[shleyaa]

From the course outline:
Music 2II3 is an introduction to western popular music. The course will briefly introduce the main precursors to this music before looking in depth at the important figures and styles from 1945 to the mid 1980s. Various genres will be covered in an effort to show how trends in popular music change, and are in turn changed by, the historical movements of technology, economics, and demographics.

Okay, so let me start off this review by saying this was probably the best course I've taken so far. The professor, Simon Wood, was probably the main reason why I liked this course so much -- he made it fun and interesting ...and maybe even a little easy because of that. I took this course in the summer, so we just had 2 term tests, and a final exam ...all of which were multiple choice. I believe he'll be teaching in the evenings of second semester, so if you have the chance to get him as a prof, I strongly suggest it!!

So basically there were no tutorials or assignments. He would just lecture and we would have to take down notes as he did. He didn't usually post his notes online, so going to class would be a very good idea if you don't want to fall behind.

On the tests and exam, there are listening sections. You would listen to 3 songs 3x each, and you would be asked 3 questions about the song, which could range from what year it was recorded, to what form it's in, or anything else about it that was relevant or discussed in class.

Anyway, I thought it would be helpful if I posted the eras covered in this course... it was definitely what got me interested in it, so here it is (from the course outline):

One: (Pre)History-2: African Roots
Work Songs, Blues.

Two: (Pre)History-2: American Popular Music (1850 – 1945).
Parlour Songs, Tin Pan Alley.

Three: The Development of Rock and Roll.
Impact of technology; ASCAP/BMI. “Black-Appeal radio; “Cover versions.”

Four: Rockabilly, and the Golden Age of Rock’n’Roll. (1954-1959)
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis.

Five: The “In-between” Years. (1959-1963)
Payola; Dick Clark; American Bandstand; Dance Crazes; The Brill Building; Girl Groups; New Technology; Phil Spector; Surf Music.
Les Paul, The Ronettes, The Beach Boys.

Six: The ‘60s, Part 1: The British Invasion
America after Kennedy.
The Beatles, British Blues, The Rolling Stones,

Seven: The ‘60s, Part 2: Motown, Soul to Funk
Music as Industrial Product; Civil Rights; The Re-Africanization of music and culture.
The Supremes, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown

Eight: The ‘60s, Part 3: The Road to Woodstock

Folk revival; Counterculture; Acid Rock/Psychedelic Blues; Woodstock/Altamont
Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix

Nine: Art Rock, and Rock to Metal.
The rise of the Stadium Concert; Redefining masculinity, Guitar Culture, classical influences.
Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Black Sabbath.

Ten: Voices from the Margin.
Punk to New Wave; the Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Disco
The Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, Chic.

Eleven: Hip Hop Culture.
Precursors; Early Figures; Political sounds; Crossover.
The Last Poets, Kool Herc, Sugar Hill Gang, Grand Master Flash, Public Enemy, Run DMC.

Twelve: Pop goes the Eighties.
MTV and the Video; Hard Rock goes commercial; Censorship
Michael Jackson, Madonna

Unfortunately we weren't able to cover chapters 9, 10 and 12, but it was still a great course and I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for an easy yet worthwhile elective. Enjoy!

Best course of my life. and Simon Wood is an AWESOME teacher!

do u need to know priorbackground/ knowledge about the artists, or a music genre for this course?

is a textbook required for this course?

I just wrote the exam for this course. It is an awesome course. You don't need any prior knowledge and the information taught is straight forward. His midterms are tricky because of the options such as "A & B" or "A & C" or "B & D". Simon Woods is awesome, really loves his music history.

And yes, Textbook is required in this course.

My main problem with this course is that Simon spent way too much time on pop music pre-1945. I wouldn't have minded if he spent a couple of lectures on that material, but covering it for weeks on end forced him to end the final lecture at 1970, about 25-30 years before the course outline says we should. We had to skip over tons of important bands and styles (i.e. The Velvet Underground) and I feel shortchanged because of the vast amount of material we didn't cover. I realize that Simon didn't want this to happen, but it's still a knock against him.

Nevertheless, Simon is enthusiastic about the material and pretty funny, too. I found the first midterm kind of difficult, probably because of the annoyingly tricky multiple choice, but the second test and the exam were almost ridiculously easy. You need to read the textbook (read the sections Simon lists in the review sheets twice, preferably), but it's not so bad if you leave most of the readings until just before the tests or exams, like I did.