Posted on 11/19/2013 8:41:21 PM PST by grey_whiskers
Recently, I was watching an excellent concert video of the band Transatlantic playing their album The Whirlwind live in London.
Neal Morse (formerly of Spock's Beard) had become a Christian -- I don't know whether any of the other band members were -- and the songs had a decidedly Christian overtone.
Now the interesting thing I found, is not the Christian messages inherent in the songs; not of themselves. Rather, I found it interesting in that it differed from most contemporary Christian music in that it didn't suck. As Danny Glover said in the movie Angels in the Outfield, "There's this thing called talent. You guys don't have it." Or as humorist/essayist P.J. O'Rourke once said when making fun of the folks at Heritageville, USA, "I'm sorry. I don't have the heart to [make fun of] these folks anymore. It's like shooting dairy cows with a high-powered scope and rifle."
Now, we all agree that there is a dearth of talent in Christian music; but there are several other problems which run deeper. One, of course, is money: it takes money to produce high-quality music properly, and a lack of money leads to cutting corners. Each little bit may not matter, but after awhile, one runs into the "death by a thousand cuts." Another is the lack of originality: there do happen to be a number of original Christian bands, but it seems that most Christian artists are content to ape the styles of a fad-and-a-half ago, while vainly (in both senses of the word, apparently) continuing to reassure themselves that they are modern, up-to-the-moment, and exciting: generally being as convincing as the old man at the end of Disney's The Aristocats who speaks of "swinging hep' cats."
But another issue is the inherent conflict between the arts and Christianity. I am not speaking here of the Mapplethorpe-vs.-Evangelical flamewars, nor of Piss Christ; nor yet of satanic overtones in metal music. Rather, I am looking at the lack of artistic values -- and at this, I see several components. First, there is the long-standing Protestant backlash in the United States against anything "Worldly" -- which, alas, includes rock music. This means that performing artists who wish to place their performance in a Christian milieu, in addition to the other handicaps, are swimming upstream against a tide of Stepford-wife Christianity: everything is to look perfect, and clean, and "just so" -- and this includes the chord structure and musical arrangements, not just the lyrics.
Second, there seems to me to be a Christian music "subculture" resulting from so much of the music emanating from Nashville, TN: it almost feels that most of the music has to have the cultural stamp of approval from the powers-that-be in that city, before it is allowed to be distributed: with the result that the lyrics, topics, etc., are claustrophobic, almost xenophobic. Some topics, some kinds of pain, are simply "not part of [good] Christian's lives" and therefore should not be written about or sung about, or -- preferably -- even alluded to.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there is an air, an atmosphere, in much of Christian music, that whatever is written "should glorify God." Now this happens to be true: I presume music was invented in Heaven, and dischords and cacophony in Hell. But there is a distinction present which I think is too fine-grained for the thought leaders in the Christian music world. To get a flavor of this, I refer the reader to two *excellent* essays from the prior Century, by a pair of celebrated Christian authors.
The first is Lilies that Fester by C.S. Lewis, and the other is The Mind of The Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers. Lewis' essay talks about true art and culture, and its usurpation by the rise of the charientocracy, the managerial class, for whom "culture" is one of the required learning experiences one undergoes while being groomed for the managerial class -- there is a coarsening, a vulgarization, in that while the candidate is exposed to "Art" he is told in advance what the proper response to it should be, thereby cutting him off from any real insight or stirring in his soul. I suggest that an analogous process has happened in many of the American churches: for any topic in life, there is an approved Churchian answer, which governs not only the response, but the moral and intellectual framework from which that response is derived, and within which that response is all but inevitable. But one of the true strengths of art -- visual as well as musical, static as well as performed -- is that it forces the user outside of his own framework, opening the mind to dynamic solutions.
