Album in the context of 8-track cartridge

Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training. As a kind of popular art, it stands in contrast to art music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.

The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States. Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music", the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music is a generic term for a wide variety of genres of music that appeal to the tastes of a large segment of the population, whereas pop music usually refers to a specific musical genre within popular music. Popular music songs and pieces typically have easily singable melodies. The song structure of popular music commonly involves repetition of sections, with the verse and chorus or refrain repeating throughout the song and the bridge providing a contrasting and transitional section within a piece. From the 1960s through the mid-2000s, albums collecting songs were the dominant form for recording and consuming English-language popular music, in a period known as the album era.

A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the outside edge and ends near the center of the disc. The stored sound information is made audible by playing the record on a phonograph (or "gramophone", "turntable", or "record player").

Records have been produced in different formats with playing times ranging from a few minutes to around 30 minutes per side. For about half a century, the discs were commonly made from shellac and these records typically ran at a rotational speed of 78 rpm, giving it the nickname "78s" ("seventy-eights"). After the 1940s, "vinyl" records made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) became standard replacing the old 78s and remain so to this day; they have since been produced in various sizes and speeds, most commonly 7-inch discs played at 45 rpm (typically for singles, also called 45s ("forty-fives")), and 12-inch discs played at 33⅓ rpm (known as an LP, "long-playing records", typically for full-length albums) – the latter being the most prevalent format today.

A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the soundtrack to the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1938. The first soundtrack album of a film's orchestral score was that for Alexander Korda's 1942 film Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, composed by Miklós Rózsa.

A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for work or a project such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists who maintain and represent the images of individuals, rather than representing an entire corporation or business. Publicists are also hired by public figures who want to maintain or protect their image. Publicists brand their clients by getting magazine, TV, newspaper, and website coverage. Most top-level publicists work in private practice, handling multiple clients.

The term publicist was coined by the legal scholar Francis Lieber to describe the engagement of internationalists with the public during the late nineteenth century. Publicists are sometimes called flacks, a term that traces back to Gene Flack, who was a well-known movie publicist in the 1930s.

The album era (sometimes, album-rock era) was a period in popular music, usually defined as the mid-1960s through the middle of the 2000s decade, in which the album—a collection of songs issued on physical media—was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption. It was driven primarily by three storage formats: the 33⅓ rpm long-playing record (LP), the cassette tape, and the compact disc (CD). Rock musicians from the United States and the United Kingdom were often at the forefront of the era. The term "album era" is also used to refer to the marketing and aesthetic period surrounding a recording artist's release of an album.

Long-playing record albums, first released in 1948, offered the ability to sell larger amounts of music than singles. The album era arrived in earnest in the mid-1960s, when the Beatles began to release artistically ambitious and top-selling LPs. The industry embraced albums to immense success, and burgeoning rock criticism validated their cultural value. By the 1970s, the LP had emerged as a fundamental artistic unit and a widely popular item with young people. Some were concept albums, especially by progressive musicians in rock and soul.

Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 to describe the Byrds' music.

The commercial success of the Byrds' cover version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and their debut album of the same name, along with Dylan's own recordings with rock instrumentation—on the albums Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), and Blonde on Blonde (1966)—encouraged other folk acts, such as Simon & Garfunkel, to use electric backing on their records and new groups, such as Buffalo Springfield, to form. Dylan's controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival on 25 July 1965, where he was backed by an electric band, was also a pivotal moment in the development of the genre.

A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single, or simply hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although hit song means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term hit record usually refers to a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio airplay audience impressions or significant streaming data and commercial sales.

Prior to the dominance of recorded music, commercial sheet music sales of individual songs were similarly promoted and tracked as singles and albums are now. For example, in 1894, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern released The Little Lost Child, which sold more than a million copies nationwide, based mainly on its success as an illustrated song, analogous to what later became music videos.

In music, a single is a type of release of a song recording of fewer tracks than an album (LP), typically one or two tracks. A single can be released for sale to the public in a variety of physical or digital formats. Singles may be standalone tracks or connected to an artist's album, and in the latter case would often have at least one single release before the album itself, called lead singles.

The single was defined in the mid-20th century with the 45 (named after its speed in revolutions per minute), a type of 7-inch sized vinyl record containing an A-side and a B-side, i.e. one song on each side. The single format was highly influential in pop music and the early days of rock and roll, and it was the format used for jukeboxes and preferred by younger populations in the 1950s and 1960s.

