History of Music in Popular Culture
Course Number: MUAC271
Subject: Music
Understanding Scholarly sources
Scholars communicate with the academic community through journal articles, books, and book chapters. There are examples of each below, can you determine which each of them are?
Goodyer, I. (2026). Rock Against Racism, culture and social struggle. In Crisis music (pp. 98–126). Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781847793003.00013
Hyland, N., & Banks, H. J. (2025). Drowning Out Escapism: Performances of Transformative Confinement in the Work of Beyoncé and Harry Styles. Popular Music and Society, 48(2), 132–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2024.2444169
Holt, K. C. (2026). I Bet You Won’t Get Crunk!: The Performative Resistance of Atlanta Hip-Hop Party Music. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197792711.001.0001
How to tell if my source is Scholarly
Where are they located?
Online scholarly sources will typically be linked. Physical items are located by call number throughout the Library.
Background sources
Very Short Introductions (Oxford University Press)
- Country music 2020
- Film Music 2023
- Folk Music 2011
- Music 2021
- Music and Technology 2022
- Psychology of Music 2018
- Rock ‘n’ Roll 2026.
- World Music 2020
Cambridge Histories (Cambridge University Press)
Wikipedia
Remember that Wikipedia is not a scholarly resource and you wouldn't normally include an entry in your list of sources. However, you may find references to scholarly sources on a Wikipedia page. For example, see Taylor Swift.
Books
- Search Omni to identify books at Laurier and other Omni libraries
- Use facets at left of results to focus your search
- e.g., Books and eBooks
Finding Books in Omni
Articles - Scholarly and Peer-reviewed
What is the difference between Scholarly and Peer-Reviewed?
All peer-reviewed journals are scholarly, but not all scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
- Scholarly Journals: academic publications written by and for experts, researchers, and professors in a specific field. They use formal language, cite their sources rigorously, and aim to advance knowledge rather than make a profit. However, they may occasionally include editorials, book reviews, or opinion pieces that did not go through formal external review.
- Peer-Reviewed (Refereed) Journals: This is a subset of scholarly journals that adds a strict quality-control filter. Before an article can be published, the journal editor sends it anonymously to other independent experts in the same field (the "peers"). These reviewers critique the research design, methodology, and conclusions, requiring the author to make revisions or rejecting the paper entirely if it doesn't meet rigorous academic standards.
Finding Scholarly Articles in Omni
Start with Omni
- Search Omni to identify articles
- Use facets at left of results to focus your search
- e.g., Articles, peer-reviewed
Subject Databases
Omni only shows you what Laurier has access to, and sometimes it is hard to narrow down results in Omni. Consider the following databases that provide direct access to scholarly articles in just music:
For more detailed searching, and/or for more obscure topics, try searching across the full text through these databases:
You can also limit your search to just the Music titles in JSTOR.
Specific Journal titles
While journals are usually indexed in academic databases, it can be helpful to "hand-search" the entire full text or browse the tables of contents (TOCs) of core journal titles, going beyond the index metadata, abstracts, and algorithmic relevance ranking.
Articles - Popular, Trade, and News
Magazine archives
Specific magazine titles
News articles
The Library has access to countless news source titles.
Scores
- Scores in print and online.
- NOTE: Remember that photocopiers on campus allow you to scan pages (e.g., musical excerpts) to pdf
Audio
Internet Archive
A digital repository dedicated to preserving and sharing historical music broadcasts, live concert recordings, and radio airchecks spanning decades of broadcast radio history.
Live Music Archive - Internet Archive
Provides free public streaming and downloads of thousands of user-contributed, high-quality live concert recordings from trade-friendly artists and bands.
Music, Arts & Culture - Internet Archive
Includes sound recordings, including live concert bootlegs, historical 78 RPMs, audiobooks, and independent netlabels.
Video
Finding Videos in Omni
The Library subscribes to a number of streaming video services and in general you can search for the included titles. Sometimes it can be helpful to search for content in the video service itself since unlike Omni, the entire full text of the transcripts are also searchable.
Primary Sources
A primary source is an original, firsthand artifact or document created during the period under study - such as a handwritten lyric sheet or demo recording by an artist like Jimi Hendrix - that offers direct, unmediated evidence for historical analysis.
Libraries and archives collect primary sources, including the Laurier Archives, which has sources related to the long history of music events here at Laurier. The Digitized Cord could also be a good source of local popular music (see this example).
Search Google and you will find countless digital archives and websites that provide access to primary source content documenting music history, culture, and industry practices. Here are three examples:
Album art
A community-maintained open music encyclopedia that provides comprehensive and reliable metadata for artists, recordings, and releases, making it an invaluable resource for music research and identification.
Montreal Concert Poster Archive
A digital repository dedicated to preserving and showcasing historical posters, flyers, tickets, and ephemera from live music performances across Montreal and Quebec.