This course will survey the history of rock and R&B (broadly defined as a conglomeration of loosely connected popular musical genres) from their origins in the 1940s and '50s through the early 1990s. Three parallel goals will be pursued: to become literate in the full range of their constituent traditions; to experience the workings of the music industry by producing group projects; and to become familiar with a variety of theoretical approaches to the music, confronting issues such as economics of the industry, race relations and identities, youth culture and its relationship to American popular culture, and popular music as a creative, cultural, and social force. For the midterm and final projects, the class will form a music industry in microcosm (musicians, journalists, producers, video and sound engineers, visual artists), resulting in audio and video releases and a magazine. |