GEOG3377: Music in the City

Why is music so central to the life of the city? Throughout the ages, throughout the world, music seems to have a special power to fill urban space with meaning. This is mostly why the music industry is always desperately trying to chase the new ways music is produced and consumed. Much about the rapid changes in the industry can be linked to changes taking place in the geography of cities and globalization. Through music, people feel connected to landscapes, neighborhoods, buildings, and identities. Music gives value to places, so helps cement us/them divisions, a process easily seen (heard) in national anthems. This course tries to understand how the interplay exactly occurs between sounds, places, and differences through case studies from many genres. The course makes use of a large range of media and learning styles. Themes include the transnational circuits of reggae, the class backgrounds of punk, Motown and civil rights, psychedelic counterculture, underground electronic music, and the ambivalent identities of Minneapolis's very own Prince.

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