The urge to connect with that which transcends our experience, be it a higher power, another person or some artistic ideal or aspect of nature, is one of the things that makes us human. People view the object of this quest, as well as what it means to achieve it, differently. Yet regardless of how it is understood, the urge to participate in or belong to something greater and more lasting than ourselves-a feeling born of an awareness of our mortality-is what defines us as spiritual beings.
Though often dismissed as ephemeral or, worse, demonic, popular music has given voice to this quest for transcendence since its beginnings. Pop singers are rarely as outwardly spiritual as, say, their gospel counterparts; they're forever pointing beyond themselves, though, be it to some better future, some higher ideal, or to some vision of deliverance. Fontella Bass's "Rescue Me," the Four Tops's "Reach Out (I'll Be There)," Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross," Afrika Bambaataa's "Looking for the Perfect Beat," and U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" are but a handful of popular recordings from the past few decades that express a longing for something more. What, other than transcendence, is Jimi Hendrix talking about in "Purple Haze" when he shouts, "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky"? Or Van Morrison, in "Caravan," when he implores us to crank our radios and sail away with him into the mystic? Heard in the right light, secular and even carnal records have the power to speak to transcendental concerns, galvanizing their historical and cultural moments.
Regardless of their spiritual leanings, all of the subjects discussed in this book (including Public Enemy, Madonna, Sleater-Kinney, Tricky, Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails, Moby, Marvin Gaye, Eminem, Polly Harvey, Bruce Springsteen and Sly & the Family Stone) make music that expresses a basic striving for transcendence. Artists' stories and personalities inform these discussions, but only in as much as they illuminate the struggles and concerns that run through their music. I'll Take You There is a beautifully written, wide-ranging and illuminating examination of some of the most potent popular music ever recorded.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"An elegant writer whose turn of phrase are as illuminating as their content, Friskics-Warren's approach to popular music has been shaped as much by his early ecstatic encounter with the Beatles as by his Vanderbilt divinity degree. Ill Take You There, Friskics-Warren proposes that 'pop music has for decades possessed the power, much as liturgies and sacred music have for centuries, to transport the human spirit and to serve as a vehicle for the transcendence we seek.
"With a startling intuition for what even the musicians themselves may not have known, Friskics-Warren shows his subjects to be the mystics, naysayers, and prophets of today, grounded on this earth with a hunger for heaven.Too often mainstream reviewers dichotomize the sacred and the secular. Not only does Friskics-Warren explicitly denounce such categories, he declares that the eternal is inseparable from the everyday. For him, transcendence is no clichéd, out-of-body experience. In fact, it shares more in common with the bawdy ecstasy of Teresa of Avila than the prim austerity usually associated with spiritual enlightenment."-"Friskics-Warren has written a definitive popular culture study for the
new millennium..."
Sojourners Magazine, March 2006 (Sojourners)"Mr. Friskics-Warren is a metaphysical guy. And to murder a charming phrase attributed to Will Rogers, I never met a metaphysical guy I didn't like. The author tells us how moving to Nashville in the 1980s provoked an understanding of his lifelong quest to document "the urge for some sort of transcendence" in pop music. For those grounded in rhythm and chords, this may be a little ephemeral to grasp, but the author makes a game go at explaining his thoughts in eight well-written chapters."- Tim Fabrizio, ARSC Journal, Spring 2007 Vol. 38 No. 1
(Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal (ARSC Journal))"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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