Popular Music

Popular music is one of the most significant and pervasive cultural phenomena of the modern world, shaping identities, reflecting social change and generating commercial and creative industries of enormous scale and diversity. Studying it at degree level means moving beyond simple fandom or cultural commentary to examine how popular music works as sound, as cultural text, as industry and as social practice. It draws on musicology, cultural studies, sociology, media studies and music technology to ask how popular music is made, how it circulates, how it is experienced and what it means in the lives of those who make and listen to it.

At Goldsmiths, which has one of the most distinctive and internationally respected popular music programmes in the world, this part-time course allows you to engage with these questions alongside other commitments. Goldsmiths' approach to popular music is critically ambitious and intellectually rigorous, situating musical analysis within broader frameworks of cultural theory, history and politics. You will engage with the history and theory of popular music across genres and periods, develop your analytical ear and your critical vocabulary, and engage with questions about the relationship between music, technology, capitalism and cultural identity.

The part-time mode makes the programme accessible to practising musicians and music industry workers alongside those coming to the subject academically.

Graduates go on to work in music journalism, radio and broadcasting, music publishing and management, arts administration, cultural policy, music education and academic research. Some pursue careers in music technology, creative industries consulting or cultural commentary. The critical and analytical skills that popular music study at Goldsmiths develops transfer well into any career concerned with culture, media or the creative industries.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in music, cultural studies or related fields.