There’s a big difference between “music made by someone with Christian beliefs” and Christian music. Christian music just sucks.
Worst Christian music.
Enh. So far as I can tell, contemporary Christian music, at least Christian rock is no worse than mainstream radio rock. i.e., it may suck, but I see no reason to single it out as sucking because it’s Christian. If people are name checking Stryper and Amy Grant they’re kind of out of date.
Hey honkies, who in the holy hell doesn’t love spirituals?
I mean, despite being raised in the squarest of Kansas presbyterian churches (we were picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church before it was cool!), and later became as atheist as they come, a well done version of Amazing Grace will still bring a tear to my eye.
Christian rock was almost bearable back in the old metal days. Barren Cross, King’s X (sorta), Stryper HA HA HA HA KIDDING
Man, I met the dudes in King’s X years ago, at a music store appearance around here. I swear, I was the only one who dropped by for it. They were nice, though, and I slipped them a copy of a friend’s band’s CD.
Also, Marty Haugen’s a pretty good contemporary liturgical composer.
And would Tom exclude the various Requiems that the world has been blessed with? Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, etc…
Contemporary Christian music suffers from the same malady as gay/lesbian music (especially the folky stuff) - because it has a built-in audience, its practitioners don’t try very hard not to suck. You can cut the mediocrity with a knife.
Except Creed. Creed rocks. WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN, LIKE A HAIRY-CHESTED JESUS ON THE CROSS, STANDING ON A MOUNTAINTOP, MOFOS.
Amen, sister.
(Quoted for posterity.)
I have to agree with Tom. Mozart writing the Requiem Mass so that he could keep a roof over his head is not exactly the image I conjure up when I think of Christian Music. Certainly he wrote a lot of ecclesiastical music because it was his job for a number of years, much of it for specific occasions. This strikes me as very different from the contemporary dreck you may (or may not) have had the displeasure of hearing.
Back in the early 1990’s a band from South Carolina called jennyanykind made a name for themselves. They did one indie album that was loud and grungy, and then another that was more psychedelic and swirly. I don’t know what Elektra/Warner Bros. heard in either of those albums to suggest mainstream appeal, but darned if they didn’t sign jennyanykind to a recording contract.
And so it’s 1996. jennyanykind delivers their first (and as it would turn out, only) major label album to the alternative rock tastemakers at Elektra…and I’d sure love to have a video of the reaction of the A&R guy who signed them and the folks in the room tasked with attempting to promote it.
See, what jennyanykind (and their two leaders, brothers Michael and Mark Holland) cooked up was one of the oddest and most wonderful albums of the 1990’s. Layering heavy slabs of barrelhouse New Orleans piano with slithery Memphis soul guitar (think Steve Cropper with a Rat pedal), Michael Holland tears through one song about God (capital G intended) and Satan after another–sounding kinda like Lou Reed amped to the gills on speed trying to imitate the boy preacher in Matewan.
As a result a song with a title like “You Better Get Right With God” manages to sound menacing, funny, and downright anthemic all at once. “The Sun Shines Down On The Average” is punk as all fuck–even the Jesus parts. “Revelater” is a downright spooky take as Holland basically lays claim to being St. John his own self…and then on “The Great Deceiver” (not a King Crimson cover) he does a Memphis soul stew take on being Ol’ Scratch.
Awesome record, but it sure did get them dropped from their label with an amazing amount of quickness.
You can grab it in all it’s glory here. It absolutely is a great record, and full of Christian music.
Yes, I would. When people talk about Christian music, I don’t think they have in mind big bombastic classical music symphonies that are supposed to be played at funerals. Also, I vote for Verdi’s Requiem. Verdi is the Michael Bay of classical music and opera. Wagner is the James Cameron. Brahms is the Coen brothers. Mozart is, uh, let’s see…Mozart is the Ron Howard.
Also, triggercut is way to classy for this thread. Now I feel ashamed.
-Tom
Tom’s probably thinking of the almost-all protestant modern crap, mostly rock and country, you hear. Protestants have terrible music.
Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach are all over the old Lutheran hymnal.
Mozart is…in anyway related to Ron Howard. Your podcasts have been diminished.
Dvorak is the what? What director or composer do you smirk upon?
Oh, and how about a shout-out to the third, self titled Velvet Underground album? Right in a row you get three absolutely fucking kick-ass rock songs that are pretty much about God, redemption, and love:
“Jesus”
“I’m Beginning To See The Light”
“I’m Set Free”
Also, how about those great Uncle Tupelo covers of “old timey” music?
“No Depression” (originally a Carter Family song)
“Atomic Power” (A Louvin Brothers cover)
“Whiskey Bottle” (Which is a song Jay Farrar wrote about being stuck in Columbia, MO on a Sunday morning after playing a show on a Saturday night and blowing off church–hence the chorus: “A long way from happiness/In a three-hour-away town/Whiskey bottle over Jesus/Not forever, but just for now.”)
Why are you hating on Parenthood, Splash, and Frost vs. Nixon?
I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to Dvorak. That guy almost single-handedly ruins Leo LaPorte’s show.
-Tom
Oh, and the song that single-handedly disproves the notion that Christian music sucks all by itself, and in under three glorious, tear-jerking, lumpy throating minutes:
I think you’re stretching the meaning of “Christian” music. Christian music is more than just invoking idioms derived from the Christian faith or its history. Christian music in a modern, at least contemporary sense, is music that specifically deals with the human condition based in and viewed through a prism of faith in Christ that in turn glorifies and elevates God, while being marketed to Christians, and their children, as safe knockoffs of their secular counterparts.
Edit: Or to put it another way, songs dealing with broad themes of love and redemption, that draw on english idioms derived from a history dominated by Judeo-Christian tradition does not make a “Christian” song anymore than me saying, “God damnit!” makes me a satanist.