Course Description
Popular Music in the United States, MUSC 80P
Please contact the instructor for approval to enroll in the course after the first week of instruction.
Introduces music and cultural studies, surveys popular music in the United States from 18th-century minstrelsy to 21st-century social media "consumer-producers." Emphasizes narratives of race, complicated by ethnicity, gender, and class, informing ways of valuing music, and its capacity for social representation. (Formerly Music 11C, Introduction to American Popular Music.)
Key Information
Credit: 5 quarter units /
3.33 semester units credit
UC Santa Cruz, Music
Course Credit:
Upon successful completion, all online courses offered through cross-enrollment provide UC unit credit. Some courses are approved for GE, major preparation and/or, major credit or can be used as a substitute for a course at your campus.If "unit credit" is listed by your campus, consult your department, academic adviser or Student Affairs division to inquire about the petition process for more than unit credit for the course.
UC Berkeley:
Unit Credit
UC Davis:
Course Equivalence: UCD AMS 059
General Education: AH, VL.
UC Irvine:
Unit Credit
UC Los Angeles:
General Education: Visual and Performing Arts
UC Merced:
Unit Credit (see your Academic Advisor)
UC Riverside:
Course Equivalence: UCR MUSIC 008
UC San Diego:
General Education: Revelle Fine Arts; Warren - May be counted depending on major/PofC/AS; ERC - Fine arts; TMC 1 course toward Fine Arts or 1 course toward lower division disciplinary breadth if noncontiguous to major; Sixth - NAHR; ERC fine arts; Muir: 1 course in a Fine Arts theme in "Music";
UC San Francisco:
Unit Credit
UC Santa Barbara:
Course Equivalence: Unit Credit
General Education: This course will apply to Area F automatically upon completion
UC Santa Cruz:
General Education: IM
More About The Course
Music 80P is a valuable course introducing concepts of music and cultural studies to a wide variety of students. We anticipate an enrollment of 1200 or more. The course is a survey of American popular music in cultural context, from the beginnings of mass media to the late twentieth century and beyond. The course focuses in particular on narratives of race in America, intersected with gender, sexuality, and class, that inform both our ways of valuing music, and popular musical expressions of identity. Topics include the blues, minstrelsy, parlor song, “country music” and “rhythm and blues” of the post-war economic boom, popularized Latin American and Afro-Caribbean musics in the 1950s-70s, musics of the early civil rights movement, the Chicago roots of the 'British invasion,' the rise of funk and hip-hop as modes of community empowerment, the cultural meanings of "indy" and commercial pop in the late 20th century, and recent impacts of digital media and social networking on R&B and electronic dance music.