MUSA1300 · Music
Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
From the blues to country, jazz to rock, our nation's political, social, and economic history has been mirrored and influenced by the styles of popular music developed in our cultural melting pot. This course will provide an overall history of popular music in America, with emphasis upon mainstream popular music since 1954. Its focus will be on the independence and interdependence of black and white musical cultures in America. Students will learn stylistic developments in popular music and acquire interpretive strategies, including methods of aural analysis that will view popular songs as historical texts and as autonomous works of art.
Course experience
Averages use the original five-point historical evaluation scale.
Organization
4.0 / 5
How well the course was organized
Challenge
3.9 / 5
How intellectually challenging students found it
Attendance
3.8 / 5
How necessary attendance was
Assignments
4.0 / 5
How helpful assignments were
Weekly effort
~3.5
hours per week
Estimated from the original workload response buckets. Individual sections may differ.
Instructor options
Ratings below reflect only recovered evaluations connected to this course.
Student perspective
Recovered and new anonymous comments are shown as written and may reflect different course formats.
Dec 29, 2025 · Historical comment
If you need an arts elective, definitely take her. The class is simple and interesting, and she is a very nice person. She is flexible with deadlines, provides freebies if you need to miss class, and participation required to get full credit is minimal.
Across time
Section-level results available in the recovered archive.
Spring 2025
2 sectionsFall 2024
2 sectionsSummer 2024
2 sectionsSpring 2024
2 sectionsFall 2023
2 sectionsSummer 2023
2 sectionsSpring 2023
3 sectionsFall 2022
1 sectionSummer 2022
1 sectionSpring 2022
2 sectionsFall 2021
2 sectionsSummer 2021
2 sections