Tue 26 Jul 2005
What exactly is “Christian” music? Is it music made by Christians who are in bands? Must it be explicitly “Christian” in lyric and message or is a positive message enough to be distributed in the local Christian bookstore? What if we just call it “inspirational,” that seems to be enough for your local Best Buy.
It seems as though the Christian music industry (and Christian art as a whole) has been plagued by an identity crisis for several years. What does it mean to be a Christian artist? These issues became even muddier with the rise of Tooth and Nail Records, who in the mid-to-late nineties pummelled us with releases by Christians playing a variety of genres most of whom had little to no religious, much less Christian content.
Adding to the difficulty was the loss of ability to clearly define specific genres. For example, it used to be that so-called “Praise and Worship” (P&W) music was immediately identifiable by the bland muzak backdrop against subjective meditations on how good God made you feel. Yet along with the rise of the Tooth and Nail’s “Christians in bands” also came a crop of bands fusing God-centered lyrics with real music, blurring the line of what could now be properly called P&W. Oftentimes, these bands flying under the CCM radar were the few in the industry pointing to God rather than to themselves.
Bands such as the Corbans, Black Eyed Sceva and Plankeye explored explicit Christian content in ways that most “Christian artists” of the time simply were not. Intentionally Scripture-based and God-centered lyrics were no longer limited to mainstream CCM artists or bland muzak P&W. But another thing happened as well; these bands didn’t sell, not in large numbers anyway. One review actually criticized the Corbans’ album Three for containing too much Scripture reference and not enough original content!
Yet while these bands did not gain tremendous sales, they succeeded in challenging the notion of what “Christian artists” ought to be playing. Is it enough to be a Christian who plays in a band if I can listen to an entire album and not once be pointed to Christ? Does every line of every song then have to be about Jesus? Where is the balance? These bands and others forced the issue in a way not previously seen in “Christian” music; an issue that remains still unresolved.
Download wbf by Black Eyed Sceva. Buy Way Before the Flood.
Download Claim by the Corbans. Buy Three.
Download Who Loves You More by Plankeye. Buy Commonwealth.
