The dance music element of western pop music can be traced back to the ragtime, which was very popular in African-American communities. Ragtime later on turned into the earlier form of Jazz that was enjoyed for its dance ability. These genres originated from black communities and spread to white communities whenever blacks were invited to perform in white communities’ concerts. Encyclopaedia documents that the blues, R&B as well as Rock n’ Roll are one of the styles that contributed to the development of Pop. The rise of the emotional and crying singers in the late 1940s began the pop music vocal style which was a combination of the above genres. After the US, in Iran, the emergence of Vigen Derderian, also known as the Sultan of Pop, made a hit after the music industry was dominated by Persian classical singers. Then, Vigen combined the Persian melodies and Persian lyrics with guitar and that made him the first male pop star in the country. In the 1960s, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, were the dominant teen idols of Pop in the western part of the world and that went along with one of Iran’s pop stars winning an international music prize in 1971. So, as Pop kept spreading in all parts of the world, from Iran to Turkey and Britain, the notable highlights for Pop music in the 1980s are Michael Jackson’s second epic label release ‘Thriller’, which became the best-selling album of all time. Michael Jackson was the most successful artiste of the 1980s, selling 133 million copies of only two albums. In the next years, more stars ventured in the Pop career and it is considered as one of the most preferred having stars like Madonna, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Beyoncé among others. However, pop music is criticised for being repetitive and overly simple.
