Popular Music as Religion
"In this regard, there is a growing body of scholars who recognize that, as institutional religion has become increasingly irrelevant to many people, the sector of popular culture has become the new arena for their religious expression...The shift from institutional to cultural religion is summed up in the title of Jon Wiley Nelson's book, Your God is Alive and Well and Appearing in Popular Culture."
-- Robin Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
Reflections on Popular Music as Religion
A Proposal Worth Considering: Some scholars of religion suggest that religion has migrated to popular culture. By this they mean that many people in the world (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and the West) turn to popular culture -- especially popular music -- as a context in which they form their identities, find satisfying forms of community, develop their worldviews, make meaning of their lives, and enjoy or undergo forms of experience which, in previous periods, were considered “touches of transcendence.”
The Migration Model: For some of them, popular music and other aspects of popular culture are primary sources of identity. They are not interested in organized religions such as Christianity or Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam, but they are interested in music, magazines, and movies. They illustrate what we can call the migration model because, in their case, religion truly has migrated to popular culture. People in the West who define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are often in this category, as are many people in other parts of the world (China, for example) who have no familiarity with, or interest in, what they call 'organized religion.'
The Hybridity Model: For others, nourishment from popular music is complemented by other sources, including perhaps organized religion. They are shaped by popular culture and by the teachings and practices of one (or more) institutionalized forms of religion. The multiple sources by which they are shaped may be mutually enriching or they may exist in tension with one another. In any case the sources are hybridized or, perhaps better, blended.
Religion as an Activity: In text-based forms of organized religion, where teachings are formalized in written words, people may try to disentangle hybridities of religion and culture so that the “religion” can stand on its own, perhaps as an authority to critique culture. But in forms of religious life where texts do not play such a role – popular Buddhism, popular Hinduism, popular Daoism, for example – it is difficult if not impossible to disentangle religion and culture. The religion is not exactly ‘organized’ or ‘institutionalized.’ We can speak of it as unorganized religion and/or spiritualized culture.
Unorganized Religion: If we think of religion as the activity of identity-formation, meaning-making, community-forming, and worldview-developing, as animated by touches of transcendence, then even organized religion isn’t really organized. It is always in-the-making, always on-the-way, always adapting to new situations which require new responses. This activity may occur within the context of what we call a ‘world religion’ or it may not. Thus we may speak of religious activity within the context of institutional religion and religious activity outside the context of institutional religion. Insofar as they are open to novelty, both are unorganized.
The Well-Being of Life as a Measure: Whether within or outside institutionalized settings, religion may be constructive or destructive, or both. How can this be measured? There is no absolute criterion that drops from heaven. I suggest a life-centered rather than a theological approach. Let us think of religious activity as constructive if, in combination with many other factors, it contributes to the well-being of life, both individual and social. Religious activity is constructive if it helps a person (1) find satisfaction at a personal level, relative to the conditions of his or her life, and if it helps a person (2) contribute to sustainable community, both human and non-human. A sustainable community is a community that is creative, compassionate, participatory, egalitarian, humane to animals, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind. If religious activity enables a person to help build these kinds of communities, it is constructive; if it inhibits a person from helping build and sustain these kinds of communities, religious activities that lead to arrogance, violence, narcissism, callousness, self-hatred, cruelty, or elitism are largely negative. The same applies to popular music when it operates in a religious way. Popular music may function religiously but not be good.
Concept of the Sacred: The word “sacred” has different meanings. Here let it refer to a non-verbalized experience of something attractive and awesome, fascinating and terrifying, sometimes called the numinous. The numinous can be felt in response to an object in nature (a holy mountain), a humanly-constructed object (a sanctuary, a labyrinth, a garden), a work of art (organized sounds, as in chants, symphonies, rock and roll), an event (a very large gathering of people), and an idea (as in the idea of God). When a person experiences the sacred as the numinous, the experience may be fleeting, but it is powerful.
The Forbidden Sacred: Understood in this way, the "sacred" takes at least two forms in human life: the socially accepted sacred and the forbidden sacred. Sometimes but not always, institutional religion both establishes and reinforces the socially accepted sacred; it is about "family values." But the prophetic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also contain the idea that religion critiques the socially accepted sacred, challenging its hegemony. We might call it constructive blasphemy. Some forms of popular music contribute to constructive blasphemy, which is a religious experience in its own right.
Ethics: Is experiencing the sacred always a good thing? Not necessarily. Experiences of the numinous or sacred can be constructive or destructive, too. Their value depends on the contexts in which they occur and the ways that they are expressed. The same applies to popular music when it operates in a religious way. It may well involve a touch of transcendence but the manner of the touch, and the transcendent reality that is touched, may lead to arrogance, violence, narcissism, or elitism.
Different Transcendent Realities: The word transcendent has different meanings. Here let it refer to something that transcends the ego and will of the person or group of people who are experiencing it. It may be, but is not necessarily, numinous or sacred in the sense defined above. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas speaks of the other person as transcendent, in the sense that we encounter something that demands our respect in the face of the other. The natural world can also be experienced as transcendent. The past is transcendent in that it cannot be reversed. Tragic experiences can be experienced as transcendent. Evil can be experienced as transcendent. And God, however understood, is generally experienced as transcendent. Different kinds of music can reveal different kinds of transcendent realities. When people experience something transcendent, they experience something "more" than themselves. Popular music provides experiences of many different kinds of transcendent realities. See the Wheel of Spirituality at the bottom of this page; I suggest that there are eighteen ways that people experience touches of transcendence in music, popular culture, and life.
God: The word “God” has many different meanings. This is not the context to distinguish between various concepts of God: monism, pantheism, panentheism, classical theism, naturalism. If by God we have in mind a cosmic lure toward the well-being of life in human life and in the larger universe, then we rightly recognize that the energy of God – the spirit of God – can be in organized religion and unorganized religion, in the world religions and in popular music.
Popular culture serves as a medium in which people find meaning and form identities, often in ways that have historically been the purview of what we call religion. Whether operating within or outside of institutional religious frameworks, the sacred and the transcendent can be experienced in a myriad of ways, including through popular music.
Miscellaneous Questions
1. Is popular music a source of religious experience?
It depends on the kind of popular music being considered. In his research into rock, rap, disco, and heavy metal, Robin Sylvan proposes that the primary appeal is direct experience of the sacred, understood as a palpable encounter with something that is mysterious, fascinating, and powerful. This experience is mediated by:
Whereas western scholars might distinguish between aesthetic experience and religious experience, Sylvan proposes that they are not different in the new religion. The aesthetic experience of listening to music and dancing is consonant with religious experience.
-- Italicized words from Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
2. What is popular culture?
It is the subjectively felt atmosphere of everyday life in any local setting, as influenced by local and global realities. It consists of contingent (socially constructed) values and ideas which are communicated through rituals, architecture, music, books, furniture, signs, designs, and other humanly built objects; it is also shaped by the landscapes and soundscapes of everyday life.
The values and ideas are what the philosopher Whitehead calls propositions or "lures for feeling." They are mediated by the realities but they are not reducible to them. When we see an advertisement, for example, the signage itself evokes a lure for feeling: that is, a value or idea which can shape how we think about and behave in the world. This felt lure is not simply contained in the sign, it exists in our mind, too, however briefly. It also dwells in the mind of others who are influenced by the advertisement. It dwells in a realm that is not entirely visible to the eye but nevertheless visible to the imagination. Popular culture inhabits this realm of the imagination even as it also inhabits the embodied world. It consists of two kinds of realities -- possibilities and actualities -- as held together in what Whitehead calls contrasts. More specifically, popular culture elicits in our minds a contrast between the way the world is and the way it can be.
Popular Cultures are pluralistic. There are many popular cultures, often intersecting but also distinctive. Popular cultures can evolve out of common interests in sports, music, film, the arts, patriotism, politics, and social struggles.
Popular Cultures are hybrid. Popular cultures are never self-contained. They are always in process and they are always receiving influences from their surroundings. Popular cultures are inevitably composed of elements that were once alien.
Popular Cultures guide the imagination and provide subjective aims. Popular cultures are more than worldviews or ways of seeing the world intellectually; they are cultural atmospheres filled with collectively felt subjective aims. Popular cultures include, but are much more than, ways of understanding the world. They are invitations to live in a certain way, invitations for self-creativity in community with others. The building blocks of popular culture are material and bodily realities – people and the humanly-built objects – but also images and ideas, stories and myths which guide the imagination. In Whitehead’s philosophy these ideas, images, stories, and myths are called propositions. They are collectively felt proposals for how life can be lived and experience can unfold. Popular culture is composed of these lures.
Popular Cultures have agency. With its emphasis on experience in the mode of causal efficacy (receiving influences from the past, the environment, other people) and self-creativity (responding to influences in potentially creative ways) Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for appreciating how popular tastes (including musical tastes) are partly created by the media and nevertheless tweaked, sometimes in unexpected and subversive ways, by musical audiences. Popular culture is manipulated by corporate powers and manipulates corporate powers.
Popular Cultures confer identity. With its emphasis on the self as person-in-community, not person-in-isolation, Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for recognizing the significance and power of musical communities: that is, communities of musicians and listeners.
Popular Cultures are different at every moment. With its idea that the actual world is an ongoing process, different at every moment, Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for recognizing that popular culture is itself a process of becoming, never fixed. In a globalized context, the process of change is intensified by various kinds of globalization: financial, technological, political, military, ideological, and spiritual.
3. What questions does popular music raise for theology?
In an extended excerpt from his Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology (Liturgical Press, 2013), Tom Beaudoin borrows from the ethnomusicologist, Simon Frith, to offer three ways of thinking about Popular Music and the tasks of theology as related to these three ways of thinking.
Tom Beaudoin:
"Borrowing from the language of democracy, Frith argues that popular culture can be understood as cultural “products” made “for the people,” “of the people,” and “by the people.” First, as something made “for the people,” we can think of music as an industrially-produced commodity aimed at a particular social group. This definition directs our attention to the ways that music becomes popular through the way it is planned and branded for the consumption of a specific social demographic. There is an important insight here: all music is created and made available to certain publics with a more or less sophisticated (perhaps manipulative) attempt to be placed into people’s lives. Of course, I also want to know what this definition means for theology. It means that theology can look for the meaning of music by what its makers “design” into it. Theology then asks how God and God-related spiritual texts, ideas, and practices relate to a series of governing intentions: what the artist means to convey, what the record company is trying to sell, how the larger social ideology benefits from its propagation. This definition focuses on music’s meaning in the intentions, influences, and intervention of powerful forces behind it.
The second definition Frith presents is that pop culture is the culture “of the people.” Here, pop music becomes popular because it so well characterizes a social group’s values, behaviors, or identity. The music seems to “fit” or “depict” what people are like, and that is what makes it “popular.” For example, there is music that seems to speak particularly to teenage life, to racial-ethnic realities, to religious affiliation, to local or regional tastes, to gender dynamics, or to specific levels of formal education or status or social privilege. Insofar as a musical artist, lyric, song, album, video, concert, or the like symbolizes a quality of a social group, popular music is the music or culture “of the people.” Popular music is frequently experienced by fans as “my music” or “our music” precisely for these reasons. For theological research, this means that we may look to the sensibilities of the social group that are “embedded” in the music when we want to understand how to relate spiritual things to popular music. Our interest becomes how the music is symbolizing “where people are,” acting like a seismograph for contemporary life.
The third definition Frith offers is popular culture as culture “by the people.” This is close to what is sometimes called “folk culture,” because here we focus on a specific social group’s practices. What people do creatively musically, on their own terms, is “popular music.” Though this definition tends to prioritize inventive local artistry, it can conceivably include the creative things people do with the commodities they receive. So popular music as culture “by the people” can include street raps, busking, and home recordings (and how those circulate in use in local communities), but can also include appreciation for what people really do with commercially produced music, such as how they treat lyrics, what they do with musical celebrity, how they construct their own playlists, how they share music, and how they put music into the particularities of their lives for myriad purposes that always have to be studied in context.
