Cities of Sound: Place and History in American Pop Music

This course investigates the relationship between popular music and cities. We will look at a number of case studies from the history of music in the twentieth century. We will try to tease out the ways that certain places produce or influence certain sounds and the ways that musicians reflect on the places they come from in their music. Accordingly, we will consider both the social and cultural history of particular cities and regions--New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, New York, Washington DC, and others--and aesthetic and cultural analyses of various forms of music--including blues, jazz, punk, hip-hop, and others.