I have a rant! I’m going to say something that - unfortunately - might offend the vast majority of Christians out there. But this is my opinion and I feel a very strong conviction about it. It is this. The Christian music scene is - on the whole - awful. Why!?!?!
It puts out some of the most boring, repetitive, bland, inauthentic, cookie cutter, generic, horrifically simple, forced, somber, hopelessly uninspired drivel I’ve ever heard. It isn’t creative, catchy, impressive. It is devoid of excitement. It isn’t innovative. It is some of the crappiest, sappiest, shallow music I’ve ever heard. I’d prefer Gangster rap and mainstream country music to the schlock I hear on K-LOVE. It is something you’d hear slapped together around a campfire, or the music you hear in an elevator. And they all sound the same!
But before this turns into an exercise in mudslinging, I am a Christian. Why the heck is it that I can’t stand modern Christian music? Shouldn’t I like it? But I don’t. I HATE it with a passion. I turn it on and I cringe. I hear it during Church and I can feel myself getting angry.
It hasn’t always been like this. Christianity once held a monopoly on good music with Bach, Handel, traditional hymns etc. . . Why is it that “Christian artists” can’t compete with “secular artists”? And why is it that putting quotations around those designations annoyed me? Why can’t Christians rock?
DC Talk was okay. Third day had one good song, and you can’t help thinking that they rode that grunge, southern rock wave for a boost. Rich Mullins is a great, passionate Christian - but lets be realistic - he doesn’t stand a chance - musically! - against Bob Dylan, Ryan Adams, or Neil Young. Amy Grant is Christianity’s biggest splash and can you seriously say she’s on par with Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Moressette, Janis Joplin, or Cher?
There is no song in Christian music (quote, end quote) that even remotely compares to the quality of music churned up our there by secular artists. Where is the Led Zeppelin equal? The Beatles? Michael Jackson? Pearl Jam? Radiohead? Where is the Christian artist that can pack stadiums, be authentic, and - most importantly - be a great, awesome, distinct, brilliant, and amazing artist? People think U2 fits the bill, but technically they aren’t Christian music. I want the Christian-sponsored industry to produce an artist on par with any of these guys. I defy them to do it!
I’m sorry, but the constant, unending, musically uninteresting, dull, repetitive, and even morally sanctimonious praise and worship formula is tiring, boring, vexing, and just viewed as retarded by the vast majority of musicians out there.
Mewithoutyou may be the beginning of something special. I’m not sure about their being purely Christian music. But that’s the key. It’s not just praise and worship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Christians are people too, people who might suffer a horrible break-up with a girl they loved, and write beautiful poetic lyrics to amazingly passionate music. This is the trend that finally needed to be set. And what happened? Secular radio stations embraced them, and Christian radio stations shunned them. What the heck?
But droves of Christians flock to K-LOVE type, musical poppycock. While Christians are caught up in it, and while maybe it doesn’t offend their moral sensibilities, the music itself stagnates, and it becomes a slave to moral neutrality; it doesn’t serve the end of creating beautiful art anymore, but to be a sniveling milquetoast to artistically myopic people just wanting a momentary high while they piously think this inferior medium is the door to true worship. Meanwhile, the music (as music) dies, and is dying. I’ll stop there.
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"but to be a sniveling milquetoast to artistically myopic people" maybe my favorite sentence you have ever typed.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. This is something we have talked about a lot. I think Paul Johnson, in his book on genius' mentions the fact that the men contained in his book that these individuals when they create art, its because of something driving inside of them. They can't help but create, its like a release. A purging of something.
Now, I am in no place to critique art, good or bad, but I don't get that feeling from people like Carmen or 4Him.
It's also interesting that you bring out the idea of moral sensibilities because I don't think these are dictated by scripture at all. Mostly tradition and society.
This is less a comment and more of thinking out loud.
I totally agree. Art as art is created because something is driving them. Today's Christianity has morphed into a naked ethical system, and that's it. All the drives, passions, energy, fierceness, rage, fire, and fury is censored by what they think is ethical, good, moral, courteous, respectful, good mannered, proper, tame, domesticated. It's awful!
ReplyDeleteDid anyone from Casting Crowns - because of an inner fire - lock himself in a room for weeks on end, refuse to eat anything but bread and water, claim to see the Heavens open up to him, while tears constantly fall, and your eyes bulge from lack of sleep (Handel)?
I read somewhere that the reason why Christianity can't put out good music is because good music is good when it revolts against the system, and Christianity is the system. But Christianity was never meant to be the system!!!! It is the subversive orthodoxy we read about. Do you think Bonhoeffer thought he was part of the system?
Ultimately, I think Christianity is filled with weak, spiritually sick, fragile, ailing, decrepit people that use the moral system (or their perception of it), the ethical system (turning Christianity into NOTHING BUT a ethical system of rules you need to obey, and that is ALL that Christianity really amounts to IN EXPERIENCE), like a crutch, a potion, a medicine. But then THESE VERY PEOPLE want to make art!
Then we get music like 4Him (is it anything near - musically speaking - Rage Against the Machine?), or movies like Left Behind or Fireproof (just stinking piles of litter filled with inartistic bilge!: can these compare with a Magnolia? - thank God a Chariots of Fire was finally made and it won Best Pic. - but can it compare with the sea of other extraordinary films out there?).
There are self identified Christians making interesting music. Thrice's Dustin Kensrue has created challenging melodic structures and lyrics full of the broad spectrum of Christian experience. Sufjan Stevens has penned a number of moving, intense songs. U2's Bono has written a number of songs that I believe fit the bill. I think that the Christian music industry may be dying, but I do not think that Christian musicians as a whole are necessarily lacking passion or talent.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Christian musicians lack talent necessarily either. I'm just talking about - as you call it - the Christian music industry. On (more or less) every single level, it's second-fiddle to the secular music industry. Not a huge fan of Thrice, but I have no doubt he is talented. Sufjan Stevens is very gifted. And U2 has some of the best music out there. What is mystifying and bizarre to me is that Christian music stations don't give any air-time to manifestly great songs by self-proclaimed Christians! And if it's a matter of popular demand (e.g. they don't get air-time, because K-LOVE audiences don't want them), you gotta wonder why, in the whole K-LOVE archives, there isn't one scintilla of distinction or brilliance in the music.
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