Electropop

Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a revival of popularity and influence in the late 2000s. The genre is often confused with electro, which is sometimes called electro-pop. However, electro is a separate genre incorporating funk and early hip hop.

Depeche Mode's composer Martin Gore said: "For anyone of our generation involved in electronic music, Kraftwerk were the godfathers".

During the early 1980s, Japanese artists such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto and British artists such as Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers.

Some fascinating new music began arriving on these shores; it was dubbed electropop, because electronic instrumentation — mainly synthesizers and syndrums — was used to craft pop songs. "Pop Muzik" by M was one of the first. There was a gradual accumulation of worthy electropop discs, though they were still mostly heard only in rock discos. But in 1981, the floodgates opened, and "new music" at last made a mighty splash. The breakthrough song was "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League.

— Anglomania: The Second British Invasion, by Parke Puterbaugh for Rolling Stone, November 1983.

Britney Spears' highly influential fifth studio album Blackout (2007) is credited for bringing the genre to mainstream prominence. The media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of different electropop stars, and indeed the times saw a rise in popularity of several electropop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artists named were of the electropop genre. Lady Gaga had major commercial success from 2008 with her debut album The Fame. Music writer Simon Reynolds noted that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s". Singer Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit said in a 2009 interview that while playing electropop was not his intention, the limitations of dorm life made the genre more accessible.

In 2009, The Guardian quoted James Oldham—head of artists and repertoire at A&M Records—as saying "All A&R departments have been saying to managers and lawyers: 'Don't give us any more bands because we're not going to sign them and they're not going to sell records.' So everything we've been put on to is electronic in nature."

In the 2010s, electropop music saw an increase in its commercial popularity. This owed to the success of artists such as Avicii, Lady Gaga, Calvin Harris, Kesha, Rihanna, Zedd, and Ellie Goulding, in an era now often referred to as recession pop.