Damn That Radio Song (Hey, Hey, Hey)
Arts, Featured, Music — By Josh Langhoff on May 31, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Every so often I turn on one of the local Christian Adult Contemporary stations–there’s, like, six–to get a sense of What’s Happening. These experiments are usually awkward and soul-deadening. This past weekend on Positive Encouraging K-Love, my poor wife and I caught one DJ telling another DJ a particularly unsuccessful “joke” about olives. After a moment of silence, someone hastily cut to a station ID. We looked at each other aghast, until she reasoned, “It’s because they can’t talk about sex.”
As I switched to the Dadrock station, I briefly wondered why no mainstream CCM artist since Amy Grant has gotten away with alluding to sex–but do we really HAVE to wonder? If you’re marketing your Christian radio station as “Positive, Encouraging” or “Safe for the Whole Family,” a frank song about sex would elicit angry calls from sponsors and donors in a second. Maybe rightly so; I stopped listening to the R&B station with my boy around, simply because I didn’t feel like explaining what “Birthday Sex” was. I’m not sure whether that was an issue of morality or convenience.
Listen to Christian radio for a while, and it’s apparent that sex isn’t the only taboo subject. There’s not much theology, either. There’s certainly no prophetic voice, but the prophets weren’t always Safe for the Whole Family. Most Christian DJs seem incapable of discussing anything other than their (MARRIED) family lives and the lives of the artists they play. Occasionally they’ll throw in some shallow glosses on current events and, you know, praying. Becoming a Better You With God’s Help. I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but the songs aren’t much better. You occasionally hear something excruciatingly beautiful, like Mark Schultz’s “He’s My Son” or Natalie Grant’s “Held.” Usually, though, it’s a bunch of joyless songs about joy and mundane songs about beauty. There’s gotta be More To This Life. (Sorry.)
I know it does no good to beat up on Christian radio. Can it really help that it’s lame? Couldn’t I just switch to the FAR HIPPER Dadrock station? Why do I subject myself and my loved ones to this musical manure?
Well, there’s a couple reasons. Every so often I hear one of the handful of great songs the Christian AC industry can churn out, when it gives a shit–songs like Avalon’s “Testify to Love,” or Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Dive,” or 4Him’s uncannily gnostic “I Know You Now.” There’s only 20 to 30 of these things, but at least one of ‘em pops up every day.
Sometimes a tune I’d previously overlooked reveals itself to be great. Shortly before the olive incident, K-Love played “If We Are the Body” by Casting Crowns. I’d heard the song before, but it hadn’t fully registered. This time, though, it really captured my frustration with Christian showbiz. It’s about as Positive and Encouraging as an elbow drop from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Particularly striking was the bridge: “Jesus paid much too high a price/ For us to pick and choose who should come.” Casting Crowns are singing about welcoming strangers to church, but the song practically begs for broader readings. Rather than subject you to my elaborate theories of socialism and gayness, I’ll suggest that “If We Are the Body” also works as a MUSICAL critique. In the context of mainstream Christian radio, it sounds like a damning rebuke.
It’s a stretch to call musical taste a moral issue. Picking and choosing who comes to worship is worse than picking and choosing who comes out of our car stereos. But I do wonder about these people who phone K-Love to testify that ALL THEY LISTEN TO IS K-LOVE. Don’t they realize that there’s better stuff out there? (I mean better “accessible” music, not Radiohead or something.) And not just better stuff–don’t they ever want to hear different kinds of music? Maybe something faster than midtempo? And most troubling, don’t they get tired of listening to a bunch of white people?
If they do, maybe they flip to one of the Sunday morning Gospel shows. (In some markets, they might even have a Gospel station–ours is out of range.) Driving to church the day after my Casting Crowns revelation, I turned on “Street Sermonz with Keno,” the ministry outreach of Power 92 (“#1 in the STREETS!”). Oh man. Guitars were wailing, people were shouting. It sounded like Ty Tribbett was jamming with the Black Rock Coalition. Soon after, Keno played a Christian remake of DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win,” and it was actually GOOD. When I arrived at church, I had to wait in the car to finish hearing “My Day,” Canton Jones’s lovely Ne-Yo rip from 2008. Talk about Positive and Encouraging–it would fit right in on K-Love.
