Pop Cult: Religion in Popular Music

This title explores the development of a range of cults of popular music as a response to changes in attitudes to meaning, spirituality and religion in society. At a time when fundamentalism is on the rise, traditional religions are in decline and postmodernity has challenged any system that claims to be all-defining, young people have left their traditional places of worship and set up their own, in clubs, at festivals and within music culture. "Pop Cult" investigates the ways in which popular music and its surrounding culture have become a primary site for the location of meaning, belief and identity.

It provides an introduction to the history of the interactions of vernacular musics and religion, and the role of music in religious culture. Rupert Till explores the role of African American music, the religious cults of heavy metal, pop stars, club culture, music festivals, virtual popular music worlds and commercial music and how popular music has become integrated into the practices of traditional religions.

He concludes by discussing how and why popular music cultures have taken on many of the roles of traditional religions in contemporary society.