More Than Words: Three Ways of Making Christian Hair Metal in 1990

Admit it: you’ve made fun of hair metal. Maybe you went over to a friend’s house and hurled gay slurs at their Poison album covers, or dressed up “ironically” as Dee Snider for Halloween. You youngsters have probably been fed the line that Nirvana saved us from hair metal’s excess and ...

March 21st, 2011 | Featured, Great Christian Music, Music | Read More

How DC Talk Made a Good Album and Then Doomed Christian Rap

DC Talk Nu Thang (ForeFront) Not trynna start a beef like I’m a PHARISEE, but just relax and wrap your mind around some HERESY, namely: Nu Thang is DC Talk’s best album. Not that I’d call it “great,” though several of its songs certainly qualify. More accurately, Nu Thang is their only underrated...

November 8th, 2010 | Arts, Featured, Great Christian Music, Music | Read More

Yes, This Album Was Once Sold In Christian Bookstores. No, It Won’t Ever Be Again.

Plenty of folks, including Burnside on occasion, rail against the machinery of Christian music. There’s good reason to do so, since the Christian music industry at large has hardly been a catalyst for innovation and creativity. But many of Burnside’s writers have also been deeply impacted...

August 23rd, 2010 | Arts, Featured, Great Christian Music, Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: The Youtube Edition

With competitors like Hulu and MTVMusic.com stealing some of its thunder, it’s a little difficult to find the time to really appreciate YouTube like we should. Sure, it’s not like the golden days when copyright laws went out the window and anything you could possibly want to watch was on...

January 5th, 2009 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: Best of 2008

Of course, since it’s the end of the year, everyone has to pipe in with their favorite albums of the year. While I was a bit critical of their list at the day job, you have to give Patrol Magazine some credit for trying to break down the ridiculous wall between the music of mainstream Christian...

December 22nd, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: Daniel Amos

I lack any sort of healthy perspective regarding Daniel Amos, the legendary and nearly totally unknown Christian alternative act of the 80′s to the present. I feel like I should say that upfront. I wasn’t forced to listen to Christian music as a kid, but there were some dodgy times back...

December 10th, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: Amy Grant’s “Lead Me On”

by Adam Newton Everyone has their musical guilty pleasures: even the most diehard music snobs, in their darkest moments, will confess to you their undying affection for some cheesy hair metal band, ‘60s folk singer, or some atrocious soul singer. The vast majority of these guilty pleasures are typically...

November 24th, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: Petra

Anti-drug campaigns rail against marijuana because of its acclaimed as a “gateway drug,” the harbinger of greater evils to come. But what about “gateway music” – that band, that sound, the one that opens up a young, naive music fan’s ears to deeper, more complex music? In some circles,...

November 11th, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: Steve Taylor

I was about fourteen when I noticed putrid smells coming from certain rooms in The Church: racism, hypocrisy, profiteering evangelists, prosperity gospels, and other such piles of bullshit that I had to step over on my journey of faith. When I brought these subjects up to my Sunday School teachers and...

October 13th, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music: “Entertaining Angels”

Plenty of folks, including Burnside on occasion, rail against the machinery of Christian music. There’s good reason to do so, since the Christian music industry at large has hardly been a catalyst for innovation and creativity. But most of Burnside’s writers have also been deeply impacted...

October 11th, 2008 | Great Christian Music | Read More

Great Christian Music