Theology that wants to work with popular music understood in this way looks to how groups, through music, put their lives together, through both consent and dissent about how to get things done. Theologians look to relate their spiritual materials to the creative and tensive places of music from the “ground up.” Music’s involvement in negotiations of power and everyday reiterations of identity become of great interest theologically. Were we to take an ordinary example of pop music, like a song from a mainstream pop, rock, or hip hop album, and ask how it is “popular music” according to these definitions, and how we make theological sense of it, it would look something like this: We might begin by asking who wrote this song, what do we know about their life, and what were they trying to communicate? Who paid for this music to be recorded and marketed, and what are their motivations to have it sell, and to whom? What are the deep social dynamics of the society in which this music is made and sold, and how are those social dynamics being legitimated or interrupted in the sound, the words, the images of this music? We would also want to know what this song tells us about the people who like it, and about the culture in which it came to be—how and why it speaks to these people in this moment. And we should be curious about how this song fits into larger patterns of life on the ground for its fans: when they listen to it, how important the lyrics are and what they mean to people, how the song informs their thoughts, dreams, conversations, perceptions, self-perceptions, and how it opens or closes people to other music, feelings, relationships, politics. That is admittedly a lot to find out, and few scholars can tackle all of that. We are necessarily selective. Then we would ask (although we are and should be asking all along) more explicitly theological questions. How does religious tradition address itself to these messages, values, and ideological practices? But for good contemporary theological research, especially with a public topic like popular music, we do not merely assert. We have to have good reasons and justly persuasive rhetoric for theological work. By “good reasons,” I mean reasons that stand up to scrutiny as good argument among those committed to it inside and outside of theology.
By “justly persuasive rhetoric,” I mean to recognize that we are persuaded not only by “good reasons” but by persuasive, poetic, even beautiful writing and other forms of theological presentation, and that this persuasive rhetoric ought to ultimately serve justice toward ourselves and all others in our (local and global) society. “Good reasons” can never be separated cleanly from “justly persuasive rhetoric.” But good theological researchers keep this sort of thing in mind when they try to talk about culture, or about any theological work for that matter. And so we have to ask ourselves if there are good reasons and justly persuasive rhetoric for having this engagement between theology and music happen? Why do we think our theological traditions might have something significant to say here, and how do we convey that with care, style, and beauty? No less important is the moment in theological work where we ask why this theological engagement with music matters for us and for those affected by this conversation. Do we see that we or others might become different, gain knowledge, insight, wisdom, or virtue, might simply grow or change, as a result? And will this engagement, which is both ever new and ever rooted in our past, make us reconsider both this music and our theological tradition?
The point is that despite theology’s historical tendencies to see itself as the protector of the divine property known as “revelation,” it is simply the case that neither music nor theology can stay the same in this kind of engagement. We will either reaffirm what we thought and felt about religion and music, or we will not. And we may only later come up with reasons for that reiteration or reconsideration. This is something like the dynamic, explicit or implicit, that most scholars of theology and popular culture undertake, even if we do not undertake every step consciously every time we do our work. To study theology and popular music is to find ways of bringing together musical culture and theological culture and to find how why and how it matters that that happens, and to use that knowledge to make even wiser discernments in the future. These discernments are not ultimately for producing specialized knowledge alone, but for learning how to live with a spiritual sense, more fully and responsibly, in our particular social habitat. Theological research must conform to the best standards of research and, at the same time, realize theology is also for living wisely and well. "
4. Can music be theology?
If, as Tom Beaudoin explains, we are persuaded by poetic and beautiful writing, there is no reason why we cannot also be persuaded by poetic and beautiful music-making. Music, too, can be a means through which we awaken to God's will for our lives. Always the persuasion occurs with help from non-musical elements, too: community, stories, rituals, and mentors. But in combination with them, music can perform a persuasive function; it can present a theological voice. If the word can become flesh, and the word can become word, then surely the word can become sound, too.
5. What is popular music, anyway?
Any kind of music that has relatively wide appeal, offers opportunities for satisfying experience, helps people create their identities individually and collectively, and provides touches of transcendence. Genres include country, rock, pop, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, classical, and jazz. The music can be disseminated electronically or orally, in live performance or through recordings. It is music that is popular to one group or another. Its value lies not only in how it sounds but in how its listeners respond to it and create themselves in response as individuals and as music communities. Popular music is a performance art. The performers of popular music include the musicians and the listeners, as well as the social and historical conditions that shape them, whether pleasant or tragic. Popular music can be evaluated aesthetically and ethically, by its performers and by outsiders. Ethically, one measure of its value lies in how, in combination with other factors, it might help its performers and listeners become fulfilled human beings who help contribute to the well-being of the world, human and ecological. In process theology we speak of a fulfilled human being as having a fat soul.
6. Can God be found in sound?
Our tradition teaches us that sound is God - Nada Brahma. That is, musical sound and the musical experience are steps to the realization of the self. We view music as a kind of spiritual discipline that raises one's inner being to divine peacefulness and bliss. We are taught that one of the fundamental goals a Hindu works toward in his lifetime is a knowledge of the true meaning of the universe -- its unchanging eternal essence -- and this is realization by a complete knowledge of one's self and one's own nature. The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects...Thus, through music, one can reach God.
-- Ravi Shankar, as cited in Robin Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
7. What does popular music do at its best?
8. What does popular music do at its worst?
9. What is the republic of stories?
"We are in the midst of seismic cultural change. In the old paradigm, priorities are shaped by a mechanistic worldview that privileges whatever can be numbered, measured, and weighed; human beings are pressured to adapt to the terms set by their own creations. Macroeconomics, geopolitics, and capital are glorified. . .In the new paradigm, culture is given its true value. The movements of money and armies may receive close attention from politicians and media voices, but at ground-level, we care most about human stories, one life at a time.”
---Arlene Goldbard, The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists, and the Future
10. Where does process theology come in?
Process theology is an international, multi-religious movement whose advocates include Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Bahai's, Unitarian-Universalists, New Confucians, and Naturalists. It combines insights from the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead with unique sources of wisdom important to its advocates. With help from Whitehead's philosophy, process theologians are developing an organic alternative to a mechanistic worldview, thus opening us to the republic of stories and the role that music can play in helping us appreciate the stories of all people. Process theology presents the universe as an inclusive and evolving story in which all stories unfold, proposing that even atoms and molecules are stories in their own way. In process theology God is the subjective unity of the universe: the living Soul whose story consists of the stories of the universe, who beckons human beings to realize their potentials as fat souls (see below) and to create communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, and ecologically wise, with no one left behind. God works in popular culture and beyond popular culture to help amplify the beckoning. Popular music at its best is a context for hearing and responding to the beckoning. We do this by listening to stories, our own stories included, and responding with love. In so doing our souls are widened. With help from popular music, we become fat souls.
11. What is a soul?
"I am a philosopher, let me tell you a great secret of life—a soul is not a thing, it is not something which stands untouched by the events of your life. Your soul is the river of your life; it is the cumulative flow of your experience. But what do we experience? The world. Each other. So your soul is the cumulative flow of all of your relationships with everything and everyone around you. In a different image, we weave ourselves out of the threads of our relationships with everyone around us."
-- Robert Mesle, A Soul is Not a Thing: A Process Relational Wedding
12. What is a fat soul?
"By S-I-Z-E I mean the stature of [your] soul, the range and depth of [your] love, [your] capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature."
-- Bernard Loomer, Fat Soul: Introduction and Overview
1. Capacity for Loving Relationships: A fat soul enjoys range and depth in its capacity for loving relationships, helping others to become freer in their diversity and uniqueness. It is open-hearted.
2. Open-Mindedness: A fat soul can understand a variety of outlooks on life without feeling defensive and insecure. It is open-minded.
3. Openness to Complexity: A fat soul has the power to sustain complex relationships and enriching tensions. It does not lapse into either-or thinking but is inclined toward both-and thinking.
4. Tolerance for Enriching Tensions: A fat soul can live with enriching tensions without being overwhelmed. It does not flee from constructive conflict.
5. Personal Integrity: A fat soul does all this while maintaining a sense of integrity. It sticks to its principles and enjoys a sense of individual freedom.
6. Individuality: A fat soul does not lose its agency or self-creativity. It celebrates diversity and delights in uniqueness, and it enjoys unique agency itself.
-- Fat Soul: Introduction and Overview
13. How does popular music function religiously?
Popular music is a powerful influence in the process of what Tom Beaudoin calls subjectification or subject-making. Subject-making is a self-creative and world-influenced activity that is undertaken and undergone by individuals and communities, including musical communities. Whitehead calls it concrescence.
Subject-making always has two sides. It is a combination of (1) receiving multiple influences from the past, from other people, from the environment, and from culture and (2) weaving them into a life, moment by moment. Whitehead speaks of the first side as experience in the mode of causal efficacy, because in receiving the influences we are causally affected by them. He speaks of the second aspect as self-creativity or the act of decision. It is an act of cutting off certain possibilities for weaving the influences into a whole and actualizing others. A human subject creates itself in the act of decision. It is inwardly animated by a subjective aim for satisfaction and meaning. Whitehead believes that religion deals with the process of subjectification or concrescence. Whereas science is in the business of helping us understand the world from a third-person perspective, religion is in the business of helping us live in the world from a first-person perspective. Religion can do it happily or sadly, constructively or destructively; but always it is concerned with subjectification.
14. What is subjectification?
In Secular Music and Sacred Theology Tom Beaudoin proposes that popular music functions in human life as an agent of subjectification. He borrows the phrase from Michel Foucault. Here is how Beaudoin puts it:
"What I am really talking about here is the way that music has a powerful way of putting together human identity for individuals and groups. Music is a kind of glue that helps different aspects of identity stick together and endure. Many dimensions of experience are tutored and shaped by popular music cultures: who we are racially and ethnically, what we take ourselves to be in terms of gender and sexuality, where we belong generationally, spiritually, and more. One way of talking about this powerful role of music is to use the notion of “subjectification,” which means “subject-making,” where the “subject” is the human being. In other words, when we talk in philosophy and theology about subjectification, we are pointing to the ways in which who—and whose—we take ourselves to be are deeply influenced by, and substantially implanted in, the ways that we are persuaded to count certain things as being “real” and mattering more than other things. This persuasion happens through the “hidden curriculum” of our families, schools, religious institutions, and larger social environment, including our media, and especially including the music that influences and/or comes from “the people”—“popular music.”
-- Tom Beaudoin, Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology, Liturgical Press, 2013.
15. Why does popular music matter philosophically?
Enjoyment. One reason music matters is simply that it is enjoyable. The very aim of life, so process philosophers propose, is not simply meaning but enjoyment. Whitehead calls it satisfaction. All living beings seek to survive with satisfaction relative to the situations they face; and, thinks Whitehead, there is an Eros within the very depths of the cosmos for satisfying experience. Another name for this Eros is God.
Identity. Throughout the world people gain their sense of identity and form their values with help from popular culture and, more specifically, from popular music: country, rock, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, rap, electronic, classical and jazz. Whether the music is mass-produced (commercial) or more individualized in its production, it provides a context for meaning-making. Indeed, as performed and heard, popular music is a form of meaning-making in its own right.
Community. The people who enjoy popular music may or may not feel affiliated with what scholars at the Harvard Pluralism Project call communities of faith: Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha'i, Unitarian-Universalist, Daoist, Shinto, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, Zoroastrian. Either way they share music, talk about music, go to live concerts, and think about music. In so doing they belong to informal communities of listening or music communities which provide a sense of belonging.
Transcendence. Additionally, with help from music, music lovers enjoy what one scholar, Maya Rivera Rivera, calls touches of transcendence. In the listening and its attendant practices (music-making, dancing, singing along) they enjoy experiences which take them out of ordinary time into what scholars of religion call sacred time. Momentarily they are lifted out of the cramping confines of anxiety and pain into the beauty of something more -- more intense, more fluid, more vital, more engaging than ordinary life.
Resistance. In some instances forms of popular music function as sources of resistance to oppressive and colonizing powers, whether governmental, religious, sexual, or economic. In China, for example, rock and roll sometimes functions as an implicit critique of the authoritarianism of the government; in the United States, hip-hop functions as a critique of white-dominated, middle-class society.
Agency (constructive and destructive). Popular music may or may not be a catalyst for justice, peace, and environmental well-being. It may or may not contribute to the building of communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind. It may be a catalyst for liberation or, conversely, an opiate of the masses. There is no reason to assume that music is always beneficial; it may under certain circumstances be a catalyst for war, rape, injustice, terror, escapism, and abuse. Either way it is socially powerful, and worth considering for that reason alone.
16. What are some criteria for evaluating popular music?
Popular music can be analyzed aesthetically and ethically. People can enjoy popular music without engaging in either form of evaluation, but the understanding of popular music can be enriched by both forms of understanding.
