Popular Music Studies (PMS) is now taught in over 20 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK and numerous others across the world. This article outlines the constituent parts of PMS in the UK and questions its status as a discipline in its own right. It concludes by arguing that, having established itself, PMS will need to deal with two key pressures in modern academic life – those of conducting research and widening participation. In the former instance, PMS might have to be pragmatic, in the latter lies potential for radicalism.