washed in the blood of c ommerical culture

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when did xian music go from self contained overly earnest oddness (louvin brothers, tent revivals, hymn sings) to the slick, postmodern, simalcura of really culture that it is today.

what happened to let that occur
was it always like this ?

― anthony, Friday, 6 August 2004 09:07 (twenty-two years ago)

america.
yes.

― jes(u)s, Friday, 6 August 2004 09:14 (twenty-two years ago)

does this have anything to do with the polyphonic spree?

― purple patch (electricsound), Friday, 6 August 2004 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

stryper, amy grant, and the 1970s and 80s.

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Friday, 6 August 2004 10:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I should think it's almost directly traceable to Larry Norman's "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?"

― phil d., Friday, 6 August 2004 11:54 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, larry norman was pretty huge in the development of the xian music we all know and love today.

but the louvin brothers, to take one of the examples in the original question, were making entirely slick and modern music. just like, say, switchfoot are making entirely slick and modern music today. so maybe not as much has changed as you think.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 6 August 2004 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Listen to Popol Vuh

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 6 August 2004 12:31 (twenty-two years ago)

this is all speculative, but anthony my guess is that you can chalk it up to Reagan. i'm not thinking so much of music but the clothing; plenty of kids i grew up with had t-shirts that appropriated existing ad campaigns ("life is short: pray hard," "got jesus?," "lord's gym: his pain, your gain," etc)

anyway, Reagan = the marriage of evangelical xtianity & hardcore lafferian market dogma --> much more mercenary "professional" attitude to the former, and a much more religious sensibility surrounding the latter.

― g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 6 August 2004 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't personally think that Daniel Smith (and the whole Sound Familyre catalogue), Sufjan Stevens (and Asthmatic Kitty) or David Eugene Edwards (and offshoots) sound particularly "postmodern"".

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 6 August 2004 13:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Petra and Carman were the first I remember kind of being force fed as a kid by Sunday school teachers as a "cool" alternative to secular popular music...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 6 August 2004 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

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