Pop music is a genre of popular music that emerged in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-s.

It is generally considered to be a successor to rhythm and blues, and to be a more commercially successful genre than rock music. The term "pop" was first used in to describe a type of jazz music that was becoming popular in New Orleans. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" have been used interchangeably since the early th century. However, the former describes a more commercially oriented style, whereas the latter describes a wider variety of music, including rock, blues, R&B, and country.