1. Popular music routinely confronts a variety of important social issues. Choose one of these topics for your essay. You may choose to expand on an issue discussed explicitly in class. For example: • Race • Economic class • Gender • Labour • Technology • Geography • Politics and social justice • Censorship. Look into related topics, including: • Copyright and ownership • Music, commerce, and advertising • Sexuality and sexual identity • Disability/Mental health/Addiction • Age and aging Create a strong thesis statement on your chosen topic, and develop an argument defending that thesis throughout your essay. Investigate this issue at length: how does popular music address, challenge, and change our thinking on the issue? Who are the participants in this discourse? What are the power dynamics inherent in the relationship between musicians, the music industry, and listeners? How can that power balance shift in one direction or another? It’s important to remember that music can either reflect a particular subject position on any given topic, or it can construct a subject position. That is, music may be written in response to an event or paradigm shift; music can also work to create that shift itself. Your job is to demonstrate music’s role in our thinking about your chosen topic. You will choose one musical example to analyze at length. Examples should be limited geographically to North America and Britain, to stay within the confines of the course. Examine how the example illustrates the argument of the essay, using terminology from class. What instrumentation do performers use? What textures, timbres, forms, harmonies, rhythms, and other musical gestures further a listener’s understanding of the topic at hand?
