762 articles
Oxygène
Oxygène, Jean-Michel Jarre's third studio album, is a six-part instrumental electronic work recorded in his Paris apartment kitchen in 1976 on an eight-track machine, released on Disques Motors; "Oxygène (Part IV)" hit number 1 in France, and the album sold roughly 12-18 million copies.
Paisley Underground
Paisley Underground was an early-to-mid-1980s Los Angeles rock scene known for blending 1960s psychedelic sounds with punk energy. Core bands included The Dream Syndicate and The Bangles.
Papa Was a Rollin' Stone
"Papa Was a Rollin' Stone": Motown soul song by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, first cut by the Undisputed Truth (1972), made famous by the Temptations' 12-minute All Directions version, a 1972 pop No. 1 and three-time 1973 Grammy winner.
Paradise Theatre (album)
Paradise Theatre (album), Styx's tenth studio album (A&M, January 19, 1981), a concept album about Chicago's Paradise Theatre; Styx's only Billboard number-one album, with "The Best of Times" (#3) and "Too Much Time on My Hands" (#9).
Parental Advisory
Parental Advisory is the voluntary RIAA warning label for US recordings with strong language or violence, sex, or substance abuse, created November 1, 1985 after the PMRC campaign and standardized in 1990.
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk) is George Clinton's funk collective of two bands, Parliament and Funkadelic, sharing one lineup and different labels; 22 albums 1970-1981, Mothership stage shows, 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.
Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar, born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski in 1953, is an American rock singer who rose to fame in 1979 and won four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Performance.
Patrick Simmons
Patrick Simmons (born 1948, Aberdeen, Washington) is a founding guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter of the Doobie Brothers; he wrote their first No. 1, "Black Water," is the only member on every album, and was inducted into the Rock (2020) and Songwriters (2025) Halls of Fame.
Peaches (musician)
Peaches, born Merrill Beth Nisker (b. 1966), is a Canadian electroclash and electro-punk musician from Toronto based in Berlin, known for The Teaches of Peaches (2000), "Fuck the Pain Away," sex-positive queer feminist lyrics, and the 2026 album No Lube So Rude.
Perturbator
Perturbator, aka James Kent (born 1993, Paris), is a French darksynth producer active since 2012, known for Dangerous Days, the Hotline Miami OSTs, and the 2025 album Age of Aquarius on Nuclear Blast.
Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend, born 1945 in Chiswick, London, is The Who's guitarist and principal songwriter, creator of Tommy, Quadrophenia, and Lifehouse (which became Who's Next), known for windmill strumming and guitar smashing, and a solo artist and author.
Peter Cetera
Peter Cetera (Peter Paul Cetera), born 1944 in Chicago, is a singer, bassist, and songwriter, former frontman of the band Chicago and solo adult contemporary artist known for "Glory of Love" and "If You Leave Me Now."
Peter Wolf
Peter Wolf is an American singer, painter, and former radio disc jockey. He is known for his solo career and his work with the J. Geils Band.
Pin Ups
Pin Ups: David Bowie's seventh studio album, released 19 October 1973 on RCA; an all-covers collection of 1964–67 London club favorites, the last Spiders from Mars album, UK No. 1, reissued for its 2023 50th anniversary.
Pinball Wizard
Pinball Wizard is a 1969 Pete Townshend song by The Who from the rock opera Tommy, about a deaf, blind pinball prodigy; UK #4 single, later a 1975 film scene, Broadway musical, and namesake of pinball machines and games.
Playback singer
Playback singer, also known as Hindi pārśvagāyak, is a vocalist whose songs are studio-recorded for Indian films. The tradition began in 1935 when actors performed to the pre-recorded tracks.
Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics: music built from pre-existing recordings whose sources stay recognizable; term coined by John Oswald in his 1985 Toronto essay, distinct from sampling, hip-hop, and sound collage; descended from musique concrète.
Poison Ivy (musician)
Poison Ivy (Kristy Marlana Wallace, born 1953), American guitarist of the Cramps, not the DC character or Dutch band; co-founded psychobilly pioneers with Lux Interior, played Gretsch 6120, produced A Date with Elvis.
Pompatus
Pompatus is a nonce word popularized by the Steve Miller Band in the 1970s. It stems from a mishearing of "puppetutes" in the 1954 doo-wop song "The Letter."
Pop
Pop (pop music), from "popular", is a broad commercial genre defined by strong lead-vocal melody, verse-chorus structures, short songs and wide appeal, distinct from rock's album-based, adult-oriented tradition and measured by chart and streaming data.
Pop music
Pop music: mainstream, wide-audience popular music shaped by publishers, record companies, and copyright; three stylistic revolutions (1964, 1983, 1991); third-largest U.S. streaming genre.
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre that blends rock's rhythmic energy and instrumentation with pop's catchy melodies, concise song structures, and polished production, dating to the mid-1960s.
Pop screamo
Pop screamo, also called mall screamo, is a 2000s post-hardcore subgenre fusing screamo, emo pop, and metalcore, with screamed verses and clean choruses, peaking commercially around 2004 with bands like the Used and Thursday.
Pop-punk
Pop-punk: punk rock fused with pop hooks and power chords, originating with the Ramones, Buzzcocks and Undertones in the late 1970s, breaking mainstream with Green Day's Dookie and The Offspring's Smash in 1994, peaking with blink-182, and revived in the 2020s by Machine Gun Kelly.
Popular music
Popular music: commercially disseminated music of wide appeal, distinct from art and folk music. Spans recorded sound from 1857, radio, vinyl, CDs, and streaming; 2025 global revenues $31.7 billion, 2.8 trillion streams in H1 2026.
Post-grunge
Post-grunge is a 1990s alternative rock and hard rock style from bands that followed Seattle grunge's mainstream breakthrough around 1992, imitating grunge's distorted guitars and introspection with polished, radio-friendly production; key acts include Bush, Candlebox, Creed, and Nickelback.
Post-hardcore
Post-hardcore is a rock subgenre descending from hardcore punk, arising in early-1980s Washington, DC and the US underground; known for dynamic song structures, melodic and screamed vocals, and ties to emo, screamo, and metalcore.
Post-noise
Post-noise is a music-criticism term for currents following noise music: Stephen Graham's wide noise subgenre loosening noise orthodoxy, an informal tag for newer noise rock, and Tremblay's term for post-radical noise practice, linked to hypnagogic pop and vaporwave.
Post-punk
Post-punk: late-1970s/early-1980s genre growing out of punk rock, also called the post-punk era; kept DIY ethics but added experimental art-school sounds, dub and funk rhythms, and melodic bass, distinct from new wave's pop orientation.
Post-rock
Post-rock is experimental rock using rock instruments for texture and crescendos rather than riffs; term coined by Simon Reynolds in 1994, with key records Talk Talk's Laughing Stock, Slint's Spiderland, and Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die.