Wouldn’t it be so much easier to pay attention in class if the subject was your favorite pop star? Imagine taking notes on Taylor Swift’s lyrics instead of calculations, reviewing flash cards about Kanye West’s impact on pop culture instead of biology, or taking a quiz about statements of Miley Cyrus fashion instead of geography.
For a few lucky students at universities scattered around the world, that’s exactly what they can do. As a small handful of artists in the last decade or two have gone from pop stars to pop icons, more and more academic institutions have introduced courses dedicated to their songwriting skills, to their cultural significance and everything else.
It’s perhaps unsurprising to see courses on already certified legends — Bob Dylan or the Beatles, for example — listed among a college’s offerings. But now musicians who are still actively churning out mainstream hits like Harry Styles, Drake and Lana Del Rey are beginning to join them in the canon of artists whose careers are considered deep enough to be dissected and analyzed in an intellectual framework. .
For example, Swift in particular sparked a trend of college courses built around her in 2022. In fact, one offered at the University of Texas even promised to compare her songbook to the work of famous poets such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats and Dickinson. Meanwhile, a surge in Beyoncé-themed classes began in 2016, with professors from Rutgers University, Arizona State and others turning to Queen Bey to contextualize bits of academic literature on black feminist studies.
So grab a pen and paper and get ready to take notes on studying modern musicians. Here are 10 college courses dedicated to pop stars: