This module will deal with the analysis of live popular music events. Live performance in popular music, the course will argue, operates as a crucial part not only of the economy but also the ecology of popular music. It is a site of authentication; it is a place in which genre behaviours are acquired, demonstrated and enforced; it is a testing ground for the evolving performance personae of groups and individual musicians; and it is a performance style in which new staging technologies are utilised in the creation of commercial gesamstkunstwerks- total theatre experiences which serve to brand the music and the artist, to shape and develop audiences, and to place the event in a wider social and cultural context. The course will explore the history of these events; it will discuss the evolution of particular performance behaviours in live music; and it will place the live music event within a variety of theoretical contexts, drawn from performance studies, pop music studies, and cultural studies.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
demonstrate an advanced understanding of the relation between performance in popular music and contemporary theories of performance.
demonstrate an advanced understanding of the place of live popular music performance in contemporary debates in popular music studies and cultural studies.
critically analyse and contextualise the performance of popular music through the appropriate use of theoretical models drawn from performance studies, popular music studies, and cultural studies.
Critically analyse and contextualise the relation between performance and political, social and cultural developments within contemporary society.