English:The Clash - London Calling - 1980
The Clash - London Calling - 1980
Introduction
The Clash - London Calling - 1980 explores one of the most influential albums in popular music. You will investigate how The Clash combined punk urgency with reggae, ska, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, jazz, pop, and hard rock; how the songs address social conflict and personal experience; how recording and visual design shape meaning; and why the album continues to matter.
The date in this course title needs one important clarification. London Calling was first released in the United Kingdom on 14 December 1979 and reached the United States in January 1980. The 1980 date therefore reflects its United States release and much of its first American critical reception, while the original British release belongs to 1979.[1]
Begin by watching the official video. Listen for the repeated bass figure, the clipped guitar attack, the drum accents, the urgent vocal delivery, and the contrast between a warning-like message and a memorable rock arrangement.
This aiMOOC is suitable for secondary school, vocational education, introductory university courses, music schools, and adult education. You do not need to play an instrument. You can approach the album through music analysis, History, Politics, Media studies, Graphic design, English language, or Cultural studies.
Copyright and responsible study: Use legal recordings and authorized lyric sources. Do not reproduce complete lyrics in assignments. Quote only the shortest passages necessary under the rules that apply in your country, and focus mainly on paraphrase, close listening, and your own analysis.
Learning Objectives
After completing this aiMOOC, you should be able to explain the album's release history, identify the core members of The Clash, recognize several musical styles within the record, connect selected songs to historical and social contexts, analyze voice and rhetoric without copying lyrics, interpret the album cover as visual communication, evaluate sources, and create an original response that transfers the album's methods to a new topic.
You can adapt the depth of study to your level:
| Learning context | Recommended focus | Possible evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Secondary school | Release history, band roles, song themes, basic genre recognition, visual analysis | Listening journal, timeline, poster, short presentation |
| Vocational education | Media production, audience, branding, teamwork, recording choices, rights and licensing | Radio feature, exhibition plan, campaign analysis, production portfolio |
| University | Historical argument, close listening, intertextuality, political rhetoric, reception history, source criticism | Research essay, annotated listening analysis, seminar presentation, comparative study |
Album at a Glance
| Feature | Information |
|---|---|
| Artist | The Clash |
| Album | London Calling |
| Place in discography | Third studio album |
| Original United Kingdom release | 14 December 1979 |
| United States release | January 1980 |
| Format | Double album with 19 tracks |
| United Kingdom label | CBS Records |
| United States label | Epic Records |
| Main recording location | Wessex Sound Studios in London |
| Producer | Guy Stevens |
| Engineer | Bill Price |
| Core musical identity | Punk energy expanded through reggae, ska, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, jazz, pop, and other styles |
The album's scale matters. Instead of repeating a narrow punk formula, the band used 19 tracks to test different grooves, vocal roles, arrangements, characters, and political perspectives. The result is not a single, perfectly uniform genre. It is a deliberately varied sequence held together by rhythmic drive, strong ensemble playing, recurring concerns about power and survival, and a recognizable group identity.
The Clash and the Core Lineup
The classic four-person lineup brought contrasting strengths to the album:
| Musician | Main role on the album | Listening focus |
|---|---|---|
| Joe Strummer | Lead and backing vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, principal lyric writing | Urgent diction, broadcast-like address, political storytelling, rhythmic guitar |
| Mick Jones | Lead and rhythm guitars, lead and backing vocals, musical composition and arrangement | Melodic hooks, layered guitars, pop structure, contrasting vocal tone |
| Paul Simonon | Bass guitar, backing vocals, writer and lead singer of The Guns of Brixton | Bass-led groove, reggae influence, visual identity, alternative narrative voice |
| Topper Headon | Drums and percussion | Stylistic flexibility, syncopation, dynamic control, strong danceable pulse |
This freely licensed montage helps you identify the four musicians, but it is not a period photograph of the London Calling sessions. That distinction is useful: every image is evidence of something, but not necessarily of everything. When you use an image in research, identify what it actually shows, when its component photographs were made, who created it, and what license applies.
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Jones's melodic instincts and arranging skills were central to the album's breadth. Strummer's writing often supplies public urgency and historical reference, while Jones frequently brings tuneful phrasing and structural clarity. Simonon's bass playing gives many songs their physical character, and Headon's command of different rhythmic languages allows the group to move beyond simple high-speed punk.
