Title: Apocalypse jukebox : the end of the world in American popular music /
Authors: Janssen, David A.; Whitelock, Edward J.
Publisher: Soft Skull Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West,
Year: 2009
Subjects: Popular music Religious aspects; Popular culture Religious aspects; Popular music Political aspects United States.
Abstract: For a cultural movement that has no definite beginning, the sense of an ending is never very far below the surface of rock and roll music and lyrics. American popular music--from its earliest hymnals, through its growing commercial presentations via minstrelsy and vaudeville, through the explosion of technology that enabled a market for recorded music--has been shaped by an apocalyptic world view. In Apocalypse Jukebox, Edward Whitelock and David Janssen, inspired by their recollection of the end-of-the-world paranoia that so deeply infused the music of their youth (1970s-80s), trace the connections between that sense of endings and the surprisingly expansive and all-encompassing mix of paranoia and hope that characterizes so much of American history. That sense of impending doom is palpable from the book's opening in an unexpected place and time, the American South amidst a terrifying meteor shower in 1833. From there, Apocalypse Jukebox traces the influence of apocalypticism upon the development of American popular music, with the premise that America itself can be fruitfully understood, defined, explicated, and sung in apocalyptic terms [Publisher description].
Contents: The end is near, there, and everywhere -- Are you ready for that great atomic power? -- The Harry Smith apocalypse of American folk music -- John Coltrane's harmonic convergence -- Bob Dylan's poetics of apocalypse : the case of "infidels" -- Leonard Cohen : sacred soul, profane flesh -- The end, and? : Arthur Lee's death trip -- "The beginning was the end" : Devo's beautiful (postapocalyptic) world -- "Calling out" : R.E.M.'s apocalyptic evocations -- "Here come the planes" : Laurie Anderson's concert amdist the ashes -- Apocalypse now/here : Sleater-Kinney's resistance -- Green Day's American idiot : apocalypse in the 7-11 parking lot.