Anyway, whenever I think of Christian bands, there is one name that always comes to mind, and did again this past Tuesday:
For those that do not know, they are characters from the show South Park.
In the season 7 episode, "Christian Hard Rock," Cartman forms a Christian rock band in order to win a bet. Realizing that Christian music is a top-seller, Cartman decides to take pop ballads and, by changing the word "baby" to "Jesus," turn them into Christian songs. Here is a sampling of what Cartman comes up with:
This is one of my favourite South Park episodes because of how ridiculous the whole thing is.
But because my knowledge of Christian bands is severely limited, Faith+1 is my go-to reference when it comes to Christian music. I know I mentioned Creed earlier, but I can honestly say that I cannot think of one other Christian band.
This got me thinking, and I asked myself this question: why do I not know any Christian bands?
One reason could be that I am not Christian. But I am not Icelandic either, but I (unfortunately) know who Björk is. (Side note: I hate Björk.)
Another reason could be that I do not listen to Christian music. But I do not listen to country music either, but I still know who Faith Hill is.
In all honesty, I am at a bit of a loss as to why I do not know any Christian bands. When Petra and Switchfoot came up on Tuesday, I was like, "Who?"
If not for Faith+1, I would not know any Christian bands. But they are fictitious, so I guess at the end of the day, I still do not know any.
Does this say something about me? Something about Christian music? I do not know, but what I do know is that I do not know any Christian bands.
I guess it is back to my Faith+1.
Here is a link to this same response posted on my blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://homertheheretic.blogspot.com/2011/03/response-to-faith-1.html
(links to these songs will also be on my blog)
I was planning on making this an original post but after reading ‘Faith + 1’, I decided to post it as a response to Josh!
This weekend, I was driving in my car listening to some of my favourite albums – nothing out of the ordinary. But thanks to SMC305, I had another ‘AHA’ moment about Christianity and Popular Culture.
The first album I was listening to was one of my all-time favourites – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Although I have listened to this CD dozens of times, it wasn’t until this weekend that I delved deeper than the rhyming lyrics and smooth melodies. The first song that caught my attention was “To Zion”, a song written to her first son. The lyrics of this song reflect the story of Mary and Jesus and it is not difficult to relate the words to the Bible. She describes how an angel came to her and proclaimed she would be having a baby.
However, it wasn’t until the song “Forgive Them Father” that I realized just how deeply rooted in Christianity Lauryn Hill’s lyrics were. In this song, she uses text from The Lord’s Prayer to ask forgiveness for the state of the world. It was just surprising to me that after years of listening to this album, I had never been aware of how “Christian” her lyrics really were.
The ‘AHA’ moment didn’t come until I switched over to Leona Lewis, a pop singer from the UK, most famous for winning The X Factor and hit singles “Bleeding Love” and “Better in Time”. The song “Footprints in the Sand” is a musical interpretation of the popular Christian poem. Again, my ears were opened to the deeply Christian lyrics of her song, which sounds just like any other secular ballad on her CD.
It was just amazing to me that after a few years of listening to both these albums, I never truly listened to the lyrics and understood the meaning behind them until now. What’s more is that both artists had songs so deeply rooted in Christianity between songs that have been so successful on secular charts such as Billboard. It seems as though Christian artists are everywhere. Their singles may not always be their songs with Christian themes (Leona Lewis’ Footprints in the Sand was #2 in the UK) but those songs are still making it to these popular artists’ albums! There are other popular bands such as Lifehouse, Paramore, and Evanescence that have claimed to be Christian in interviews. Although many of these bands have decided to keep their music separate from their faith, it is obvious many of their lyrics still reflect Christianity. I think Christian bands are all around us, we just don’t know it!
This is a great post Josh, and something that isn’t about how great Justin Bieber is! Major kudos on that alone. Anyhoo, I totally have to agree with you on not knowing Christian rock bands. Did you know they have their own section on billboard.com? I didn’t till I looked it up the other day (http://www.billboard.com/#/charts/christian-albums). I guess I personally always associated Christian music to country music. Similar to this week’s article which alludes to the south having more religiosity I guess I assumed country music, which is dominantly from the south, is heavily Christian as well. Than I found out Taylor Swift is from Pennsylvannia of all places, and all my theories were crushed.
ReplyDeleteThe only band I knew of during the lecture was Switchfoot and that was totally by chance. I, like so many other girls watched A Walk to Remember in my early teens and loved the scene when Mandy Moore sang “Only Hope”. Eventually I googled it, found it was by some band I’ve never heard of, and got hooked (“Meant to Live” is one of their better songs). After, I did some research and I found out that *gasp* they were known as a “Christian rock band”. I’m not going to lie, I definitely stopped listening to their music for awhile because I wasn’t sure what it would mean if I listened to this type of music. Would that mean I was Christian? That I was a "churchy"? Were they trying to convert my agnostic ears? I will admit I discriminated Christian music because I was afraid of the stigma attached to it. Although I will occasionally listen to music that integrates Christian themes (Kanye West Jesus Walks anyone?) why is it I’m not afraid to listen to Kanye or Lauren Hill even though they clearly incorporate Christianity in it? Is it because they don’t preach it? Or is it because they aren’t categorized as Christian music so I don’t really care about what they sing about? It’s weird knowing that there is nothing wrong with a band like Switchfoot, or even Petra for that matter, so then why do people who aren’t Christian, like myself, discriminate against it sometimes? I thought music was that universal language that everyone enjoyed and understood, but I’m starting to think there’s a whole different world (Christian music scene) that I didn’t even know about until last week that complicates things a little bit in how we view christian-artists who perform primarily secular music, or even christian artists and their christian music.
I may not be Christian but I can definitely identify with some of Switchfoot's lyrics. Although I don't listen to them now, it isn't because I still hold a bias against them. Rather, I was going through a phase in high school when I preferred this type of musical sound, but I digress.
Great post, Josh! Although my knowledge of Christian bands is not as limited, I can only think of...maybe four legitimate Christian bands/artists? That's just an estimate but I can assure you, it's not that many. With that said, I think you've raised a very important issue in your post: the obscurity of Christian bands, whether intentional or unintentional.
ReplyDeleteThis idea of Christian music being more inconspicuous than any other genre in the music scene can be further elaborated by Brian Schill's article. He categorizes Christian music into three categories: separational, transformational, and integrational, where separational bands are the most anticultural of the three. Schill states that separational Christian musicians are "the original and largest group" and therefore, a majority of Christian bands seclude themselves from secular society and the mainstream. It is possible that this is the main reason as to why a lot of people are unaware of so many Christian bands.
The same goes for transformational and integrational Christian bands. Professor Harris talked about the band Switchfoot, who can be considered an integrational band. Even though they are considered a Christian band, they incoporate enough secular musical elements to make people forget or dismiss the idea altogether. Their lyrics are moral and Christian oriented but it's vague enough to be understood by anyone of a wholly secular background. They don't include biblical references or specific names of Christian figures in their lyrics and their sound is thoroughly generic - a lot of people can easily label them as another rock band, not a Christian band.
I actually didn't know Switchfoot was a Christian band until a year ago and I've known them for a couple of years now. I also didn't know that Underoath, Relient K, and Lifehouse are also crossover Christian bands until...now? Just goes to show how obscure the Christian music genre can be.
Anyway, that's just my little take on Christian music. Again, great post Josh!
P.S. That South Park episode was pretty hilarious. I will never know how Cartman comes up with this stuff.
although i am not going to post an entire response. yet again i love the content that you included... i am also a huge south park fan and immediately thought of this while discussin christian music hahahahhaa
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