At the Herb Alpert School of Music, we teach many courses in popular music in all three of our departments: Ethnomusicology, Music, and Musicology. In the Departments of Ethnomusicology and Musicology, Ph.D. students frequently write doctoral dissertations on popular music. In addition, we offer a Music Industry minor, which you can read about here. 

Faculty in our School research and teach about American popular music, Latin American popular music, and popular music from around the world. They publish and lecture on such topics as heavy metal, hip-hop and rap, electronica, Cuban music, disco, Brazilian samba and bossa nova, Madonna, the Beatles, commercial “world music,” and many others.

Check out course listings in the Ethnomusicology and Musicology Departments as well as the faculty profiles of some of those who specialize in the study of popular music:

Nina Eidsheim, Musicology 

Robert Fink, Musicology

Cheryl L. Keyes, Ethnomusicology

Tamara Levitz, Musicology

Steve Loza, Ethnomusicology

Susan McClary, Music

Mitchell Morris, Musicology

Anthony Seeger, Ethnomusicology

Timothy Taylor, Ethnomusicology/Musicology

Robert Walser, Music

Christopher Waterman, World Arts and Cultures