Soul Soul music is a combination of R&B and gospel and began in the late

1950s in the United States. Soul differentiates from R&B due to Soul

music's use of gospel-music devices, its greater emphasis on vocalists and

its merging of religious and secular themes. Soul music can find its roots

in 4 different sources: racial, geographical, historical and economical.

The 1950s recordings of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and James Brown are

commonly considered the beginnings of soul music. There are many

different types of Soul music, including, but not limited to: Southern

Soul, Neo-Soul and Psychedelic Soul (which paved the way for Funk music

in the 1960s. Soul music was born in Memphis and more widely in the

southern US where most of the performing artists were from.

More than any other genre of popular American music, Soul is the result

of the combination and merging of previous styles and sub styles in the

1950s and 60s. Broadly speaking, soul comes from a gospel (the sacred)

and blues (the profane). Blues was mainly a musical style that praised

the fleshly desire whereas gospel was more oriented toward spiritual

inspiration.

Once it gained popularity, Soul gradually came into white musical

groups and was then called "Blue-Eyed Soul." Soul music ruled the black

musical charts throughout the 1960s and inspired many other music

styles such as current pop music and funk. In fact it never went away, it

simply evolved.

Pop

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an

abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be

commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a

youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple

songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new

variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed

influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a

genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and

later rock style.

Hatch and Millward define pop music as "a body of music

which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk

musics". Although pop music is often seen as oriented

towards the singles charts it is not the sum of all chart

music, which has always contained songs from a variety of

sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty

songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing

and developing separately.[2]

Thus "pop music" may be used

to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth

market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock

and roll.

Dance

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or

accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical

piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of

performance, the major categories are live dance music

and recorded dance music.

A new form of electronic dance music was developing. This

music, made using electronics, is a style of popular music

commonly played in dance music nightclubs, radio

stations, shows and raves. During its gradual decline in

the late 1970s, disco became influenced by

computerization. Looping, sampling and segueing as

found in disco continued to be used as creative techniques

within Trance music, Techno music, and especially House

music.