Professor elected chair of popular music’s leading research body

SEISMIC shifts, such as the rise of South Korea’s popular music genre K-pop, are helping to make the study of popular music and its cultural significance around the globe an increasingly fascinating subject.  Now, a University of Huddersfield professor has been elected head of the world’s leading research body in the field, and one of his duties will be to preside over a major gathering in South Korea.

Rupert Till is Professor of Music at the University.  He is also a long-standing member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) and has chaired its UK and Ireland branch.

At the Association’s latest global conference, in Canberra, Australia, delegates chose him as their new Chair.  He serves initially for a two-year term that will see him attending meetings around the world and which includes the 2021 IASPM conference in South Korea.

The organisation has some 2,000 members and is the main academic body in the field.  Until it was formed in the 1980s, popular music was rarely studied seriously, said Professor Till.

“It has always been discussed by journalists, but not academia, and you couldn’t really study it in universities.  But the IASPM has shown the importance of popular music and of giving it equal status to any other kind of music.”

When Professor Till arrived at the University of Huddersfield in 2002, there was no study of ‘pop’ in its music department.  Now, it is a chosen subject area for almost half of the students.

Importantly, the study of popular music, as fostered by the IASPM, does not simply focus on Anglo-American pop, said Professor Till, but looks at the whole global scene, including the increasingly influential music produced in countries such as South Korea, Japan and China.

“Recently, for the first time, a K-pop band had a number one album in America, which shows the beginning of an influence from South East Asia on Western music, rather than the other way round.  And some of the most interesting things happening at the moment are in what is loosely called world music,” added Professor Till, who in addition to his academic research and teaching, is also a music producer, adopting the persona Professor Chill.

Under this name, he has released the recording Dub Archaeology, which combines modern beats and ambient sounds with recordings of ancient instruments.  Musical archaeology and the acoustics of sites, such as Stonehenge, are key areas of research for Professor Till.