Levando o “divertimento” a sério: o método musemático de Philip Tagg para a análise da música popular em dois exemplos seminais

Article about the contribution of English musicologist Philip Tagg (1944-2024) to studies around popular music. Through printed and audiovisual sources, we exemplify the author’s musematic method of musical analysis, with three main concepts: analized object, inter-objective comparative material and fields of paramusical connotation. We focuses on his two seminal works on the musical theme of the television series Kojak (1979) and the song “Fernando” (1976), by the Swedish band Abba, covering the stages of the musematic method: identification of musemas; their relationship with similar musemas from other musics; association with paramusical connotations through analogies and; hypothetical musical verification of the analysis. We conclude by highlighting the role played by Philip Tagg in creating a popular musicology), in dialogue with experts and “no-musos”.