Why 1979 and 1980 Both Matter
A historically accurate study separates three related timelines:
- British release history: The album appeared in the United Kingdom in December 1979.
- United States release history: It appeared in the United States in January 1980.
- Reception history: Many American year-end discussions treated it as a defining record of 1980 because that was the year in which it entered the United States market.
This difference explains why some sources label the album 1979 and others emphasize 1980. A strong researcher does not simply choose one date and call the other wrong. You should ask what the date refers to: first release, release in a particular country, chart activity, review publication, or later reissue.
Historical Context
Britain at the End of the 1970s
The album emerged amid economic difficulty, rising unemployment, industrial conflict, racial tension, political polarization, anxiety about violence, and intense debate about Britain's future. The period immediately followed the 1978–1979 Winter of Discontent and the 1979 general election. These conditions do not mechanically explain every song, but they help you understand why images of work, authority, policing, consumer life, urban pressure, and social breakdown carried such force.[2]
The Clash were also connected to anti-racist activity and to a punk culture that challenged established institutions. At the same time, the band admired musical traditions that came from outside white British rock, especially Jamaican reggae and ska. Your analysis should recognize both the creative importance of this exchange and the need to study the histories and communities from which those styles came.
A 1980 View from the Road
The following BBC Archive report places the band within contemporary television journalism. Watch how the reporter frames the group, how the musicians describe their work, and how the camera constructs an image of punk professionalism, travel, labor, and public controversy.
As you watch, separate three layers: what the band says about itself, what the broadcaster says about the band, and what the editing encourages the audience to believe. These layers may support each other, but they may also conflict.
From Punk to a Genre Hybrid
London Calling keeps punk's directness while treating genre as a resource rather than a border. The record's achievement is not that every song belongs neatly to a different category. Instead, the musicians combine features: a reggae-oriented bass line can operate under rock guitar; a rockabilly song can be played with punk force; horn arrangements can widen the sound; a pop chorus can carry social criticism.
| Style or tradition | Audible features to investigate | Album examples |
|---|---|---|
| Punk rock | Direct attack, compressed energy, forceful vocals, political urgency | London Calling, Clampdown |
| Reggae | Bass-centered groove, offbeat guitar, space, repetition, social commentary | The Guns of Brixton, Revolution Rock |
| Ska | Upstroke rhythm, buoyant pulse, horn color, Jamaican popular-music lineage | Rudie Can't Fail, Wrong 'Em Boyo |
| Rockabilly | 1950s rock and roll drive, twanging guitar, compact verse structure | Brand New Cadillac |
| Rhythm and blues | Groove, call and response, horn writing, dance-oriented phrasing | Several arrangements across the album |
| Jazz | Lounge-like color, flexible phrasing, instrumental texture | Jimmy Jazz |
| Pop music | Memorable hooks, clear song form, melodic vocal contrast | Train in Vain, Lost in the Supermarket |
When identifying a style, support your claim with audible evidence. Do not write only that a track “sounds like reggae.” Explain which bass pattern, guitar placement, drum feel, vocal phrasing, studio space, or arrangement feature leads you to that conclusion.
Writing, Rehearsal, and Recording
The band developed material in a period of intensive rehearsal before recording at Wessex Sound Studios. Guy Stevens produced the sessions, and Bill Price engineered them. Stevens was known for an unconventional, physically animated approach intended to push performers toward emotional intensity, while Price helped turn the performances into coherent recordings. The contrast between disorder in the room and control in the finished sound is a useful production question.[3]
The following documentary segment includes archival testimony about the making of the album. Treat it as a primary-source pathway, but remember that retrospective interviews are shaped by memory, editing, and later reputation.
A production analysis can examine:
- Arrangement: Which instrument enters first, and how does the texture grow?
- Performance: Does the take sound tightly controlled, deliberately rough, or both?
- Mixing: Which sounds are placed forward, and which create depth?
- Rhythm section: How do bass and drums organize the song?
- Vocal production: Is the voice intimate, theatrical, conversational, shouted, doubled, or distant?
- Sequencing: How does one track prepare or disrupt your expectations for the next?
