Can popular music ever really be unplugged?

The straight answer to this question is no, the reason why some may believe there is a possibility is because of their interpretation of the definition of the word ‘unplugged’, they may think it means acoustic music no matter whether its recorded.

The have been acoustic artists in the charts and will continue to be but even these artists had to use technology to make music to become popular, by using amps and recording technology, if we talk about the actual music being unplugged, I guess it could be said that acoustic music that becomes popular comes from ‘unplugged’ roots but I believe that is us far as ‘unplugged’ music will become popular, even with live recorded singles or albums that chart, these are not ‘unplugged’ as technology were still used to produced them. In a world with no development of music technology, ‘unplugged music’ may have been popular music.

What it Popular music?

The term popular music, has changed its definition over the years, for example the word 'popularis' meaning belonging to the people, to it changing in the 16th century meaning 'low/common', to its 18th century definition of being 'widely favoured', In my opinion I think people tend to classify 'popular/pop music' as a genre and having this idea that pop music has to have a certain sound, and in recent times concentrating on commercial music reality shows and exclusively labelling that music as 'pop'. I believe this is not the case as songs from many genres become 'popular' not forgetting music which is 'popular' in other genres in other parts of the world or successful 'popular' music in specialist niche markets, that would not be commercially successful in other parts of the world or in the mainstream market but is 'popular' in their own market, and considered popular by its listeners.