There was a long time during which I refused to listen to any music by anyone who called themselves a Christian musician that wasn't hymns and such - I still find it hard. As far as I could tell, there were only three kinds of Christian song - the incredibly distorted guitar song where you couldn't understand the vocals (which were usually the best by way of lyrics), the generic soft rock song (with lyrics that could be sung by anyone about how awesome 'he' was but never saying who he actually was) and the unfortunate, but all to common, dross that appears in all music (which was by and large the kind that you heard the most). My refusal got to the point where there were a few cases of me getting rid of music that I had liked as soon as I found out that the musicians called themselves Christians. Bands like Kutless, Anberlin and Skillet never stood a chance once I learnt their origins.
Since then, my situation has changed. I am still incredibly wary of so-called Christian Music. However, as I am living with aficionados of certain Christian bands, I have been forced to rethink and explain my policy. Many Christian bands are indeed good musically and as they can now gain credibility and a wider audience while still actually singing Christian lyrics, they in many cases do. Many still disguise their words under a layer of symbols or hidden meanings but it is getting better.
The default setting for many Christians is to automatically assume that since the band calls themselves Christian, their music will therefore be quality and their lyrics worth hearing. It may be that we decide that it is important that we support the industry, but this doesn't seem to be the main reasoning. So it is interesting that even without the demand for improvement or any real skill a growing number of Christian bands have a high quality of both musical proficiency and performance ability, making them worth listening to for the music and worth going to see as well.
So the question arises, What is it that is making Christian music good? There are two things I think that are doing this. The first is industry and audience related, and the second is deeper.
Firstly, with a large number of mediocre bands that achieve the qualifier of good by some means unknown to me, it is harder for bands that are actually good to gain any notice. For this to happen, they either need to be or do something incredibly controversial (which won't really work in the semi-conservative Christian market) or be really properly good. This has driven bands who want to achieve things with their music to greater heights seeing as they have to be quite good in order to be noticed by either the publishing companies (who would rather keep on squeezing proven bands until they are dry) or the audience (who already have favourites and aren't overly willing to change)
The second comes down to the nature of music. Music in its purist form is about emotion and passion. The greatest albums ever came out of a deep emotional connection to the music and the band or the artist; look at Face Value by Phil Collins of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, both of them came out of massive emotions held by the bands in question. As the return to Grace-based Christianity continues, people are returning to the passion that is, or should be inherent in Christianity. Since this passion is becoming more and more real, bands are funnelling it into their music and performances. This is what is driving the music to be better and the lyrics to be truer.
Since then, my situation has changed. I am still incredibly wary of so-called Christian Music. However, as I am living with aficionados of certain Christian bands, I have been forced to rethink and explain my policy. Many Christian bands are indeed good musically and as they can now gain credibility and a wider audience while still actually singing Christian lyrics, they in many cases do. Many still disguise their words under a layer of symbols or hidden meanings but it is getting better.
The default setting for many Christians is to automatically assume that since the band calls themselves Christian, their music will therefore be quality and their lyrics worth hearing. It may be that we decide that it is important that we support the industry, but this doesn't seem to be the main reasoning. So it is interesting that even without the demand for improvement or any real skill a growing number of Christian bands have a high quality of both musical proficiency and performance ability, making them worth listening to for the music and worth going to see as well.
So the question arises, What is it that is making Christian music good? There are two things I think that are doing this. The first is industry and audience related, and the second is deeper.
Firstly, with a large number of mediocre bands that achieve the qualifier of good by some means unknown to me, it is harder for bands that are actually good to gain any notice. For this to happen, they either need to be or do something incredibly controversial (which won't really work in the semi-conservative Christian market) or be really properly good. This has driven bands who want to achieve things with their music to greater heights seeing as they have to be quite good in order to be noticed by either the publishing companies (who would rather keep on squeezing proven bands until they are dry) or the audience (who already have favourites and aren't overly willing to change)
The second comes down to the nature of music. Music in its purist form is about emotion and passion. The greatest albums ever came out of a deep emotional connection to the music and the band or the artist; look at Face Value by Phil Collins of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, both of them came out of massive emotions held by the bands in question. As the return to Grace-based Christianity continues, people are returning to the passion that is, or should be inherent in Christianity. Since this passion is becoming more and more real, bands are funnelling it into their music and performances. This is what is driving the music to be better and the lyrics to be truer.
I really don't like calling a band Christian or non-Christian, because some of the music released by a "Christian band" doesn't glorify God at all, in fact it can do the opposite. Whereas there might be a non-Christian band out there that releases something that could cause a lot of backslidden Christians to return to the Fold.
ReplyDeleteFor example, just about every song on the album Awake by Skillet I would chalk up to flesh-feeding garbage, while a song like Everything by Lifehouse has been used to reach hundreds and hundreds of youth with the message of Jesus Christ.
Frankly, I categorize music as edifying and not edifying. I try to limit how much of the not edifying music I listen to, and stick to mostly edifying music.
That's probably a better method of definition. I was referring more to bands that either call themselves Christian due to their membership, or are perceived as such for the same reason.
ReplyDeleteI think my favourite example of why this distinction is important was a band recently (that I can't remember the name of). They had a membership of 4 Catholic raised guys in their early twenties. Most of the Christian music industry pegged them as a Christian band for their first album.
Their second album however featured some choice language in it in a couple of places. The hue and cry was amusing to say the least. The argument that was made against them was that being a Christian band, they shouldn't be able to use language like that. They then came out saying that they had never been a Christian band simply that they had Christian members.