Another essay tip

If you're having trouble getting started on a song, here's another way to approach it: think of a potential track as merely being representative of a certain aspect or aspects of post-1977 popular music. It doesn't have to stand as the ultimate explanation of, say, the relationship between popular music and technology; it only has to display a certain amount of representative traits, of which you have been clever enough to indentify and analyse in the appropriate context.

For example, Alper posits 'Living on a Prayer' as being representative of several issues circulating within 1980s commercial music (heavy metal, gender etc), and outlines them accordingly. Katz presents 'Praise You' as an exemplar of issues of technology, copyright and race.

Neither reading offers a definitive theory explaining everything we need to know about popular music; each instead unearths and proposes interesting connections between music and context, which would be a good way to approach this first essay.