Yes, yes it is.
They have their own recording and production companies
The music is not played on mainstream radio (for the most part)
The lyrics all have a certain theme (God, Jesus etc.)
Most importantly, the audience, musicians and participants all share the same identities, practices and values...they are generally all Christians who (most likely) attend a church, and believe in no sex before marriage, no drugs, anti-abortion etc.
They can all identify with one signifier...the Cross
Sunday, June 3, 2007
conservatists, electric guitars and the Boogie Woogie
So, I hate Windows Explorer (meanwhile half the world is laughing at me cause it took so damn long to hate it) because it couldn't even get to the blogger website to log on and write posts...so I'm using Firefox and it is my friend.
anyway, so i was looking on YouTube cause thats always fun...and i found this amazing piece of work (that was sarcasm by the way...) that I ended up emailing to a whole bunch of people i know...just because I thought it was so dumb.
its called "Satan's Tool" The truth about contemporary Christian Music"
To inform you...because I know you probably don't have time to watch that clip. So this guy, Alan Ives is a Worship Minister in a church in the US. He is 'teaching' to this congregation that anything with a beat or a rhythm is of the devil. Even if the lyrics are Christian...if there is a beat you can dance to, it is not Christian.
Now, that was only a 10 minute snippet...but i don't know i if i could listen to a whole hour with him talking. I think this is the guy who has made Christians look like boring and lame people with no life and no taste in music. I know we all have different beliefs...even in the same religion we have different ideas of what is right and wrong...but come on....the Boogie Woogie is of the devil?
I'm not sure when it was filmed, but this guy must be really annoyed that churches today (like Hillsong) play the music they do...with their evil electric guitars and what not.
Romanowski talks about mixing mainstream actions with Christian music...his example being 80's metal band Stryper who were "on stage wearing eye makeup and with shirts split open to their navels and with pelvises grinding to a 'heavy metal' sound" (83)...there is nothing distinguishable from the next band...aside from their lyrics. Luhr also goes into this by looking at clothing and music styles...many conservative Christians continued to bring up the point of Rock music is of the devil even with Bible based lyrics...that you couldn't tell the difference between a secular band and a Christian one especially at first glance.
Even evangelists were giving Christian Rock music a beating with a televangelist by the name of Jimmy Swaggart saying that "I feel that this music is wrong; it does not glorify God" (Romanowski 83). The idea was that gospel music was the only genre that was God given to Christians.
It's still true that you can't tell the difference between a Christian band and a secular one...but can you tell the difference between a Christian and non-christian on the street? Churches (well some) have started to embrace electric guitars, basses and drums. I think in the realization that...young people like that style of music. Hillsong Church in Sydney has a church band and a Youth band and both are popular with young people. My friend Emily plays the electric guitar every Sunday in my church....but go to any of the other churches in my suburb (Baptist, Anglican etc.) and it'll be the last thing you'll find in their building...
At the end of the day, I think its about stereotyping...
anyway, so i was looking on YouTube cause thats always fun...and i found this amazing piece of work (that was sarcasm by the way...) that I ended up emailing to a whole bunch of people i know...just because I thought it was so dumb.
its called "Satan's Tool" The truth about contemporary Christian Music"
To inform you...because I know you probably don't have time to watch that clip. So this guy, Alan Ives is a Worship Minister in a church in the US. He is 'teaching' to this congregation that anything with a beat or a rhythm is of the devil. Even if the lyrics are Christian...if there is a beat you can dance to, it is not Christian.
Now, that was only a 10 minute snippet...but i don't know i if i could listen to a whole hour with him talking. I think this is the guy who has made Christians look like boring and lame people with no life and no taste in music. I know we all have different beliefs...even in the same religion we have different ideas of what is right and wrong...but come on....the Boogie Woogie is of the devil?
I'm not sure when it was filmed, but this guy must be really annoyed that churches today (like Hillsong) play the music they do...with their evil electric guitars and what not.
Romanowski talks about mixing mainstream actions with Christian music...his example being 80's metal band Stryper who were "on stage wearing eye makeup and with shirts split open to their navels and with pelvises grinding to a 'heavy metal' sound" (83)...there is nothing distinguishable from the next band...aside from their lyrics. Luhr also goes into this by looking at clothing and music styles...many conservative Christians continued to bring up the point of Rock music is of the devil even with Bible based lyrics...that you couldn't tell the difference between a secular band and a Christian one especially at first glance.
