Is pop music knowledge all trivia?

Let's say you are a teacher and want to put together a curriculum on popular music. Of course there are related topics like music theory and technological aspects that are important knowledge. But other than that, what is the core knowledge of popular music that doesn't drift into trivia? What questions can you put on a test?

I find that it's almost impossible to make general statements about popular music because the evolution of music is all so intertwined. Musical innovations that seem obvious turn out be more complicated upon closer examination and the artist who gets credited for an innovation was often the most popular but not technically the first.

Everyone should know The Beatles right? But what facts can you say about The Beatles without being overgeneralizing or without drifting into trivia? The Beatles were pretty prolific and released over 200 songs, that's 10 hours in total, the equivalent of two Wagner operas. So by focusing on specific pop songs, we inevitably float into trivia land.

Maybe there is general knowledge about genres. Jazz came out of New Orleans. Hip Hop evolved out of the Bronx. Do we dare to put that on a test? Upon closer examination it's all a lot more complicated and there were many other influences.

Since it's popular music, maybe we can just focus on what's popular. The three most successful artists of the 90s were Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Garth Brooks. Does that tell us everything we need to know about the 90s? How many artists should we include until we have a good representation of the 90s?

So what do you think? Is there any core knowledge in pop music? Or is pop music knowledge all trivia?