ABSTRACT

The biggest selling pop single of all time is the version of 'Candle in the Wind' Elton John recorded as a tribute to Princess Diana, and his Westminster Abbey performance of the song, during Diana's funeral service in September 1997, can be considered as the ultimate British pop moment. It was controversial. Pop music is still regarded as a vernacular form unsuitable for a religious occasion, a vulgar form unfit for royalty; and Elton John was not an obvious representative of the state. Pop music is a slippery concept, perhaps because it is so familiar, so easily used. Pop can be differentiated from classical/art music, on the one side, from folk music, on the other, but may otherwise include every sort of style. It is music accessible to a general public. Defined in these terms, 'pop music' includes all contemporary popular forms – rock, country, reggae, rap, and so on. Pop does not have a specific or subcultural, communal market/culture.