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, as a genre 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. 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.
Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:
- a focus on the individual song or singles, rather than on extended works or albums
- an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology
- an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities
- an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance
- a tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments
- much pop music is intended to encourage dancing, or it uses dance-oriented beats or rhythms
