Anthea Butler on Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson

Religion Dispatches has an interesting article up this morning entitled “When the Gods Die:  Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett Take the 70s With Them” by Anthea Butler.  Butler is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Rochester and teaches in the areas of African American religious history, American religious history, and women and gender studies.  Follow the link after the jump. [Read more]

R.I.P. K.o.P.

Unless you’re working the night shift and have just woken up for work, you probably already know that Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King of Pop, died earlier this afternoon of a heart attack.  Since his passing, the cable news networks have been debating his place in music history:  who is greater Elvis, The Beatles, or Michael Jackson?  This is a fruitless debate.  What matters is that he was an incomparable entertainer whose influence cannot fully be measured just yet.  At the same time, few artists or celebrities have been as controversial.  Today is not the time to criticize or judge but to celebrate an amazing artist whose music brought joy to millions upon millions of lives.  Videos after the jump.  What’s your favorite Michael Jackson song and/or video? [Read more]

21st Century Breakdown: Green Day’s Operatic Follow-up to American Idiot

The middle-aged boys of Green Day continue they’re singular positions as composers of punk opera, as explained in this review from Richard Lindsay.  [Read more]

No Line on the Horizon Review

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay reviews U2’s latest album, No Line on the Horizon. [Read more]

Old Time Rock-n-Roll?

This just in from occasional, and hopefully more frequent, poptheology contributor, Richard Lindsay. [Read more]

All About the Music?

A couple of months ago, Alan Ackridge, a friend and youth minister in North Carolina, shared a brief post on spirituality and contemporary popular music. He gave a list of his favorite spiritual songs, only a few of which were actually performed by specifically Christian artists. I have long been suspect of “Christian music” and the “Christian music industry,” often wanting to like them more than I do. For me, the tension lies in the idea of the separation between “Christian” and “secular” especially when there often seems to be no discernable difference between the lyrics of the two. Swithc out God for baby or vice versa and you have an apropriate lyric for each camp. Other times, I simply do not enjoy the music, just as I don’t enjoy every “secular” group or performance. I recently watched an interesting film entitled Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here) that, at its heart, focuses on this tension between “Christian” and “secular” music. [Read more]

Happy Easter

On the way home from Easter service just a moment ago, I heard a second great sermon on the radio. One of San Francisco’s better radio stations, KFOG, sounded as if it were playing some Easter-themed music on their Accoustic Sunrise set. We caught a new song by Sarah McLachlan called “Ordinary Miracle,” and this fantastic folk song by Hugh Blumenfeld called “Long Haired Radical Socialist Jew.” Keep reading for the lyrics. [Read more]

Spirituality in Popular Music

~by Alan Ackridge

For most of the latter half of the 20th Century, a significant portion of the Christian church opposed popular culture. However, beginning in the 1980’s, politically paralleled with the rise of the “moral majority,” Christians have stopped shunning culture and have again attempted to shape it. Some of this effort has yielded better results than others. Christian Heavy Metal, Rock, and Rap have had their own particular kind of success and occasionally “cross over” appeal; however, other musicians have experienced a via media. [Read more]