Unit Synopsis
In this unit you will study the popular music styles that have emerged from the late 19th century through to the early 21st century. You will examine the role of prominent performers, composers, lyricists, and music producers in the development of these styles. You will also explore the social, political and technological events that have shaped popular music styles through this period. Your studies will give particular attention to the study and analysis of primary source materials in the form of musical analysis of the musical forms relevant to the style.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 1 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
There are no pre-requisites for the unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Annotated bibliography | 25% |
| 2. Essay | 35% |
| 3. In-class Test(s) | 40% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 62.50% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 27.59% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Evaluation
Essay exemplar and/or detailed marking criteria
Provide more guidance with the research essay. Either with an exemplar or more detail in marking criteria.
Changes to the marking criteria were made, particularly encouraging students to utilise 'quality' sources to reference.
Source: Student Evaluations
Update YouTube videos.
Remove all broken video links and continue to update YouTube sources, providing better quality videos (where possible) and relevance.
In Progress
Source: Student Evaluations
Promote inclusivity.
Review content to ensure there is more female and bipoc representation in each topic covered.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Identify the stylistic features of popular music styles from the late 19th century through to the early 21st century
- Describe the influence of prominent performers, composers, lyricists and producers in the development of popular music styles from the late 19th century through to the early 21st century
- Discuss the social, political and technological events that shaped popular music styles from the late 19th century through to the early 21st century
- Analyse the structure and musical style of selected popular music compositions from the 19th century through to the early 21st century.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Annotated bibliography | • | • | • | |
| 2 - Essay | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - In-class Test(s) | • | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | |||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • | |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Annotated bibliography | • | • | |||||||||
| 2 - Essay | • | • | • | ||||||||
| 3 - In-class Test(s) | • | • | |||||||||