Close Listening: Selected Tracks
London Calling
The title track begins like an emergency transmission. Its title echoes the identification used in British international broadcasting during the Second World War. The song transforms that public-broadcast voice into a late-1970s warning that gathers nuclear anxiety, environmental fear, social conflict, unemployment, and distrust of authority.[4]
The arrangement is disciplined rather than chaotic. A memorable bass figure establishes the center; drums create a heavy, controlled march; guitars add clipped tension; and Strummer's vocal sounds like both a broadcaster and a participant inside the crisis. The music is powerful because it turns multiple fears into a collective call rather than a private diary entry.
Listening questions: Who is being called? Does the voice warn, command, invite, or accuse? How do the pauses and accents create suspense? Why might a danceable rock track be an effective vehicle for disturbing ideas?
Brand New Cadillac
This performance reworks a song associated with British rock and roller Vince Taylor. It connects punk to 1950s rockabilly and demonstrates that The Clash were not rejecting all older rock. They were selecting, accelerating, and recontextualizing parts of it. Listen for the guitar tone, compact structure, rhythmic propulsion, and live-band immediacy.
This track raises a broader question: when does a cover version preserve a tradition, and when does it change the meaning of the original through a new performance style, audience, and historical moment?
Rudie Can't Fail and Wrong 'Em Boyo
These songs show the band's engagement with Jamaican music and the cultural figure of the “rude boy.” The buoyant rhythm and horn color can sound celebratory, yet the songs also involve judgment, social identity, storytelling, and questions about adulthood. Study the musical sources rather than treating Jamaican style as a decorative effect.
“Wrong 'Em Boyo” belongs to a longer chain of retellings connected to the Stagger Lee story. This makes the track an example of intertextuality: a new work gains meaning through its relationship to earlier songs and narratives.
Spanish Bombs
“Spanish Bombs” connects memories of the Spanish Civil War with late-1970s tourism and popular imagination. The song compresses history, place names, romance, violence, and political solidarity into a fast rock format. Its use of Spanish words is expressive but not always grammatically standard, which creates a useful language question: does imperfect language weaken historical communication, or can sound and emotional intention carry another kind of meaning?
For a careful study, compare the song's historical references with a reliable account of the Spanish Civil War. Mark what is documented history, what is poetic compression, and what is the narrator's imaginative response.
Lost in the Supermarket
This song turns consumer space into a setting for loneliness, identity formation, and social disconnection. Strummer wrote the lyric with aspects of Jones's childhood in mind, and Jones sings the lead. That separation between authorial perspective and vocal performance complicates any simple claim that the singer and narrator are the same person.
Listen for the contrast between an accessible pop surface and the discomfort of the subject. How do melodic warmth, repeated phrases, backing vocals, and steady rhythm make alienation memorable? The track is useful for studying consumerism, suburban experience, advertising, and the search for authenticity.
Clampdown
“Clampdown” examines how systems of power recruit, discipline, and exploit people, especially the young. The song asks how rebellion can become obedience and how work can become a structure of control. Its force comes from movement: the rhythm drives forward while the lyric warns about political hardening, conformity, and authoritarian identity.
In this live performance, compare the studio concept with stage energy. Watch who cues changes, how the band shares physical space, and how repetition creates collective intensity.
The Guns of Brixton
Written and sung by Paul Simonon, “The Guns of Brixton” brings a different voice into the album. Its reggae-oriented groove supports a tense narrative about policing, pressure, resistance, and the expectation of confrontation. The song's focus on Brixton also points toward questions of place, race, migration, and state authority in London.
Do not reduce the track to its subject matter. Analyze how the bass line carries both threat and attraction, how the offbeat guitar creates space, and how the controlled tempo differs from stereotypical assumptions that protest music must always be fast.
Death or Glory, The Card Cheat, and I'm Not Down
These songs explore reputation, compromise, risk, theatrical self-invention, defeat, and persistence. “Death or Glory” questions whether rebellious slogans survive adulthood. “The Card Cheat” uses a dramatic arrangement to turn a doomed character into a cinematic figure. “I'm Not Down” answers pressure with resilience.
Taken together, they prevent the album from being only a list of public issues. The record also studies what happens inside people when ideals meet exhaustion, work, failure, love, and time.
Train in Vain
“Train in Vain” was added late and did not appear on the first sleeve's printed track list. Its clear hook and relationship-centered subject show the band's pop craft. The song expands the album's emotional range by placing betrayal and disappointment beside large-scale social concerns.
