MU 320 AG - Themes in Popular Music
This course explores the cultural, social and political implications of continuously, emerging popular musical styles primarily in Western cultures. This course is taught using a thematic approach, analyzing popular musical styles within various theoretical discussions around technology, mass media, political economy, performance and listening practices, corporate control, locality, and globalization. Initially the notion of a musical text is situated through an analysis of conventional and unconventional musical discourse. This course promotes a critical approach, taking up the complex signifiers of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, and class, as they relate to popular music, and as part of an ongoing integrative framework. Students will be expected to master some basics of popular musical analysis (meter, structure, form, instrumentation, dynamics, timbre, phrasing, etc.)
