ABSTRACT
Religion provides a basis for cooperation, a mechanism for controlling members, and a source of meaning for members to use in addressing problems in everyday life. This chapter explores five different ways popular music and religion relate in everyday life. The popular music performers who provided the soundtrack for the spiritual voyages included the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and Cream. The chapter examines the relationship between popular music and politics, polity, and community by taking into consideration the multiple meanings of "politics" in popular music studies. It examines the practice of cardboard CD packaging as a way of posing alternatives to the political, economic, and aesthetic oligarchy of the music industry. The chapter then explores the power that communities can wield against unpopular music by studying the case of the West Memphis Three. It also explores the importance of three concepts—ideology, institutions, and community—in developing an understanding of how power operates in the social world.
