ABSTRACT
Rhythm, the equal of melody and harmony in music’s holy trinity, is of utmost importance to pop music. There’s no higher praise for a pop song than “It’s got a beat you can dance to.” It’s worth noting that pop music rhythm embodies two major innovations in Western music history. Given all we have to cover in this book, however, we must skim past its many and fascinating intricacies and dwell only on a few facts that underlie nearly all American pop song rhythms for the past one hundred years.