Even evangelists were giving Christian Rock music a beating with a televangelist by the name of Jimmy Swaggart saying that "I feel that this music is wrong; it does not glorify God" (Romanowski 83). The idea was that gospel music was the only genre that was God given to Christians.
It's still true that you can't tell the difference between a Christian band and a secular one...but can you tell the difference between a Christian and non-christian on the street? Churches (well some) have started to embrace electric guitars, basses and drums. I think in the realization that...young people like that style of music. Hillsong Church in Sydney has a church band and a Youth band and both are popular with young people. My friend Emily plays the electric guitar every Sunday in my church....but go to any of the other churches in my suburb (Baptist, Anglican etc.) and it'll be the last thing you'll find in their building...
At the end of the day, I think its about stereotyping...
Sunday, May 27, 2007
CCM in a large-ish nutshell...
Christian Contemporary Music...is lovingly known to many academics who study it as CCM (i'd say cause its quicker than writing Christian Contemporary Music over and over and over again).
CCM is an interesting subculture because it is based around a religion. Unlike other subcultures, for example Grunge or Punk where they listen to grunge and punk music, CCM is comprised of many different styles of music; rock and pop type music being the main genres but it also includes rap, r&b, jazz, heavy metal, life metal (the obvious opposite to death metal -- gee, how original)...well the list goes on (Romanowski 79).
Despite having totally different styles of music, dress and image...what these bands and musicians all have in common is that they are Christians, so their lyrics generally have a Christian theme to them(Romanowski 79; Howard and Streck 42). That theme being -- Jesus Christ. There isn't any swearing, or dirty connotations and the film clips do not have anyone in bikinis dropping it like its hot.
As far as stereotypes go, yes the Church had a big say in what they thought about Christian rock and heavy metal bands etc... they didn't believe that anything loud or with drums and electric guitars was Christian and therefore was of the Devil (lol). They stuck to their hymns and other slow (boring) music while telling people that anything else was not Christian and should not be in churches despite what the lyrics say.
Because the secular music industry is huge and there are plenty of people out there who want to be a famous musician, even if they are religous. POD and U2 are openly Christians but do not have Christian themes in their music because they play for music first and foremost (Howard and Streck 49). Other bands, if they wanted to break into the big time, signed up to bigger record labels but were told not to put Christian messages in their songs.
Overtime of course, CCM became pretty damn big due to all the of bands out there (and there are heaps) so after a while I suppose you could say it became an industry. So bands no longer had to sign up to mainstream labels and tone down the message they wanted to get across. Some examples are:
- Guy Sebastian -- yes our wonderful first Australian Idol winner (quick someone get me a bucket), he used to sing in a Church band called Planetshakers, then won the competition. But, with fame came you-don't-get-to-do-what-you-want record label and now is singing lame pop songs with no meaning to pay for all the money they spent on running idol and advertising him.
- Brooke Fraser -- a pop singer, who has some of her music played on mainstream radio, but for the most part is played on Christian Radio Stations (96.5 Family Radio in toowong is an example in Brisbane).
- DC Talk, who were huge in the 80's also played on mainstream radio, which angered many Christian fans as they had assumed DC Talk had 'sold out'. Their song 'Jesus Freaks' was one which I imagine did not get played on the radio because they freely sang about Jesus which of course is not mainstream radio material.
CCM is an interesting subculture because it is based around a religion. Unlike other subcultures, for example Grunge or Punk where they listen to grunge and punk music, CCM is comprised of many different styles of music; rock and pop type music being the main genres but it also includes rap, r&b, jazz, heavy metal, life metal (the obvious opposite to death metal -- gee, how original)...well the list goes on (Romanowski 79).
Despite having totally different styles of music, dress and image...what these bands and musicians all have in common is that they are Christians, so their lyrics generally have a Christian theme to them(Romanowski 79; Howard and Streck 42). That theme being -- Jesus Christ. There isn't any swearing, or dirty connotations and the film clips do not have anyone in bikinis dropping it like its hot.
