on the world theaters and stages with high-level entertainment.

Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Citelighter.com. History of Pop Music. 2015. https://www.citelighter.com/music/overall/knowledgecards/history-of-pop-music. Accessed 14 November 2016.
Cooper, Laura E., and B. Lee Cooper. “The pendulum of cultural imperialism: Popular music interchanges between the United States and Britain, 1943–1967.” The Journal of Popular Culture 27.3 (1993): 61-78.
Guralnick, Peter. Last train to Memphis: the rise of Elvis Presley. Little, Brown, 2012.
Mauch, Matthias. The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010. 6 May 2015. http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/5/150081. Accessed 4 November 2016.
Newworldencyclopedia.org. Pop music. 28 December 2012. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pop_music. Accessed 14 November 2016.
Scaruffi, Piero. A brief history of Pop Music. 2005. http://www.scaruffi.com/history/pop50.html. Accessed 14 November 2016.