1) an understanding of the major trends in contemporary popular music;
2) an appreciation of the social and cultural factors that have shaped contemporary popular music;
3) an understanding of the stylistic and technical elements characteristic of contemporary popular music;
4) an appreciation of the impact of evolving recording technologies on contemporary popular music.

Weekly overview and readings placed on MyUni.

The Music Library located in the Hartley building is an excellent source for music, literature and
recordings: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/branch/eml/
• Music Resources Guide
The Music Resources Guide contains quick links to key music databases for scholarly research and
online listening. It also contains links to websites of publicly available online scores, collected editions,
and professional associations. Here, too, you can find a regularly updated list of new books, scores, CDs
and DVDs available in the Elder Music Library: http://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/music.
Oxford Music Online is a portal that enables searching in Grove Music Online and other Oxford
reference content in the one location. Students can access Oxford Music Online which houses Grove
music online through the Music Resources Guide: http://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/music
Grove music online [electronic resource] can also be located as a title search through the library
catalogue.
Page 3 of 10
Elder Conservatorium Music Referencing Guide:
http://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/content.php?pid=411678&sid=3365050
e-learning resources - Students are encouraged to make use of the excellent online resources
available through the Conservatorium’s subscription to “e-learning resources”. In addition to
comprehensive information that is clearly presented, there are numerous practice questions for aural and
theoretical questions, as well as a wide range of other support information. The e-learning resources
website is located at: www.e-lr.com

