By: Thomas Horvath

Music is one of,  if not the most popular genres of entertainment. Music is everywhere and in everything. Whether you’re playing a video game, watching a movie, or even at a sports game, you’re going to hear music. Music is created using different instruments, with genres coming from which instruments you use. For instance, classical is heavy on piano and violin, while rock music is heavy on electric guitars and drums. Which genre is the most mainstream or popular?

An obvious contender is pop music, with the word “popular” being its name origin. Pop music is the most commercial form of music, with it being created to be catchy and replayable, not very in-depth with lyrics, and used mostly as background noise. While this is the most mainstream music genre, it might not be the most popular.

For a long time, rock music was the most popular genre among music listeners. Although not the most commercial, rock fans were more dedicated to rock bands than average music enjoyers were to the pop singers they would hear on the radio. This is why you’re more likely to see someone wearing a Nirvana or AC-DC shirt than a Lady Gaga shirt. But rock has been dethroned. The new undisputable popular genre is definitely hip-hop music. This comes from the fact that like pop music, rap is usually easy to listen to in the background, even though some artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West have pushed the envelope with rap and made it more lyrical and thought-provoking. Rap is also easy to produce, with most using a drill beat and posting it on SoundCloud. This allows for many new artists to come in, make a quick drill beat, rap some verses over it, then upload it online. 

While rap will be the most popular for a while, new trends will come in and make other genres more popular. Even country music is starting to become more mainstream, but pop music will most definitely always be number one on the charts.