Why Can't Christians Make Decent Christian Music?
I'm at work, I'm listening to the AM station, I'm hoping that the news goes on and on because, when there's no news, there's music.
Because Mr. Rogers is a former minister, and because Christians are, seemingly, EVERYWHERE, there is usually a "spiritual minute" at some point during the morning. This morning, surprisesurprise, there was a guy going on about Thanksgiving, and how we need to pause and thank "Gau-ud" each and every day, and he was all serious and sober and I just don't understand why so many preachers feel they need to talk like preachers, i.e. Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons.
So that bland and generic message (I'm all for giving thanks, but must it ONLY be around Thanksgiving? Let's be a little more original, people.) was followed by Bad Christian Music. Not a bad song--"This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long...." but so horribly, grossly oversung, overproduced (with all-so-many achingly high violin strings), that I found myself covering my ears at the end, just when I should be praising my Savior the most (higher voice volume = more praise, right?).
Last night I watched "Paper Clips", a very tasteful documentary about a middle school in rural Tennessee that started a Holocaust Project and collected 29 million paperclips and ended up housing 11 million of them in an old German railcar. The 11 million, of course, representing the 6 million Jews and 5 million homosexuals, gypsies, and "others" murdered by the Nazis. That was followed by "Baseketball", which has lost a lot in 10 years. In "Baseketball", they featured one of those songs that Trey and Matt wrote that take on those ridiculous anthems put out by third-level rock gods full of inane lyrics ("it's the eye of the tiger it's the cream of the fight, rising UP to the challenge of our rivals") and insane amounts of uber-emoting ("Beth I hear you callin'" or "and he's watching us all with the EYYYYYYYYEEEEE...of the tiiii-gerrrr..."). Anyway, this hymn reminded me of THAT!
Which forces me to ask...Why can't Christians make decent Christian music?
Now, I know there are a LOT of exceptions out there. I'm thinking mostly of gospel--really fun bluesy gospel like James Brown sang in "Blues Brothers". But that's few and far between, especially on lily white AM station, in pretty much all white Protestant churches in the world, on all Christian "rock" stations, etc. There are great hymns--"Amazing Grace" is wonderful, and I love Christmas music. So there is some hope. But why would God allow his most faithful to put out such crap in His honor?
A few weeks ago I had the terrible misfortune of catching a group of white teenagers singing the worst fricking God song ever in the most annoying way possible. The song was about how God "takes care of me" and precious few other words were spoken. But these lame white kids stared at their music sheets the entire time (kids, there's 7 words and 3 notes in this song) and barely opened their mouths. They weren't joyful, they weren't reverent, they were as in touch with their audience as a horribly drunk Jim Morrison or a super-snotty Jesus and Mary Chain. I wanted to STRANGLE these pious teens. Madalyn Murray O'Hair would sing God's praises with more feeling.
Yes, dear reader, I'm ranting. I'm allowed. But I think what I'm really after is an education. Christians! Can you hook me up with some decent Christian fare? I'm not after a conversion or anything, just some relief from my lifelong annoyance with bad religious music. If I believed in God, I would ROCK it!
Examples?
p.s. I have a sneaking suspicion I've written about this topic, too. Am I to the point of recycling my very thoughts?! I'm going to print out all my blogs to 1. check and 2. because I don't trust blogspot to not just delete everything for no reason.
Because Mr. Rogers is a former minister, and because Christians are, seemingly, EVERYWHERE, there is usually a "spiritual minute" at some point during the morning. This morning, surprisesurprise, there was a guy going on about Thanksgiving, and how we need to pause and thank "Gau-ud" each and every day, and he was all serious and sober and I just don't understand why so many preachers feel they need to talk like preachers, i.e. Reverend Lovejoy from The Simpsons.
So that bland and generic message (I'm all for giving thanks, but must it ONLY be around Thanksgiving? Let's be a little more original, people.) was followed by Bad Christian Music. Not a bad song--"This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior, all the day long...." but so horribly, grossly oversung, overproduced (with all-so-many achingly high violin strings), that I found myself covering my ears at the end, just when I should be praising my Savior the most (higher voice volume = more praise, right?).
Last night I watched "Paper Clips", a very tasteful documentary about a middle school in rural Tennessee that started a Holocaust Project and collected 29 million paperclips and ended up housing 11 million of them in an old German railcar. The 11 million, of course, representing the 6 million Jews and 5 million homosexuals, gypsies, and "others" murdered by the Nazis. That was followed by "Baseketball", which has lost a lot in 10 years. In "Baseketball", they featured one of those songs that Trey and Matt wrote that take on those ridiculous anthems put out by third-level rock gods full of inane lyrics ("it's the eye of the tiger it's the cream of the fight, rising UP to the challenge of our rivals") and insane amounts of uber-emoting ("Beth I hear you callin'" or "and he's watching us all with the EYYYYYYYYEEEEE...of the tiiii-gerrrr..."). Anyway, this hymn reminded me of THAT!
Which forces me to ask...Why can't Christians make decent Christian music?
Now, I know there are a LOT of exceptions out there. I'm thinking mostly of gospel--really fun bluesy gospel like James Brown sang in "Blues Brothers". But that's few and far between, especially on lily white AM station, in pretty much all white Protestant churches in the world, on all Christian "rock" stations, etc. There are great hymns--"Amazing Grace" is wonderful, and I love Christmas music. So there is some hope. But why would God allow his most faithful to put out such crap in His honor?
A few weeks ago I had the terrible misfortune of catching a group of white teenagers singing the worst fricking God song ever in the most annoying way possible. The song was about how God "takes care of me" and precious few other words were spoken. But these lame white kids stared at their music sheets the entire time (kids, there's 7 words and 3 notes in this song) and barely opened their mouths. They weren't joyful, they weren't reverent, they were as in touch with their audience as a horribly drunk Jim Morrison or a super-snotty Jesus and Mary Chain. I wanted to STRANGLE these pious teens. Madalyn Murray O'Hair would sing God's praises with more feeling.
Yes, dear reader, I'm ranting. I'm allowed. But I think what I'm really after is an education. Christians! Can you hook me up with some decent Christian fare? I'm not after a conversion or anything, just some relief from my lifelong annoyance with bad religious music. If I believed in God, I would ROCK it!
Examples?
p.s. I have a sneaking suspicion I've written about this topic, too. Am I to the point of recycling my very thoughts?! I'm going to print out all my blogs to 1. check and 2. because I don't trust blogspot to not just delete everything for no reason.
posted by lulu | 6:29 AM
1 Comments:
I'm a pretty darn regular churchgoer (though not a 'Christian' excactly) and on rare occasions the music has been known to transport me to a different spiritual place, but truth be told, most of the time that stuff they call "sacred music" is just irritating. I know a few people in that little choir, and they seem to enjoy what they're doing, but if that's a Joyful Noise for them...I don't get it.
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