• Selected Books and Book Chapters
(NB You DO NOT have to consult all of these – they are suggestions ONLY)
Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture (New York: Routledge, 2007).
Bayles, Martha. Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music (New
York: The Free Press, 1994).
Bennett, H. Stith. On Becoming a Rock Musician (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 1980).
Blaine, Hal. Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew (Alma: Rebeats Books, 2003).
Bobbitt, Richard. Harmonic Technique in the Rock Idiom: The Theory and Practice of Rock Harmony
(Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth, 1976).
Brown, Mick. Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound: The Rise and Fall Of Phil Spector (London: Bloomsbury, 2007).
Burgess, Richard. The Art of Record Production (London: Omnibus Press, 1997).
Buskin, Richard. Inside Tracks (New York: Avon Books, 1999).
Chanan, Michael. Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music (New York:
Verso, 1995).
Clarke, Donald. The Rise and Fall of Popular Music (London: Penguin, 1995).
Cogan, Jim and William Clark. Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2003).
Covach, John Rudolph and Graeme Boone. Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Cowen, Tyler. In Praise of Commercial Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).
Crouch, Kevin and Tanja. Sun King: The Life and Times of Sam Phillips, the Man Behind Sun Records
(Cornwall U.K.: Piatkus, 2008).
Cunningham, Mark. Good Vibrations: A History of Record Production (London: Sanctuary, 1998).
Day, Timothy. A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2001).
Doyle, Peter. Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, 1900- 1960 (Middletown Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2005).
Eisenberg, Evan. The Recording Angel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
Elborough, Travis. The Long Player Goodbye (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2008).
Fellezs, Kevin. Birds of Fire Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (London: Duke University
Press, 2011).
Fink, Robert. Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice (Berkley: University of California Press, 2005).
Faulk, Barry. British Rock Modernism 1967-77 (Ashgate: Farnham, 2010).
Palmer, Tony. All You Need is Love (London: Chappell, 1976)
Frith, Simon. Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Frith, Simon. Sound Effects: Youth Leisure, and the Politics of Rock’n’Roll (New York: Random House,
1981).
Frith, Simon. Will Straw and John Street (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Frith, Simon. Taking Popular Music Seriously (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound Of The City: The Rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Aylesbury: Sphere Books, 1971).
Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Gitler, Ira. Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1987).
Gould, Jonathan. Can’t Buy Me Love (New York: Random House, 2007).
Gracyk, Theodore. Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock (London: Duke University Press, 1996).
Hicks, Michael. Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1999).
Johnstone, Nick. Melody Maker History of 20th Century Pop Music.(London: Bloomsbury, 1999).
Jones, Dylan. iPod, Therefore I Am: Thinking Inside The White Box (New York: Bloomsbury, 1995).
Jones, LeRoi. Black Music (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1969).
Kaliss, Jeff. I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone (New York:
Backbeat Books, 2008).
Katz, Mark. Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2005).
Katz, Mark. The Phonograph Effect: The Influence of Recording on Listener, Performer, Composer, 1900 -1940 (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1999).
Kusek, David and Gerd Leonhard. The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution
(Boston: Berklee Press, 2005).
Licks, Dr. Standing In The Shadows Of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James
Jamerson (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1989).
Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
Lysloff, Rene and Leslie Gay. (eds.), Music and Technoculture (Middletown Connecticut: Wesleyan
University Press, 2003).
MacDonald, Ian. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Pimlico, 2005).
Marvin, Elizabeth West and Richard Hermann, (eds.), Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945:
Essays and Analytical Studies (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1995).
Massey, Howard. Behind the Glass: Top Producers Tell How They Craft the Hits (San Francisco: Miller Freeman, 2000).
Middleton, Richard. Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
Middleton, Richard. Studying Popular Music (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1990/2002).
Milner, Greg. Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music (New York: Faber and
Faber, 2009).
Moore, Allan (ed.). Analyzing Popular Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Morton. David. L. Sound Recording: the Life Story of a Technology (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006).
Murray, Charles Shaar. Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and the Post-War Rock'n'Roll Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).
Negus, Keith. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (New York: Routledge, 1999).
Nicholson, Stuart. Jazz Rock:A History (New York: Schirmer, 1998).
Nolan, Scott Allen. Louis Armstrong: The Life, Music and Screen Career (Jefferson: McFarland &
Company, 2004).
Paddison, Max. Adorno, Modernism and Mass Culture: Essays on Critical Theory and Music (London:
Kahn and Averill, 1996).
Palmer, Robert. Rock and Roll: An Unruly History (New York: Harmony Books, 1995).
Posner, Gerald. Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power (New York: Random House, 2005).
Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978-84 (London: Faber, 2005).
Reynolds, Simon. Retromania; Pop Culture’s Addiction To Its Own Past (London: Faber, 2011).
Reynolds, Simon. Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1990)
Reynolds, Simon. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock’n’Roll (Cambridge: Harvard, 1996)
Reynolds, Simon. Energy flash : a journey through rave music and dance culture (London : Picador,
1998).
Roberts, Jim. How the Fender Bass Changed the World (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2001).
Santoro, Gene. Dancing In Your Head: Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Beyond (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994).
Santoro, Gene. Highway 61 Revisited: The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Country Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968).
Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Scott, Derek, (ed.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Musicology (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).
Shipton, Alyn. New History of Jazz (New York: Continuum, 2007).
Shuker, Roy. Understanding Popular Music (London: Routledge, 2001).
Simon, George T. The Big Bands (New York: Macmillan, 1967).
Slutsky, Allan. Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 1989).
Stuessy, Joe and Scott Lipscomb. Rock & Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development (New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1999).
Swiss,T. and J. Sloop, and A. Herman, (eds.). Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary
Theory (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998).
Taylor, Harold Keith. The Motown Music Machine (Detroit: Jadmeg Music, 2004)
Toynbee, Jason. Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions (London: Arnold, 2000).
Waksman, Steve. Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience
(Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999).
Wald, Elijah. How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Walser, Robert. Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. John Covach and Graeme M. Boone
(eds.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Watson, Ben. Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics Of Poodle Play
(London: Quartet Books, 1994).
West, Cornel. ‘On Afro-American Music: From Bebop to Rap’, The Cornel West Reader (Basic Books:
New York, 1999), pp. 474-484.
Witkin, Robert. Adorno on Music (London: Routledge, 1998).

Learning materials and assessment will be placed on MyUni – refer to http://myuni.adelaide.edu.au.

The course structure and content is delivered through a range of classes and materials. Class delivery
modes include a weekly seminar, and two tutorials. The classes in this course use a format where
students are presented with theoretical content through the seminar. The theoretical content creates a topic framework that students will expand through discussions of set readings in tutorial 1, and through listening and analysis of set works through tutorial 2. Students will also be expected to further expand the topics presented through using out-of-class resources in their own time. The resources will compliment, reinforce and extend the concepts presented.

