1940-1943United States

Traditional Pop

Also known as Traditional pop music, Pop standards

A classic American pop format built on the song, the singer, and elegant orchestration. Traditional pop sits just before rock & roll’s takeover, and its afterlife lives on in standards, songbook albums, and modern crooners.

Origins and context

Documented in U.S. popular music history as a mainstream, pre-rock style tied to the radio, recording industry, and the Great American Songbook tradition.

United States

How to listen

Listen for

A voice placed front and center
Arrangements that cushion rather than overpower the lyric
Clear, memorable melodies
A conversational, close-miked croon

History

AllMusic describes traditional pop as the post-big band, pre-rock & roll style built around professionally written songs, sung by a focal vocalist and supported by an orchestra or small combo, with the song itself kept at the center rather than jazz-like improvisation. The style came to prominence in the 1940s and early 1950s, when crooners and song stylists such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat "King" Cole helped define the mainstream American pop sound of the era. Encyclopedias of popular music note that these singers dominated the charts before rock & roll changed the center of gravity after 1955, and that the older pop tradition continued afterward in a more specialized form.