Aesthetically it can be analyzed in terms of at least five factors: rhythm, melody, harmonies, lyrical content (if lyrics are involved), and the soulfulness of its performance. Soulfulness is an elusive quality representing the harmonious intensity of a performance (live or recorded) as felt by the listener. It is partly a matter of personal taste and partly a matter of what is offered by the musician. Given pieces of popular music can be better at one aesthetic value than another. For example, a traditional folk song can have a great deal of soulfulness but an overly simple melody; and a commercially available pop song can be rhythmically complex but lack soulfulness. The overall aesthetic value of a piece of popular music is a weaving together of the various factors (including lyrics if involved).
Ethically popular music can be evaluated in terms of its effects on listeners. The basic question is: What kind of person or people does a given genre or piece of music help us become? Process theology puts the question this way: Does the music help us become wiser and more compassionate than we might otherwise be, so that we can enjoy fullness of life for ourselves and help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and satisfying, with no one left behind?
The ethical effects of popular music are relative to context and partly dependent on the listener. They are also shaped by the music community and the values of that community. At its worst popular music narrows our souls, making us more self-absorbed and narcissistic than we would otherwise be; at its best it widens our souls, helping us become wiser and more compassionate than we would otherwise be. At its worst it fosters nationalism, sexism, ethnocentrism, self-centeredness, and self-pity; at its best it fosters empathy with others and a sense of world-loyalty.
Even as popular music may be satisfying, it is not always good in an ethical sense. Much depends on the historical and social context in which it unfolds, on its content, and on how it is interpreted by its listeners.
17. Why should theologians take popular music seriously?
In Secular Music and Sacred Theology Tom Beaudoin proposes that Christian theologians (and by implication other theists) can take popular music seriously. In taking account of the role of subjectification through music, we have not moved very far from theological concerns. Indeed, the more curious we are about what music means for the core of human life, the more that theology can and should be invested, because theological traditions have commonly understood God as both the architect and the goal of life. Theology is the concern for the “place” of divinity in subjectification, for the sake of making human life, and the life of the world, more worthy of its mysterious and sacred “essence.” This is one fundamental reason that theologians and religionists argue about what music means. We want to know where that special relation to “something more” is (or is asserted to be) “taking place.”
-- Tom Beaudoin, Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology, Liturgical Press, 2013.
18. Why don't theologians take popular music seriously?
To his point let us add three reasons why some Christian theologians do not take it popular music or popular culture seriously:
1. Textocentrism: Many theologians are trained to think that the primary sources for theology are written texts. They fall into what Dwight Conquergood calls textocentrism. Those influenced by the culture of textocentrism fail to recognize that there are multiple forms of knowing and that verbal-linguistic knowing (reading and responding to written texts) is but one source of valuable ideas. Other kinds of knowing include musical knowing, bodily knowing, interpersonal knowing, visual knowing, practical knowing (knowing through doing things), and natural knowing. When emphasis is placed on textual sources alone, popular culture often gets short shrift, because so much of it has to do with visual culture, aural culture, and other forms of material culture.
2. High culture and Low culture. Many theologians work with an implicit binary between high culture and low culture, presuming that theology is -- or ought to find its home -- in high culture alone. For them high culture is intellectually (and aesthetically) advanced and low culture is intellectually (and aesthetically) specious. Popular culture seems too "low" to be seriously considered for its religious significance, even though it is the place where most religion unfolds.
3. Commercialism. Much popular music today is commercially produced, and there is a suspicion in theological circles of commercial enterprises. This suspicion was accentuated in the Frankfurt school of Marxist criticism, which saw popular arts as tools of the ruling, commercial class, eliciting false consciousness in consumers. Popular music was a tool of false consciousness, an opiate, a soporific, not worthy of attention except to ridicule.
play music, God feels the feelings we are playing.
19. Is religion always about God?
No. The Pluralism Project at Harvard speaks of seventeen religious traditions in the United States: Afro-Caribbean religions, Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American religions, Paganism, Shinto, Sikhism, Unitarian Universalism, and Zoroastrianism. The idea of a single, monotheistic God is distinctive to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) but does not play such a prominent role -- or any role at all -- in the others. Some forms of religion are non-theistic. In them what is most important is not a single God but rather the interconnectedness of things, or the powers of the spirits, or the role of felt connections in family life, or the sacrament of the present moment. There are many forms of religion, many forms of spirituality, that are not about God but that are important to people and valuable in their own right.
20. Is popular culture a religion, too?
Yes. For people who are "spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated," popular culture (including popular music) can be their primary source for wisdom-seeking and subjectification. This does not mean that God (as indwelling lure toward truth, goodness, and beauty, and as transcendent companion to their joys and sufferings) is not present in their lives; it means that they seek meaning and joy outside the parameters of institutionalized religion. They may be theists or non-theists; either way they are engaged in subjectification and God is with them and in them. Often they belong to communities that function as "spiritual communities" for them. Moreover, all human beings need moments of ecstasy and touches of transcendence. For some people, popular culture may satisfy these needs as deeply, and perhaps better, than institutionalized religion.
21. What is the hope of hip-hop?
"I see it being one of the major forces in the world bringing about change...new ways, new types of lifestyles, because the old ones, we just can't use them anymore. For young people, that'll be our political party, what everyone calls, we don't have it is, the closest thing we have to that. It includes politics. It includes spirituality. It includes music. It includes having a good time. It's inclusive of so much...So, the hope is there in the spirit again, people are putting their hop in spirit, you know, God. Not God in an abstract form, but God in here and in there, you know. That's what we can use to get out of this mess. Hip-hop is just one of the manifestations...To me, music is the future religion of the world."
-- Anonymous, cited in Robin Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
22. What's happening in a mosh pit? Is it a religious experience?
"I got the chance to experience a concert last night featuring Korn and Slipknot, and observed and felt events that relate to Rock, Roll and Religion. I went to the concert by myself, but I realized that I never felt alone and was grateful that I went by myself while I was there. Nobody knew me and I didn’t know anybody else. All that was important was hearing the music and responding to how the music made me feel without any restraints. During the concert the crowd quickly became unified through the power of music. Nobody cared about one’s personal space and I felt embraced by having constant physical contact with my fellow rockers. A Concert in general is a conversation of reciprocal energy between the audience and the performer, and I was honored to be a part of such an amazing audience that matched and called for more of the bands’ exertion of high-energy metal music. In short Slipknot and Korn affected us as an audience with their music and the audience affected the bands with our crazy dancing and screaming. There was intensity as well as harmony. I realized that a mosh pit is organized chaos. It is a pocket or circle of impulse and high intensity. Causal efficacy is clearly observed as I entered the pit. I am not exactly sure where I will end up, closer to the stage, farther away, left, right, perhaps lying on the ground. My actions were highly affected by the actions of others/past occasions. The code of moshing is beautiful. When somebody falls a brother or sister lifts that person right back up. There is a sense of respect within the moshing community. We are no longer concerned with our differences, and we support each other and treat strangers as family. Literally when we fall down we are just as quickly helped back up. The point is not to be violent to inflict suffering on others. The aim is to let go of our restraints and feel a source of pain and collision that makes us feel more alive at an intense level. Like in the movie Fight Club, physical pain (in moderation) can be somewhat therapeutic, because it allows me to shed some of my frustrations. My neck is stiff, my jaw aches, my ears are ringing, my ribs are sore, but I am thankful for these discomforting feelings because they remind me of the comforting knowledge that I am alive and present in the world. Corey Taylor’s, Slipknot lead singer, exiting words, “Take care of yourself and take care of one another.'" (Ryan Ritz, college student)
Portion of Image from Dan Witz, street artist, NYC, Mosh Pic Collection"My favorite aspect of the painting is how the image captures the dependency or vulnerability of each individual by freezing a single moment in the chaotic flow of a mosh pit. The dependency on others is such a great feeling in a mosh pit. By having a group of people throwing themselves into a circle of constant motion, I can experience movement in a more freeing fashion. Almost like floating through waves in an ocean I am held up and passed along by collisions with other people. I can feel like I am free falling and at the same time be grounded. Another aspect of the painting I enjoy is the sense of comfort amongst testosterone charged men to drop their need for personal space. I can see each individual weakening the barrier and separation that our skin provides. The mosh pit acts as the new skin that surrounds, holds and integrates each individual’s spirit. " (Ryan Ritz)
23. What about sex? What about gender?
Popular music is much more than rock and roll. As defined above it includes country, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, classical, and jazz, too. When we consider the music in these genres, it is always important to consider sex and gender. One of the most profound needs of the world today is for communities to emerge that are post-patriarchal: that is, that move beyond the objectification and subjugation of women that has been so much a part of male-dominated society. This need is important, not only for women and young girls, but for the whole of society. Men as well as women need to find ways of discovering their gender and sexual identities in that are conducive to personal satisfaction, mutually enhancing relationships, and the well-being of others, including our small but fragile planet in the midst of global climate change. There is a need for sexual liberation.
Adolescent Male Sexual Fantasies
Can rock and roll help? Many forms of rock and roll are male dominated. Indeed it is arguable that a primary function of much rock and roll is to express and promote adolescent male sexual fantasies. Some believe that the electric guitar functions for many male rock groups as a phallus symbol.
This doesn't mean that there is no religion or spirituality in rock and roll. As the wheel of spirituality suggests, explorations of sexuality can play an important role. There is nothing wrong with adolescent sexual fantasies, female and male; they are a natural and important part of psychological and spiritual development. We are indeed embodied beings and our bodies, including our sexuality, are sites for the fulfillment of our lives. Thus, from a process perspective we can consider such fantasies are gifts from the cosmic Soul of the universe -- from God -- functioning as lures for feeling by which people come to know the intimacies and vulnerabilities of life, so that they can become fat souls and agents of service to the world.
Is rock and roll good for the soul?
Still the question remains: When is rock and roll good for the soul and when is it not? For process theologians, the question can be restated as follows: In combination with other factors does the music contribute to the emergence of individuals who enjoy the satisfaction of being fat souls and who can contribute to the emergence of humane, sustainable communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, and ecologically wise, with no one left behind. To the degree that it does do this, it is good for the soul.
The matter is best approached case-by-case. Everything depends on the context for the music, the content of the music, and the way the music is understood and interpreted by the listeners. In a contemporary context 'listening to music' and 'seeing music performed' go together, thanks to music videos. Popular music does its work visually as well as audibly, and both are subject to the interpretations of music communities.
The Rock'n'Roll Camp for Girls gives girls ages 8-18 the opportunity to learn rock instruments, form bands, write songs, and perform, and is led by a mostly volunteer female staff. Its aim is to inspire self-confidence and mutual esteem by enjoying the technical skills and bravado of a typical rock group.
Commentators disagree on whether or not, in so doing, it merely takes them into an already male-dominated world and sucks them into the culture of male fantasies; or, by contrast, it gives them a self-defining voice free from the male gaze. Time will tell.
24. What are the limits and possibilities of rock culture?
Rock research has highlighted some of rock culture’s limits as well as creativities: its colonial imbrications and postcolonial possibilities. Its colonial imbrications, according to theological and cultural studies research, have been profound and persistent.
The Limits
Much analysis has been given to ideologies of sex, gender, violence, and race in particular. Serious criticisms take rock music to be a masculine culture often to the point of misogyny and homophobia, from the very training of musicians and fans, to common if infamous fan behaviors, to marketing images, and lyrical content. Such seemingly constitutive dimensions of rock culture are instilled through the glorification of masculinist antagonism, whether explicitly in male-intensive musical spaces like music stores, studios, backstage, or concert halls, or implicitly in a music industry that has exploited while innovating sex, gender and racial differences. And all of this on the backs of an anonymous cadre of black musicians whose musics, as so many histories of rock now show, were effectively stolen to such an extent that Elvis Presley and the Beatles are commonly thought to have invented rock and roll. These are serious and substantive charges about rock as a culture that has furthered white supremacy, misogyny, sexual sameness. In other words, a colonially imbricated music. I find almost the whole of this nexus of criticism to be devastatingly on the mark in varying degrees and for varying rock scenes in the United States and globally.
