Religion and Popular Music in Europe New Expressions of Sacred and Secular Identity

by Bossius, Thomas; Häger, Andreas; Kahn-Harris, Keith

• ISBN13: 9781848858091
• ISBN10: 1848858094
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

Music and religion have, throughout history, walked hand in hand. In the rites and rituals of small tribal religions, great world religions, and more recent New-Age and neo-heathen movements, different kinds of music have been used to celebrate the gods, express belief and help believers get in contact with the divine. This innovative book focuses on how mainstream and counter-cultural groups use religion and music to negotiate the challenges of modernisation and globalisation in the European context: a region under-explored by existing literature on the subject. With its internal ethnic diversity, ever-expanding borders and increasing differentiation, Europe has undergone massive dislocation in recent years. The authors show that, in the midst of such change, rock, pop and dance music may in their various forms be used by their practitioners as resources for new kinds of spiritual and religious identification, even as these forms are used as symbols of the deficiencies of secular society. Focusing on Christianity, Judaism, Islam and New Religious Movements, the book explores such topics as Norwegian Black Metal and Neopaganism, contemporary Jewish Music in the UK, the French hip hop scene, the musical thinking of Muslim convert Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and European dance music culture. It offers an ideal introduction to leading-edge thinking at the exciting interface of 'music and religion'.

Author Biography

Thomas Bossius is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Gothenburg.

 

Andreas Häger is  a Docent in Sociology of Religion at Åbo Akademi University, Turku.

 

Keith Kahn-Harris is a Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College, London, and author of Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge (2006).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements * Popular Music and Religion in Europe - Introduction -- Thomas Bossius, Keith Kahn-Harris and Andreas Häger * Jerusalem in Uppsala. Some Accounts of the Relationship Between a Christian Rock Group and its Congregation -- Andreas Häger * Christian Metal in Finland. Institutional Religion and Popular Music in the midst of Religious Change -- Marcus Moberg * Shout to the Lord. Christian Worship Music as Popular Culture, Church Music, and Life Style -- Thomas Bossius * Jews United and Divided by Music. Contemporary Jewish Music in the UK and America -- Keith Kahn-Harris * The Return of Ziryab. Yusuf Islam on Music -- Göran Larsson * The Meanings of the Religious Talk in French Rap Music -- Stéphanie Molinero * Why Didn’t the Churches Begin to Burn a Thousand Years Earlier? -- Gry Mørk * 21st Century Trance Cult. Electronic Dance Music Culture and its Role in Replacing the Traditional Roles of Religions within Western European Popular Youth Culture -- Rupert Till * References