How do we listen to popular music in Europe?

In this reflective article, I endeavour to raise a number of questions concerning popular music reception in contemporary Europe. First, popular music is described as a form of human communication where, it is argued, the verbal message should not be too easily overlooked. In this sense, I present two paradigms of listening to popular music: one, which is centred on the music and another, which is verbally focused. Drawing from several examples, the ways in which the verbal message in a song is appropriated by an individual or by a community are shown to be determined by complex factors, among which vernacular culture and language are crucial. For this reason, in the multilingual and multicultural European context, the study of the reception of popular music needs to draw on modern language, cultural and translation studies.