The Creativities
Rock research has also foregrounded the creativities and possibilities of rock, or rock’s postcolonial possibilities. The last few decades have surfaced many ways in which rock music is used as a freedom-seeking source for individual and social exploration and transformation, and for greater spiritual awareness and courage. This is a leitmotif in studies of punk rock but is also argued to be the case for other forms. Rock cultures yield practices that push back against capitalism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, nationalism, religion. For example, rock groups raise money and awareness about the environment and HIV/AIDS; rock’s masculinities have been shown to often be spaces of somewhat open gender experimentation for men that can render that render some “queerness” in the nominally “straight male” performer or fan, and the homoeroticism of rock performances and the influence gay lead singers in mainstream rock is an important finding of rock research; the rapid expansion of women in rock over the last fifteen years is creating a new space of adoption and adaptation of formerly male-dominated musical spaces, and women in rock have their own unique stories to tell of sexism as well as empowerment; there has been a relative resurgence of “black rock” in the last twenty years despite the racist history that limited its support for decades, and the rock musician Stew successfully staged the Broadway musical “Passing Strange” that was characterized as a “black rock” show, now a Spike Lee movie; rock in Latino/a contexts is now showing itself, such as in recent research on the “Rock en español” movement; and rock music has found homes internationally, as any world traveler knows, and about which there is a growing literature in cultural studies (with theology no doubt to follow), including taking on the voices and musics of locals as diverse as Baghdad and other majority Muslim habitations, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is to open an exhibit in a yet-to-be-named middle eastern city. Rock cultures still seem to have the ability to drive down differences through the loose but far from formless genre found across these postcolonial rock practices, a rootedness in sonic power, carnal display, a studied abandon that can still serve as training for a life of protest against and promise of the more in and from the here.
The future will only show us more fully how no single culture has proprietary rights over what rock is becoming, and for those of us who find our theology run through rock, that means a continued cultural dispossession over the “rights” to theological experience as well. It is just here, in this present, that we may be – analogous to multiple religious belonging or to the agonisms of mestizaje – on the cusp of something theologically new.
-- Tom Beaudoin, “Give it Up / For Jesus: Askeses of Dispossession in Rock and Christianity”
25. Can music communities function as communities of faith?
Yes, they can and do. Every music community is a community of faith, in that its participants place their faith in a kind of music (and what it communicates to them) that gives them satisfaction and meaning. Along the way they share common experiences and ideas, undertake common rituals, develop and share common stories (concerning the music and performers), develop codes of conduct, and have moments in which they are immersed in the music itself, whether by recording or in a live concert. These communities can bring together people from common classes and cultures or from different classes and cultures. They can define themselves against other groups or as a source of wisdom worth sharing with other groups. They can seek converts or enjoy isolation. What makes them religious, among other things, is that all of these activities are in service to what Beaudoin calls subjectification and Whitehead calls concrescence. Music communities engage in shared subjectification, shared subject-making, which is what institutional religions do, too.
26. What about the rock star?
Sometimes (in the case of rock music) religious communities gravitate around a star or master performer who is the center of imaginative gravity. They enjoy talking about the star and imagining what the star might "really" be like as a person. See Eason Chan: The Three Selves of a Pop Star. The star -- or rather the image of the star that they carry in their minds -- is not necessarily divine in their eyes, but he or she is a source of power and guidance: analogous to a rebbe in Judaism, a master teacher who is a mediator for sacred energy.
No one benefited more from television than Elvis, who appeared on national programs at least twelve times from January 1956 to January 1957...While it is well known that Elvis transgressed racial boundaries that still largely separated white and black culture in the 1950s, his appearance and behavior on the tube also threatened class hierarchies and reminded people that America’s youth were defining themselves against adult norms...Elvis redefined popular music stardom by his failure to conform to accepted conventions of performance decorum, and the most threatening aspect of his performance was his violation of gender codes. Elvis crossed gender boundaries in several ways, but it is my contention that his most troubling transgression was to called attention to his body as a sexual object. In the history of mass culture. Elvis may be the first male star to display his body in this way overtly and consistently. In violating this taboo, Elvis became, like most women but unlike most men, sexualized. In adopting an explicitly sexualized self-representation, Elvis played out the implications of becoming the object of the gaze....
-- Shumway, David R. (2014-08-21). Rock Star: The Making of Musical Icons from Elvis to Springsteen (Kindle Locations 846-849). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.
27. How do we worship?
If we consider popular music as religion, then how do we worship? And how does the way we worship shape the kinds of allegiances and boundaries we form around popular music? If we consider worship as a way for an individual to express faith, then we might consider listening, singing along, dance, discussions of taste, and even proselytizing (i.e. telling someone to listen to something and to enjoy it) as forms of worship. Worship is an act that we perform, which forges a particular relationship to a set of beliefs, a tradition, and a community.
With this in mind, how might we consider karaoke, cover bands, and sing-alongs as forms of worship? What kinds of ideas do these activities “profess”? Like worship, many of these activities provide an opportunity to give oneself up to something greater than oneself, yet they also retain the ability to say something about the performer (or worshipper). Also like worship, these activities can be either public or private. How can we consider the performance of popular music by amateurs and fans in religious terms?
-- Byrd McDaniel
28. What is blasphemy?
Certain religions have particular ideas about types of actions that are considered directly oppositional to the sacred. For example, while certain traditions might define certain speech as blasphemous, others might consider certain bodies entering certain spaces to be blasphemous (ex. nonbelievers entering a sacred space or women entering a space designated for men). In each religious practice, blasphemy seems to be organized around certain types of actions, which are usually ways of thinking, types of speech, movement of bodies in space, or movements of bodies with each other. (By contrast, not many religious traditions prohibit certain ways of smelling as blasphemous.) The types of actions that a particular religion considers as blasphemous can tell us about the kinds of things they hold sacred and worthy of protection.
Similarly, we might analyze popular music in terms of certain sacred ideas (i.e. authenticity or virtuosity) and the kinds of ways groups react when these sacred ideas are challenged. We need not look further than something like a lip-synching scandal to see how people quickly rally against transgressors who fail to live up to a certain code.
“Live performance” has varying levels of importance for fans of many genres. What may count as live music in an electronic concert may be drastically different from what counts as a live guitar solo in a rock concert. Although we might debate whether or not certain objective qualities make something a “live,” a more useful question might be: What can the different ideas about what constitutes a “live performance” in various genres tell us about the kinds of values that these genres hold sacred? How can analyzing genre-specific ideas of what constitutes “live” and “mediated” performance help us understand some of the different meanings people attribute to a live music experience?
-- Byrd McDaniel
29. Why do people have favorite songs?
Particular compositions matter to people; they become, for the people at issue, favorite songs. These songs matter because, in the process of subjectification, the songs serve as places where their memories and cluster. Consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily, the listeners authorize the songs to speak for them, to tell their story and explain to others -- and to the world -- what they have felt and how they do feel. The songs become, for them, the stories they tell to themselves and the world.
Our values are those things that “matter” to us, those points on our personal maps where there is an affective intensity, those areas in which we make affective investment. It is around these points that our beliefs and emotional energies cluster…This increases our understanding of the Orphic significance of popular music— how particular compositions matter to people. “By making certain things matter, people ‘authorize’ them to speak for them, not only as a spokesperson , but also as a surrogate voice (e.g., when we sing along to popular songs). People give authority to that which they invest in; they let the objects of such investments speak for and in their stead. They let them organize their emotional and narrative life and identity.” Hence, for example, as Bob Dylan’s friend Paul Nelson commented, people looked to him for meaning : “Hungry for a sign, the world used to follow him around, just waiting for him to drop a cigarette butt. When he did, they’d sift through the remains , looking for significance. The scary part is, they’d find it.”
Partridge, Christopher (2013-10-21). The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred, and the Profane (p. 170). Oxford University Press, USA. Kindle Edition.
30. Can mystical experiences occur while listening to music?
So much depends on what we mean by mysticism. If mysticism refers to experiences of heightened intensity in which the ego drops away and a person has an intuitive sense of awakening to something more, then we best recognize that there are many kinds of experiences like this -- all of which can be evoked by music. Some involve a sense of deep interconnectedness; some involve a sense of being embraced by a cosmic compassion; some involve awakening in awe to the beauty of a butterfly wing. Consider the following:
Being a physicist, I knew that the sand, rocks, water and air around me were made of vibrating molecules and atoms, and that these consisted of particles which interacted with one another by creating and destroying other particles. I knew also that the Earth’s atmosphere was continually bombarded by showers of ‘cosmic rays’, particles of high energy undergoing multiple collisions as they penetrated the air. All this was familiar to me from my research in high-energy physics, but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams and mathematical theories. As I sat on that beach my former experiences came to life; I ‘saw’ cascades coming down from outer space, in which particles of energy. I saw all my former experiences come to life; I ‘saw’ cascades coming down from outer space, in which particles of energy were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I ‘saw’ the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I ‘heard’ its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of the Dancers worshipped by the Hindus.
-- Fritjov Capra, physicist
Source: Partridge, Christopher (2013-10-21). The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred, and the Profane (pp. 183-184). Oxford University Press, USA. Kindle Edition.
This is one kind of experience which can evoked or communicated by music. There are others; see below:
31. What's important to indie musicians?
"Born and raised in Sandpoint Idaho, Shook Twins are an Indie folk-pop band now hailing from coniferous forested Portland, Oregon. Identical twins, Katelyn and Laurie Shook, Kyle Volkman and Niko Daoussis form the core quartet. Central elements of the Shook Twins' sound are a wide range of instrumentation, including banjo, guitar, electric and upright bass, mandolin, electric guitar, electronic drums, face drum (beatbox), glockenspiel, ukulele, banjo drumming and their signature golden EGG. Beautiful twin harmonies, layered upon acoustic and electric instrumentation coupled with Laurie’s inventive use of percussive and ambient vocal loops, and Katelyn’s repurposed telephone microphone, set their sound apart, creating a unique and eccentric blend of folk, roots, groove and soul."
-- from Shook Twins webpage: http://shooktwins.com/bio/
Against American Idol
Dear American Idol,
Thank you for reaching out to independent Portland Musicians. However, we find it very surprising that you research established and successful bands to compete individually.
You said in your email invitation that, "You would have to audition us individually of course." It's interesting that you assume that would be OK. Sure, "Of course" we would abandon ten years of hard work and career building as a duo to be the next new "Pop Star" singing songs that we didn't even write.
As many singers would love to audition to be the next American pop star, we respectfully decline your invitation. We are proud to be making a living off our art and being successful independent artists by our own design.
This is what we value as “indie” musicians:
*We get to work as a family team and build an exciting career from the ground up and stand proud of the gradual progress and success that our art garners.
*We are so honored to be holding the reins, to be steering in the direction that we choose, singing songs that say something special and that make people feel inspired.
*We get to create the inner workings of our performances, allowing our true vision to be projected during our shows. Our vision is about gathering people in one space to feel positive emotions together. We aim to create an environment in quaint venues and festivals that allows people to be comfortable in their own skin and to express themselves as they wish.
*It’s not about the fame or the money.
*Singing our own songs while playing our own instruments is essential to us.
We feel that music is not meant to be a competition. It’s a platform to say something powerful and should be a way of bringing people together, not separating them. We feel that your vision is completely different. We would be going against everything that we stand for by auditioning for American Idol.
Again, thanks for the invitation to compete for success that’s created by a separate entity, but we think we’ll keep doing what we are doing because it sure feels right!
Respectfully,
Shook Twins (Identical twin sisters who sing TOGETHER)
32. What kinds of religious experiences can be evoked or communicated by popular music?
The phrase religious experience has many meanings. For some people, it suggests a direct experience of God. For others it suggests an awakening to the interconnectedness of things. And for still others it suggests an inner availability to the sacrament of the present moment. These different meanings illustrate the fact that, the more you study the religions of the world, the more you realize that different kinds of experiences have been considered ''spiritual'' or '"religious" in different cultures. In the context of process theology as informed by the thinking of Tom Beaudoin spirituality can be understood as a heightened sense of aliveness in the immediacy of the moment, which is conducive to healthy subjectification. And healthy subjectification can be defined as subjectification which helps a person become a "whole person" or a "fat soul." Typically, experiences which contribute to healthy subjectification involve a transcendence of the ego and an awakening to something that seems more truthful, beautiful, important, or real, in the context of which a person feels more fully alive. We can speak of these as "religious experiences." Below are eighteen that are found in different cultures, all of which can be evoked or communicated by popular music.
