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Pop Occulture Music?



A reader left a response in a recent post suggesting that I start a section of my site dedicated to music. This seems like a pretty sweet idea, that I’d love to do. Would anyone be interested in that? What kind of format would it take? I’d like to keep all my projects somehow centrally connected to the idea of “Pop Occulture,” since that’s a pretty successful brand name in itself right now. Is there a way we could do a site on music that could fit into that - or would it just be its own thing? If so, what would be the angle to take? What would set it apart from other music sites? Any ideas?

Possible problems to avoid when discussing music and spirituality (as I see it):

  1. Keeping things from being overly didactic or preachy
  2. Keeping the music discussed on it as actually being good music (filtering out bland new age crap)
  3. Keeping it somehow spiritually relevant without ramming that aspect of it down people’s throats.
  4. Keeping it from being overrun by hipster nonsense
  5. Making sure that I don’t have so many projects running that any of it become diluted

Anyway, I’m sure there are other things as well to watch out for. I’m kind of just trying to mentally work through the idea to see if it’s something I would like to pursue. Whatever form it might take, I like the idea of just having it be a collaborative project open to anyone with much the same style and terms as Traces from Beyond. The simplest thing I can see working is just having a site that accepts submissions for short essays on songs, albums or artists, and what kind of impact they’ve had on your life. We could call it after that Stevie Wonder album, “Songs in the Key of Life” maybe, or come up with something better. In any event, I’ll be thinking about this more, and if you’d like to try and influence my thinking, please do.







8 Reader Responses

  1. Kylark Says:
    March 5th, 2006 at 4:00 am

    There are a lot of songs that trigger “gnosis.” It would be fun to have people submit those titles and make podcasts out of them. They could have a subtle theme. There could be somebody talking every few songs or so, like a DJ, but commentary on the podcast would be minimal. People wanting to discuss what the songs mean to them could do so in the comments.

  2. channel null Says:
    March 6th, 2006 at 1:32 am

    Look up “Mayhem” radio–while some of it is long-winded, boring and amatuerish talk, there’s this one guy who does a “Frequency 81″ show where he plays alt-folk and alt-country made by occultists or inspired by the occult. As someone transplanted into the northeast who likes to fantasize about the good old days of sitting in the front yard in the rocking chair with the shotgun, cooking up some meth and corn liquor, back home, I appreaciated his efforts…

    If you have “Pop” Occulture, as a person walking down the aisles of brand supermarkets, I would expect there to be a high “Pop” factor for the ID. See if you can’t find some bubble-gum music, like twelve-year-old girls singing about Abraxas to some juvenille sampling and drum machine beat. Or some gay club soundtrack about higher love. Like Erasure meets, I don’t know, Crowley’s Enochian keys… wait, that’s called “goth.” damnit.

  3. SubstanceM Says:
    March 6th, 2006 at 8:46 am

    Yo of course, I’m down. Could start with the history of occult /religous themes in rock music - just Black Sabbath and Led Zep alone could kill a few entries.
    “Conscious” hip-hop, unreleased independant, and new alternative rock like System of a Down, etc are other areas of interest (to me…). I think you would probably want to start with text only. Space and infra for streaming / downloadable files would take a little more time to setup. If you want to contact me by email we could discuss how to start, I’d be happy to help if you do go ahead.

  4. james Says:
    March 6th, 2006 at 8:54 pm

    Two words: Captain Beefheart.

  5. SubstanceM Says:
    March 7th, 2006 at 7:09 am

    Wasn’t he a friend of Potato Head Bobby?

  6. N.M Says:
    March 7th, 2006 at 10:56 am

    If you want to branch out on this topic (music,spirituality,science), I suggest that you check Drew Hempel out.

    EPICENTERS OF JUSTICE music theory, sound-current nondualism and radical ecology
    by DREW W. HEMPEL

  7. Error 404 Says:
    March 8th, 2006 at 10:12 am

    Well, there is an opera that works for me: Carmina Burana, by Karl Orff.

    You might remember it as the soundtrack to Excalibur.

  8. prunesquallori Says:
    March 8th, 2006 at 12:14 pm

    Atalanta Fugiens



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