American Popular Music (01512392)

							American Popular Music (01:512:392)

Instructor: Matthew Friedman
Email: velomatt@eden.rutgers.edu

Office: TBA

This course will focus on the role of popular music in American history and its relevance to
American society and culture from the late-19 to late-20th century. Students will critically discuss
genres like the blues, jazz, country, musical theatre, rock and hiphop as historical text and marks
of cultural and political identity. While the course will discuss the stylistic evolution of American
popular music, the main focus will be on reading, or listening to, music as a historical text as a
                                                                           th
key to understanding the major themes of American history in the 20 century.

We will focus on a number of themes: popular music as a mode of dissent, the influence of mass
media and technology and the emergence of the music industry, as well as race, class and
gender.

READINGS

There is no text book for this course. All readings will be available on Sakai and on Library
databases.

Students will also be required to listen to selected pieces of music for this course. It is highly
recommended that you spend some of the money you save on a textbook on an iTune, or similar,
card, to download MP3s.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

Attendance: Attendance is mandatory, and everyone is both expected and required to participate
in class discussions. The attendance and grade will reflect your attendance in class and the
participation grade will reflect the quality of your in-class participation.

Journal: Students will keep a journal relating the music selections to issues discussed in class
and in the readings.

Presentation: Students will choose a song not on the syllabus and give a ten-minute presentation
on its significance in American history.

Paper: Students will write a 2500-word biography of an American popular song, album, CD or
musical of their choice (other than the song chosen for their presentation), discussing its musical
genealogy and situating it historically.

There will be a final exam.

Attendance ........................................................................................................................... 10%
Class Participation ............................................................................................................... 10%
Journal ................................................................................................................................. 20%
Presentation ......................................................................................................................... 10%
Term Paper .......................................................................................................................... 25%
Final Exam ........................................................................................................................... 25%
TOTAL ............................................................................................................................... 100%
CLASS SCHEDULE:

27 – May – What is popular music … and is it art?
Reading: Tia De Nora, “Music and Self-Identity”

28 – May – Origins
Reading: TBD

29 – May – Union Songs and Parlor Music
Readings: William Sayers, "Joe Hill's pie in the sky and Swedish Reflexes of the Land of
Cockaigne,” Larry Starr, “After The Ball: Popular Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries”

2 – Jun – Hellhound on my Trail: The Blues
Reading: Ralph Ellison, “Blues People”

3 – Jun – Black, Brown and Beige: Jazz and the Great Divide
Reading: Harvey G. Cohen, "Duke Ellington and Black, Brown and Beige: The Composer as
Historian at Carnegie Hall"

4 – Jun – I Got Rhythm: Broadway and Tin Pan Alley
Readings: John Bush Jones, Introduction to Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the
American Musical Theater, Sean Griffin, "The Gang's All Here: Generic versus Racial Integration
in the 1940s Musical"
Music: From Oklahoma, “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’,” From The Cradle Will Rock “The Nickel
Under My Foot,” From Showboat, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”

5 – Jun – Roll Along, Kentucky Moon: Down home country
Readings: Pamela Grundy, "We Always Tried to Be Good People": Respectability, Crazy Water
Crystals, and Hillbilly Music on the Air, 1933-1935"
Music:TBD

9 – Jun – Straight, no Chaser: Jazz as Art
Readings: Ralph Ellison, “On Bird, Bird Waching, and Jazz,” Leroi Jones, “Coltrane Live at
Birdland”
Music: Charlie Parker, “Koko,” Thelonius Monk, “Straight, No Chaser,” John Coltrane, “My
Favorite Things,” Miles Davis, “So What”

10 – Jun – Fly Me to the Moon: Pop, Swing and the Construction of Whiteness
Readings: Joseph Lanza: The Rise of Easy Listening FM,” Kenneth Bindas, “Race Class and
Ethnicity Among Swing Musicians”
Music: Frank Sinatra, “The Lady is a Tramp,” Frankie Laine, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” Glenn
Miller, “String of Pearls,” Rosemary Clooney, “Come On-a My House”