The Migration Model: For some of them, popular music and other aspects of popular culture are primary sources of identity. They are not interested in organized religions such as Christianity or Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam, but they are interested in music, magazines, and movies. They illustrate what we can call the migration model because, in their case, religion truly has migrated to popular culture. People in the West who define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are often in this category, as are many people in other parts of the world (China, for example) who have no familiarity with, or interest in, what they call 'organized religion.'
The Hybridity Model: For others, nourishment from popular music is complemented by other sources, including perhaps organized religion. They are shaped by popular culture and by the teachings and practices of one (or more) institutionalized forms of religion. The multiple sources by which they are shaped may be mutually enriching or they may exist in tension with one another. In any case the sources are hybridized or, perhaps better, blended.
Religion as an Activity: In text-based forms of organized religion, where teachings are formalized in written words, people may try to disentangle hybridities of religion and culture so that the “religion” can stand on its own, perhaps as an authority to critique culture. But in forms of religious life where texts do not play such a role – popular Buddhism, popular Hinduism, popular Daoism, for example – it is difficult if not impossible to disentangle religion and culture. The religion is not exactly ‘organized’ or ‘institutionalized.’ We can speak of it as unorganized religion and/or spiritualized culture.
Unorganized Religion: If we think of religion as the activity of identity-formation, meaning-making, community-forming, and worldview-developing, as animated by touches of transcendence, then even organized religion isn’t really organized. It is always in-the-making, always on-the-way, always adapting to new situations which require new responses. This activity may occur within the context of what we call a ‘world religion’ or it may not. Thus we may speak of religious activity within the context of institutional religion and religious activity outside the context of institutional religion. Insofar as they are open to novelty, both are unorganized.
The Well-Being of Life as a Measure: Whether within or outside institutionalized settings, religion may be constructive or destructive, or both. How can this be measured? There is no absolute criterion that drops from heaven. I suggest a life-centered rather than a theological approach. Let us think of religious activity as constructive if, in combination with many other factors, it contributes to the well-being of life, both individual and social. Religious activity is constructive if it helps a person (1) find satisfaction at a personal level, relative to the conditions of his or her life, and if it helps a person (2) contribute to sustainable community, both human and non-human. A sustainable community is a community that is creative, compassionate, participatory, egalitarian, humane to animals, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind. If religious activity enables a person to help build these kinds of communities, it is constructive; if it inhibits a person from helping build and sustain these kinds of communities, religious activities that lead to arrogance, violence, narcissism, callousness, self-hatred, cruelty, or elitism are largely negative. The same applies to popular music when it operates in a religious way. Popular music may function religiously but not be good.
Concept of the Sacred: The word “sacred” has different meanings. Here let it refer to a non-verbalized experience of something attractive and awesome, fascinating and terrifying, sometimes called the numinous. The numinous can be felt in response to an object in nature (a holy mountain), a humanly-constructed object (a sanctuary, a labyrinth, a garden), a work of art (organized sounds, as in chants, symphonies, rock and roll), an event (a very large gathering of people), and an idea (as in the idea of God). When a person experiences the sacred as the numinous, the experience may be fleeting, but it is powerful.
The Forbidden Sacred: Understood in this way, the "sacred" takes at least two forms in human life: the socially accepted sacred and the forbidden sacred. Sometimes but not always, institutional religion both establishes and reinforces the socially accepted sacred; it is about "family values." But the prophetic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam also contain the idea that religion critiques the socially accepted sacred, challenging its hegemony. We might call it constructive blasphemy. Some forms of popular music contribute to constructive blasphemy, which is a religious experience in its own right.
Ethics: Is experiencing the sacred always a good thing? Not necessarily. Experiences of the numinous or sacred can be constructive or destructive, too. Their value depends on the contexts in which they occur and the ways that they are expressed. The same applies to popular music when it operates in a religious way. It may well involve a touch of transcendence but the manner of the touch, and the transcendent reality that is touched, may lead to arrogance, violence, narcissism, or elitism.
Different Transcendent Realities: The word transcendent has different meanings. Here let it refer to something that transcends the ego and will of the person or group of people who are experiencing it. It may be, but is not necessarily, numinous or sacred in the sense defined above. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas speaks of the other person as transcendent, in the sense that we encounter something that demands our respect in the face of the other. The natural world can also be experienced as transcendent. The past is transcendent in that it cannot be reversed. Tragic experiences can be experienced as transcendent. Evil can be experienced as transcendent. And God, however understood, is generally experienced as transcendent. Different kinds of music can reveal different kinds of transcendent realities. When people experience something transcendent, they experience something "more" than themselves. Popular music provides experiences of many different kinds of transcendent realities. See the Wheel of Spirituality at the bottom of this page; I suggest that there are eighteen ways that people experience touches of transcendence in music, popular culture, and life.
God: The word “God” has many different meanings. This is not the context to distinguish between various concepts of God: monism, pantheism, panentheism, classical theism, naturalism. If by God we have in mind a cosmic lure toward the well-being of life in human life and in the larger universe, then we rightly recognize that the energy of God – the spirit of God – can be in organized religion and unorganized religion, in the world religions and in popular music.
Popular culture serves as a medium in which people find meaning and form identities, often in ways that have historically been the purview of what we call religion. Whether operating within or outside of institutional religious frameworks, the sacred and the transcendent can be experienced in a myriad of ways, including through popular music.
Miscellaneous Questions
1. Is popular music a source of religious experience?
It depends on the kind of popular music being considered. In his research into rock, rap, disco, and heavy metal, Robin Sylvan proposes that the primary appeal is direct experience of the sacred, understood as a palpable encounter with something that is mysterious, fascinating, and powerful. This experience is mediated by:
- beat-heavy music,
- electronic instrumentation and amplification,
- digital recording,
- mass production,
- corporate marketing,
- radio and television airplay,
- live performance,
- home stereo technology.
Whereas western scholars might distinguish between aesthetic experience and religious experience, Sylvan proposes that they are not different in the new religion. The aesthetic experience of listening to music and dancing is consonant with religious experience.
-- Italicized words from Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
2. What is popular culture?
It is the subjectively felt atmosphere of everyday life in any local setting, as influenced by local and global realities. It consists of contingent (socially constructed) values and ideas which are communicated through rituals, architecture, music, books, furniture, signs, designs, and other humanly built objects; it is also shaped by the landscapes and soundscapes of everyday life.
The values and ideas are what the philosopher Whitehead calls propositions or "lures for feeling." They are mediated by the realities but they are not reducible to them. When we see an advertisement, for example, the signage itself evokes a lure for feeling: that is, a value or idea which can shape how we think about and behave in the world. This felt lure is not simply contained in the sign, it exists in our mind, too, however briefly. It also dwells in the mind of others who are influenced by the advertisement. It dwells in a realm that is not entirely visible to the eye but nevertheless visible to the imagination. Popular culture inhabits this realm of the imagination even as it also inhabits the embodied world. It consists of two kinds of realities -- possibilities and actualities -- as held together in what Whitehead calls contrasts. More specifically, popular culture elicits in our minds a contrast between the way the world is and the way it can be.
Popular Cultures are pluralistic. There are many popular cultures, often intersecting but also distinctive. Popular cultures can evolve out of common interests in sports, music, film, the arts, patriotism, politics, and social struggles.
Popular Cultures are hybrid. Popular cultures are never self-contained. They are always in process and they are always receiving influences from their surroundings. Popular cultures are inevitably composed of elements that were once alien.
Popular Cultures guide the imagination and provide subjective aims. Popular cultures are more than worldviews or ways of seeing the world intellectually; they are cultural atmospheres filled with collectively felt subjective aims. Popular cultures include, but are much more than, ways of understanding the world. They are invitations to live in a certain way, invitations for self-creativity in community with others. The building blocks of popular culture are material and bodily realities – people and the humanly-built objects – but also images and ideas, stories and myths which guide the imagination. In Whitehead’s philosophy these ideas, images, stories, and myths are called propositions. They are collectively felt proposals for how life can be lived and experience can unfold. Popular culture is composed of these lures.
Popular Cultures have agency. With its emphasis on experience in the mode of causal efficacy (receiving influences from the past, the environment, other people) and self-creativity (responding to influences in potentially creative ways) Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for appreciating how popular tastes (including musical tastes) are partly created by the media and nevertheless tweaked, sometimes in unexpected and subversive ways, by musical audiences. Popular culture is manipulated by corporate powers and manipulates corporate powers.
Popular Cultures confer identity. With its emphasis on the self as person-in-community, not person-in-isolation, Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for recognizing the significance and power of musical communities: that is, communities of musicians and listeners.
Popular Cultures are different at every moment. With its idea that the actual world is an ongoing process, different at every moment, Whitehead’s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for recognizing that popular culture is itself a process of becoming, never fixed. In a globalized context, the process of change is intensified by various kinds of globalization: financial, technological, political, military, ideological, and spiritual.
3. What questions does popular music raise for theology?
In an extended excerpt from his Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology (Liturgical Press, 2013), Tom Beaudoin borrows from the ethnomusicologist, Simon Frith, to offer three ways of thinking about Popular Music and the tasks of theology as related to these three ways of thinking.
Tom Beaudoin:
"Borrowing from the language of democracy, Frith argues that popular culture can be understood as cultural “products” made “for the people,” “of the people,” and “by the people.” First, as something made “for the people,” we can think of music as an industrially-produced commodity aimed at a particular social group. This definition directs our attention to the ways that music becomes popular through the way it is planned and branded for the consumption of a specific social demographic. There is an important insight here: all music is created and made available to certain publics with a more or less sophisticated (perhaps manipulative) attempt to be placed into people’s lives. Of course, I also want to know what this definition means for theology. It means that theology can look for the meaning of music by what its makers “design” into it. Theology then asks how God and God-related spiritual texts, ideas, and practices relate to a series of governing intentions: what the artist means to convey, what the record company is trying to sell, how the larger social ideology benefits from its propagation. This definition focuses on music’s meaning in the intentions, influences, and intervention of powerful forces behind it.
The second definition Frith presents is that pop culture is the culture “of the people.” Here, pop music becomes popular because it so well characterizes a social group’s values, behaviors, or identity. The music seems to “fit” or “depict” what people are like, and that is what makes it “popular.” For example, there is music that seems to speak particularly to teenage life, to racial-ethnic realities, to religious affiliation, to local or regional tastes, to gender dynamics, or to specific levels of formal education or status or social privilege. Insofar as a musical artist, lyric, song, album, video, concert, or the like symbolizes a quality of a social group, popular music is the music or culture “of the people.” Popular music is frequently experienced by fans as “my music” or “our music” precisely for these reasons. For theological research, this means that we may look to the sensibilities of the social group that are “embedded” in the music when we want to understand how to relate spiritual things to popular music. Our interest becomes how the music is symbolizing “where people are,” acting like a seismograph for contemporary life.
The third definition Frith offers is popular culture as culture “by the people.” This is close to what is sometimes called “folk culture,” because here we focus on a specific social group’s practices. What people do creatively musically, on their own terms, is “popular music.” Though this definition tends to prioritize inventive local artistry, it can conceivably include the creative things people do with the commodities they receive. So popular music as culture “by the people” can include street raps, busking, and home recordings (and how those circulate in use in local communities), but can also include appreciation for what people really do with commercially produced music, such as how they treat lyrics, what they do with musical celebrity, how they construct their own playlists, how they share music, and how they put music into the particularities of their lives for myriad purposes that always have to be studied in context.
Theology that wants to work with popular music understood in this way looks to how groups, through music, put their lives together, through both consent and dissent about how to get things done. Theologians look to relate their spiritual materials to the creative and tensive places of music from the “ground up.” Music’s involvement in negotiations of power and everyday reiterations of identity become of great interest theologically. Were we to take an ordinary example of pop music, like a song from a mainstream pop, rock, or hip hop album, and ask how it is “popular music” according to these definitions, and how we make theological sense of it, it would look something like this: We might begin by asking who wrote this song, what do we know about their life, and what were they trying to communicate? Who paid for this music to be recorded and marketed, and what are their motivations to have it sell, and to whom? What are the deep social dynamics of the society in which this music is made and sold, and how are those social dynamics being legitimated or interrupted in the sound, the words, the images of this music? We would also want to know what this song tells us about the people who like it, and about the culture in which it came to be—how and why it speaks to these people in this moment. And we should be curious about how this song fits into larger patterns of life on the ground for its fans: when they listen to it, how important the lyrics are and what they mean to people, how the song informs their thoughts, dreams, conversations, perceptions, self-perceptions, and how it opens or closes people to other music, feelings, relationships, politics. That is admittedly a lot to find out, and few scholars can tackle all of that. We are necessarily selective. Then we would ask (although we are and should be asking all along) more explicitly theological questions. How does religious tradition address itself to these messages, values, and ideological practices? But for good contemporary theological research, especially with a public topic like popular music, we do not merely assert. We have to have good reasons and justly persuasive rhetoric for theological work. By “good reasons,” I mean reasons that stand up to scrutiny as good argument among those committed to it inside and outside of theology.
