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Ph.D. Dissertations in Popular Music

(Listed by dissertation status)

::Recently Defended (2003-Present)::

Durrell Bowman ( )

"Permanent Change: Rush, Musician's Rock, and the Progressive Post-Counterculture"
UCLA, 2003 (Robert Walser, advisor)
Abstract

Kimasi L. Browne ()

"Soul or Nothing: The Formation of Cultural Identity on the British Northern Soul Scene"
UCLA, 2005 (Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, Chair)
Abstract

Amy R. Corin ()

"Queer Country, Line Dance Nazis, and a Hollywood Barn Dance: Country Music and the Performance of Identity in Los Angeles, California"
UCLA, 2005 (Timothy Rice, Chair)
Abstract

Christopher Doll ( )

"Listening to Rock Harmony"
Columbia University, 2007 (Joseph Dubiel, advisor)
Abstract: Seeks to articulate some of the salient harmonic effects idiomatic--and, in some cases, unique--to rock music. Provides a function theory for rock music, which allows for greater precision in describing ambiguous and transformed structures.

Joshua S. Duchan ()

"Powerful Voices: Performance and Interaction in Contemporary Collegiate A Cappella"
University of Michigan, 2007 (Judith Becker, advisor)
Abstract

Lisa Foster ( )

"Music, Publics, and Protest: The Cultivation of Democratic Nationalism in Post-9/11 America"
University of Texas at Austin, 2006 (Dana Cloud, advisor)
Abstract

Charles Hiroshi Garrett

"Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music in the 20th Century"
UCLA, 2005 (Robert Walser, advisor)
Abstract

Silvia Giagnoni ()

"Christian Rock Goes Mainstream: Youth Culture, Politics and Popular Music in the U.S."
Florida Atlantic University (Chris Scodari, advisor)
Abstract

Jonathan Greenberg ( )

"Singing Up Close: Singing Style, Language, and Race in American Popular Music, 1925-1935"
UCLA, 2007 (Robert Walser, Robert Fink, co-advisors)
Abstract: While Tin Pan Alley compositions in the 1920s and 30s largely conformed to a narrow set of formal conventions, actual performances varied radically. A single song often provided the material for performances in a variety of styles, and in each style, performers added a significant layer of meaning to the song. Blues singers, ?crooners,? jazz singers, and even opera singers sang many of the same songs. The common repertory bound elements of the popular music world together; but at the same time the possibility of idiosyncratic interpretation allowed singers and communities to express their differences. Rudy Vallee, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong were some of the biggest stars of the era, but we know remarkably little about the singing voices that made them famous. In considering popular singing as a linguistic and cultural practice, this dissertation examines popular vocal styles as means to meaningful musical interpretation.

Thomas Harrison ( )

"Van Halen: Changes in their Stylistic Development, and a Critical Examination of Audience Reception, 1978-1986"
University of Salford (Derek Scott & Sheila Whiteley, advisors)
Abstract

Susan Schmidt Horning ( )

"Chasing Sound: The Culture and Technology of Recording Studios in America, 1877-1977"
Case Western Reserve University (Carroll Pursell, advisor)

Tim Hughes ( )

"Groove and Flow: Six Analytical Essays on the Music of Stevie Wonder"
University of Washington (Jonathan Bernard, advisor)
Full text available online (2.4 MB PDF)

Michael Kramer ( )

"The Civics of Rock: Sixties Countercultural Music and the Transformation of the Public Sphere"
UNC-Chapel Hill 2006 (John Kasson, advisor)
Abstract

Olivia Carter Mather ( )

"Cosmic American Music": Place and the Country Rock Movement, 1965-1974
UCLA, 2006 (Mitchell Morris, advisor)
Abstract

Felicia Miyakawa ( )

"God Hop: The Music and Message of Five Percenter Rap"
Indiana University, 2003 (Jeffrey Magee, advisor)

Glenn T. Pillsbury ( )

"Pure Black, Looking Clear: Genre, Race, Commerce, and the Music of Metallica"
UCLA, 2003 (Robert Walser, advisor)

Daniel Sonenberg ( )

"'Who In The World She Might Be': A Contextual and Stylistic Approach to the Early Music of Joni Mitchell"
CUNY Graduate School (Ellie Hisama, advisor)
Abstract: Close readings of three Joni Mitchell songs, "I Had a King"; "The Last Time I Saw Richard"; and "Court and Spark" in their full biographical, music-industrial, historical, and music theoretical contexts. Includes a full transcription of each song. 220 p.

Jacqueline Warwick ( )

"'I Got All My Sisters with Me': Girl Culture, Girl Identity, and Girl Group Music"
UCLA, 2002 (Susan McClary, Robert Walser, co-advisors)
Abstract: An examination of mainstream commercial pop music, namely the music of 1960s Girl Groups, and the role it plays in girls' strategies for self-fashioning.

Lawrence Wayte ( )

"The Progeny of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and the Rise and Fall of Jazz Rock"
UCLA, 2007 (Robert Walser, advisor)
Abstract

Yara Sellin ( )

"DJ: Performer, Cyborg, Dominatrix"
UCLA, 2005 (Robert Fink, Advisor)

::Almost Finished::

Ulrich Adelt ()

"Black, White and Blue: Racial Politics of Blues Music in the 1960s"
University of Iowa (Jane Desmond, advisor)
Abstract: My dissertation is about the significant changes that took place in the 1960s under which blues was reconfigured from "black" to "white" in its production and reception while simultaneously retaining a notion of authenticity that remained deeply connected with constructions of "blackness." Individual chapters focus on key figures, events and institutions that exemplify blues music's racial politics and transnational movements of the 1960s, including B.B. King, the Newport Folk Festival, Living Blues magazine, Eric Clapton, and the American Folk Blues Festival in Germany.