Ask why this track works as a final statement. Does it resolve the album, offer relief, shift from public to private conflict, or show that trust is political at every scale?
Performance, Collaboration, and the 1980 Tour
This freely licensed photograph shows Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon performing with The Clash in Oslo on 21 May 1980. Use it as performance evidence: study stance, proximity, microphone placement, instrument position, clothing, and the relationship between individual musicians and the group image.
The Paris performance provides another comparison. A live version is not merely a less polished copy of a studio recording. Tempo, audience, venue acoustics, camera direction, bodily effort, and the pressure of a single take can create a different meaning.
This image documents Ian Dury performing with The Clash in March 1980. It reminds you that music history is a network rather than a row of isolated artists. Concert bills, guest appearances, producers, photographers, journalists, labels, venues, and audiences all help styles and ideas circulate.
The Album Cover as Visual Communication
The cover combines Pennie Smith's photograph of Paul Simonon smashing his bass on stage at the Palladium in New York with Ray Lowry's graphic design. Lowry arranged the pink and green lettering as an homage to the cover of Elvis Presley's 1956 debut album. The result joins destruction and tradition: a punk-era gesture is framed through an earlier icon of rock and roll. The Museum of Modern Art credits Lowry, Smith, and Epic Records in its collection record.[5]
This freely licensed photograph shows Simonon performing at the Palladium on 20 September 1979, the concert associated with the famous cover image. It is not Pennie Smith's cover photograph. That difference provides an excellent source-literacy exercise: two photographs can share subject, venue, and date while remaining distinct works with different creators, moments, compositions, and rights.
A visual analysis should address:
- Denotation: What can you literally see?
- Connotation: What ideas do blur, motion, posture, color, and typography suggest?
- Intertextuality: How does the Elvis Presley design reference change the meaning?
- Brand identity: How does the cover balance The Clash's name with the album title?
- Material culture: How does a square LP sleeve differ from a phone-sized streaming image?
- Copyright: Who created the photograph and design, and what reuse rights apply?
Museum and Canon Formation
The album's history has been presented through museum exhibitions containing draft lyrics, clothing, photographs, film, and other archival objects. A 2019 Museum of London exhibition used such materials to examine the album's recording process and relationship to the city.[6]
When a punk object enters a museum, its meaning changes. It can become heritage, design history, evidence, commodity, or civic memory. Ask who selects the objects, whose voices explain them, and whether institutional recognition preserves rebellion or makes it safer.
Language, Voice, and Rhetoric
The album offers several speaking positions: emergency broadcaster, political witness, worker, consumer, historical traveler, threatened resident, disappointed partner, comic narrator, and resilient survivor. You should avoid assuming that every “I” is the biographical musician. In songs, a voice can be fictional, composite, ironic, historical, or deliberately unstable.
Useful rhetorical concepts include:
| Concept | Question for analysis |
|---|---|
| Address | Who is the implied audience? |
| Repetition | Which words or sounds gain power through return? |
| Imperative mood | Where does the voice command or urge action? |
| Allusion | Which broadcasts, wars, songs, places, or public events are recalled? |
| Irony | Does the music sound more cheerful than the subject? |
| Code-switching | What happens when the lyric uses words from another language or cultural tradition? |
| Narrative voice | Is the speaker a participant, observer, character, or public announcer? |
A good paragraph joins language and sound. Instead of writing “the song is political,” explain how a repeated phrase, a shift in pronoun, a rhythmic accent, and a vocal tone position the listener in relation to power.
Reception and Legacy
The album reached the United Kingdom top ten, later achieved platinum status in the United States, and became widely recognized as a major work of rock history. In 2007, it entered the GRAMMY Hall of Fame.[7]
Its influence can be discussed in several ways:
- Genre influence: It showed that a punk-identified band could work across styles without abandoning urgency.
- Political songwriting: It joined public issues with memorable popular forms.
- Album sequencing: It used the double-album format to create range and argument.
- Visual culture: Its cover became a widely referenced design object.
- Performance identity: It connected musical precision with an image of risk and physical commitment.
- Canon formation: Critics, museums, educational institutions, reissues, and award bodies helped establish its later status.
Legacy is not the same as universal agreement. A canon is made through repeated selection. Ask whose judgments become authoritative, which audiences are centered, which musical sources receive credit, and how commercial reissues interact with the album's anti-commercial themes.
