A catch-all term for music that is created largely or totally with technology and studio equipment, for instance synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and the virtual equivalents of those now available for home computers.
Producers began taking a larger role in the creation of recorded music in the 1960s. For instance, there are albums by the Beatles and The Beach Boys that were created with significant help from technology. After a basic song was worked out and recorded, additional instruments were added, tape effects were introduced, overdubs made, tracks filtered, etc.
By the 1970s some bands, such as Queen, were producing recorded songs that they could not reproduce live (for instance, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which uses countless overdubs of Freddie Mercury vocals and Brian May guitar work to create its orchestral and choral effects).
In the 1980s electronic music began to be regularly “produced” (rather than composed and performed) by djs and producers, using electronic instruments and samples. Eventually this kind of composition could be done by ordinary people on computers, using software versions of drum machines, samplers, and synthesizers.
Today much pop music is at least partly produced (programmed and created electronically, not performed live and recorded from the floor), but this is a practice that is barely half a century old. Before the 1970s, music was performed live, then later recorded. Now we have found new technological ways of creating those sounds (and many more!).