POP MUSIC/MSL241

The module starts by introducing some key ideas about the intersections of music and identity. It explores areas such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality. This may include, for example, ideas about authenticity and hybridity in musical forms largely through the study of 'black' music; the consumption of music; and subcultural theory in relation to work on mods, punk and New Romantics demonstrating how music and style may be used in constructing or affirming identities. The role that contemporary dance culture played in British society during the late 1980s and 1990s will be investigated with reference to the importance of image in teen pop and links between music, magazines, newspapers, radio and television.