The study of the history of music, but having no relationship to music itself. It is usually studied at the graduate level by inept performers and anal-retentive, sexually-repressed, multi-lingual, shutins. It is an equivalent discipline to Art History, except for the fact that you will never see a musicology show on PBS, nor will you ever see a musicologist interviewed on television. Musicology is the study of boring, obscure facts tangentially related to the lives and works of (mostly unknown) composers in the Western European high-cultural tradition.
1. Music is to musicology as science is to Scientology.
2. Musicology Ph.D. student: "Did you know that Joseph Matthias Kracher was on friendly terms with Michael Haydn?"
Intelligent Human: "Big fucking deal! Who cares?"
Musicology Ph.D. student: "Well, Kracher wrote two settings of the 'Te Deum.' What have you done to contribute to the advancement of Western Civilization?"
Intelligent Human (grabbing student's throat and choking him to death): "This!"
Musicology Ph.D. student: "Gakkkkqq!!!"
Any large broadway style production involving any members of the lulz family set to music. Characters may include, but are not limited to lolcats, lolrus, loldogs, roflcopters, lollerskates and other variations.
Man! Did you see that awesome musiclol last night? That crazy lolrus was searching for his bukket to the tune of row row row your boat.
The field of musicological study that engages with popular forms of music, especially music associated with commerce, entertainment and leisure activities. It is distinct from 'popular music studies' in its primary concern with criticism and analysis of the music itself, although it does not ignore social and cultural context.
The journal Popular Musicology Online, which began as a print-based journal in 1994 at the University of Salford, UK.