Abstract
Whether articulated in secular or religious terms, whether linked to racial, sexual or cultural concerns, associations between evil and popular music have been common in the United States. This chapter identifies and explores some of the most abiding associative patterns and archetypes.
Focusing in particular on the years between the mid-1950s and the late-1960s, and on the growing prominence of Los Angeles in the commercial music industry, it discusses invocations and ascriptions of evil in relation to music that has associated itself with notions of transcendence and ecstasy, of the spiritual and the unconscious, of the irrational, the erotic and the absolute.
Focusing in particular on the years between the mid-1950s and the late-1960s, and on the growing prominence of Los Angeles in the commercial music industry, it discusses invocations and ascriptions of evil in relation to music that has associated itself with notions of transcendence and ecstasy, of the spiritual and the unconscious, of the irrational, the erotic and the absolute.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | A History of Evil in Popular Culture : What Hannibal Lecter, Stephen King, and Vampires Reveal About America |
| Editors | Sharon Packer, Jody Pennington |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Place of publication | Santa Barbara |
| Publisher | Praeger |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Edition | 1 |
| Pages | 321-32 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-0-313-39770-7 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-0-313-39771-4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |