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Description
The secret history of rock music in the American bicentennial.
When it comes to the tensions and contradictions of American culture, it's hard to beat 1976. It was the year of the United States bicentennial, one in which flags, bunting, and other patriotic kitsch were omnipresent, and the nation took stock of a two-hundred-year history culminating in global economic, military, and cultural dominance. At the same time, Americans confronted rampant inflation, the Vietnam War's humiliating and unceremonious end, and disillusionment over everything from the Kennedy Assassination to the Watergate scandal.
One way of navigating this dark landscape was through the occult: hitching a ride on the magic carpet of'60s anti-establishment sentiment, layperson and artist alike investigated the most arcane, esoteric theories of the universe. And nowhere was that influence clearer than in rock and pop music. Whether in Jimmy Page's obsession with Aleister Crowley, Blue Öyster Cult's embrace of The Reaper, Bob Dylan's forays into ersatz Christianity, or Miles Davis's use of hollow-earth and UFO iconography, a preoccupation with secret knowledge and mysterious forces thoroughly shaped their music and public personas. Spirits of '76 offers a spellbinding exploration of the American bicentennial as the culmination of these strange cultural trends, showing how rock music became one way for a nation to come to terms with its uncanny underbelly.
Table of Contents
2. Black Cat Bone: The Blues and the Supernatural
3. We Sold Our Souls ...: Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Pentagram
4. Rock's Death Cult: Blue Öyster Cult, Kiss, Judas Priest, APP
5. A Magick Presence: Stairway to Zeppelin
6. Lucifer Rising: Bobby BeauSoleil, Kenneth Anger ... and Charles Manson
7. Space Hymns: Alien Astronauts, Afrofuturism, the Inner Cosmos
8. Old Familiar Haunts: Apparitions, Spectral Dimensions
9. Punk's Secret World: American Underground ...and Spirituality?
10. Inside the Black Box: Immersive Worlds of Bowie, Eno, Fripp, Hammill & Gabriel
11. Lost Worlds & Hidden Utopias: Atlantis, Agharta, Shambhala
12. Into the Unknown: Mysterious Disappearances, Devil's Triangles
13. Silly Love Songs?: Beauty, Sexuality & '70s Troubadours
14. Magnum Opus: Prog Rock Alchemy
15. Pyramid Power: Spirits of Ancient Egypt
16. Scrying Over You: Music of Divination, Astrology, Ouija, Tarot
17. Rhiannon Takes Flight: Witches, Wicca, Feminine Mystique
18. Paganism, Natural Supernaturalism
19. Remote Control: Psychic Phenomena, Science of Mind, Hypnosis
20. Zumby Woof: Sightings (and Sounds) of Cryptozoological Creatures
21. Steven Halpern's the Devil?: The Rise of New Age Music & Sonic Healing
22. Close to “OM”: Spiritual Transformation, Journeys to the East
23. Cosmic Cowboys & The Great Spirit: Mysticism and the American West
24. Hotel California: American Dreams & Apocalyptic Visions
Product details
| Published | Jul 08 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 7 hours and 30 minutes |
| ISBN | 9798216606895 |
| Imprint | Backbeat |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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