Popular Music, Religion, and 9/11: Analysis of Two Music Albums
Abstract
The attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (9/11) have
provoked various collective and personal responses in the US, whose meaning, along
with the meaning of the attacks themselves, will continue to be negotiated through time.
This paper analyses two popular music albums released in 2002, which address the events
of 9/11. The analysis engages with the question, how do these albums incorporate
religious symbolism in formulating a response to 9/11? In exploring this question, the
paper draws conclusions about the relationship between popular culture and religion
within the context of collective crisis and suffering.
The paper is theoretically informed by constructivist and cultural studies
frameworks and adopts an interpretive approach towards the analysis of the albums as
cultural texts. Further, the analysis draws upon the scholarly debate on the increasingly
blurred line between the sacred and the profane, as well as on the literature on media and
religion. In addition to providing a close reading of the albums, the analysis seeks to
contextualize its interpretations and situate them historically. The paper argues that the
two albums represent two divergent forms of spiritual sensibility present in American
society today. By implication, they express specific articulations of collectivity, while, at
the same time, serving as sources for the construction of personalized meanings and
identities.
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