UWB Crest

School of Music

Welsh Popular Music of the modern age

Image of an adaption by Elwyn Davies of Curnow Vosper's Salem (Sain Records)

Since organizing its very first conference back in 1994, CAWMS has consistently provided a platform for serious interdisciplinary and academically-informed debates about the social, political, cultural, textual and musical meanings of popular music in Wales generally, and of Welsh-language pop in particular. Contributions by leading scholars in this area have appeared in practically every issue of the Centre’s journal Welsh Music History / Hanes Cerddoriaeth Cymru, ranging from the textual analyses of pop songs or social and cultural studies of pop communities both within and beyond Wales, to the development and impact of specific genres on contemporary culture, such as reggae, hip-hop and rap music. The diversity of subject matter and approach was once more in evidence in the most recent CAWMS conference (2007), where papers addressed themes relating to Situationism in the Manic Street Preachers, Code-mixing in Catatonia, Karl Jenkins’s brand of multimedia minimalism, and Samba in Wales.

Dr Pwyll ap Siôn has written widely within this important area, and the recent appointment of Dr Craig Owen Jones as post-doctoral Welsh-medium fellow within the School of Music will further enhance and develop expertise.