J. Meryl Krieger ()

"Women Singer Songwriters in Midwestern American Recording Studios: Strategies of Negotiation, Mediation and Representation"
Indiana University (Dr. Portia Maultsby, Dr. Ruth Stone, Dr. Richard Bauman, Dr. Charles Sykes, advisors)
Abstract: This dissertation looks at the behavior of women singer songwriters who perform and record their own materials and the issues of representation, mediation, and strategic negotiations they must consider when taking on the task of working professionally in this space. It is intended to contribute to the growing dialogue about the role of technology and mediation of music-making in this first decade of a new millennium to include issues of strategy and gender as important components in an understanding of music creation and use in American culture.

J. Griffith Rollefson ()

"Musical (African) Americanization in the New Europe: Hip Hop, Race, and the Cultural Politics of Postcoloniality in Contemporary Berlin, Paris, and London"
UW-Madison (Ronald Radano, advisor)
Abstract

::Writing, Writing, Writing::

James Carroll ()

"Vernacular Tradition and Political Innovation: Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Sun Ra, and the Black Arts Movement, 1965-1980"
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Stephen Tracy, advisor)
Abstract: This dissertation situates the musical and extramusical production of Sun Ra and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti within the context of the Black Arts Movement intellectuals. Though both artists are known for their politically provocative stances, a close reading of their work shows that their artistic production is firmly grounded in the traditional musical materials and intellectual traditions of their respective cultures. As such, both artists are seen as participating in a larger Atlantic diasporic intellectual culture that emphasizes innovation from within the boundaries of tradition; a stance that is seemingly in opposition to the transgressive artistry that is often ascribed to them.

Ajay Kalra ()

"Wide Open Studio Spaces: Analyzing the Spatial Codes of Pastoral Genres in Recorded Countercultural and Post-Countercultural Music"
University of Texas at Austin (Stephen Slawek, advisor)
Abstract: Desire for finding alternative, utopian, often pastoral spaces to inhabit dovetailed with improvements in recording technology in the late 1960s to yield recorded music that captured a bristling, palpable sense of the desired pastoral spaces now materialized in sound. This dissertation analyzes the spatial projects of late- and post-countercultural music, the centrality of the pastoral and the North American West in their constructions, and the role of various musical and sonic elements and of technology in these projects extending across country influenced urban genres (country rock, folk rock, country folk, progressive country, progressive bluegrass, new acoustic music), progressive rock, proto-new age music, afro-centric avant garde jazz, and pastoral jazz.

Andrew Kellett ( )

"Fathers and Sons: American Blues and British Rock 'n' Roll"
University of Maryland-College Park (Jeffrey Herf and Richard Price, advisors)
Abstract: My dissertation examines the unique cultural phenomenon of British blues-based rock in the 1960s. It will answer two key intellectual questions. First, why did American blues and R&B music appeal to certain young British men in the late 1950s and early 1960s? Second, how did those men use the blues to create something that was stylistically new and innovative? Of additional importance to my dissertation is the way in which masculinity and sexuality were articulated through both the blues, and the British rock 'nk' roll which resulted. The dissertation is based in a variety of primary sources, including record company archives, the music press, and oral histories of key figures from the British music scene of the era.

John Quirke ()

"Shaping A Line: On the Blues Antecedents of Eric Clapton's Style"
University of Surrey (Professor Allan Moore & Dr Tim Hughes, advisors)
Abstract: Against the background of the popular music of 1960s Britain, this thesis will attempt to establish the origins of Eric Clapton's guitar style in the music he recorded between 1963 and 1968. In identifying and tracing the sources of Clapton's style—primarily through the application of a comparative musicological methodology—the investigation will examine the degree to which he appropriated, assimilated and subsequently developed manners of expression indigenous to black American blues musicians, with particular reference to the performance practices that constitute the Chicago electric blues style of the 1940s-1960s.

Alisun Russell Pawley ( )

"Singalongability in Popular Music"
University of York (Dr. John Potter, advisor)
Abstract

Fokko Schulz ( )

"Music Production in Change – Online Music Collaboration as a New Production Method"
University of Hamburg, Germany; University of California, Santa Cruz; Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand (Professor Knut Hickethier, Professor Rolf Schulmeister, Professor Margaret Morse, Professor Barry King, advisors)
Abstract

Aram Sinnreich ( )

"Configurable Culture: Remixing the Mainstream, Mainstreaming the Remix"
University of Southern California (Larry Gross, advisor)
Abstract: In this dissertation, I explore how the rise of remix technologies challenges the ontological framework within which we have traditionally understood music's role in society. Thus, we can understand the legal, aesthetic and commercial battles to make sense of remix music as elements of a larger battle to understand and shape social organization in the networked age.

Lisa Soccio ( )

"Nothing's Shocking: On the Persistence of Avant-Gardism in Alternative Music"
University of Rochester (Janet Wolff, Advisor)
Abstract: An interdisciplinary investigation of the similarities and historical continuity between the rhetoric and aesthetic practices of historical avant-garde movements in twentieth-century art—including Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus—and alternative rock music in the United States and Britain, exemplified by bands like the Velvet Underground, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Bauhaus, Dead Kennedys, Bikini Kill, and Sonic Youth.

M. Montgomery Wolf ( )

" 'We Accept You, One of Us': Punk Rock, Community, and Individualism in an Uncertain America, 1974-1985"
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Department of History (Peter Filene, advisor)