About Goldsmiths Popular Music Research Unit

With the aim of focusing and extending the Department of Music’s growing expertise in and reputation for innovative research into popular music.

The Unit will be addressing contemporary issues of significance to musicians, industries involved directly and indirectly with popular music, voluntary and state organisations and the public, and will encompass repertoire that is broad in historical range and geographical scope.

The Unit hosts the new MA in Music (Popular Music Research) and facilitates recognition of the research activities of staff, students and alumni of the successful BMus Popular Music. The Unit will also showcase the research of doctoral students, and we welcome applications from prospective MPhil/ PhD students.

The Unit seeks to facilitate a variety of traditional and more innovative ways of researching popular music; focusing on musical texts, reception, creativity and production in both contemporary and historical contexts. It will showcase the research of University-based scholars, performers and composers as well as creative practitioners.

It will also engage with and seek to emphasize the significance of popular music research in a variety of non-academic contexts (music-related industries, marketing, arts management, museums and archives, the sciences).