Guys, I need your help. I'm taking a course where I have to write 2-3 pages about popular music ('50s-today). This has to be finished by the end of next week. It's such a big topic, I don't know where to start... What has to be discussed is:

*the relationship between music and lyrics
*the relationship between music and pictures (album covers etc)
*music videos, mp3, homepages and their consequences.

Prince will obviously be mentioned, but as this is not supposed to be an essay about him I'd be greatful if you could, for example, suggest some interesting music videos by other artists that coul be worth mentioning. I'd also be glad if you could tell me about some useful, professional sites that talk about these things.

Thanks in advance
[Edited 10/21/06 8:17am]

2-3 pages? IMO it's not enough space to write a decent introduction.

Allmusic main page has links with info about all genres of music and their styles.
Hope that helps

http://www.allmusic.com/

The topic should be interesting to you.

If you want to write about Prince, you could try to investige, whether Prince's sexual ambivalence, or rather the androgenous character that he promotes in his videos, is in any way reflected in his music and lyrics. But that's just a suggestion.

Because this is supposed to be a three-page writing, you should probably pick just one song and focus on it in greater detail.

BTW Is this for a univesity course?

Thriller

you can talk about how pop usic began with ragtime and jazz, and essentially meant "Popular music", wasn't really a genre
and how it became a genre in the late 80's

rushing07 said:

Yes it's a university course. The important thing is intermediality. Not the history of pop music. So what should be discussed is the relationship between the different media in popular music, the importance (?) of pictures and images, if album covers and homepages add something important to the music/artist, what impact the easy downloading of music has on things, and so on. I can't just choose one topic, but I have to discuss all of those I've mentioned, more or less. But the most important thing is just to show that I understand what they've been talking about during the seminars and that I've got an opinion. This is not supposed to be a big, important essay about the history of popular music.
[Edited 10/21/06 14:15pm]

pkidwell said: