Exactly. That's what differentiates it from folk: Both are music of the people, but pop music was explicitly written for a commercial purpose, and it's existed in that form since before audio recording existed, as another poster mentioned.

As someone who has played in several original but not monetarily motivated pop bands, I have to somewhat disagree. If I showed up to a folk festival I'd probably be booed off the stage.

I think the more salient difference is that folk music is accessible to produce (simple, common instrumentation). Pop music is accessible to consume (catchy melodies, danceable beats). One could say these traits co-evolved with the contexts the genres serve (cultural tradition vs. commercialization).

"Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.

> "Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.

This is a very good point. I think it would be like folktronica or indie folk or neo-folk or something else that's considered a folk subgenre.

You'd like to think that the music (that became popular) didn't start out that way though. You'd like to think that the Beatles were emulating their Black American heroes, writing songs that got the kids along the Reeperbahn to kick up their heels and belt a few more lagers. That it found a larger audience and caught on is what made it "pop"ular.

It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.

Wasn't there a Beatles anecdote where Lennon says to McCartney "let's write a swimming pool!" People get good at music because they love it, but just because they love it and we love them, don't assume they aren't in it for the money.

Yeah they were unknown until they became popular. But if you suggest the werent commercial this is clearly wrong. They were styled and marketed.

Yes, you are right. Though, I think the idea is that pop music has become more of an industry now than it was before, in the sense that every aspect of it is optimized and all those optimizations are pushed to the extreme over any artistic merit, far more than 30 years ago.

30 years ago we had fabricated boy bands like NSYNC.

Boy bands have been around since the start of TV.

Frank Sinatra was probably close to the original "Boy Band(tm)". Singers were originally an appendage to the orchestra who was the big name. With TV, being young and attractive became much more important than the music and that equation flipped.

Sinatra, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc. All of them relied on being "boy bands" to spread their music initially. Sure, many of them became more sophisticated with time, but much of their initial catalog was ... extremely derivative. There were a bunch of contemporary groups who sounded just like Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, etc.

Without being Boy Bands who could move records, they never would have lasted long enough to get better and become the legends we now know them to be.

Heck, 60 years ago we had The Monkees.

Pop music was produced on an assembly-line at least since the 1940’s eg the Brill building style.

Of couse some of the music produced like this was great art.