Source Criticism and Research Practice
For this topic, you will encounter official label pages, museum records, interviews, journalism, fan archives, books, videos, and encyclopedia articles. Use a source triangle:
| Check | Guiding question |
|---|---|
| Authority | Who created the source, and what relevant expertise or access do they have? |
| Evidence | Does the source provide dates, documents, recordings, named witnesses, or citations? |
| Purpose | Is the source educating, promoting, selling, remembering, entertaining, or arguing? |
Wikimedia Commons file pages are especially useful because they identify exact filenames, creators, dates, sources, and licenses. The images in this aiMOOC were selected from verified Commons pages rather than copied from unsourced image collections.[8]
When sources disagree, do not hide the disagreement. Define the disputed point, compare the evidence, and explain why one interpretation is stronger or why uncertainty remains.
References
- ↑ Recording Academy: the release, musical range, themes, and legacy of London Calling
- ↑ Not Even Past at the University of Texas at Austin: historical context for London Calling
- ↑ Mix: recording and engineering history of London Calling
- ↑ English Wikipedia: London Calling song history and cited sources
- ↑ Museum of Modern Art: London Calling album cover
- ↑ Sony Music UK: Museum of London exhibition announcement
- ↑ Recording Academy: GRAMMY Hall of Fame listing for London Calling
- ↑ Wikimedia Commons: The Clash category and individual license records
Interactive Tasks
Quiz: Test Your Knowledge
When was London Calling first released in the United Kingdom? (December 1979) (!January 1980) (!December 1980) (!January 1981)
Why is 1980 also associated with the album? (It was released in the United States in January 1980) (!It was recorded entirely during 1980) (!The band formed during 1980) (!The British release happened in December 1980)
Who produced London Calling? (Guy Stevens) (!George Martin) (!Quincy Jones) (!Brian Eno)
Which musician wrote and sang The Guns of Brixton? (Paul Simonon) (!Joe Strummer) (!Mick Jones) (!Topper Headon)
Which studio was the main recording location? (Wessex Sound Studios) (!Abbey Road Studios) (!Sun Studio) (!Electric Lady Studios)
Which style is especially central to The Guns of Brixton? (Reggae) (!Opera) (!Bluegrass) (!Techno)
Who photographed the bass smashing image used on the album cover? (Pennie Smith) (!Ray Lowry) (!Guy Stevens) (!Bill Price)
Who designed the cover lettering and layout? (Ray Lowry) (!Pennie Smith) (!Paul Simonon) (!Mick Jones)
Which track was added late and omitted from the first printed track list? (Train in Vain) (!London Calling) (!Spanish Bombs) (!Jimmy Jazz)
What best describes the album's musical approach? (Punk energy combined with several other musical traditions) (!One unchanging style across every track) (!An entirely electronic instrumental album) (!A collection of orchestral symphonies)
Memory Game
| Guy Stevens | Producer who encouraged emotionally intense studio performances |
| Wessex Sound Studios | Main London recording location for the album |
| Pennie Smith | Photographer who captured the famous bass smashing image |
| Ray Lowry | Designer who connected the cover to an earlier Elvis Presley sleeve |
| Paul Simonon | Bassist who wrote and sang a reggae influenced Brixton narrative |
| Train in Vain | Late addition missing from the first printed track list |
| Genre hybridity | Creative combination of punk with multiple musical traditions |
Drag and Drop
| Match the correct terms. | Topic |
|---|---|
| Apocalyptic broadcast voice | London Calling |
| Consumer alienation | Lost in the Supermarket |
| Anti-authoritarian work critique | Clampdown |
| Spanish Civil War memory | Spanish Bombs |
| Relationship betrayal and resilience | Train in Vain |
Match each interpretive focus with the song that most directly supports it. Then justify one match through a specific musical feature.
Crossword Puzzle
| Rockabilly | Which 1950s rooted style is prominent in Brand New Cadillac? |
| Reggae | Which Jamaican derived style shapes The Guns of Brixton? |
| Brixton | Which London district appears in a Paul Simonon song title? |
| Consumerism | Which social system is criticized through supermarket imagery? |
| Wessex | Which London studio hosted the main recording sessions? |
| Simonon | Which bassist wrote and sang The Guns of Brixton? |
LearningApps
Cloze Text
Open-Ended Tasks
Easy
- Listening Map: Create a time-coded map of one track with at least six observations about instruments, voice, texture, dynamics, and form.
