Pop Music vs Nursery Rhymes?

How important is Pop Music in your practice?

The recently published report 'Engaging hard to reach parents in early years music-making' found that popular music is often ignored in early years music provision.

In September, Sumi Hollingworth also published an interesting blog that highlighted some key issues around pop music.

This subject came up again yesterday, when I noticed that some papers (here is an example from the Daily Mail) picked up on a survey that asked parents about the use of pop music for young children. I was intrigued by the way this was reported on, but thought it was interesting to read that singing pop songs to their children was more common amongst the participating parents, than singing nursery rhymes.

One point made is an obvious one: Pop music is more present and therefore the mums and dads feel more confident singing those songs.

This brings me to the question of how pop music is used in early years music-making? If it isn't used, how could it be used?

What are your thoughts? Have you been using Pop Music with Under 5s? Why? Why not?