Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Arabic pop music
Summary
Arabic pop music or Arab pop music is a subgenre of pop music and Arabic music.
Arabic pop is mainly produced and originated in Cairo, Egypt; as Egyptian music genre is by far the most widespread within the region.
Also Beirut, Lebanon, and Gulf states come as secondary centers. It is an outgrowth of the Arabic film industry (mainly Egyptian movies), also predominantly located in Cairo. Since 2000, various locations in the Gulf countries have been producing Khaleeji pop music.
The primary style is a genre that synthetically combines pop melodies with elements of different Arabic regional styles, called ughniyah (أغنية) or in English "song". It uses a wide variety of instruments, including electric guitars or electronic keyboards, as well as traditional Middle Eastern instruments like the oud, darbukka or qanun and many more.
Another characteristic aspect of Arabic pop is the overall tone and mood of the songs. The majority of the songs are in a minor key, and the lyrics tend to focus on longing, melancholy, strife, and generally love issues.
The road to Arab stardom is very different from the one in the Western world. Traditionally, a certain producer creates the full song from music to lyrics, no matter the talents of the performer. Most music is recorded in studios as is Western Pop music. But also several live albums have been popular, such as with Asalah and Egyptian legend Umm Kulthum.
Music has been released as single records, later replaced with cassettes in the album format, and by the late 1990s, and 2000s, additionally on CDs. Singles were not released separately, but just airplay is common. By the mid 2010s, they have been increasingly released on streaming services which allowed singles to be released again as soon as they become available.
There are no official charts or certifications due to the informal nature of the business and bootlegging.
In the mid 2000s, Ringtone charts were occasionally made, but due to bootlegging, they were supposedly highly inaccurate.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.