INSTRUCTOR

Peter Mercer-Taylor
Office: Ferguson 158
Phone: (612) 624-0385
E-mail: merce011@umn.edu
Office Hour: Thursday, 12:15-1:30

TEXTS

Principal websites

http://www.allmusic.com

Grove Music Online
You will be making regular use of articles in this resource. Though you can reach it from any computer, you cannot dial it up directly. This is a site to which the University of Minnesota has a paid online subscription. You reach it either through the course website described above, or by going to the music library webpage--http://music.lib.umn.edu/--clicking on "Music" in the left menu, scrolling about 35% of the way down the list that appears, then selecting "Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (just to the right of "Research Tools"), entering your UMN Internet ID and Password, then searching, selecting only "Grove Music Online" from the available list of sources.

Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Reach this site just as you do Grove Music Online, but on the final search screen, select "Encyclopedia of Popular Music" instead of "Grove Music Online."

INTRODUCTION

This course takes up the history of rock toward the end of what most historians consider its Golden Age. From the emergence of "progressive" rock in the early '70s, we will trace the course of rock and related styles to the present day, considering "arena" rock, punk, new wave, heavy metal, rap, grunge, and a range of "alternative" styles. Rather than a broad-ranging historical survey--in which we might attempt a fleeting, superficial coverage of all the major players in each particular era--we will be delving deeply into a small sampling of songs from a small selection of artists. You should thus not take offense if your favorite band never comes up; statistically speaking, it probably won't (that's what the last paper topic is for). Most of our attention will be focused on how selected individual songs make their effects, in particular, how the structure and language of their music interact with what they appear to have to say. But we will consider, as well, the uses to which rock and other styles have been put through this period, how they have contributed to ideas of youth culture, race identity, gender identity, and other social formations.

Much of this course turns on the relationship between "rock"--a concept that becomes harder and harder to keep in focus as the years go by--and postmodernism. The music video has been described by some as the most postmodern of all art forms, and MTV will figure prominently in our examination of rock in the 1980s and beyond. The '80s saw fundamental challenges, too, to the traditional understanding of rock as an intrinsically masculine music, and we will examine closely the work and significance of a range of female artists who brought about this change. At the same time, we will explore the meteoric rise of rap, a genre of music many believe displaced rock as the most urgent musical expression of alienated youth. Indeed, as we press into the '90s, the subject matter of the course begins to reflect more strongly the broad fragmentation of the popular music scene. Where it might have been possible to speak of a "main stream" of rock in the Woodstock era, the popular music market of the last 20 years has been diffused across countless styles and sub-styles. Grunge and the styles that grew directly out of it might represent a most easily discerned channel for the rock impulse since the early '90s, but rock now exists as only one genre among many, and we will consider a range of other popular styles alongside it.

What is being explored in this course is rock the way it actually is, not the way we might like it to be, and some of the material under discussion may prove objectionable on any number of grounds. Obscenity--including calculated blasphemy--is not uncommon, nor is explicit sexual content. Some of this material is likely to strike many as sexist, some of it may be perceived as racist. Please do not take part in this course if you have serious reservations about confronting music of this kind.

ASSIGNMENTS and GRADING GUIDELINES

1. There will be one midterm exam (worth 20% of your grade) and one final exam (worth 30% of your grade). These exams will consist of identifications and short answer questions.

2. 10% of your grade will be based on attendance and regular, meaningful participation in class. You need not talk at every class meeting, but you should try to establish a track record of substantive involvement.

3. You will submit two brief papers, each worth 15% of your grade. I will hand out specific topics for these papers (there will be two options for the first one), but you are free to opt out of my designated topics in ONE of these two papers, and write an academically responsible paper about a topic of your choice. You will also be doing an in-class presentation of around 12 minutes (worth 10% of your grade), introducing to the class a song of particular interest. These presentations will take place in Sessions 16 and 17.

Read:
"Heavy Metal‿ in Grove Music Online
"Thrash Metal‿ in Grove Music Online
"Hard Rock‿ in Grove Music Online
allmusic.com►Led Zeppelin
"Black Sabbath‿ in Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music
"Judas Priest‿ in Grove Music Online
"Iron Maiden‿ in Grove Music Online
"Van Halen‿ in Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music