This course introduces students to Cantopop, the most iconic form of Hong Kong popular culture. This course also examines Cantopop’s relationship with Hong Kong’s past and present, its aims are fourfold: (1) acquaint students with critical skills to appreciate, analyse, and discourse on Cantopop; (2) introduce students to different types of sources pertinent to Cantopop, so as to increase their awareness of how they can interpret the soundscape of the past in relationship to the city’s socio-political development; (3) engage students with issues important to the local society; and (4) cultivate students’ creativity and self-expression through active musical engagement with the re-production and remediation of Cantopop.

Students will be introduced to Cantopop’s musical and textual elements through analysing oral and visual examples. They will also be introduced to the close relationship between music and society through theoretical models on sociology and sociality of music, and will apply the theories to the local context through analysing sources and songs from different eras.