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Preface Tpeople. he term “pop music” may mean quite a lot of things to different For the purposes of this volume, I have defined it as music that has been and/or continues to be popular and that has made a significant mark on the broad popular culture of its time. In selecting the songs for study, I have focused on music primarily from the 1950s to the present, because the concept of a pop-music genre that can be distin- guished from other genres developed more in earnest after World War II. The songs, albums, and artists detailed in this volume exhibit diversity in many different aspects. For example, some of the songs are almost exclusively—if not entirely—associated with one artist, while others seem to keep coming back again and again into the world of popular cul- ture in different renditions and in differing contexts. I have also selected entries that demonstrate the intersection of various genres with “pop,” including jazz, adult contemporary, rock, R&B, and country. Over time, all these subgenres of recorded vernacular music become intertwined in intriguing ways. In his song “The Boy in the Bubble,” Paul Simon sang that “every generation throws a hero up the pop charts.” If only picking 50 songs, artists, songwriters, and albums to profile in this volume were that sim- ple. With sometimes 20 to 30 songs reaching No. 1 on the pop charts in any given year, there is truly a lot of highly commercially successful pop music available for study and enjoyment and, naturally, a lot that must be omitted. The purpose here is to delve into some of the variety of music by including representative songs, albums, and artists that have been selected to illustrate many of the ramifications and meanings of the word “pop” as well as ways in which other, perhaps more clearly defined genres, intertwine with the wider world of popular music.