- Album Cover Observation: Produce a one-page visual analysis that separates literal description from interpretation and identifies the photograph, design, and Elvis Presley reference.
- Genre Cards: Design six study cards for punk, reggae, ska, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and pop, using one audible feature and one album example on each card.
- Historical Timeline: Build a timeline linking the British release, United States release, relevant late-1970s events, the 1980 tour, and later institutional recognition.
Standard
- Comparative Listening: Compare two contrasting tracks in a structured report covering rhythm, bass, guitar, voice, form, production, and social theme.
- Radio Feature: Produce a three-to-five-minute original audio report that explains why both 1979 and 1980 appear in the album's history and credits every source used.
- Intergenerational Interview: Interview two people from different age groups about their response to one track, then distinguish memory, taste, historical knowledge, and evidence.
- Music Video Storyboard: Create an original storyboard for a selected song using symbolic images, camera directions, and editing notes without reproducing complete lyrics.
Advanced
- Digital Exhibition: Curate a six-object online exhibition using archival images, reviews, performance footage, or design records, with metadata, rights information, and a curatorial argument.
- Political Rhetoric Essay: Write an evidence-based essay analyzing how two songs combine public language, narrative voice, and musical structure to address power.
- Production Experiment: Record an original sixty-to-ninety-second piece that combines at least two musical traditions, then document arrangement, performance, mixing, and ethical source awareness.
- Reception Study: Compare at least two reviews from 1979 or 1980 with later museum or award recognition and explain how cultural canons are produced.
Learning Assessment
- Context and Sound: Explain how one documented historical condition becomes audible through rhythm, arrangement, vocal delivery, or production in a selected track.
- Close Listening Defense: Present a two-minute claim about one song and defend it with three precisely located listening observations.
- Source Evaluation: Compare an official source, a museum record, and an encyclopedia article, then rank their usefulness for one specific research question.
- Visual Rhetoric: Analyze how photograph, blur, posture, typography, color, and intertextual reference work together on the album cover.
- Genre Transfer: Create or plan an original work that combines two styles and explain how your choices differ from simple imitation.
- Legacy Argument: Decide whether the album's lasting importance depends more on musical innovation, political communication, visual design, or institutional canonization, and justify your conclusion with counterevidence.
Evidence of Learning
| Area | Evidence you should be able to provide |
|---|---|
| Knowledge | Accurate release chronology, band roles, recording context, major stylistic influences, selected song themes, and cover credits |
| Listening skills | Specific observations about rhythm, bass, guitar, drums, vocals, texture, form, dynamics, and production |
| Historical reasoning | Connections between music and context that avoid treating songs as simple mirrors of events |
| Language analysis | Explanation of voice, address, repetition, allusion, irony, narrative position, and multilingual elements |
| Media literacy | Clear distinction between primary and secondary sources, fact and interpretation, period evidence and later memory |
| Products | A listening map, presentation, essay, podcast, storyboard, exhibition, interview study, or original recording |
| Rights awareness | Correct creator credits, source links, license checks, and responsible use of recordings, lyrics, photographs, and video |
| Transfer | Ability to apply the same analytical method to another album, protest song, media campaign, historical artifact, or cross-genre work |
OERs on the Topic
Use the embedded article as a starting point rather than a final authority. Follow its citations, compare release information across countries, and distinguish the album article from the separate article about the title song.
| Open or freely accessible resource | Learning use |
|---|---|
| London Calling on English Wikipedia | Overview, bibliography, track and personnel pathways |
| The Clash on English Wikipedia | Band history and links to member biographies |
| Wikimedia Commons category for The Clash | Reusable images with creator, date, source, and license records |
| Museum of Modern Art cover record | Verified credits and graphic-design context |
| GRAMMY Hall of Fame | Institutional recognition and reception history |
| Museum of London exhibition announcement | Archival objects, exhibition framing, and heritage questions |
Linked Learning Areas
The album links music with English language, History, Politics, Sociology, Media studies, Art and design, Cultural studies, Audio engineering, Journalism, Museum studies, and Intellectual property. A complete study therefore moves between sound, words, images, institutions, technology, historical evidence, and creative practice.