So why doesn’t it? Christian radio isn’t the most segregated format, but shouldn’t it be the LEAST? A couple years ago, musical gadfly Derek Webb told Christianity Today, “The gospel has no target demographic.” So when Top 40′s broader demographic more closely resembles the Kingdom, Christian radio’s got a problem.
While there’s nothing immoral about disliking certain musical genres, I’d rebuke you for dismissing them out of hand. If we’re into music and we care about what makes our fellow humans tick, then we should at least TRY. And then, after awhile, we should try AGAIN. If we’ll be singing/rapping/growling with these folks for eternity, shouldn’t we start getting used to their music now? You don’t want St. Peter holding a gun to your head outside the Duranguense mass. (Oh yeah, there’ll BE a Duranguense mass.)
That’s the other reason I must periodically subject myself and my family to Christian AC radio. If those taped testimonials are to be believed, some of our brothers and sisters really LIKE joyless midtempo dirges. (The dirges might not even be joyless, whaddo I know?) It’s the Christian music fan’s job to wonder why. And since Christian radio knows full well it has a captive audience–since it USES that captive audience to make promos–it’s Christian radio’s job to play music worthy of that audience’s loyalty. If the playlist is worthy of God’s magnificent, abundant diversity, even better.
19 Comments
I love this post. I’ll only add that in our town, there’s a local heavy metal station, and their billboard says “NOT safe for the whole family.” I posted on FB that I thought it was a great billboard, and none other than my church’s worship leader gave me the first “like”. When your local Christian radio station gets made fun of and local evangelical conservative worship leaders give it a thumbs up, that should be a strong clue right there.
I’ll second James in saying I loved this post. I constantly bemoan the fact that most Christian contemporary songs are horrid. I just don’t understand why being a Christian seems to require your band to only play a certain chord, tempo, and style of horrible music. There are very, very few Christian artists I like, and most of the ones I do are “Christians in a band” not a “Christian band.” But, like you said, there are exceptions.
The worst, in my opinion, is definitley the DJs, you can hear in their voices the fact that they are contantly, always smiling. It seems so fake and creepy and artificially cheery to me. You don’t always have to be positive and happy to be a Christian. Look at Psalms, it’s totally OK to lament and wrestle. When I find a Christian station that shows me some of that, I’ll listen.
“artificially cheery”–You nailed it, Emily.
Sometimes I wonder if the Christian DJs are Christian or just “family friendly” in their choices of heart warming stories and cheesy jokes. Are they the D-listers who can’t get a job at an AM station so they settle for Christian radio. In other words on the totem pole of radio, it seems to me that Christian radio is the bottom of the pole.
As Emily hinted at: “Christian music” should not be a genre. Perhaps that is the problem. Because they have a captive audience and not enough competition (because they section themselves off), they can put out bad music. This is what allows jokers like Michael W. Smith or Chris Tomlin to sit around and write 5 brainless songs in a day and make heaps of money.
Doesn’t it seem really backwards that “Christian music” sounds uninspired?
Justin,
Careful with the attitude towards MWS and CT. While I often have the same reaction, there are many people who find their music quite inspiring and helpful to worship God through.
The author did a good job to say that while he didn’t like that music, its not to say its “all bad” (again, likes being different from the impact the music has).
Remember, we don’t all understand God in the same way, and we don’t all worship God in the same way, becuase if we did, it would be a pretty small god.
It would probably help if Salem Communications didn’t own every Christian station in the galaxy. I’d love to see an independent Christian station take a few risks, but I’m not holding my breath.
THANK YOU! Why should the God-given talent of making music be used so poorly when it comes to making music for God? I’d love music that’s as moving to listen to as it is meaningful.
Great post. And “Music the whole family can listen to” and such like tags are BS also. What teenager wants to listen to dreary, boring music?Maybe if “family” radio played “Christian music” of all beats, more kids wouldn’t turn to the dreaded “secular” stations that are readily available. But not ALL Christian radio sucks. Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI has WayFM. They play the non-crap contemporary as well as hip-hop, hard rock, metal, you name it. Good stuff.
