#2 Christian Music Moniker
Why is Christian music the only genre of music that is categorized idealistically, rather than stylistically? Every genre of music is categorized by MUSIC style, (whether it’s Jazz, Rock, Rap, R&B, etc…) because of distinguishable musical characteristics. Yet for some reason Christian music is categorized by its message. If a rock band plays songs with an anti-war message, do you look them up in the “anti-war” section at the store? Of course not. If a band writes songs about the environment, do you browse iTunes for “environmentalist bands”? You get my point.
Why the message-based labeling? I suppose it’s helpful for Christians to know if the band is going to sing about Jesus or not… but it seems that the term “Christian band” or “Christian artist” has gotten a bad wrap. People hear that a band is “Christian” and they don’t wanna hear their music. Is it because of the message? Most of the time, no. It’s because people think that Christian bands aren’t as good as bands that don’t claim to be Christian. Should they be blamed for this thought process? Probably not. Sadly, most music-lovers who are Christians listen to secular music to enjoy music itself, and occasionally listen to Christian music (and usually sacrifice quality), for encouragement.
I don’t believe it’s gonna be this way forever (or at least I hope not). Maybe it’s a marketing problem. I don’t know, but someone is gonna figure it out one of these days. Again…I’m just tossing out paradigms, here. Your guess is as valid as mine.
Hey Caleb, thanks for posting your thoughts on this. I do think people generally want to know if the theme of the music will be something they can mesh with their ideals, so "Christian" music means it's not going to offend me as a Christian (except sometimes in the quality!) I like to eavesdrop on the ponderings of a deep thinker, so thanks for making me smile on this Sunday afternoon in NYC. Take care.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts. You should read a book called "Imagine" by Steve Turner. It talks about this subject exactly.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the main problems with CCM is that it (lyrically) shrinks its message to only address the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (which are, don't get me wrong, immensely important). Or, to put it another way, it only talks about (for the overwhelming majority of the time) the 1 per cent of life that we have classified as spiritual and ignores the other 99 per cent of life.
An artist, who is a Christian, doesn't need to be overtly religious in his art any more than a banker, who is a Christian, needs to overtly religious in his banking. An underlying Christian worldview should always be there but not necessarily blatantly there.
Another unfortunate tendency I see in CCM is that it paints the Christian life as being a constant spiritual high of happiness and roses, which we all know is a load of shit. Something I love about the Psalmists is that they were real people who wrote about real life. They didn't pretty things up under the deceitful guise of ministry or evangelism.
So anyway, that's pretty much what I think about CCM in a nutshell. Artists, who are Christians, should stop trying to force just one part of the Gospel into every one of their songs. Jesus is Lord over every area of our lives; so, let's stop ignoring that other 99 per cent.
Larissa-- Thanks for your comment. I agree with you! My question is why JUST Christian ideals? There are so many different kinds of world-views voiced through music...right? Thanks for reading!
ReplyDeleteWilliam-- Thanks again dude, really great points. I don't think CCM necessarily shrinks it to 1%...more like 20%... :) And if anything, songs could afford to talk MORE about Christ's death and resurrection, BUT you're right. Christians go through relationships, life struggles, addictions, etc... just like non-believers and those topics seem to be left off the radio. Also LOVE the point about the psalmists, they didn't "pretty" things up, yet they read more beautifully than most current song lyrics! Thanks a lot.
Very well written Caleb. I totally agree with you on that one.. and I love your blog.. First time reading it.
ReplyDeleteDude...yah...
ReplyDeleteAs we discussed before, if the music could gain a market share by not always playing catch up with secular, but just saying "lets do it"...the possibilities would be so much greater.
Create opportunities, don't ride coat tails..I think Ghandi said that.