Titles for the Final Paper First Year Seminar IIB
Choose one of the following topics and write an essay on it. The length must be between 1,000 and 1,500 words. It should be typed in double space on A4 paper and be submitted with a cover-sheet to the designated box placed in the SILS office. The deadline for submission will be 14th, January.
1 How might rock music be different if slavery had never existed and African American had been welcomed immigrants in the United States?
2 Early rock’n roll players such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis were generally considered as rebellious. In what ways were the music and images of these performers rebellious for their time? If they are still alive and active, what would those same performers have to do to gain rebellious reputations.
3 Pop musicians sometimes cover rock music and rock musicians sometimes cover pop music. What would be gained and what would be lost when rock music is translated into pop music and vice versa?
4 Some soul music and some soul musicians were closely associated with the civil rights movement. Did they in any way contribute to the improvement of civil rights? If they did, in what way they affected it?
5 What was it about the American social, political, and musical situations in the early sixties that made the country so ready for invasion by the British bands? Were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones so great that they could have taken over the U.S. charts any time, or was it mostly a case of good timing that they became so popular so quickly?
6 Why was it in Great Britain but not in the USA that blues and R&B were more warmly received? Why were they covered more often by British bands than the US counterparts and integrated more fully into British rock than US rock?
7 Is folk music at its best when singing about controversy, hard times, war, disaster and social problem, or is it music for all sorts of subject?
8 Art rock either play classical and jazz music in the rock format, or import into itself musical techniques and styles of classical music and jazz. Don’t you think that classical music and jazz sound better in their own formats than in the rock format?
9 Is there any gender difference in the preference of hard rock and heavy metal? If so, what would cause it?
10 How much was glitter and glam rock an expression of homosexuality, and how much was it merely provocation against those who were easily offended by it? Might glitter have reflected or promoted the gay rights movement?
11 Punk is angry music and it is the most effective when the anger is directed at some particular issue, person or practice. Could a positive message, a ethical one, for example, be delivered in a punk style?
12 Reggae is music of politically and socially oppressed people in Jamaica. Is the international popularity of reggae related with its identity with those people, or is it popular more because it is good dance music and has good rhythms?