Introductory description

During the early C20th various musical forms, which drew on local musical cultures, many of which were African-American, came together to remake popular music as a dynamic and vibrant force. As the century progressed popular music became an important factor in popular culture more generally, influencing, among other things, politics, media, leisure and fashion. Popular music’s importance has long been the subject of debate with criticism from commentators and intellectuals, including the Frankfurt School’s ‘Kulturindustrie’ critique which saw it as commodified entertainment, whereas others, notably Eric Hobsbawm, saw popular music as more complex and at times both hegemonic and counter hegemonic.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Autumn Term

1. Understanding popular music: Theory, 'Authenticity', Genre and History
2. The Making of the Blues
3. Can this white boy sing the blues? Elvis
4. Crosstown Traffic: the blues, rock, race and gender
5. It came from New Orleans? Trajectories, myths and the ‘canonical’ view of Jazz
6. Reading Week
7. Jazz and ‘popular’ music: Swing, Dance, Radio, Gender and the significance of Duke Ellington
8. ‘Now’s the Time’: World War II and the emergence of Bebop
9. Fables of Faubus’: Jazz and politics
10. Miles Ahead: Jazz, Cinema and Miles Davis

Spring Term

1. ‘Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’: Soul Music
2. Making sense of Motown
3. The Beatles and America
4. ‘There’s a Riot Goin’ On’: Black music and the ‘troubled’ 1970s
5. 'Many Rivers to Cross': Reggae
6. Reading Week
7. Hip-Hop: Origins, Gangsta and Commercialisation
8. 'Fear of a Black Nation' The Politics of hip-hop
9. Grime: Society and Politics
10. Popular music, the everyday and the internet

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to the role of popular music in the twentieth century.
• Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the role of popular music in the twentieth century and the main developments in African American popular music
• Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources (including literary, visual, aural, and material sources) relating to African American popular music
• Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, about the role of popular music in the twentieth century

Indicative reading list

• Theodor Adorno, Writings on Music (ed. Richard Leepart) (2002)
• Michael T. Bertrand, Race, Rock and Elvis (2000)
• Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (2006)
• Scott DeVeaux, ‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography’, Black American Literature Forum, 25, 3 (1991)
• Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009)
• Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, That’s the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader (2004)
• Steven P. Garabedian, ‘The Blues Image in the White Mind: Blues Historiography and White Romantic Racialism’, Popular Music and Society, 37,4 (2014)
• Marybeth Hamilton, In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions (2007)
• Meta DuEwa Jones, The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word (New Black Studies Series) (2011)
• Robin D.G. Kelley, Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012)
• Robin D,G. Kelley, Yo Mama’s Dysfunktional: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997)
• Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds; Civil Rights Call out to Jazz and Africa (2007)
• Allan Moore, ‘Authenticity as authentication’, Popular Music 21, 2 (May 2002)
• George, Nelson, Hip Hop America (2005)
• Francis Newton (Eric Hobsbawm), The Jazz Scene (1959)
• Robert G. O'Meally et al. (eds.), Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (2004)
• Tricia Rose, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk about when We Talk about Hip Hop and why it Matters (2008)
• Suzanne E. Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (1999)
• Sherrie Tucker, ‘Deconstructing the Jazz Tradition: The “Subjectless Subject” of the New Jazz Studies’, in David Ake and Charles Hiroshi Garrett (eds) Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and its Boundaries (2012)
• Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations Since 1945(1997)
• Craig S. Watkins, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Popular Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (2005)
• Craig Werner, A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America (1999)
• Richard Williams, Blue Moment: Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music (2010)

Selected Listening

• Bessie Smith, Collection (1989)/ Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues Singers (1994)
• Elvis Presley, Complete Sun Sessions (1976)
• Howlin Wolf, London Sessions (1972)/ Led Zeppelin II (1969)
• Louis Armstrong, The Essential Louis Armstrong (1979)
• Duke Ellington, The Essential Duke Ellington (2010)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.