Death, the Gothic, and popular music: Some reflections on why popular music matters

Abstract

I pointed out that in previous centuries memento mori exhortations, while popular, were hardly necessary. One’s mortality was all too obvious. However, things are rather different in modern Western societies. Modernity has made the Grim Reaper persona non grata. Death and decay are sequestered in hospitals, hospices, mortuaries, and cemeteries, and much cultural energy is expended developing strategies to obscure and to sanitise the brutal facts of mortality. But still, we are, of course, haunted by the inevitability of death. How could we not be?