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So I have a Jesus freak buddy who sent me a mix tape full of new Christan music. Its incredible. Swamprock ( 16 Horsepower), Lo Fi Lovliness (Low), Icelandic Ambient (Gus Gus), Outsider Oddness (Danielson Family). Has Christan music suddenly become interesting when i was busy mocking DC Talk or is it just that my buddy has good taste ?

― anthony, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

16 Horsepower is Chrsitian Music?

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

16 Horsepower is, the lead guy's the son of a preacher and takes his concepts of sin very seriously. But GusGus? Since when? The whole point of songs like "Starlovers" sounds like relentless critiquing and amusement, not to mention "Believe."

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I am talking about tracks when it comes to gus gus . The one on the mix is Jesus your pal. Which seems rather orthodox. The rest is fun.

― anthony, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Ned, I honestly find "Believe" to be an incredibly spiritual song. "Is Jesus Your Pal?" sounds forbidding, but not really ironic. And "Starlovers" struck more as a song about groupies than religion. (The whole "They need guidance from above" part being a polite Icelandic way of saying "They need Jesus!")

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Remember MxPx? Or how about Sixpence None The Richer?

― JM, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I think what happened was that Christian musicians finally realized that no one cares about their religious beliefs, musically speaking---preaching is preaching, songwriting is songwriting. The U.S. during the past five years has seen a pretty large crop of decent musicians who are Christian, and whose lyrics touch on religious themes, but whose records aren't necessarily about Jesus in the all-consuming way that Christian records of the past were. It seems they've realized that writing "Christian music" is bound to limit your audience in the same way as writing songs about, say, the typesetting of New York Times obituaries circa 1962: people are not as interested as you think.

Which I think we can all agree is a good thing, right? Whatever your religious beliefs, if you're going to make music, you should just sit down and make good music---period.

― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Mmm...not being Icelandic, I won't claim to know any particular idiomatic references. But I think GusGus are on the one hand very *very* aware of their lyrics and what they're saying and on the other hand relentlessly subverting the face-value signifiers. I don't see "Believe" as using the metaphor of swimming/walking on water/etc. to talk about belief, I read it as a projection of a very earthly love, if you will, into spiritual terms -- which isn't in of itself a new move on anyone's part, of course.

That they can deliver songs like "Starlovers" with full gospel choirs is certainly part of the appeal, I'll grant. :-) But unless somebody can full on demonstrate via an interview or whatever that GusGus are very specifically coming from a Christian viewpoint, I'll stick with my interpretation. They may be spiritual, true -- but I doubt they're orthodox.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Stuart Murdoch once said that he wouldn't mind Belle & Sebastian being classed as Christian Rock. Just thought I'd throw that into the mix.

― Nick, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Just wanted to use this space say how much I hate Creed. Tatooed, sweaty, shirtless Jesus rockers? Does Christianity have any actual values?

― Blake, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Honestly, is there anyone who really likes Creed? (To be fair, their music doesn't offend me nearly as much as the rampant un- Christian narcissism of their lead tool... I mean singer... no, actually, I mean tool.)

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

It's the same as the whole "morg" Mormon-straightedge thing: kids still have faith in their religious indoctrination, but also want access to the exciting teen culture of their peers. Whence bands like Creed: attempts, basically, to soothe that cognitive dissonance that results from those two worlds supposedly being in such opposition to one another. (Plus there's that weird "piety as rebellion" turnaround they're all shooting for---as in, "We're tough and cool and non-conformist because we're so Christian and everyone else is going to hell.")

Thankfully, by the time these kids get to be 18 or so, they seem to figure out that (a) rock music is not inherently evil, and can safely be listened to within the bounds of a Christian lifestyle, and (b) the rock music they listen to can be about stuff other than religion.

The disturbing thing about Creed is that they sound a lot like Candlebox, except worse (remember Candlebox?) and Candlebox sucked as of like 1994. How many bands manage to be second-rate suck-offs of the second-rate suck-off bands of seven years ago?

― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 10 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Newsweek's latest cover story is about The Glorious Rise of Christian Pop.

― Aaron, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Some years ago, I wrote about this under another name for a now defunct publication. The point simply was that is positing that god doesn't exist, then there needs to be somethin damn convincing to con folks into gettin all religious. Enter christian pop music, of which there is a long and glorious tradition. A good chord change can be a transformative spiritual thing too, after all. Fav. christ. pop song? "Jesus is the Rock and he Rolls my Blues Away" (trad.)

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Xtian pop? What's that, Jerry Lee Lewis? Little Richard? Elvis? "Prodigal Son"? "Burning Hell"?

― tarden, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Xtian Pop is if X was produced by SAW instead of Ray Manzarek. ;-)

― Stevie Nixed, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

No-one's mentioned Delirious yet, which is odd, seeing as they get in the charts.

― MarkH, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i'm looking forward to next week's time cover story : The rise and rise of Satanic Pop - Britney, Christina, JLo and Co. fight back.

― Geoff, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Not seldom have I contemplated upon what kind of music Jesus (allowing that he was a real person, divine or not) would have listened to in his short lifetime: Aramaic lullabies? Hebrew chants? Roman sing-alongs coming from the camp outside the city walls? Sub-Saharan melodies brought north with the caravans? Jesus went to a lot of parties, it seems. Surely he liked dance music.

― X. Y. Zedd, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Have you been to a jewish weddign. The music rules. Esp . the stuff they play for the hora.

― anthony, Wednesday, 11 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I know that P*t*r G*br*el is a ho who gets his drubbings in the cultural tourism threads, but I do have to give props for the Last Temptation Of Christ Soundtrack. Two discs- one of which was interesting cinematic soundscapes (sorry, I know that's a Use Other Words Please) made from combining samples of middle eastern sacred and secular music, and the other was the disc of original source material, with which he tried to recreate "what the historical Jesus would have been listening to".

Much better than his usual stuff. Very powerful.

― masonic boom, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

seven years pass...

http://www.fecalface.com/POTD/upload/2007/06/6-16-07.jpg

― dat dude delmar (and what), Wednesday, 3 December 2008 00:55 (sixteen years ago) link

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