By “justly persuasive rhetoric,” I mean to recognize that we are persuaded not only by “good reasons” but by persuasive, poetic, even beautiful writing and other forms of theological presentation, and that this persuasive rhetoric ought to ultimately serve justice toward ourselves and all others in our (local and global) society. “Good reasons” can never be separated cleanly from “justly persuasive rhetoric.” But good theological researchers keep this sort of thing in mind when they try to talk about culture, or about any theological work for that matter. And so we have to ask ourselves if there are good reasons and justly persuasive rhetoric for having this engagement between theology and music happen? Why do we think our theological traditions might have something significant to say here, and how do we convey that with care, style, and beauty? No less important is the moment in theological work where we ask why this theological engagement with music matters for us and for those affected by this conversation. Do we see that we or others might become different, gain knowledge, insight, wisdom, or virtue, might simply grow or change, as a result? And will this engagement, which is both ever new and ever rooted in our past, make us reconsider both this music and our theological tradition?
The point is that despite theology’s historical tendencies to see itself as the protector of the divine property known as “revelation,” it is simply the case that neither music nor theology can stay the same in this kind of engagement. We will either reaffirm what we thought and felt about religion and music, or we will not. And we may only later come up with reasons for that reiteration or reconsideration. This is something like the dynamic, explicit or implicit, that most scholars of theology and popular culture undertake, even if we do not undertake every step consciously every time we do our work. To study theology and popular music is to find ways of bringing together musical culture and theological culture and to find how why and how it matters that that happens, and to use that knowledge to make even wiser discernments in the future. These discernments are not ultimately for producing specialized knowledge alone, but for learning how to live with a spiritual sense, more fully and responsibly, in our particular social habitat. Theological research must conform to the best standards of research and, at the same time, realize theology is also for living wisely and well. "
4. Can music be theology?
If, as Tom Beaudoin explains, we are persuaded by poetic and beautiful writing, there is no reason why we cannot also be persuaded by poetic and beautiful music-making. Music, too, can be a means through which we awaken to God's will for our lives. Always the persuasion occurs with help from non-musical elements, too: community, stories, rituals, and mentors. But in combination with them, music can perform a persuasive function; it can present a theological voice. If the word can become flesh, and the word can become word, then surely the word can become sound, too.
5. What is popular music, anyway?
Any kind of music that has relatively wide appeal, offers opportunities for satisfying experience, helps people create their identities individually and collectively, and provides touches of transcendence. Genres include country, rock, pop, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, classical, and jazz. The music can be disseminated electronically or orally, in live performance or through recordings. It is music that is popular to one group or another. Its value lies not only in how it sounds but in how its listeners respond to it and create themselves in response as individuals and as music communities. Popular music is a performance art. The performers of popular music include the musicians and the listeners, as well as the social and historical conditions that shape them, whether pleasant or tragic. Popular music can be evaluated aesthetically and ethically, by its performers and by outsiders. Ethically, one measure of its value lies in how, in combination with other factors, it might help its performers and listeners become fulfilled human beings who help contribute to the well-being of the world, human and ecological. In process theology we speak of a fulfilled human being as having a fat soul.
6. Can God be found in sound?
Our tradition teaches us that sound is God - Nada Brahma. That is, musical sound and the musical experience are steps to the realization of the self. We view music as a kind of spiritual discipline that raises one's inner being to divine peacefulness and bliss. We are taught that one of the fundamental goals a Hindu works toward in his lifetime is a knowledge of the true meaning of the universe -- its unchanging eternal essence -- and this is realization by a complete knowledge of one's self and one's own nature. The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects...Thus, through music, one can reach God.
-- Ravi Shankar, as cited in Robin Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
7. What does popular music do at its best?
- It brings us pleasure.
- It brings us into music communities.
- It catalyzes our own creativity.
- It provides us with touches of transcendence.
- It helps us understand what we are feeling.
- It helps us understand what others are feeling.
- It brings us into the republic of stories.
- It inspires us to make the world a better place.
- It enlarges our souls.
8. What does popular music do at its worst?
- It anesthetizes our senses.
- It makes us cliquish.
- It dulls our creativity.
- It makes us self-absorbed.
- It leads us to worship our own stories.
- It keeps us from hearing other people's stories.
- It becomes a substitute for social transformation.
- It narrows our souls.
9. What is the republic of stories?
"We are in the midst of seismic cultural change. In the old paradigm, priorities are shaped by a mechanistic worldview that privileges whatever can be numbered, measured, and weighed; human beings are pressured to adapt to the terms set by their own creations. Macroeconomics, geopolitics, and capital are glorified. . .In the new paradigm, culture is given its true value. The movements of money and armies may receive close attention from politicians and media voices, but at ground-level, we care most about human stories, one life at a time.”
---Arlene Goldbard, The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists, and the Future
10. Where does process theology come in?
Process theology is an international, multi-religious movement whose advocates include Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Bahai's, Unitarian-Universalists, New Confucians, and Naturalists. It combines insights from the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead with unique sources of wisdom important to its advocates. With help from Whitehead's philosophy, process theologians are developing an organic alternative to a mechanistic worldview, thus opening us to the republic of stories and the role that music can play in helping us appreciate the stories of all people. Process theology presents the universe as an inclusive and evolving story in which all stories unfold, proposing that even atoms and molecules are stories in their own way. In process theology God is the subjective unity of the universe: the living Soul whose story consists of the stories of the universe, who beckons human beings to realize their potentials as fat souls (see below) and to create communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, and ecologically wise, with no one left behind. God works in popular culture and beyond popular culture to help amplify the beckoning. Popular music at its best is a context for hearing and responding to the beckoning. We do this by listening to stories, our own stories included, and responding with love. In so doing our souls are widened. With help from popular music, we become fat souls.
11. What is a soul?
"I am a philosopher, let me tell you a great secret of life—a soul is not a thing, it is not something which stands untouched by the events of your life. Your soul is the river of your life; it is the cumulative flow of your experience. But what do we experience? The world. Each other. So your soul is the cumulative flow of all of your relationships with everything and everyone around you. In a different image, we weave ourselves out of the threads of our relationships with everyone around us."
-- Robert Mesle, A Soul is Not a Thing: A Process Relational Wedding
12. What is a fat soul?
"By S-I-Z-E I mean the stature of [your] soul, the range and depth of [your] love, [your] capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature."
-- Bernard Loomer, Fat Soul: Introduction and Overview
1. Capacity for Loving Relationships: A fat soul enjoys range and depth in its capacity for loving relationships, helping others to become freer in their diversity and uniqueness. It is open-hearted.
2. Open-Mindedness: A fat soul can understand a variety of outlooks on life without feeling defensive and insecure. It is open-minded.
3. Openness to Complexity: A fat soul has the power to sustain complex relationships and enriching tensions. It does not lapse into either-or thinking but is inclined toward both-and thinking.
4. Tolerance for Enriching Tensions: A fat soul can live with enriching tensions without being overwhelmed. It does not flee from constructive conflict.
5. Personal Integrity: A fat soul does all this while maintaining a sense of integrity. It sticks to its principles and enjoys a sense of individual freedom.
6. Individuality: A fat soul does not lose its agency or self-creativity. It celebrates diversity and delights in uniqueness, and it enjoys unique agency itself.
-- Fat Soul: Introduction and Overview
13. How does popular music function religiously?
Popular music is a powerful influence in the process of what Tom Beaudoin calls subjectification or subject-making. Subject-making is a self-creative and world-influenced activity that is undertaken and undergone by individuals and communities, including musical communities. Whitehead calls it concrescence.
Subject-making always has two sides. It is a combination of (1) receiving multiple influences from the past, from other people, from the environment, and from culture and (2) weaving them into a life, moment by moment. Whitehead speaks of the first side as experience in the mode of causal efficacy, because in receiving the influences we are causally affected by them. He speaks of the second aspect as self-creativity or the act of decision. It is an act of cutting off certain possibilities for weaving the influences into a whole and actualizing others. A human subject creates itself in the act of decision. It is inwardly animated by a subjective aim for satisfaction and meaning. Whitehead believes that religion deals with the process of subjectification or concrescence. Whereas science is in the business of helping us understand the world from a third-person perspective, religion is in the business of helping us live in the world from a first-person perspective. Religion can do it happily or sadly, constructively or destructively; but always it is concerned with subjectification.
14. What is subjectification?
In Secular Music and Sacred Theology Tom Beaudoin proposes that popular music functions in human life as an agent of subjectification. He borrows the phrase from Michel Foucault. Here is how Beaudoin puts it:
"What I am really talking about here is the way that music has a powerful way of putting together human identity for individuals and groups. Music is a kind of glue that helps different aspects of identity stick together and endure. Many dimensions of experience are tutored and shaped by popular music cultures: who we are racially and ethnically, what we take ourselves to be in terms of gender and sexuality, where we belong generationally, spiritually, and more. One way of talking about this powerful role of music is to use the notion of “subjectification,” which means “subject-making,” where the “subject” is the human being. In other words, when we talk in philosophy and theology about subjectification, we are pointing to the ways in which who—and whose—we take ourselves to be are deeply influenced by, and substantially implanted in, the ways that we are persuaded to count certain things as being “real” and mattering more than other things. This persuasion happens through the “hidden curriculum” of our families, schools, religious institutions, and larger social environment, including our media, and especially including the music that influences and/or comes from “the people”—“popular music.”
-- Tom Beaudoin, Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology, Liturgical Press, 2013.
15. Why does popular music matter philosophically?
Enjoyment. One reason music matters is simply that it is enjoyable. The very aim of life, so process philosophers propose, is not simply meaning but enjoyment. Whitehead calls it satisfaction. All living beings seek to survive with satisfaction relative to the situations they face; and, thinks Whitehead, there is an Eros within the very depths of the cosmos for satisfying experience. Another name for this Eros is God.
Identity. Throughout the world people gain their sense of identity and form their values with help from popular culture and, more specifically, from popular music: country, rock, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, rap, electronic, classical and jazz. Whether the music is mass-produced (commercial) or more individualized in its production, it provides a context for meaning-making. Indeed, as performed and heard, popular music is a form of meaning-making in its own right.
Community. The people who enjoy popular music may or may not feel affiliated with what scholars at the Harvard Pluralism Project call communities of faith: Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha'i, Unitarian-Universalist, Daoist, Shinto, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, Zoroastrian. Either way they share music, talk about music, go to live concerts, and think about music. In so doing they belong to informal communities of listening or music communities which provide a sense of belonging.
Transcendence. Additionally, with help from music, music lovers enjoy what one scholar, Maya Rivera Rivera, calls touches of transcendence. In the listening and its attendant practices (music-making, dancing, singing along) they enjoy experiences which take them out of ordinary time into what scholars of religion call sacred time. Momentarily they are lifted out of the cramping confines of anxiety and pain into the beauty of something more -- more intense, more fluid, more vital, more engaging than ordinary life.
Resistance. In some instances forms of popular music function as sources of resistance to oppressive and colonizing powers, whether governmental, religious, sexual, or economic. In China, for example, rock and roll sometimes functions as an implicit critique of the authoritarianism of the government; in the United States, hip-hop functions as a critique of white-dominated, middle-class society.
Agency (constructive and destructive). Popular music may or may not be a catalyst for justice, peace, and environmental well-being. It may or may not contribute to the building of communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind. It may be a catalyst for liberation or, conversely, an opiate of the masses. There is no reason to assume that music is always beneficial; it may under certain circumstances be a catalyst for war, rape, injustice, terror, escapism, and abuse. Either way it is socially powerful, and worth considering for that reason alone.
16. What are some criteria for evaluating popular music?
Popular music can be analyzed aesthetically and ethically. People can enjoy popular music without engaging in either form of evaluation, but the understanding of popular music can be enriched by both forms of understanding.
