This reflection begins by observing that the 1977 rupture between AMS and SMT was not as total as some accounts have implied. I then comment on the inevitable but somewhat problematic rise of interest groups, SMT's enduring structuralist priorities, and the practice of music analysis. I end by making a case for topical analysis, a mode of analysis that facilitates inquiry into both the structural and expressive dimensions of music.
ABSTRACT This article interrogates the relationship between music theory and the broader interdisciplinary field of popular music studies, asking what it means to identify as a “popular music theorist” in the contemporary academy. Drawing on interviews with scholars trained in music theory, historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and music production, I examine how disciplinary affiliation shapes research practices, publication strategies, conference participation, and professional identity. Particular attention is given to questions of legibility across fields, including the ways music-theoretical methods are received within popular music studies venues. Through interviews, the article brings to light differing experiences of institutional support and resistance surrounding the study of popular music within the conservatory disciplines and explores the role of professional organizations, interest groups, and interdisciplinary communities in fostering scholarly belonging. Rather than treating popular music theory as a stable disciplinary subfield defined by repertory or method alone, I argue that it is best understood as a mode of scholarly practice characterized by movement across intellectual communities. In this sense, the “popular music theorist” emerges less as a fixed identity than as a position produced through sustained engagement with multiple disciplinary worlds.
