Popular Music History 1

This course explores the history of popular music (primarily in the United States and Britain) from roughly 1880 through the 1950s. As a matter of course, we will distinguish between music that is popular and a more refined notion of popular music (that is, music that manipulates reproduction and commodity culture to achieve widespread distribution)—hence, in our terms, popular music begins with the revolutionary changes in music publication that took place in the 1880s. However, even this is a slippery notion insofar as the material that was published derived from older distribution networks (particularly surrounding the institution of minstrelsy) and therefore our survey will begin with the rise of minstrelsy in 1829. We will examine the impact of developing technologies (phonograph, gramophone, radio, television, LP) not only in the “sound” of popular music but also in the very birth and development of our more specific notion of popular music. Music ranging from late minstrelsy and Tin Pan Alley to the beginnings of Rock n’ Roll and modern Country will be discussed with respect to cultural developments, uses of technology, the economic considerations of the music industry, and the political climate in which such music participated and was produced.