For pop music, a prerequisite view is that folk songs are the pop music of the past, and pop songs are the folk songs of today.

In terms of specific acoustic characteristics, musical form (rhythm method - the cutting and combination of rhythm, melody method - different melodies), and even structure, as historical concepts with specific meanings, they do have Big difference. Folk songs are folk songs, and pop songs are pop songs. How can they be confused? I think we can start with a specific analysis of the concept of "pop music". What is "popular music"? Popular music styles are not fixed and unchanging. The popularity and spread of music are divided into time, space and depth (or intensity). First of all, from the perspective of time, the popular music styles in different historical periods are obviously different. In the classical era, classical music was the popular music of the time. This is from the perspective of music history. From the perspective of space, popular methods are also divided into closed and open. In a closed mountain village, folk songs are popular songs among the mountain people. This is from the perspective of ethnomusicology and music sociology. As for depth or intensity, there is no objective indicator. It refers to the degree to which people's subjective feelings and music form social resonance. This is entered from the perspective of music aesthetics and music psychology. From the perspective of the specific internal environment of music communication, there are many factors that affect music communication, including natural factors (gender, age, region, etc.) and social factors (occupation, status, education level, etc.). Some music is suitable for dissemination among young people in their twenties (such as rock music), while other music is suitable for dissemination among the more educated classes. Some music is suitable for dissemination in urban commercial venues such as bars, while others are suitable for rural areas. Because of this, some scholars have put forward the concept of focus, believing that in today's highly developed world of information and media, there is actually no undifferentiated integrated audience. "Folk songs are the popular music of the past, and popular songs are the folk songs of today." The past refers to traditional society, agricultural civilization, rural, and natural forms (still retaining the original form). Today, it refers to the use of modern scientific and technological means to manufacture speakers in modern society, industrial civilization, and cities. Foreign musicologists who study pop music once had a famous "imitation theory" view, which can be said to explain the essence of pop music in one sentence: pop music is essentially an imitation of traditional folk songs. Of course it is "deformed imitation", but be careful, if you don't imitate well, your flaws will be exposed, such as: "999 Roses" and "Dance of the Yi Nationality", "White Birch Forest" and Russian folk songs, "Song of a Hero" and "Wang Auntie" "Vat", sometimes the line between imitation and plagiarism is difficult to draw, and it becomes difficult to distinguish between others and me. Such examples abound.

From the historical perspective of the development of pop music, pop music itself also originated from folk songs. The essence of today's pop music is still folk songs - folk songs of the industrial era and urban folk songs. (Urbanization is an important feature of modernization.)