Aesthetically it can be analyzed in terms of at least five factors: rhythm, melody, harmonies, lyrical content (if lyrics are involved), and the soulfulness of its performance. Soulfulness is an elusive quality representing the harmonious intensity of a performance (live or recorded) as felt by the listener. It is partly a matter of personal taste and partly a matter of what is offered by the musician. Given pieces of popular music can be better at one aesthetic value than another. For example, a traditional folk song can have a great deal of soulfulness but an overly simple melody; and a commercially available pop song can be rhythmically complex but lack soulfulness. The overall aesthetic value of a piece of popular music is a weaving together of the various factors (including lyrics if involved).
Ethically popular music can be evaluated in terms of its effects on listeners. The basic question is: What kind of person or people does a given genre or piece of music help us become? Process theology puts the question this way: Does the music help us become wiser and more compassionate than we might otherwise be, so that we can enjoy fullness of life for ourselves and help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and satisfying, with no one left behind?
The ethical effects of popular music are relative to context and partly dependent on the listener. They are also shaped by the music community and the values of that community. At its worst popular music narrows our souls, making us more self-absorbed and narcissistic than we would otherwise be; at its best it widens our souls, helping us become wiser and more compassionate than we would otherwise be. At its worst it fosters nationalism, sexism, ethnocentrism, self-centeredness, and self-pity; at its best it fosters empathy with others and a sense of world-loyalty.
Even as popular music may be satisfying, it is not always good in an ethical sense. Much depends on the historical and social context in which it unfolds, on its content, and on how it is interpreted by its listeners.
17. Why should theologians take popular music seriously?
In Secular Music and Sacred Theology Tom Beaudoin proposes that Christian theologians (and by implication other theists) can take popular music seriously. In taking account of the role of subjectification through music, we have not moved very far from theological concerns. Indeed, the more curious we are about what music means for the core of human life, the more that theology can and should be invested, because theological traditions have commonly understood God as both the architect and the goal of life. Theology is the concern for the “place” of divinity in subjectification, for the sake of making human life, and the life of the world, more worthy of its mysterious and sacred “essence.” This is one fundamental reason that theologians and religionists argue about what music means. We want to know where that special relation to “something more” is (or is asserted to be) “taking place.”
-- Tom Beaudoin, Introduction to Sacred Music and Secular Theology, Liturgical Press, 2013.
18. Why don't theologians take popular music seriously?
To his point let us add three reasons why some Christian theologians do not take it popular music or popular culture seriously:
1. Textocentrism: Many theologians are trained to think that the primary sources for theology are written texts. They fall into what Dwight Conquergood calls textocentrism. Those influenced by the culture of textocentrism fail to recognize that there are multiple forms of knowing and that verbal-linguistic knowing (reading and responding to written texts) is but one source of valuable ideas. Other kinds of knowing include musical knowing, bodily knowing, interpersonal knowing, visual knowing, practical knowing (knowing through doing things), and natural knowing. When emphasis is placed on textual sources alone, popular culture often gets short shrift, because so much of it has to do with visual culture, aural culture, and other forms of material culture.
2. High culture and Low culture. Many theologians work with an implicit binary between high culture and low culture, presuming that theology is -- or ought to find its home -- in high culture alone. For them high culture is intellectually (and aesthetically) advanced and low culture is intellectually (and aesthetically) specious. Popular culture seems too "low" to be seriously considered for its religious significance, even though it is the place where most religion unfolds.
3. Commercialism. Much popular music today is commercially produced, and there is a suspicion in theological circles of commercial enterprises. This suspicion was accentuated in the Frankfurt school of Marxist criticism, which saw popular arts as tools of the ruling, commercial class, eliciting false consciousness in consumers. Popular music was a tool of false consciousness, an opiate, a soporific, not worthy of attention except to ridicule.
play music, God feels the feelings we are playing.
19. Is religion always about God?
No. The Pluralism Project at Harvard speaks of seventeen religious traditions in the United States: Afro-Caribbean religions, Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American religions, Paganism, Shinto, Sikhism, Unitarian Universalism, and Zoroastrianism. The idea of a single, monotheistic God is distinctive to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) but does not play such a prominent role -- or any role at all -- in the others. Some forms of religion are non-theistic. In them what is most important is not a single God but rather the interconnectedness of things, or the powers of the spirits, or the role of felt connections in family life, or the sacrament of the present moment. There are many forms of religion, many forms of spirituality, that are not about God but that are important to people and valuable in their own right.
20. Is popular culture a religion, too?
Yes. For people who are "spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated," popular culture (including popular music) can be their primary source for wisdom-seeking and subjectification. This does not mean that God (as indwelling lure toward truth, goodness, and beauty, and as transcendent companion to their joys and sufferings) is not present in their lives; it means that they seek meaning and joy outside the parameters of institutionalized religion. They may be theists or non-theists; either way they are engaged in subjectification and God is with them and in them. Often they belong to communities that function as "spiritual communities" for them. Moreover, all human beings need moments of ecstasy and touches of transcendence. For some people, popular culture may satisfy these needs as deeply, and perhaps better, than institutionalized religion.
21. What is the hope of hip-hop?
"I see it being one of the major forces in the world bringing about change...new ways, new types of lifestyles, because the old ones, we just can't use them anymore. For young people, that'll be our political party, what everyone calls, we don't have it is, the closest thing we have to that. It includes politics. It includes spirituality. It includes music. It includes having a good time. It's inclusive of so much...So, the hope is there in the spirit again, people are putting their hop in spirit, you know, God. Not God in an abstract form, but God in here and in there, you know. That's what we can use to get out of this mess. Hip-hop is just one of the manifestations...To me, music is the future religion of the world."
-- Anonymous, cited in Robin Sylvan, Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music
22. What's happening in a mosh pit? Is it a religious experience?
"I got the chance to experience a concert last night featuring Korn and Slipknot, and observed and felt events that relate to Rock, Roll and Religion. I went to the concert by myself, but I realized that I never felt alone and was grateful that I went by myself while I was there. Nobody knew me and I didn’t know anybody else. All that was important was hearing the music and responding to how the music made me feel without any restraints. During the concert the crowd quickly became unified through the power of music. Nobody cared about one’s personal space and I felt embraced by having constant physical contact with my fellow rockers. A Concert in general is a conversation of reciprocal energy between the audience and the performer, and I was honored to be a part of such an amazing audience that matched and called for more of the bands’ exertion of high-energy metal music. In short Slipknot and Korn affected us as an audience with their music and the audience affected the bands with our crazy dancing and screaming. There was intensity as well as harmony. I realized that a mosh pit is organized chaos. It is a pocket or circle of impulse and high intensity. Causal efficacy is clearly observed as I entered the pit. I am not exactly sure where I will end up, closer to the stage, farther away, left, right, perhaps lying on the ground. My actions were highly affected by the actions of others/past occasions. The code of moshing is beautiful. When somebody falls a brother or sister lifts that person right back up. There is a sense of respect within the moshing community. We are no longer concerned with our differences, and we support each other and treat strangers as family. Literally when we fall down we are just as quickly helped back up. The point is not to be violent to inflict suffering on others. The aim is to let go of our restraints and feel a source of pain and collision that makes us feel more alive at an intense level. Like in the movie Fight Club, physical pain (in moderation) can be somewhat therapeutic, because it allows me to shed some of my frustrations. My neck is stiff, my jaw aches, my ears are ringing, my ribs are sore, but I am thankful for these discomforting feelings because they remind me of the comforting knowledge that I am alive and present in the world. Corey Taylor’s, Slipknot lead singer, exiting words, “Take care of yourself and take care of one another.'" (Ryan Ritz, college student)
Portion of Image from Dan Witz, street artist, NYC, Mosh Pic Collection"My favorite aspect of the painting is how the image captures the dependency or vulnerability of each individual by freezing a single moment in the chaotic flow of a mosh pit. The dependency on others is such a great feeling in a mosh pit. By having a group of people throwing themselves into a circle of constant motion, I can experience movement in a more freeing fashion. Almost like floating through waves in an ocean I am held up and passed along by collisions with other people. I can feel like I am free falling and at the same time be grounded. Another aspect of the painting I enjoy is the sense of comfort amongst testosterone charged men to drop their need for personal space. I can see each individual weakening the barrier and separation that our skin provides. The mosh pit acts as the new skin that surrounds, holds and integrates each individual’s spirit. " (Ryan Ritz)
23. What about sex? What about gender?
Popular music is much more than rock and roll. As defined above it includes country, folk, rhythm and blues, hip-hop, classical, and jazz, too. When we consider the music in these genres, it is always important to consider sex and gender. One of the most profound needs of the world today is for communities to emerge that are post-patriarchal: that is, that move beyond the objectification and subjugation of women that has been so much a part of male-dominated society. This need is important, not only for women and young girls, but for the whole of society. Men as well as women need to find ways of discovering their gender and sexual identities in that are conducive to personal satisfaction, mutually enhancing relationships, and the well-being of others, including our small but fragile planet in the midst of global climate change. There is a need for sexual liberation.
Adolescent Male Sexual Fantasies
Can rock and roll help? Many forms of rock and roll are male dominated. Indeed it is arguable that a primary function of much rock and roll is to express and promote adolescent male sexual fantasies. Some believe that the electric guitar functions for many male rock groups as a phallus symbol.
This doesn't mean that there is no religion or spirituality in rock and roll. As the wheel of spirituality suggests, explorations of sexuality can play an important role. There is nothing wrong with adolescent sexual fantasies, female and male; they are a natural and important part of psychological and spiritual development. We are indeed embodied beings and our bodies, including our sexuality, are sites for the fulfillment of our lives. Thus, from a process perspective we can consider such fantasies are gifts from the cosmic Soul of the universe -- from God -- functioning as lures for feeling by which people come to know the intimacies and vulnerabilities of life, so that they can become fat souls and agents of service to the world.
Is rock and roll good for the soul?
Still the question remains: When is rock and roll good for the soul and when is it not? For process theologians, the question can be restated as follows: In combination with other factors does the music contribute to the emergence of individuals who enjoy the satisfaction of being fat souls and who can contribute to the emergence of humane, sustainable communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, and ecologically wise, with no one left behind. To the degree that it does do this, it is good for the soul.
The matter is best approached case-by-case. Everything depends on the context for the music, the content of the music, and the way the music is understood and interpreted by the listeners. In a contemporary context 'listening to music' and 'seeing music performed' go together, thanks to music videos. Popular music does its work visually as well as audibly, and both are subject to the interpretations of music communities.
The Rock'n'Roll Camp for Girls gives girls ages 8-18 the opportunity to learn rock instruments, form bands, write songs, and perform, and is led by a mostly volunteer female staff. Its aim is to inspire self-confidence and mutual esteem by enjoying the technical skills and bravado of a typical rock group.
Commentators disagree on whether or not, in so doing, it merely takes them into an already male-dominated world and sucks them into the culture of male fantasies; or, by contrast, it gives them a self-defining voice free from the male gaze. Time will tell.
24. What are the limits and possibilities of rock culture?
Rock research has highlighted some of rock culture’s limits as well as creativities: its colonial imbrications and postcolonial possibilities. Its colonial imbrications, according to theological and cultural studies research, have been profound and persistent.
The Limits
Much analysis has been given to ideologies of sex, gender, violence, and race in particular. Serious criticisms take rock music to be a masculine culture often to the point of misogyny and homophobia, from the very training of musicians and fans, to common if infamous fan behaviors, to marketing images, and lyrical content. Such seemingly constitutive dimensions of rock culture are instilled through the glorification of masculinist antagonism, whether explicitly in male-intensive musical spaces like music stores, studios, backstage, or concert halls, or implicitly in a music industry that has exploited while innovating sex, gender and racial differences. And all of this on the backs of an anonymous cadre of black musicians whose musics, as so many histories of rock now show, were effectively stolen to such an extent that Elvis Presley and the Beatles are commonly thought to have invented rock and roll. These are serious and substantive charges about rock as a culture that has furthered white supremacy, misogyny, sexual sameness. In other words, a colonially imbricated music. I find almost the whole of this nexus of criticism to be devastatingly on the mark in varying degrees and for varying rock scenes in the United States and globally.
