Christopher Partridge, Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, UK.

The evidence of death and dying has been removed from the everyday lives of most Westerners. Yet we constantly live with the awareness of our vulnerability as mortals. Drawing on a range of genres, bands and artists, Mortality and Music examines the ways in which popular music has responded to our awareness of the inevitability of death and the anxiety it can evoke. Exploring bereavement, depression, suicide, violence, gore, and fans' responses to the deaths of musicians, it argues for the social and cultural significance of popular music's treatment of mortality and the apparent absurdity of existence.

Introduction
1. Mortality and Immortality
2. Death and the Sacred
3. The Undead and the Uncanny
4. Morbidity, Violence, and Suicide
5. Transfiguration, Devotion and Immortality