What I hate is the lack of authenticity. CCM is all about the ideal. Ideally I would worship God all the time. Ideally I would never have any doubt. Ideally I would be sure, completely sure, of his calling on my life, but I am not ideal.
I have days when I don’t want to follow Him, I want to run away and hide. At times I have no idea what I am doing, nor if I am doing it for Him. I have even spent many days YELLING at God for putting me where I am and crying because I feel so lost.
I just want music to be real, like me.
Didn’t know if this was cool to post a link, so I posted it separately, but if you are looking for an artist who is a follower of Christ and is real check out Brian Chandler.
http://www.brianchandlermusic.com/
There are so many posts on this site where judgment is lamented and frowned upon, but in this post and its responses specific people are judged and that’s sad. I’m certain that there is a heart for ministry with much of the people that are CCM artists, and in many cases they have to fight the conflicting pressure of artistic integrity and market expectations. Perhaps they can be shown a little grace, too.
Although I understand the frustration with what we get from our speakers listening to CCM, should we be surprised? Mass marketed culture systematically strives to reach the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately, that commonality is nominalism, which does not only infect our Christian entertainment (I feel sick writing that) and culture, but has infected our general approach to Scripture.
The biggest problem with this music (or books, preachers, conferences…) is that people depend on other people’s spirituality to bridge the gap between them and God, and that’s the heart of the matter.
Great comment, Matthew.
Tangentally related: best album cover ever: http://lpcoverlover.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/img_2317-498×500.jpg
I mean no disrespect by that, BTW.
Thanks all for your comments. James, that’s a heck of an album cover.
Jim and Matthew, I take to heart your comments about judging Christian AC and its practitioners and listeners. I work with plenty of people that listen to the format and get spiritual uplift out of it, so I can’t dismiss it. What bothers me is that the Christian AC format seems to dismiss anything that doesn’t fit within its ridiculously narrow parameters. So even if you and I try to show Christian radio a little grace, it doesn’t extend the same courtesy to all the other genres of Christian music that are out there, some of which would even appeal to the target demographic, after a little coaxing.
And Matthew, you’re right that this is certainly not surprising. That said, I do take some issue with your explanation of mass culture there, Adorno. Top 40 and Country and R&B and most other radio formats are part of mass-marketed culture, and they do not ONLY strive for the lowest common denominator. They do it a lot, sure, but there are regular and frequent explosions of new sounds and ideas that prevent those formats from stagnating. If you listen to those mass culture radio formats now and compare them to how they sounded 15 years ago, they’re certainly distinguishable and, in the case of Top 40, radically different. I’m guessing that Christian AC would sound the same as it did 15 years ago. So what, is God doing a new thing in the clubs but not in the Christians? That’s not it; there’s good stuff out there. “God’s” radio just ignores it.
Also, if you’d be willing to explain what nominalism is and how it applies here, that’d be helpful. And I’ll defend Mr. W. Smith’s The Big Picture album till I die.
Interesting thoughts. I am in full agreement that the [radio] Christian music scene needs an overhaul of some sort.
One thing that has bothered me the most is that these songs find their way into the place of church “worship”, where instead of being oriented as honoring and praising our Lord and Savior, they are a means for us to think about “being a better body”, like the above-mentioned Casting Crowns songs.
Or they tend to be two-for-one “I love my girlfriend/I love Jesus” songs that are so seeker-sensitive and doctrinally flimsy, they could be played at a high school prom. Do we think we are going to “trick” people into worshiping Jesus?
In regards to your first few paragraphs about sex: I’ve always found it interesting to look at the Apostle Paul’s writing (especially 1 Corinthians). He was pretty straightforward in talking about husband & wife relations as a pastoral/discipleship issue.
“Rather than subject you to my elaborate theories of socialism and gayness”
No need to elaborate too much, but can you hint at what you mean here, Josh?
Oh, I’d hate to derail the thread… Thanks for asking, though! (I’m actually not sure whether I could reconstruct what I was thinking about socialism at the time. The gayness, you can probably guess.)