The classes provide theoretical explanations of musical trends and their social and cultural context, and in the context of technological development. Classes will address various styles and genres or contemporary popular music.

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

In addition to the required contact hours, students are expected to play an active role in the practice,
refinement and consolidation of their knowledge and understanding. For each hour of this course
students will need to spend on average an additional minimum of 3 - 4 hours per week on readings,
practice, self-initiated learning and research in order to pass the course.

This list is intended as a guide, and may change in response to needs arising during the semester.
Further detail regarding weekly content can be found on MyUni.

Semester 2 Topics

Week 1 Funk and Other Hybrids
Week 2 The Rise of AOR
Week 3 The Reaction: Punkand New Wave
Week 4 It Could Only Happen Here: The Rise of Oz Rock
Week 5 1980s Pop: MTV and Its Legacy
Week 6 Sampling: From Musique Concrète to Skrillex and Beyond
Week 71990s Regional Styles: Grunge etc.
Week 8 Britpop
MID SEMESTER BREAK
Week 9 Dance Music from Disco and Acid House to Rave
Week 10 Dance Music part 2
Week 11 Class Presentations; Music in the Internet Age
Week 12 Class Presentations; Retromania

Annotated Bibliography 15%
Class Presentation 15%
Essay 35%
Exam 35%

Formative Assessment
Classes will contain embedded formative assessment that may include tasks such as quizzes,
student presentations, in-class exercises and homework that will enable students to engage with
the practical and theoretical concepts presented in order to complete their summative
assessments.

Expectation & Penalty
As per Conservatorium policy, active and positive participation in 100% of classes is expected. Any student who attends less than 100% of required classes without approved leave may be subject to a 5(five) mark penalty for each unapproved absence. The penalties will be applied to the final totalpercentage mark for the year for the relevant component i.e. after all other assessments have beencompleted and calculated. Arrival after the scheduled starting time or departure before the scheduledfinishing time may, at the lecturer or Co-ordinator’s discretion, be regarded as an unapproved absence.

Leave
The Conservatorium recognises that extenuating circumstances may occasionally affect a student’sability to participate in a rehearsal, workshop, class, lecture, tutorial or performance. In such cases leavemay, upon application using the leave form (available from the Music Office Hartley Building G05), beapproved by the relevant staff member.

Work submitted after the due date will not be accepted unless accompanied by a valid leave
certificate.

Refer to MyUni for due dates.

• Annotated Bibliography (15% of total mark for semester)
Word-count: 1000

Students are asked to provide an annotated bibliographic survey relating either to a lecture topic
presented as part of the series, or on a topic of their choice, which may be the final essay topic.
Students will identify and cite correctly between 10 and15 separate entries, a maximum of five of which can be online resources. The annotation will give a considered summary/critique of the given entry, and outline its relevance to the topic selected. The amount of words used for each annotation will be proportionate to the amount of entries critiqued – e.g. 10 entries x 100 words = 1000. (The actual citation is not included in the word-count).

Bibliography and references are to be cited according to either MLA or Harvard styles, as described in the Elder Conservatorium Music Referencing Guide:
http://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/content.php?pid=411678&sid=3365050

• Class Presentation (15% of total mark for semester)
During Weeks 11 and 12 students will present a SHORT (ca.5 minutes) tutorial to the class on their
chosen essay topic. The object of the exercise is to gain experience in presenting information in a public forum. It will also provide an opportunity for the presenter to gain feedback and advice on their essay.
Marks will be awarded for:
1) Adhering to the allotted time
2) Clarity and concision
3) Quality of the ideas presented

• Essay (35% of total mark for semester)
Word-count: 1500 (NOT including bibliography and references)

Essay topics. You are free to choose your own topic, AS LONG as it is relevant to the musical genres
and timeframe covered in the seminars. YOU MUST obtain the approval of Mark Carroll for your topic.

• Exam (35% of total mark for semester)
A combined repertoire listening and short written answer exam, 90 minutes in duration. Students will be asked to identify ten aural excerpts by title, performer, and decade. The excerpts will be drawn from music/recordings played and discussed during the semester. Of those ten, students will be asked to write an expanded paragraph for four of their choice, outlining the broader historical, stylistic and technical contexts for each.