Is "mainstream pop music" just a genre or genres?
Whatever it means, can I use it as below?
What kind of mainstream pop music do you like?
What kinds of mainstream pop music do you like?
Learn English – What does “mainstream pop music” mean? And is it singular or plural
meaningphrase-usageword-choice
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The person who wrote about hammering a socket onto a locking lug and popping it off probably should have more precisely referred to locking lug nuts, which is what the original poster meant by locking lugs. Here are pictures (from alltradetools.com, jegs.com, and elementauto.com) of a small socket set and several kinds of locking lug nuts:
Note that sockets are made to fit fairly closely onto certain sizes of nuts. The reason for hammering a socket on is to force a slightly-too-small socket onto the locking lug. Apparently that will work on some of the locking lug nuts shown above, but some will be immune to that approach.
Once the socket is firmly attached to the lug nut, by applying enough torque to the socket (via a cheater bar) one can break the lock, or break the lug the lug nut is screwed onto; ie can “pop off” the nut.
According to the OED, the s in pops is:
A shortened form of the hypocoristic dim. suffix -sy, added to the same classes of words, as Babs, Toots, ducks, moms.
Also, the earliest citation in the OED for pops is from 1893:
Yes, Libby; while you have been galivanting around Europe gettin' your edication, your old Pops has been peggin' away until he has grown rich as mud.
Puck (N.Y.)
(In comparison, according to this answer, toots is first attested in 1891.)
Best Answer
There is not one universally agreed upon taxonomy of musical genres (though there have been efforts to create one). Most taxonomies recognize that musical genres can be classified in a hierarchical system. For example, the digital music store at Amazon.com has a top level genre (or "root genre") called Pop, and within that there are eleven sub-genres, including Dance Pop, Soft Pop, Euro Pop, Pop Rock, and Adult Alternative.
"Mainstream Pop Music" probably equates to Pop Rock, by Amazon's taxonomy.
To answer your question, music is a mass noun. Unlike count nouns, mass nouns have no plural form and cannot by used with numbers.
And yes, you can use either kind or kinds with music.
But here is another possible way to formulate your sentence: