It holds a position that has become central amongst the elements that form our perception of the world, the sense of hearing rivaling more than ever what we see and what we read. The social element is at the heart of the processes of the production and reception of the musical. It determines its developments, functions, and meanings to a great extent. In a continuous mirroring, music reflects and expresses the social space that, in its turn, invests in it, infusing it with new meaning. The musical object, a truly cultural generator of cultural practices, is not something given but something constructed, the product of a “here and now” in which codes, norms, values, and strategies of innovation and copying are tangled together in perpetual construction. 1 Music can also be a method of engagement, at the same time individual (those who listen) and/or collective (those who play)—a medium for resistance to cultural or political domination.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, there simultaneously appeared “alternative rock,” with a left-wing message, and “rock identitaire”(identity rock), with an extreme right-wing message, these two genres succeeding the socially active, left-wing rock and the rediscovery of local, folk, and ethnic music that occurred during the 1970s. 2 Thus music can be a medium for raising awareness. In fact, it is above all a social indicator and a generator of political symbols, but also of religious symbols (gospel music) and community symbols (rap, Yiddish music). The music analyzed here, which I here call Euro-pagan music, along with its scene (groups, labels, press, and so forth), is a musical and cultural movement