Analysis of Popular Music - Detailseite

This course introduces students to the analysis and interpretation of popular music. The course is centered around innovative practices of close reading that have emerged over the past two decades in the wake of paradigm shifts and repertorial expansions in musicology and music theory. Students will encounter the broad range of ways in which music scholars have addressed popular music and become knowledgeable about some of the most commonly recurring issues in its interpretation. They will also learn skills for forming their own critical interpretations, including the ability to identify and explain significant features of individual popular works. A wide range of musical styles will be discussed, although the course is not intended as a historical survey.

Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. “On Popular Music.” In Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno, edited by Susan H. Gillespie and Richard D. Leppert, 437–69. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Attas, Robin. 2015. “Form as Process: The Buildup Introduction in Popular Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 37 (2): 275–96.

Bennett, Samantha. 2018. Modern Records, Maverick Methods: Technology and Process in Popular Music Record Production 1978–2000. London: Bloomsbury. Ch. 7.

Biamonte, Nicole. 2010. “Triadic Modal and Pentatonic Patterns in Rock Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 32, no. 2: 95–110.

Burns, Lori. 2000. “Analytic Methodologies for Rock Music: Harmonic and Voice-Leading Strategies in Tori Amos’s ‘Crucify.’” In Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of Critical and Analytical Essays, edited by Walter Everett, 213–46. New York: Routledge.

Butler, Mark J. 2003. Taking it seriously: Intertextuality and authenticity in two covers by the Pet Shop Boys. Popular Music 22, no. 1 (January): 1–19.

Butler, Mark J. 2006. Unlocking the groove: Rhythm, meter, and musical design in electronic dance music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ch. 5, pp. 179­–83, and Ch. 6, complete.

Capuzzo, Guy. 2009. “Sectional Tonality and Sectional Centricity in Rock Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 31 (1): 157–74.

Covach, John. 2005. “Form in Rock Music: A Primer.” In Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, ed. Deborah Stein, 65–76. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dockwray, Ruth, and Allan F. Moore. 2010. “Configuring the Sound-Box 1965–1972.” Popular Music 29 (2): 181–97.

Doll, Christopher. 2011. “Rockin’ Out: Expressive Modulation in Verse-Chorus Form.” Music Theory Online 17 (3).

Everett, Walter. 2009. The foundations of rock: From “Blue Suede Shoes” to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”. New York: Oxford University Press. Ch. 6, “Phrases and Sections.”

Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ch. 1.

Kajikawa, Loren. 2015. Sounding Race in Rap Songs. Oakland: University of California Press. Ch. 2, “ ‘Rebel Without a Pause’: Public Enemy Revolutionizes the Break.”

Lavengood, Megan L. 2020. “The Cultural Significance of Timbre Analysis: A Case Study in 1980s Pop Music, Texture, and Narrative.” Music Theory Online 26 (3). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.3/mto.20.26.3.lavengood.html.

Miyakawa, Felicia M. 2005. Five Percenter Rap: God Hop’s Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission. Profiles in Popular Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ch. 4: “Flow, Layering, Rupture, and Groove.”

Moore, Allan F. 2002. “Authenticity as Authentication.” Popular Music 21 (2): 209–23.

Moore, Allan F. 2012. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Nettl, Bruno. 1983. “I Can’t Say a Thing until I’ve Seen the Score.” In The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts, 65–81.

Ohriner, Mitchell. 2019. Flow: The Rhythmic Voice in Rap Music. New York: Oxford University Press. Ch. 1, “Flow in Rap Music: Sources of Confusion and a Strategy for Clarity.” Ch. 7, “Flow, Groove, and Beat in Black Thought.”

Spicer, Mark. 2017. “Fragile, Emergent, and Absent Tonics in Pop and Rock Songs.” Music Theory Online 23 (2). http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.17.23.2/mto.17.23.2.spicer.html

Walser, Robert. 1995. “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy.” Ethnomusicology 39: 193–217.

Winkler, Peter. 1997. “Writing ghost notes: The poetics and politics of transcription.” In Keeping score: Music, disciplinarity, culture, 169–203.

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