Case Studies

This course is a kind of capstone (alongside Prof. Pieslak’s Pop Music Composition course) for the Popular Music Studies program at the City College of New York City. Each semester that the course is offered, I begin with two weeks (four sessions) exploring some philosophical and theoretical issues in the study of popular music. We then proceed to six “case studies” for four sessions each. The cases have included individual artists (Beyoncé), groups (Black Sabbath, the Supremes), or larger issues (the role of digitization and its effects on the modern music scene). Every semester I include at least one case study on hip hop (Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, jazz and conscious rap), rock music (Black Sabbath, Grateful Dead), a female artist or group (Beyoncé, the Supremes), a country artist or group (the Carter Family, Bill Monroe), a non-US form of popular music (Bossa nova, Highlife music of Ghana), and a pre-WW2 genre or group (the Carter Family, late Minstrelsy).