... This introduction provides an overview of the anthem’s evolution in popular culture, tracing its roots from early ecclesiastical, nationalist, and internationalist uses to its more diffuse and diverse role in contemporary popular music. It reads Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure...

... anthem pressure abstraction postmodernism ...

... anthem solidarity populism collectivism ...

... 1980s pop music anthem neoliberalism ...

... anthem terror abjection trauma love ...

... anthem urbanism psychogeography narrative point of view ...

... A successful anthem requires the definition of a cohesive we—a sense of solidarity within a group. However, as the 1980s dawned, existing collective forms appeared either exhausted or perilous. From individual couples to the universal class, social formations seemed to have disengaged from...

... of the counterculture. It advocates for love in all its forms—erotic, empathetic, spiritual, and political—without any hope of victory. “Under Pressure” stands as a love anthem devoid of transcendental guarantees; it implores a commitment to what may well be a doomed endeavor—to create a system where terror can...

... Unlike adversaries in traditional anthems, “Under Pressure” identifies an abstraction rather than a tangible reality like a rival nation, class, or race. This chapter contends that for Bowie and Mercury, pressure serves as a symbol for an intangible yet pervasive source of peril, enabling...

... The imagined intersection of revolutionary pop and politics has traditionally been the city street. However, by 1981, it became apparent that the metropolitan street could no longer be taken for granted as the central location for the march of history. The emerging pop anthems, with “Under...

... on the Iranian nationalism comparative to the credit he has received. His religious eulogies for the Prophet’s family inspired one of the most famous anthems of the Iran-Iraq War. The epilogue considers his work and the mosques he was affiliated with as sites of belonging and kinship for Black Iranians...

... This chapter imagines Beyoncé’s song “Break My Soul” as a sermonic anthem and theology for the author’s coming of age, desperate for hope and rebirth, amid a range of sociopolitical fires—namely, what the chapter refers to as three defining features of white supremacist capitalist empire...

... fantasy," a means of renegotiating women's roles in patriarchal society. The chapter also explores how female vocalists such as Stevie Nicks, with her Wiccan anthem "Rhiannon" (1976), embodied and projected the witch archetype, influencing subsequent generations of Wiccan-inspired indie rock artists...