The Creativities
Rock research has also foregrounded the creativities and possibilities of rock, or rock’s postcolonial possibilities. The last few decades have surfaced many ways in which rock music is used as a freedom-seeking source for individual and social exploration and transformation, and for greater spiritual awareness and courage. This is a leitmotif in studies of punk rock but is also argued to be the case for other forms. Rock cultures yield practices that push back against capitalism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, nationalism, religion. For example, rock groups raise money and awareness about the environment and HIV/AIDS; rock’s masculinities have been shown to often be spaces of somewhat open gender experimentation for men that can render that render some “queerness” in the nominally “straight male” performer or fan, and the homoeroticism of rock performances and the influence gay lead singers in mainstream rock is an important finding of rock research; the rapid expansion of women in rock over the last fifteen years is creating a new space of adoption and adaptation of formerly male-dominated musical spaces, and women in rock have their own unique stories to tell of sexism as well as empowerment; there has been a relative resurgence of “black rock” in the last twenty years despite the racist history that limited its support for decades, and the rock musician Stew successfully staged the Broadway musical “Passing Strange” that was characterized as a “black rock” show, now a Spike Lee movie; rock in Latino/a contexts is now showing itself, such as in recent research on the “Rock en español” movement; and rock music has found homes internationally, as any world traveler knows, and about which there is a growing literature in cultural studies (with theology no doubt to follow), including taking on the voices and musics of locals as diverse as Baghdad and other majority Muslim habitations, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is to open an exhibit in a yet-to-be-named middle eastern city. Rock cultures still seem to have the ability to drive down differences through the loose but far from formless genre found across these postcolonial rock practices, a rootedness in sonic power, carnal display, a studied abandon that can still serve as training for a life of protest against and promise of the more in and from the here.
The future will only show us more fully how no single culture has proprietary rights over what rock is becoming, and for those of us who find our theology run through rock, that means a continued cultural dispossession over the “rights” to theological experience as well. It is just here, in this present, that we may be – analogous to multiple religious belonging or to the agonisms of mestizaje – on the cusp of something theologically new.
-- Tom Beaudoin, “Give it Up / For Jesus: Askeses of Dispossession in Rock and Christianity”
25. Can music communities function as communities of faith?
Yes, they can and do. Every music community is a community of faith, in that its participants place their faith in a kind of music (and what it communicates to them) that gives them satisfaction and meaning. Along the way they share common experiences and ideas, undertake common rituals, develop and share common stories (concerning the music and performers), develop codes of conduct, and have moments in which they are immersed in the music itself, whether by recording or in a live concert. These communities can bring together people from common classes and cultures or from different classes and cultures. They can define themselves against other groups or as a source of wisdom worth sharing with other groups. They can seek converts or enjoy isolation. What makes them religious, among other things, is that all of these activities are in service to what Beaudoin calls subjectification and Whitehead calls concrescence. Music communities engage in shared subjectification, shared subject-making, which is what institutional religions do, too.
26. What about the rock star?
Sometimes (in the case of rock music) religious communities gravitate around a star or master performer who is the center of imaginative gravity. They enjoy talking about the star and imagining what the star might "really" be like as a person. See Eason Chan: The Three Selves of a Pop Star. The star -- or rather the image of the star that they carry in their minds -- is not necessarily divine in their eyes, but he or she is a source of power and guidance: analogous to a rebbe in Judaism, a master teacher who is a mediator for sacred energy.
No one benefited more from television than Elvis, who appeared on national programs at least twelve times from January 1956 to January 1957...While it is well known that Elvis transgressed racial boundaries that still largely separated white and black culture in the 1950s, his appearance and behavior on the tube also threatened class hierarchies and reminded people that America’s youth were defining themselves against adult norms...Elvis redefined popular music stardom by his failure to conform to accepted conventions of performance decorum, and the most threatening aspect of his performance was his violation of gender codes. Elvis crossed gender boundaries in several ways, but it is my contention that his most troubling transgression was to called attention to his body as a sexual object. In the history of mass culture. Elvis may be the first male star to display his body in this way overtly and consistently. In violating this taboo, Elvis became, like most women but unlike most men, sexualized. In adopting an explicitly sexualized self-representation, Elvis played out the implications of becoming the object of the gaze....
-- Shumway, David R. (2014-08-21). Rock Star: The Making of Musical Icons from Elvis to Springsteen (Kindle Locations 846-849). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.
27. How do we worship?
If we consider popular music as religion, then how do we worship? And how does the way we worship shape the kinds of allegiances and boundaries we form around popular music? If we consider worship as a way for an individual to express faith, then we might consider listening, singing along, dance, discussions of taste, and even proselytizing (i.e. telling someone to listen to something and to enjoy it) as forms of worship. Worship is an act that we perform, which forges a particular relationship to a set of beliefs, a tradition, and a community.
With this in mind, how might we consider karaoke, cover bands, and sing-alongs as forms of worship? What kinds of ideas do these activities “profess”? Like worship, many of these activities provide an opportunity to give oneself up to something greater than oneself, yet they also retain the ability to say something about the performer (or worshipper). Also like worship, these activities can be either public or private. How can we consider the performance of popular music by amateurs and fans in religious terms?
-- Byrd McDaniel
28. What is blasphemy?
Certain religions have particular ideas about types of actions that are considered directly oppositional to the sacred. For example, while certain traditions might define certain speech as blasphemous, others might consider certain bodies entering certain spaces to be blasphemous (ex. nonbelievers entering a sacred space or women entering a space designated for men). In each religious practice, blasphemy seems to be organized around certain types of actions, which are usually ways of thinking, types of speech, movement of bodies in space, or movements of bodies with each other. (By contrast, not many religious traditions prohibit certain ways of smelling as blasphemous.) The types of actions that a particular religion considers as blasphemous can tell us about the kinds of things they hold sacred and worthy of protection.
Similarly, we might analyze popular music in terms of certain sacred ideas (i.e. authenticity or virtuosity) and the kinds of ways groups react when these sacred ideas are challenged. We need not look further than something like a lip-synching scandal to see how people quickly rally against transgressors who fail to live up to a certain code.
“Live performance” has varying levels of importance for fans of many genres. What may count as live music in an electronic concert may be drastically different from what counts as a live guitar solo in a rock concert. Although we might debate whether or not certain objective qualities make something a “live,” a more useful question might be: What can the different ideas about what constitutes a “live performance” in various genres tell us about the kinds of values that these genres hold sacred? How can analyzing genre-specific ideas of what constitutes “live” and “mediated” performance help us understand some of the different meanings people attribute to a live music experience?
-- Byrd McDaniel
29. Why do people have favorite songs?
Particular compositions matter to people; they become, for the people at issue, favorite songs. These songs matter because, in the process of subjectification, the songs serve as places where their memories and cluster. Consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily, the listeners authorize the songs to speak for them, to tell their story and explain to others -- and to the world -- what they have felt and how they do feel. The songs become, for them, the stories they tell to themselves and the world.
Our values are those things that “matter” to us, those points on our personal maps where there is an affective intensity, those areas in which we make affective investment. It is around these points that our beliefs and emotional energies cluster…This increases our understanding of the Orphic significance of popular music— how particular compositions matter to people. “By making certain things matter, people ‘authorize’ them to speak for them, not only as a spokesperson , but also as a surrogate voice (e.g., when we sing along to popular songs). People give authority to that which they invest in; they let the objects of such investments speak for and in their stead. They let them organize their emotional and narrative life and identity.” Hence, for example, as Bob Dylan’s friend Paul Nelson commented, people looked to him for meaning : “Hungry for a sign, the world used to follow him around, just waiting for him to drop a cigarette butt. When he did, they’d sift through the remains , looking for significance. The scary part is, they’d find it.”
Partridge, Christopher (2013-10-21). The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred, and the Profane (p. 170). Oxford University Press, USA. Kindle Edition.
30. Can mystical experiences occur while listening to music?
So much depends on what we mean by mysticism. If mysticism refers to experiences of heightened intensity in which the ego drops away and a person has an intuitive sense of awakening to something more, then we best recognize that there are many kinds of experiences like this -- all of which can be evoked by music. Some involve a sense of deep interconnectedness; some involve a sense of being embraced by a cosmic compassion; some involve awakening in awe to the beauty of a butterfly wing. Consider the following:
Being a physicist, I knew that the sand, rocks, water and air around me were made of vibrating molecules and atoms, and that these consisted of particles which interacted with one another by creating and destroying other particles. I knew also that the Earth’s atmosphere was continually bombarded by showers of ‘cosmic rays’, particles of high energy undergoing multiple collisions as they penetrated the air. All this was familiar to me from my research in high-energy physics, but until that moment I had only experienced it through graphs, diagrams and mathematical theories. As I sat on that beach my former experiences came to life; I ‘saw’ cascades coming down from outer space, in which particles of energy. I saw all my former experiences come to life; I ‘saw’ cascades coming down from outer space, in which particles of energy were created and destroyed in rhythmic pulses; I ‘saw’ the atoms of the elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its rhythm and I ‘heard’ its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiva, the Lord of the Dancers worshipped by the Hindus.
-- Fritjov Capra, physicist
Source: Partridge, Christopher (2013-10-21). The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred, and the Profane (pp. 183-184). Oxford University Press, USA. Kindle Edition.
This is one kind of experience which can evoked or communicated by music. There are others; see below:
31. What's important to indie musicians?
"Born and raised in Sandpoint Idaho, Shook Twins are an Indie folk-pop band now hailing from coniferous forested Portland, Oregon. Identical twins, Katelyn and Laurie Shook, Kyle Volkman and Niko Daoussis form the core quartet. Central elements of the Shook Twins' sound are a wide range of instrumentation, including banjo, guitar, electric and upright bass, mandolin, electric guitar, electronic drums, face drum (beatbox), glockenspiel, ukulele, banjo drumming and their signature golden EGG. Beautiful twin harmonies, layered upon acoustic and electric instrumentation coupled with Laurie’s inventive use of percussive and ambient vocal loops, and Katelyn’s repurposed telephone microphone, set their sound apart, creating a unique and eccentric blend of folk, roots, groove and soul."
-- from Shook Twins webpage: http://shooktwins.com/bio/
Against American Idol
Dear American Idol,
Thank you for reaching out to independent Portland Musicians. However, we find it very surprising that you research established and successful bands to compete individually.
You said in your email invitation that, "You would have to audition us individually of course." It's interesting that you assume that would be OK. Sure, "Of course" we would abandon ten years of hard work and career building as a duo to be the next new "Pop Star" singing songs that we didn't even write.
As many singers would love to audition to be the next American pop star, we respectfully decline your invitation. We are proud to be making a living off our art and being successful independent artists by our own design.
This is what we value as “indie” musicians:
*We get to work as a family team and build an exciting career from the ground up and stand proud of the gradual progress and success that our art garners.
*We are so honored to be holding the reins, to be steering in the direction that we choose, singing songs that say something special and that make people feel inspired.
*We get to create the inner workings of our performances, allowing our true vision to be projected during our shows. Our vision is about gathering people in one space to feel positive emotions together. We aim to create an environment in quaint venues and festivals that allows people to be comfortable in their own skin and to express themselves as they wish.
*It’s not about the fame or the money.
*Singing our own songs while playing our own instruments is essential to us.
We feel that music is not meant to be a competition. It’s a platform to say something powerful and should be a way of bringing people together, not separating them. We feel that your vision is completely different. We would be going against everything that we stand for by auditioning for American Idol.
Again, thanks for the invitation to compete for success that’s created by a separate entity, but we think we’ll keep doing what we are doing because it sure feels right!
Respectfully,
Shook Twins (Identical twin sisters who sing TOGETHER)
32. What kinds of religious experiences can be evoked or communicated by popular music?
The phrase religious experience has many meanings. For some people, it suggests a direct experience of God. For others it suggests an awakening to the interconnectedness of things. And for still others it suggests an inner availability to the sacrament of the present moment. These different meanings illustrate the fact that, the more you study the religions of the world, the more you realize that different kinds of experiences have been considered ''spiritual'' or '"religious" in different cultures. In the context of process theology as informed by the thinking of Tom Beaudoin spirituality can be understood as a heightened sense of aliveness in the immediacy of the moment, which is conducive to healthy subjectification. And healthy subjectification can be defined as subjectification which helps a person become a "whole person" or a "fat soul." Typically, experiences which contribute to healthy subjectification involve a transcendence of the ego and an awakening to something that seems more truthful, beautiful, important, or real, in the context of which a person feels more fully alive. We can speak of these as "religious experiences." Below are eighteen that are found in different cultures, all of which can be evoked or communicated by popular music.