Rupert Till’s analysis of music as religion doesn’t convince

book-cover-pop-cultAuthor and academic Rupert Till attempts to use his study Pop Cult as a way of looking at various facets of the musical experience in terms of religion. The book’s subtitle, “Religion and Popular Music” is slightly misleading, in that the book looks not at religion in popular music, or popular music’s relation to religion, but popular music as religion. Till succeeds at times, but fails at others.

In analyzing Pop Cult, the book seems very academic, and the chapters are more like transcribed lectures than chapters in a greater work. Rupert Till has collected a lot of information here, but the presentation and interpretation leaves a lot to be desired. Had there been “so-and-so covers this in greater detail in another book” one more time, Pop Cult would have strained its credibility further. Why Till didn’t utilize the work done by other more often, rather than having the reader run to another piece of writing is a continual frustration.
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