UC Press Blog

Blacksound explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy (the first original form of American popular music) and the racial foundations of American musical culture from the early 1800s through the turn of the twentieth century. With this namesake book, Matthew D. Morrison develops the concept o

A conversation with Morgan Bimm, Kate Galloway, and Amy Skjerseth, Guest Editors of the Journal of Popular Music Studies Special Issue “Recast, Podcast, Broadcast: Podcasting Popular Music”Morgan BimmKate Galloway Amy SkjersethJPMS's current issue is devoted to a discussion of podc

By James Walvin, author of Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved HymnIt may seem odd for a historian of slavery to write a history of a popular hymn. In fact, the link between “Amazing Grace” and slavery is clear and fairly obvious: the author of “Amazing Grace,” John Newton, had bee

By Táhirih Motazedian, author of Key Constellations: Interpreting Tonality in FilmMy path to music theory and film music was a circuitous one: in college I originally started out as a music performance major, then (due to a hand injury) I entered the world of planetary science, and after several

By Amy Coddington, author of How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and RaceAs hip hop turns 50, many mainstream outlets have highlighted how it has utterly transformed U.S. popular culture. And they’re right: look around, and it’s hard to see or hear something that hasn’t been influenced by th

FirstGen scholar and author Jacek Blaskiewicz talks about his academic journey and new book "Fanfare for a City"

By Kerry O’Brien and William Robin, co-authors of On Minimalism: Documenting a Musical Movement“Thursday evening was a major moment for musical Minimalism,” the New York Times declared last month. The Chicago Symphony had played a new Philip Glass work at Carnegie Hall while, nine blocks uptown,

The 17th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC) is being held this week from August 24-28, 2023, at Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan. In honor of the 2023 conference, we have removed the paywall from select issues of Music Perception. Click on the covers below to access t

The current issue of the Journal of Musicology hosts a forum on "Centering Discomfort in Global Music History." We asked contributors Daniel Castro Pantoja and Olivia Bloechl to talk a little more about the forum's genesis and the questions it asks.Daniel Castro PantojaOlivia Bloechl

The 21st biannual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) and the annual meeting of its US branch, IASPM-US, is being held this week in Minneapolis from June 26-30, 2023. UC Press is proud to be the publisher of the Journal of Popular Music Studies, the offici