Pop music is an ample and imprecise category of modern music not defined by artistic considerations but by its potential audience or prospective market. Pop is music composed with deliberate intent to appeal to the majority of its contemporaries.

In opposition to music that requires education or formation to appreciate, a defining characteristic of pop music is that anyone is able to enjoy it. Artistic concepts such as musical form and aesthetics are not a concern in the writing of pop songs, the primary objectives being audience enjoyment and commercial success.

Although pop music is produced with a desire to sell records and do well in the charts, it does not necessitate wide acclaim or commercial success: there are bad or failed pop songs.

Initially the term was an abbreviation of, and synonymous to, popular music, but evolved circa 1954 to describe a specific musical category.