History of the genre - Pop

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950's, deriving from rock and roll. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of music which is popular (and can include any style).

As a genre, pop music is very eclectic, often borrowing elements from other styles including urban, dance, rock, Latin and country; nonetheless, there are core elements which define pop. Such include generally short to medium-length songs, written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), as well as the common employment of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, and hooks.

So-called "pure pop" music, such as power pop, which has been described as mixture of hard rock and melodic pop musicand tends to be more aggressive than pop rock, features all these elements, using electric guitars, drums and bass for instrumentation.

David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts it is not the sum of all chart music, which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately.Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.

The term "pop song" is first recorded as being used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including incountry, blues and hillbilly music.

 
According to several sources, MTV helped give rise to pop stars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna; and Jackson and Madonna helped make MTV. 
(sourced from wikipedia)