Page - 77 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

real thing, baby.” Within this amalgam of critical, affective, and spiritual proc- lamations, fans as “believers” will develop a corresponding faith investment, depositing their spiritual disquiet on the singer-as-god that provides the “real” alternative, freeing the follower from the tyranny of consumer society. As stated above, authenticity is the cornerstone of rock culture, a sacred magnitude and the answer to the mainstream as musical corruption, very much in a biblical style. The contemporary combination of these complex and cross-cultural cate- gories (apocalypse; critical dystopia; authenticity) demands specific study as it has triggered important cultural productions and social resistance concerning the universal fear of a nuclear holocaust. Dystopian popular music plays a nota- ble role in the development and spread of the corresponding narratives calling for civic rebellion, making possible by these means the articulation of a trans- formed protest song language and promoting a renewed engagement with the spiritual. DYSTOPIAN POPULAR MUSIC Apocalypse actually fits with rock: U2, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Iron Maiden, REM, The Doors, and Busta Rhymes, among many others, have created relevant songs involving the apocalypse-as-dystopia rhetoric. It is definitely a creative locus for composers and a stable territory for the collective imagination of their followers. The cultural context helps, as nowadays there is a strong scepticism about dogma and priestly hierarchy and the opposite ten- dency for religious personal ecstasy and new spiritual cultures. Starting in the 1960s “The Beatles replaced (or at least accompanied) baptisms, confirmations and bar-mitzvahs. Discos and dancing were more enticing than devotions.”44 With the arrival of rap and hip hop in the 1980s, it was clear that “the church’s exclusive rights on the rhetoric of ritual, sacred or otherwise, were over”.45 Probably the boomers’ rejection originated as a part of their generational re- bellion against their parents’ inherited culture. There are many songs opposed to Christian beliefs and dogmas; others attack the church or the figure of Jesus. Trash metal members burnt churches in Norway in the 1990s. Aqualung (Jethro Tull, 1971) inverted the initial terms of Genesis: “In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him”. The song “Cathedral” by Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN, 1977) ran: “Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here / … So many people have died in the name of Christ / That I can’t believe it all”. And so on. Lennon’s rejection of formal religion had an enormous echo; for him: 44 Marsh 2017, 234. 45 Peddie 2017, 41. Apocalypse as Critical Dystopia in Modern Popular Music | 77www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94