"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in a special issue of the magazine in 2003 and a related book in 2005.

Critics have accused the lists of lending disproportionate weight to artists of a particular ethnicity and gender. In the original list, most of the selections were albums by white male rock musicians, with the top position held by the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). In 2012, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of albums released up until the early 2000s.

"Frozen" is a song by American singer and songwriter Madonna from her seventh studio album, Ray of Light (1998). Maverick and Warner Bros. Records released it as the album's lead single on January 23, 1998. "Frozen" was written by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, who both produced it in collaboration with William Orbit. The downtempo electronica and pop ballad, which has a layered sound enhanced by synthesizers and strings, lyrically addresses a cold and emotionless man.

"Frozen" received acclaim from music critics, some of whom deemed it as a highlight from Ray of Light. The song was described as being a masterpiece, and its melodic beat and sound were defined as "cinematic". "Frozen" was also a global commercial success. In the United States, it became Madonna's sixth single to peak at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. In the United Kingdom, "Frozen" became Madonna's first single to debut at number one on the UK Singles Chart, while also reaching number one in Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Scotland and Spain, and the top-five elsewhere.

The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its "number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–1972), Billboard Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), Billboard Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and Billboard 200 Top Albums (1991–1992).

The chart is based mostly on sales—both at retail and digital – of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, the tracking week begins on Friday (to coincide with the Global Release Day of the music industry) and ends on Thursday. A new chart is published the following Tuesday, post dated to the Saturday of that week, four days later. The chart's streaming schedule is also tracked from Friday to Thursday. Digital downloads of albums are included in Billboard 200 tabulation. Albums that are not licensed for retail sale in the United States (yet purchased in the U.S. as imports) are not eligible to chart. A long-standing policy rendering titles that are sold exclusively by specific retail outlets (such as Walmart and Starbucks) ineligible for charting, was reversed on November 7, 2007, and took effect in the issue dated November 17, 2007.

In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) operates an awards program based on the certified number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards (see music recording certification). Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the record label must first request certification. The audit is conducted against net shipments after returns (most often an artist's royalty statement is used), which includes albums sold directly to retailers and one-stops, direct-to-consumer sales (music clubs and mail order) and other outlets.

Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product, such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper (tabloid), comic book, video game (box art), music album (album art), CD, videotape, DVD, or podcast. Cover art can include various things such as logos, symbols, images, colors, or anything that represents what is being sold or advertised. The art has a commercial function (i.e., to promote the product it is displayed on), but can also have an aesthetic function, and may be artistically connected to the product (such as with art by, or commissioned by, the creator of the product).

A CD single is a music single in the form of a compact disc (CD). Originally the CD single standard (as defined in the Red Book) was an 8 cm (3-inch) "mini CD" (CD3); later on the term referred to any single recorded onto a CD of any size, particularly the 12 cm (5-inch) "full-size" disc (CD5). From a technical viewpoint, a CD single is identical to any other audio CD. The format started gaining popularity in the early 1990s, but quickly declined in the early and mid 2000s, in favor of digital downloaded singles and CD albums.

Commercially released CD singles can vary in length from two songs (an A side and B side, in the tradition of 7-inch 45-rpm records) up to six songs like an EP, which would be marketed as a maxi single in some regions. Some contain multiple mixes of one or more songs (known as remixes), in the tradition of 12-inch vinyl singles, and in some cases, they may also contain a music video for the single itself (this is an enhanced CD) as well as occasionally a poster. Depending on the country of release, there may be limits on the number of songs and total length for sales to count in singles charts.

An internet leak is the unauthorized release of information over the internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such as books or albums. For example, a musical album is leaked if it has been made available to the public on the Internet before its official release date.

Record sales or music sales are activities related to selling music recordings (albums, singles, or music videos) through physical record shops or digital music stores. Record sales reached their peak in 1999, when 600 million people spent an average of $64 on records, achieving $40 billion in sales of recorded music.

Record sales started declining in the 21st century, which made artists rely on touring for most of their income. By 2019, record sales accounted for less than half of global recorded music revenue, overtaken by streaming. Following the inclusion of streaming into record charts in the mid-2010s, record sales are also referred to as traditional sales or pure sales.