Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story

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U2s ongoing popular appeal is constructed in the spaces between band and fan, commercialism and community, spirituality and nihilism; finding meaning in a surface-oriented popular culture and contradiction in the depths of political and faith-based institutions. The bands long-term success and continued relevance is a result of their ability to hold these energies in tension without one subsuming the otherto live in the liminal space that such contradictions invite. U2s mythic trajectory was born from a bygone electronic era, realized in our current digital era but with an eye on the forthcoming virtual era; it is a new myth for the whole world, found in the most unlikely of places, popular culture. This book approaches the bands mythic trajectory through a combination of rhetorical analysis and autoethnographic explorations that unveil the more personal experiences most of us have with media. Drawing heavily upon the works of Marshal McLuhan, Joseph Campbell, Thomas S. Frentz, and Janice Hocker Rushing, Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2 unpacks U2s popular appeal through the lenses of Agape (spiritual, communal love), Amor (romantic love), and Eros (erotic love).

Check out the book's official website for additional information: https//:www.u2mythos.com

Reviews

Johnston and Mackey-Kallis deliver an original, compelling, and intimate analysis of U2 across the last four decades. An essential book for scholars of music, mythology, politics, and popular culture. -- Tony Adams, Bradley University
Johnston and Mackey-Kallis Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story is much more than an academic study of the super-band U2 and its fan community. It is a deeply moving meditation on the complex character of love one that deftly draws critical inspiration from psychoanalysis, medium theory, and media erotics to illuminate the ways that the music, at its best, stirs the soul, creates community, and calls on all of us to realize our better natures. Full of passion, pleasure, and insight, U2: A Love Story invites readers to fall in love with a band that has left an indelible mark on both rock music and its fans. -- Brian L. Ott, Texas Tech University

It is rare to see a critical analysis of popular culture in which love is the organizing principle, and for this alone Johnston and Mackey-Kallis' book is distinctive and meaningful. They take great care to explicate the ways in which agape, eros, and amor are articulated by the Irish rock band in their songs, music videos, social action and performances . . . Along with its distinctive organizing principle, the book's most important characteristic is its transmodern perspective. This philosophical viewpoint argues that the interconnectedness of all things can and should be considered in the analysis of cultural phenomenon. This perspective, which reclaims the spiritual, also allows for the symbolic, the mysterious, the archetypal, and the transcendent. As transmodern critics, Johnston and Mackey-Kallis aim to interpret the songs, performances, music videos, and social action of U2 so to articulate the ways in which the band co-constructs interconnectedness with its fan communities.

Author Bio

Brian Johnston is visiting assistant professor in the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Miami University.

Susan Mackey-Kallis is associate professor in the Department of Communication at Villanova University.