Turkish pop music had its humble beginnings in the late 1950s with Turkish cover versions of a wide range of imported popular styles, including rock and roll, tango, and jazz. This wide collection of songs were labelled as "Hafif-batı" (light western) music and included a wide range of artists, such as Frank Sinatra to Doris Day, Nat King Cole to the Everly Brothers, from Elvis Presley to Paul Anka.

Turkish artists began to produce English language cover versions of these songs and write their own too, and the first original song of this type is credited to Erol Büyükburç in 1958 for his song "Little Lucy", which was released as a 10-inch single known as a taş plak.

With the emergence of 7-inch (45 rpm) single records in Turkey soon after, listening and distribution of this type of media was easier and thus the sound became more popular.