And it is here that I segue to The Mind of The Maker. Sayers argues that man is made in the image of God primarily in being a creative being (in this she echoes much of the sentiment of J.R.R. Tolkien; see for example his essay On Stories in The Tolkien Reader). She relates God as the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) to the different roles of the author/creator in relation to his/her creative work. She considers the problem of Evil ("if God made the world, why is there a devil") in a different form: "If Art is Good, why is there Bad Art?" Her answer is that "Bad" art arises when the Author of the art is unfaithful, untrue, deceitful with respect to what the art is trying to say:
Once more, our literary analogy may be used to illustrate this distinction between Evil known by pure intelligence and Evil known by experience. Our perfect writer is in the act of composing a work - let us call it the perfect poem. At a -particular point in this creative act he selects the "right" word for a particular place in the poem. There is only the one word that is "dead right" in that place for the perfect expression of the Idea. The very act of choosing that one "right" word, automatically and necessarily makes every other word in the dictionary a "wrong" word. The "wrongness" is not inherent in the words themselves - each of them may be a "right" word in another place * -their "wrongness" is contingent upon the "rightness" of the chosen word. It is the poet who has created the "wrongness" in the act of creating the "rightness". In making a good which did not exist before he has simultaneously made an evil which did not exist before. Nor was there any way by which he could possibly make the Good without making the Evil as well. (*Always excepting, of course, words like "sportsdrome" and "normalcy", which are so steeped in sin that no place is "right" for them, except Hell, or a Dictionary of Barbarisms.)
She goes on to illustrate this with a quote from Hamlet which had been bastardized by David Garrick, and which thereby lost much of its evocative power; even though he believed in his heart, he was improving it.
Paradoxically, I think that this is very thing which many Christian performers do; and what is worse, doing such in the name of God. Many Christians are inspired by Bible verses such as "In Him we live and move and have our being" and the concept that "Jesus is Lord over *all* of my life."
These are good things; but taken out of context, they can prove disastrous. It is true, our will should always be surrendered to God; but it is manifestly NOT true, that God expects us to leave everything to Him exerting no effort on our own: consider the parable of the talents, in which the servant who worked and invested the talents is praised; or the Centurion speaking to Jesus "I am a man in authority, with others in authority over me" -- in this case, he was invested with authority for the express purpose of exercising that authority, so that the ultimate authority, the Emperor, need not be bothered with every tactical maneuver of every company of troops in every battle across an entire Empire. (Just because he possesses the authority, does not mean that it is required to exercise it actively in his own behalf every possible chance: similarly, just because God is Lord of our Lives, does NOT mean that we should explicitly quote a relevant Bible verse in between every swipe of our toothbrush.)
But many of the Christians feel -- or have been *taught* to feel by Churchian doctrine -- that it is a kind of disrespect to God, to NOT drag him in at every possible moment in every possible song. And to do that, is often to act as David Garrick, and to completely ruin the artistic impact of the song, in an attempt to honor God by dragging Him in by the Ear.
Unfortunately, the result often is the exact opposite of what was intended by the performer.
Please listen to the whole thing.
Cheers!
I think I know what you’re saying, but I find some really good Christian bands....this is a particular favorite, and I find them very creative, hip, but yet respectful and aware....
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVZTixXjWg6ue13dzb_dQmA
I grew up with Phil.
His Pappy was the county dog catcher.
When the old dog pound was closed they use it to practice in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3iSiij98VY
Speaking of sleep, it is 'that' time for me now. LOLOL!
(Yikes! but he's good.)
Cheers!
The man has a gift.
I have never seen that clip before.
Cheers!
BTW God Bless John Sffera, for making the first move to reunite Phil and Dan.
If you’re into contemporary rock, check out air1.com
Watched a bit, kind of reminded me of kansas in some way.
Kerry Livgren =good thing, to me, anyway.
I think the real answer to your thesis is $$$, in more ways than one.
On the one hand, often cheap production values $$$
On the other hand, ‘talented’ musicians preferring the $$$ of the secular / crossover market $$$
On the third hand, execs unwilling to take risks, and pursuing ‘safer’ investments.
‘Sugarcane in cellophane is playing at the radio station’, as one musician put it.
I’ve seen Phil play live, and afterward, it makes his studio albums seem pale in comparison. Just a man and his guitar, so much more alive than 1s and 0s
Given your outspokenness on the matter, I’d be curious to see what you might have to say about, oh, the following list:
Mark Heard
Amy Grant
Undercover
Dream theater
Ayreon
Darrell Mansfield
Petra
Carman
Kerry Livgren
Daniel Amos
Ambrosia
You may not be familiar with all those names, not all are Christian bands, and I threw in a couple of obvious ones too.
Just curious.
I’d write a rant of my own, but, sleep!
