Why I Listen to Christian Music (Even though some of it stinks)
There's a topic to bait an audience. Something to offend everyone, I always say. But it does capture the essence of what I've gone through in my relationship to Christian music. Let me explain.
For quite a while I didn't listen to Christian music. None of it. Because I was of the mind that most of it was trite, contrived. Pop junk with "Baby" replaced with "Jesus". And I'll admit - there's still a fair bit of that out there. Also lots of cheap imitations of grunge, rap... you name it. Still, there's a couple of things that have driven me to listen more and more to Contemporay Christian stations.
The first is that there is a growing body of really good music out there. Third Day is really popular right now, and its well deserved popularity. These guys are making interesting, unique music. So are bands like Casting Crowns, Mercy Me, and individuals like Nichole Nordeman and Jeremy Camp. And these are the ones in the mainstream (which is all I've gotten around to listen to). There are lots more good artists out there in the alternative space.
I've noticed a better attitude from these folks too. A spirit of real humility when you hear them talk - or even at concerts. I think its because a lot of these bands are growing out of local churches, and often still grounded in those same churches. More on that in another post maybe.
The second reason is that I've thought a lot this past year about what I spend my time thinking about. Yeah that sentence is only kind of circular. Better if I put out an example. I've noticed that when I listen to a lot of talk radio, my mind spends a lot of time thinking about politics. And that subject percolates to the top of my "what's important" list. So I guess what I'm saying is that I've learned that "I am what I eat". Or in this case, what I listen to.
Bearing that in mind, I've made an effort to spend more time listening to things that focus on God. Because I want to be obsessed really. I want thoughts of God to be what are in my head when I fall asleep, and when I wake up. And I'm not even close to being there. My mind is filled with all manner of other stupid things - but all too rarely am I thinking about God. I want more.
Does it work? I dunno. I think that in some measure it does. I know that I think about politics less. I know that I often have a song about my faith running through my head. That's encouraging. Exciting really. Maybe even worth listening to that same SuperChick song again. And again.
For quite a while I didn't listen to Christian music. None of it. Because I was of the mind that most of it was trite, contrived. Pop junk with "Baby" replaced with "Jesus". And I'll admit - there's still a fair bit of that out there. Also lots of cheap imitations of grunge, rap... you name it. Still, there's a couple of things that have driven me to listen more and more to Contemporay Christian stations.
The first is that there is a growing body of really good music out there. Third Day is really popular right now, and its well deserved popularity. These guys are making interesting, unique music. So are bands like Casting Crowns, Mercy Me, and individuals like Nichole Nordeman and Jeremy Camp. And these are the ones in the mainstream (which is all I've gotten around to listen to). There are lots more good artists out there in the alternative space.
I've noticed a better attitude from these folks too. A spirit of real humility when you hear them talk - or even at concerts. I think its because a lot of these bands are growing out of local churches, and often still grounded in those same churches. More on that in another post maybe.
The second reason is that I've thought a lot this past year about what I spend my time thinking about. Yeah that sentence is only kind of circular. Better if I put out an example. I've noticed that when I listen to a lot of talk radio, my mind spends a lot of time thinking about politics. And that subject percolates to the top of my "what's important" list. So I guess what I'm saying is that I've learned that "I am what I eat". Or in this case, what I listen to.
Bearing that in mind, I've made an effort to spend more time listening to things that focus on God. Because I want to be obsessed really. I want thoughts of God to be what are in my head when I fall asleep, and when I wake up. And I'm not even close to being there. My mind is filled with all manner of other stupid things - but all too rarely am I thinking about God. I want more.
Does it work? I dunno. I think that in some measure it does. I know that I think about politics less. I know that I often have a song about my faith running through my head. That's encouraging. Exciting really. Maybe even worth listening to that same SuperChick song again. And again.
posted by | 8:02 AM
2 Comments:
I really like music. I choose to listen to it most of the time. Most of the music I choose to listen to is that of movie soundtracks - not the collection of pop songs with barely connected themes riding on the coattails of a movie in order to see circulation, but the orchestral background music (or BMG for short). I listen to BMG for a few reasons, and I think these reasons sum up my feelings about music in general.
