Popular Music Culture

We are one of the leading research centres and have a proven track record in producing internationally excellent research in a number of diverse areas of Popular Music Culture, including studies audiences on and offline, new ways of making, promoting and consuming music in the digital age, and historical studies.

You would be supervised by academics who combine research, teaching and work in the field of jazz.

Prof Tim Wall, who leads the research centre, is the author of 'Studying Popular Music Culture' (Sage) and has 30 years' experience in academic research. Tim uses insights from his historical studies to understand contemporary technological and cultural change, and has published work on a variety of topics, from Northern Soul to 1920s jazz.

Professor of Music Industries Innovation, Andrew Dubber, is author of several key texts on digital music, including the recently published 'Radio In The Digital Age' (Polity), and is currently engaged in research around music as an agent for social change.

Dr Nick Gebhardt is an authority on the entertainment industry in the United States and is the author of 'Going For Jazz: Musical Practices and American Ideology'. He is currently researching Rock and Roll in American culture and sits on the editorial board of the Jazz Research Journal.

Dr Simon Barber, who completed his doctoral thesis on the impact of digital recording technologies, and who has recently been working with independent record labels on new promotional and operational methodologies, is also developing new research around professional songwriters.