From the Studio; Jars of Clay. The first four songs are outstanding, the rest pretty good. Is ten years old contemporary? http://www.amazon.com/Furthermore-Studio-Stage-Jars-Clay/dp/B000084TTM/ref=sr_1_14?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1384931442&sr=1-14&keywords=jars+of+clay
What literally used to cost tens of millions of dollars in building a high quality studio in the 80s can now be had for under 5 thousand dollars. and that includes the cost of a stable high end computer and a pair of high quality studio monitors.
You can literally download for free a fully functional high end digital music production system that would make what the Beatles recorded on comparable to the difference between the first Wright Brothers plane and the Starship Enterprise.
Many bands now just build their own studios and lay down the tracks and then maybe they take the rough mix to a high end studio for final mixdown and mastering BUT, even those processes are becoming so easy due to new highly sophisticated digital software that can literally compensate for "room acoustics" and give you that "sweet sound" that used to be the purview of the wizards of the audio world the "mastering engineers"...
Can the pros in those big studios do it better?
Absolutely, in most cases.
But "better" used to be because they had a huge advantage in being able to use equipment only the elite in the recording world could get their hands on.
Now literally anyone can have the equipment on their computer and if you actually study the great albums and do some research you can get a sound so close that only a professional would know the difference.
The vast majority of music consumers (99.99%) would not be able to tell any difference at all.
That was very interesting, grey_whiskers. I’m not ashamed of having very pedestrian musical tastes. However, one thing I find irritating about current Christian pop is that what could be excellent songs are spoiled by a writer/lead singer who can’t sing.
They have melodies that sound like the alto line of dozens of favorite hymns: D-D-D-D-C-C-D, D-D-D-E-E-F!-C.
The lyrics are wonderful.
It's a matter of taste; de gustibus non est disputandum.
I very nearly lost a friend years ago when I told him that one of his favorite Christian ensembles sounded like they had taken a death metal song and replaced "Satan" with "Jesus". I would hold the same opinion-- that at a minimum Christian music should "come out from among them and be...separate", i.e. distinguishable to the most uneducated ear-- but I would be a bit kinder in how I said so.
The Lord bless all who praise Him with a pure heart, even if their praise jangles in my ears.
That is from a European Group Called Globus, it is really an Amalgamation of Different Euro Bands and Singers that come together for a super concert.
Hey, now that I’m awake, wanted to say ‘thanks’ for sharing that. I’d never heard of it before, downloaded them off itunes and have been enjoying it this morning.
Have you considered a music blog? I’d be curious about what you have to say about various things, review etc. Hence my questions above. Rather amusingly, I’ve since discovered that members of many of the bands I mentioned have been involved with Mr. Morse’s music. Verry interesting...
Anyway, one of the reasons I asked was because I’m curious if there’s more good stuff out there that I’ve been missing out on.
Regards,
Amy Grant -- barfage.
Undercover -- I think they were among the first of the 80's non-pablum Christian bands; never heard their stuff.
Dream theater -- Mike Portnoy and/or Neal Morse. Yum.
Ayreon -- never even heard of.
Darrell Mansfield -- heard some of his stuff in the early 80's, liked it.
Petra -- 1st generation Christian Rock (early-mid 70's). To me they straddled the line between the "genuine Jesus Freak pioneers" and the "formulaic pablum"...
Carman -- something about that guy raises my spiritual hackles. My personal radar seemed to detect a whiff of 18-year-old starstruck girls drawn to him for being "oh SO cool"...
Kerry Livgren -- Kansas and AD are all I'm aware of; the lyrics to his AD struck me as very "Tea Party before there was a Tea Party"-esque as much as Christian. (He played on one of the 2nd Chapter of Acts albums & I saw them on tour together...) His album Seeds of Change was one of the *best* Christian albums *ever* done. He freaked out a lot of people by having Ronnie James Dio as lead vocalist on a couple of songs: Mask of the Great Deceiver (which makes *some* sense) and To Live For the King (which puzzled me as the lyrics could be...hmmm, 'misinterpreted')
Daniel Amos -- heard of by reputation; never heard their stuff.
Ambrosia -- all I know is I *think* one of their band members (was it David Pack?) was one of the musicians on Kerry Livgren's aforementioned Seeds of Change.
Cheers!
Cheers!
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