As far as stereotypes go, yes the Church had a big say in what they thought about Christian rock and heavy metal bands etc... they didn't believe that anything loud or with drums and electric guitars was Christian and therefore was of the Devil (lol). They stuck to their hymns and other slow (boring) music while telling people that anything else was not Christian and should not be in churches despite what the lyrics say.
Because the secular music industry is huge and there are plenty of people out there who want to be a famous musician, even if they are religous. POD and U2 are openly Christians but do not have Christian themes in their music because they play for music first and foremost (Howard and Streck 49). Other bands, if they wanted to break into the big time, signed up to bigger record labels but were told not to put Christian messages in their songs.
Overtime of course, CCM became pretty damn big due to all the of bands out there (and there are heaps) so after a while I suppose you could say it became an industry. So bands no longer had to sign up to mainstream labels and tone down the message they wanted to get across. Some examples are:
- Guy Sebastian -- yes our wonderful first Australian Idol winner (quick someone get me a bucket), he used to sing in a Church band called Planetshakers, then won the competition. But, with fame came you-don't-get-to-do-what-you-want record label and now is singing lame pop songs with no meaning to pay for all the money they spent on running idol and advertising him.
- Brooke Fraser -- a pop singer, who has some of her music played on mainstream radio, but for the most part is played on Christian Radio Stations (96.5 Family Radio in toowong is an example in Brisbane).
- DC Talk, who were huge in the 80's also played on mainstream radio, which angered many Christian fans as they had assumed DC Talk had 'sold out'. Their song 'Jesus Freaks' was one which I imagine did not get played on the radio because they freely sang about Jesus which of course is not mainstream radio material.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The 80's
I tell ya, the 80s were great! I wish I could have been there to witness them...but being that I was born in 87 it made it a bit hard for cute little me to really understand what was going on.
I chose my 4 sources for my annotated biblio and all four of them go into great descriptions of bands like Stryken, Styper, Gardian and Eternal Ryte (whats the caper with the bad spelling and all the y's???) all radical heavy metal bands who wore horrible clothing and had bad hair just like any other secular muscisian of the time. The best source I found would have been a book called 'Shaking the World for Jesus" by Heather Hendershot...not only does it have a super long chapter on Christian Contemporary Music it is a who book on Christian media, like mechandise, music, tv, movies and so on a real treasure trove of information (i've always wanted to use treasure trove in a sentence). One of the funniest things I read was the beginning of Eileen Luhrs article Metal Missionaries to the Nation:
It sort of puts Christians in the 80s in some kind of totally out there category. Christian Contemporary Music makes for a pretty interesting subject.
(Sorry its a picture, but i'm just not that saavy with pdf files.)
I chose my 4 sources for my annotated biblio and all four of them go into great descriptions of bands like Stryken, Styper, Gardian and Eternal Ryte (whats the caper with the bad spelling and all the y's???) all radical heavy metal bands who wore horrible clothing and had bad hair just like any other secular muscisian of the time. The best source I found would have been a book called 'Shaking the World for Jesus" by Heather Hendershot...not only does it have a super long chapter on Christian Contemporary Music it is a who book on Christian media, like mechandise, music, tv, movies and so on a real treasure trove of information (i've always wanted to use treasure trove in a sentence). One of the funniest things I read was the beginning of Eileen Luhrs article Metal Missionaries to the Nation:
It sort of puts Christians in the 80s in some kind of totally out there category. Christian Contemporary Music makes for a pretty interesting subject.
(Sorry its a picture, but i'm just not that saavy with pdf files.)
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Metal Missionaries
So from the title (which i did steal from an article (Eileen Luhr 2005), wish i thought of it myself though) you might gather my blog is about Christian music...not necessarily just metal, but rock and church bands aswell...i suppose its about Christian music that people may not know exist because they assume that Christians are really boring types. I thought about doing Gothic Metal but funnily enough I couldn't really find much about it, however there was quite a few articles on Christian music so I went with that. I didn't want to in the first place because I am a Christian and i might have some sort of bias opinion on stuff...but that i thought "Screw that"
I beleive you wanted links and stuff so how about linked pictures...do I get double marks for that??
Bands like:
Skillet:
Believer:
and Thousand Foot Krutch:
I beleive you wanted links and stuff so how about linked pictures...do I get double marks for that??
Bands like:
Skillet:
Believer:
and Thousand Foot Krutch:
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