The Thornton School of Music’s popular music program takes a lot of work, but if you ask Mila Mincy, a sophomore majoring in popular music performance, that’s work she’s happy to provide.

“Pop is my life this semester, and I like it that way,” Mincy said.

Friday night, the sophomore popular music students’ showcase took over Carson Soundstage with a precise fury. Students performed covers of popular music, ranging from Donna Summer’s disco classic “Bad Girls” to heart-wrenching ballads, like Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

The showcase served as the midterm for the around two dozen pop students, who rehearsed and performed three songs a week since the start of the semester before a batch of those songs was picked for the showcase. It was a breakneck pace of artistry with one goal in mind: becoming a cohesive band in just a few weeks.

“It’s really just a matter of practicing with the band and playing together to make five people in a band sound like one person,” said Brandon Goldman, a sophomore majoring in popular music performance.

Mincy said this preparation was grueling and thorough, as the students rehearsed their assigned songs until it was second nature.

“You can never prepare enough for this kind of thing,” Mincy said. “It really starts and ends with listening. … As a vocalist, I’m tuning into different singers’ phrasing, tonalities, vowels, different dynamics and so many different, little nuances.”

For vocalists like Mincy, the work required meticulous preparation, she said. Songs like Summer’s “Bad Girls” and The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” which she performed lead vocals for, required focus on minute details of rhythm and melody to deliver an identical match to the original music.

“There’s being a nervous beginner freshman in college, and then there’s being a nervous beginner freshman in USC Thornton pop program. It’s a whole new world,” Mincy said. “It’s a whole new level of expectations, not just from your faculty [but] from your peers, and everyone else is 10 miles ahead of you in their own way.”

To put on a showcase, they needed to become a group, not just a sum of parts. The performance required the students, who were split up into four bands, to adjust to multiple roles or even new instruments within each song. It was a shift that cohort members said was a huge challenge that they’ve since overcome.

“What makes our cohort different [from other cohorts] is just looking back on how much we’ve grown as a unit,” said Ethan Hanzlik, a sophomore majoring in popular music. “We’ve all become so emotionally tied together.”

There was a struggle at first to unify the cohort, Mincy said, but after a year and a half of jamming, that changed.

“It was hard to connect with people outside of their musical aspirations and hobbies,” Mincy said. “I’ve gotten to know these people as, now, some of my very best friends.”

However, class isn’t where this group’s musical efforts end. The popular music program is packed with students developing original pieces, allowing each person’s individuality to shine.

The performers also had a great time supporting one another and were filming from backstage or cheering from the crowd once their band was done.

“It’s an out-of-body experience, and it is constantly just humbling,” Mincy said. “When somebody sings so well or plays so well, it literally makes you forget where you are.”

As Chic’s “Good Times” kicked in, the crowd was instructed to shout along to the lyrics “These are the good times / Leave your cares behind.”

Sean Holt, the vice dean of the division of contemporary music at Thornton and one of the professors of the pop class, said he knew the students were ready to do just that in his opening address to the crowd.

“It’s only been seven weeks. Can you guys believe we’re doing this already?” Holt said. “I’ve seen some amazing people come through, and tonight [was] no different.”