Do They Take Requests? (The Plight of the Selective Listener)

My Monday and Friday drive home from downtown often leaves me in frustration. The tape deck of my circa 1994 4-speed Tercel leaves me with sparse choices in terms of auditory entertainment- music stations that leave much to be desired, NPR or silence (to which I usually absolve in the end). I find it odd that I often can’t listen to mainstream radio or Christian radio because of the same reasons: compromises they’d bring to my integrity, convictions, or taste. Where are the talented, original and sincere G-d fearing musicians? Why must we often choose from among the quality of the music, the musician and the message? Please let this armchair critic bring my thoughts before an audience, whoever you are. 

There are plenty of critics of Contemporary Christian music and radio, but they vary greatly according to theoretical framework, rendering their criticisms contradictory in conclusion. Two polar examples is the “Christian music is too like the world with a watered-down message”  and “Christian music is fake and lacking diversity and artistic originality.”  A while ago, most of my Christian college friends and myself who sought a more “edgy” expression leaned toward the latter, in agreement that most CCM was canned-- heated to the point of killing the bad bacteria along with the live enzymes resulting in a product that is safe for everyone’s consumption. We all agreed that Christian radio was the same result of marketing research as were all the other stations, lifting the same criticism to CCM as to an indie artist who sold out to a big-name label.

“ The Splintered Art World of Contemporary Christian Music” by Jay R. Howard and John M. Streck offers a great scholarly effort to dissect the problematic situation of Christians and their music, that is, which prepositions and conjunctions to describe their relationship to the world. Their article was written in 1996, so some of their examples reflect this, although I think the points made within it remain applicable  today, nearly 15 years later.

In Howard and Streck’s article, they describe a few different positions that believers in the industry have taken. The first is Separational CCM, that which is evangelistic in nature, focused “salvation, evangelisation of non-believers, and the separateness of the faithful.” (43) DeGarmo and Key in their time seem to have confronted the opposite problem my current generation observes about CCM. On being labeled a crossover band (appearing on both Christian and secular categorizations), Eddie DeGarmo commented “I think the term is a misnomer. The Bible is very specific about the world not liking Jesus. So being a crossover band, you find that it is very difficult to actually 'take the cross over' ... To record for a Christian label . . . is a censorship issue . .. because [only] Christian labels would allow us to sing the songs that we wanted to sing. [Songs] which happen to talk about Christ. Secular labels would not. “ (DeGarmo and Key 1993) (43)

Separational CCM not only confronts resistance toward it message with the mainstream industry but with the Christian world also. As the article puts it, “Separational CCM has also been defined (and limited) by Christianity's ongoing debate over the details of ortho-doxy, for with a denominationally diverse Christian audience one is guaranteed to offend someone, regardless of the view presented, should one stray too far from the universally accepted, and often meaningless, religious cliches.” This leaves room for very little in lyrical content besides “the conversion experience, the requirement of a personal relationship with Jesus, and repackaging the gospel story in a contemporary and commercial fashion.” Hence, the early CCM industry featured artists whose commercial success had a direct relationship with the amount of times their songs said the name “Jesus.” (44)

  

I once took a class which was entitled “Integrating Faith in the Communication Arts.” In this class, one of the main thrusts of my professor was that Christianity in general has the answer but often fails to recognize or understand the questions. This problem became especially true of early CCM. “As early as 1982, Glenn Kaiser of Resurrection Band (now Rez) claimed, 'I think the Christians have created a musical sub-culture that doesn't really relate to unbelievers' (Newcomb-Smith 1982, p. 13)… 'We have to communicate the basic truths,' states one artist. 'We don't have a lot of time, at a concert or high school assembly, to be subtle' (Wittenburg Door 1984, p. 24). Never an end unto itself, Separational CCM lacks value apart from its proselytizing function and thus the Separational artist breaks no new ground musically or lyrically (Cusic 1990, p. 227); they become a 'Spiritual Salesman' promoting 'bumper sticker theology'. (44)

Major record labels began to take notice of the market for Christian music in the 1970’s. Big Christian labels such as Word and Benson sold to mainstream companies such as ABC, Thomas Nelson Publishers and EMI. Other big labels such as Warner Brothers sought to take advantage of the Evangelical market and went the route of forming their own new labels such as Warner-Alliance, Warner Brothers Christian extension. Many Christian artists at this time embraced the changes. These Integrational artists changed the game from the previous Separationists by seeking to be placed on the same store shelves as the rest of mainstream music. Interestingly, this led to the need for a change in the content of the music. “Thus, Amy Grant moves from 'Sing your praise to the Lord' (1982) to 'you could be so good for me' (1991);3 Kim Hill from 'I will wait on the Lord' (1991) to a country ditty about a wife who leaves her abusive husband called 'Janie's Gone Fishin' (1994).” (45) In defense of this change, these artists offer a more positive message or Biblical perspective on the same types of topics mainstream music touches on. Amy Grant suggests, 'There are a lot of songs that I just write and the only differentiation between them and secular pop music that I would say is that they are an observation of everyday life from a Christian perspective' (Millard 1986, p. 155).

A third option that over time developed was the Transformational artists. “They view their music as a reflection of the creative Divine Image of God found in all humans, and as such, inherently valuable regardless of its utility for evangelism or exhortation. “ Transformational artists, in contradiction to Separational artists that argue “that gospel music loses its purpose (evangelism) when it becomes 'art for art's sake' (p. iv), for those operating under the assumptions of the Transformational subgenre, 'art for art's sake' is a perfectly (if not the only) acceptable rationale. In the view of many Transformational artists, one must answer the Bible's call for social justice, in addition to that of personal morality - an idea which challenges the personal theology of many Evangelicals.” (47) Transformational artists often offered criticisms of both society and the church, sometimes even in the same song. In the words of Christian artist T Bone Burnett put it, “‘I learned early on that if you believe Jesus is the Light of the World there are two kinds of songs you can write - you can write songs about the Light, or about what you see by the Light.’ (Flanagan 1986, p. 52). Most Christians working in the mainstream industry - like the Transformational CCM artists - chose the latter approach.” (49)

All that said, I think “splintered” is a good term to describe the whole scenario. Historically I’ve been one who sought out transformational artists or generally non-CCM artists whose music was of the kind that I liked, with and to which I could connect and move, and which didn’t violate my morals outright (unless I liked the sound too much to pass it up, even without meeting that last requirement). Now I find myself not only taking the message of the music into account but also the spiritual state of the musicians themselves, asking what kinds of spiritual influences could have made their way into the music during the creative process and whether I want the essence of that person to influence my life and spirit. This does not leave many good options!

  

So I ask for something besides the Christian copies of mainstream styles, which one writer describes as those that “have been marketed as though they were low-fat cheese: ‘almost as tasty as the real thing -- and better for you!’”  Every artist has their influences, but I’m not looking for a Christianized version of what’s on the next radio station over. I ask for something that has depth and explores what real humans think about and experience. I ask for that which is Biblical but not canned, that which is real and honest but not hopeless. If a musician wants to worship their Creator in their music, let them do so unapologetically, but let them not ride the wave of the worship album bestsellers. If a believer wants to make music outside of the CCM industry, let them do so, as long as they don’t sell their integrity. 

Is this too much to ask for? Probably. Unless, of course, I were to ask Someone who has the power to inspire today’s musicians and whose creative energy allows all inspirational material to exist in the first place. Maybe I will put in a request…