Godless album/artist/song?

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What does it mean to live in a world without god? No, I don't you to answer that. I want album/artist/songs which ask and perhaps attempt to answer this question. Pop as a rule answers "either to love, to dance, to have sex, or to acquire material wealth" but the question tends to be unspoken, and perhaps unthought. This is a novel inspired question, so we might even categorize contempo-chart-pop of this sort as the equiv. of, in a limited sense, romance novels and "teen" market fiction and Douglas Copeland and uh, Romanticism, and well, and Tom Wolfe and, hell, most mass market books which are not about patriotism or killing. So I think we need to look somewhat outside of contemporary pop for what I'm looking for.

Which would be the equiv. of high-modernism. Pitchfork's list actually comes to mind. Except I can't place any sort of philosophical scheme around a group like Sigur Ros.

But examples might be. "#1 Crush" by Garbage (which is about love, but in a kind of self-denying and self-mutilating fashion which seems akin to Lukas' characterization of Kafka as "religious atheism") and "Battle" by Wookie and the last two Radiohead albums.

― Sterling Clover, Saturday, 16 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Disco Inferno - from "Waking Up" ("A sky without God is a clear clear sky") to "The Atheist's Burden", several of their songs are pretty explicit attempts to articulate a life without a god. Modernist music, too.

I like the Pitchfork/High Modernism analogy, too.

― Tom, Sunday, 17 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why Radiohead, for example? I'm not sure if you want to regard any kind of bleakness/angst/ennui as a sign that your question is being (more) explicitly dealt with. Really, that would involve scores and scores of bands. I get the impression you mean something more specific, namely music which stakes out some kind of territory where there once was a notion of god, and that notion structured the world. Viz. your comment on In Review about "trying to be Catholic in a world without God". In this case, would Radiohead, or most examples we could think of, be appropriate? I think they wouldn't have enough of the there-was-a-god (or at least, we-acted-as-if-there-was) business to contrast to whatever outlook would replace it. Um.

― Josh, Sunday, 17 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I pretend no radiohead expertise, but the self-conciousness of exploration and relationship with technology seem to fit. (The lack of god may be implicit, but the search for the answer cannot be) I would also add Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral, which in fact has the classic dissolutive narrative arc. Also note that the description as "Catholic in a world without god" is specifically about Vollmann's Catholic mentality, not general religiousity. The form of salvation sought is specifically an abasement and atonement confessional mode.

― Sterling Clover, Sunday, 17 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Natrually, Mr. Clover, the most Godless artist is Don Henley, who took it upon himself to re-unite with people whom he swore he would never "work" with again just to make money. hence the "Hell Freezes Over" tour cir. 1993-ish. Nevermind that his music has historically lacked the verve and spark that indicates SOUL. So if we accept this first part to be true, then by natural extention, any album/song written/containing work by Don Henley is Godless.

― Jimmy Mod, Monday, 18 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh my god (yes, I just realised the inadvisability of that oath) . . . but I couldn't help noticing somebody mentioning Disco Inferno just then. I'm very impressed. Sorry, that was totally off- topic. I'll go back to sleep now.

― Vaughan Simons, Monday, 18 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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