First, I listen to BMG because I find it creatively stimulating. Just as a writer or actor will often draw upon his or her own personal experiences in order to summon up the emotions of a scene, drawing upon the resultant feelings to inject potency into the portrayal of a scene, I listen to BMG to imagine the dramatic scenes, conflicts, and interactions that the music suggests to me. This shouldn't be surprising, as the original intention of the music in the first place is to stimulate empathic reactions in the viewing audience. It is an expression of mood and emotion, which I suppose can be said of any type of music, now that I think about it.
I listen to genre music in order to get into the mood and/or setting of a story I'm working on, and oftentimes it helps entire scenes to spring almost fully-formed into my imagination that I can write about. For this reason, it's often better if I haven't seen the movie for which the music was composed and performed. It takes some effort to divorce movie scenes from their corresponding BMG, which I suppose is a testament to the abilities of the composer.
Second, I tend to listen to BMG because I don't want to be distracted by lyrics. This is a habit that I have developed over years of listening to "secular" music. Today's (Fri., Nov. 4) Bleat on Lileks.com talks about Pink Floyd. I love the sound of Pink Floyd, but as to their lyrics? When they do make sense, what they say is either so obvious as to be a pointless statement, or I simply don't agree with what they're saying. The vast majority of secular music that I've listened to has followed this same pattern - brilliant musical composition, execrable lyrics. If I could get instrumental versions of secular music, I'd always choose that over "the music with the words in."
So, in a long and rambling way, this brings me back to the subject of Christian music. Working in a Christian bookstore, I hear a lot of it, and I'm often asked questions about it by customers trying to find that one song they liked on KTIS that had the word "Jesus" in it.
One issue I have with referring to such songs as "Christian music" is that it infers a compartmentalization that really doesn't make sense. As my wife says, "'Christian' isn't a musical style." All music is an expression of the artist's beliefs, desires, and fears. So-called "Christian music" is no different from "secular music" in this respect - it's only the message that differs. Not that content is to be overlooked as trivial. I also think this puts music that reveres and praises God into a ghetto, lending credence to the public perception that music which ignores, questions, or attacks God is the "mainstream."
I can understand why someone would want to produce their music through the Christian industry. I suspect that the standards of quality seem to be lower because it's a specialty market and thus there's less competition than a musician would face in the broader secular market. While I think the quality of the Christian music industry has improved over the past two decades, I still don't really enjoy most of what's popular. I find a lot of what gets played on the contemporary Christian radio station bland and forgettable, with one song blending into the next, indistinguishable from every other artist. Yet, to be entirely fair, it is no different in this respect from any other contemporary music station. The sort of music I like doesn't get much play on contemporary stations. I have very eclectic tates, so I like a wide variety of styles, and I must assume that this somehow makes me different from most people - if contemporary radio stations are driven by popularity and request, what other conclusion should I draw?
So, this illustrates my issue: my problem is inverted. I find the music uninteresting, but the lyrics always have meaning to me, even if the song in question is the simplest Vineyard/Maranatha praise song that repeats "I cry 'Holy, holy, holy'" ad nauseum. Having said that, some of these songs are just tiresome to me. I’ve heard the same sentiments expressed with nearly the same words over and over, from artist to artist, and so I often complain, “Doesn’t Scripture say ‘Sing to the Lord a new song’?” The artists whose work I most appreciate says things that not everyone else says, or at the very least expresses the same sentiments in unusual ways, which I guess is the trick of writing in the first place.
It may not be fair to accuse the Christian music industry of being unwilling to take chances on something unusual. Again, the same charge can be made against secular music companies, and when you’ve relegated yourself to a specialty niche market, profits are slimmer. You’ve got to make concessions to what’s popular in order to break even. But in my ideal world, Christian radio stations would be as diverse as iTunes radio, with every genre represented all the time.
Dude... make this a post!
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