11 – Jun – That'll be the day: Rock and Roll and Rebellion
Readings: Deena Weinstein, “Rock is Youth/Youth is Rock”
Music: Elvis Presley, “Heartbreak Hotel,” Jerry Lee Lewis, “Great Balls of Fire,” Eddy Cochran,
“Summertime Blues,” Buddy Holly, “That’ll Be the Day”

12 – Jun – Back in the USSR: American Music in the Cold War
Reading: Graham Carr, “Diplomatic Notes”

16 – Jun – Old, Weird America: The Folk Revival
Reading: Greil Marcus, "Old, Weird America," Dave Laing, "Taste-making and trend-spotting: the
folk revival journalism of Robert Shelton"
Music: The Kingston Trio, “Tom Dooley,” Peter Paul and Mary, “I Had a Hammer,” Woody
Guthrie, “Ludlow Massacre,” The Weavers, “This Land is Your Land,” Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the
Wind”

17 – Jun – What'd I Say? Race Music and Rhythm and Blues
Michael Haralambos, “Changing With the Blues,” in Soul Music: The Birth of a Sound in Black
America
Music: Ray Charles, “What’d I say?” Wilson Pickett, “In the Midnight Hour,” Gladys Knight and the
Pips, “Everybody Needs Love,” Bo Diddley, “Bo Diddley”

18 – Jun – Shake! From the garage to the Love-In
Reading: TBD

19 – Jun – Say it Loud: Soul and Black Pride
Reading: Mark Anthony Neal, “Legislating Freedom, Commodifying Struggle: Civil Rights, Black
Power and the Struggle for Black Musical Hegemony” in What the Music Said: Black Popular
Music and Black Popular Culture
Music: James Brown, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” The Temptations, “Papa was a
Rolling Stone,” Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Love Child,” Miles Davis, "Miles Runs the
Voodoo Down"

23 – Jun – Woodstock
Film: Woodstock
Reading: Sheila Whiteley, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” from Women and Popular Music:
Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity

24 – Jun – The Music Industry
Reading: George M. Plasketes, “Taking Care of Business: The Commercialization of Rock Music”
Music: Grand Funk, “We’re an American Band,” Jimmy Buffet, “Margaritaville,” Eagles,
“Desperado,” The Velvet Underground, “Rock & Roll,” Boston, “More than a Feeling”

25 – Jun – Blank Generation: Punk and the Politics of Diminished Returns
Reading: TBD
Music: Richard Hell and Voidoids, “Blank Generation,” The Ramones, “I Wanna Be Sedated,”
Television, “Marquee Moon,” Patti Smith, “Free Money,” New York Dolls, “Personality Crisis”

26 – Jun – The Decline of Western Civilization
Film: The Decline of Western Civilization

30 – Jun – Planet Rock: Hiphop and Urban America
Reading: Jennifer C. Lena, "Social Context and Musical Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995"
Music: Afrika Bambaata, “Planet Rock,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The
Message,” Public Enemy, “Fight the Power,” Blondie, “Rapture”

1 – Jul – Video Killed the Radio Star: Mediatized Music and the Postmodern Consumer
Society
Reading: Larry Starr, “The 1980s: Rock Music and the Popular Mainstream” in American Popular
Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV
Music: Till Tuesday, “Voices Carry,” Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” Madonna, “Like
a Virgin,” Devo, “Whip It”

2 – Jul – Smells Like Teen Spirit: Grunge and Alternative
Reading: Larry Starr, “Smells Like Teen Spirit: Hip Hop, ‘Alternative Music,’ and the
Entertainment Business” in American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV
Music: Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” REM, “It’s ten End of the World as we Know It (and I
Feel Fine),”
3 – Jul – Thug Life: Gender and Authenticity on the Dance Floor and in the Hood
Reading: Annette J. Saddik, "Rap’s Unruly Body: The Postmodern Performance of Black Male
Identity on the American Stage"