Christian Rock/Pop, CCM, etc.
ChastMastr
Shipmate
in Heaven
What Christian rock/pop or CCM (Christian contemporary music) do people here like? Or liked when they were younger?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Christian_music
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Christian_music
Comments
Nowadays the one Christian musician I listen to a lot is Matt Maher -- he writes praise-and-worshippy type stuff, but it's much more thoughtful and interesting (to me) than most "worship music."
Besides my tastes have shifted since then.
A lot of folks were into DC Talk, but I never did quite get it with them. I was, however, fond of the ska punk stylings of Five Iron Frenzy.
(To answer the OP - I really liked Bruce Cockburn, and Larry Norman. The former signed a beer bottle for me once at a hall in Selby of all places, and I went for a curry (!!) with the latter in Manchester. He was an odd guy, alright.)
Martyn Joseph went to the same church as a boy I knew in the county orchestra, and I once played the oboe in a carol service where Martyn was also performing (he was only known in Baptist and Brethren circles at the time, though was obviously a rising star).
Can I ask when you were listening to CCM originally? (I recommend the ones I listed very highly... they mostly became known starting in the 1980s.)
Well, that’s not quite true, if John Michael Talbot counts as CCM. I was a big fan of his music, which I still listen to from time to time.
I was a huge fan of Steve Taylor at one point ... I wonder what's become of him?
It's always disappointing (but not unusual) when I hear that a Christian artist whose music I used to like is now very vocally right-wing (of course this sometimes happens with the secular artists of our youth too!). On the other side of that it's been nice to see Amy Grant speak positively about affirming LGBTQ people.
I'm happy to report that he's doing well, and he's not a fan of Trump. As he said on Twitter...
He's released other albums since the 80s (some are just amazing!), and has been touring with Russ Taff recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Taylor#2020s
I found their songs more interesting than most of the Christian Rock which were often not much more than rock versions of bits of the Bible, or rock praise songs.
Both albums can be found on YouTube. The Harvest Time track was about 15 minutes long and took one side of the LP.
I Used To Be Blind But Now I'm Short-sighted is about the struggle from childhood into adulthood to believe.
The Start Of The Run uses a metaphor of a Foxhunt for the life of Jesus with his resurrection to a dog who leads the blind.
Christianity Today did a podcast series a while back that covered the 80s/90s 'Satanic Panic' (look for Devil and the Deep Blue Sea)
ISTM the backwards masking hysteria relied on a particular level of tech (it was possible, but hard and required special equipment to play stuff in reverse) glomming onto the evangelical plausibility structure that allowed a narrative to be easily accepted if it came from someone with the right level of authority.
There was also a tendency of Evangelical Doomsayers to plant the idea of the backwards-masked word or phrase in advance, so that hearers were primed to seek and identify a specific thing.
Speaking of HYSTERIA, that album by Def Leppard still holds up. LOL
Virtually all of the examples dug up at the time were probably accidental -- the audio equivalent of a Rorschach test - finding patterns where there were none to be found.
Which, ironically, Petra made fun of in their song “Witch Hunt.”
(“We’re on another witch hunt/looking for evil wherever we can find it/off on a tangent, hope the Lord won’t mind it” with a batch of spliced-in backwards messages, quotes involving witches in movies and cartoons like “I’ll get you, my pretty,” etc.)
Styx’ album Kilroy Was Here is also apropos about the whole thing, including backwards stuff like the inscription on the US dollar bill, etc.
I think I saw them at a Greenbelt a long time ago. I went to...a few. But I don't remember more. Want to link to an album, or tracks, on youtube? (I'll be away for a week, so it'll take me a while to look for this - please tag me if you do it).
Blimey, Garth Hewitt. There's a name out of the past. Great live with just an acoustic guitar but recorded was often produced to death.
I personally was disappointed. It would have worked well for me. I've always said my problem with modern worship material is content and the theology in which it's embedded, not the style, as my secular music collection, ranging as it does from Clannad to Metallica via Al Stewart, Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull and Iron Maiden, would testify.
Congregational with fat fingers and autoincorrect.
We did go to the launch of his Chartist Songs album some years ago (and bought it) - fascinating and of course there are some links with Nonconformity.
@mark_in_manchester here are The Alarma Chronicles, in order!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzggMviUud5kvxjbzKWcXb1_TuP7lvx68
The only CCM group I know which includes references to T.S. Eliot, Dostoevsky, William Blake, 1950s science fiction movies, Koko the gorilla, and more...
Though Jeff Johnson's awesome stuff is also literary and poetic, but not really rock/pop/punk/new wave the way DA is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPiQ5r0_4aA&list=PLPcTOx34g9XRWT7t3pffBK8Syrivtg46n
One might have assumed that at least in theory some of them would have been open to folk music because of the various cultural/political currents over the years.
Oooh, now that IS a blast from the past!
Also, took me awhile to wander back to this thread but @ChastMastr , thanks for the Steve Taylor update. Interesting to think of him touring with Russ Taff, as I liked them both back in the day but would put them in very different musical categories. I met Russ Taff once as he's one of the rare Christian musicians who played in my rather hard-to-get-to corner of the world -- we chatted before the concert; I requested a song that he said he hadn't played in ages and wasn't sure he could do, I said no worries, just thought I'd ask. Then he sang the song and dedicated it to me. So Russ is a good guy in my books.
I saw him in Swansea Leisure Centre performing to a backing track, in about 1986!
Later in Bristol in the (then) Colston Hall - his instruments were late arriving and after a good half hour of trying to soundcheck without success, he and Mike Haughton just sat on the edge of the stage with no mics, and sang "All I Have To Do Is Dream" in perfect harmony, to rapturous applause.
I saw him last year in my church too. He's still got it. One of the greats.
Had a couple of albums by Rez and Bloodgood back in the day. Where are they now I wonder?
Michael Bloodgood died a few years back, and the group subsequently disbanded. I think Rez band quit a decade or more ago.
The 1978 Jack Chick comic Spellbound, based on the fake memoirs of Lance Todd, "revealed" the existence of spells placed upon rock-music master tapes by witches working with the music companies, intended to lead the listener into occult activity.
I can't recall if they also alleged the presence of vocalized messages, but even if they did, there were no claims of backward masking. I'd bet dollars to donuts that at least one embarrassed fundy later tried to claim that the backwards-lyric allegations were intended to discredit the supposedly true allegations in Spellbound.
Well, I'm old.
Like The Dick Handler Quartet.
I was never a fan myself. I've seen Martyn Joseph several times and spoken to him once or twice. Good guy.
Garth Hewitt once pointedly said, 'Therr are a lot of cool people in this audience...' whilst looking at me. I was sat po-faced throughout the gig. I must have been putting him off.
It wasn't a bad gig. Just him and his guitar.
No-one's mentioned Ishmael yet.
Last I'd heard he'd gone 'High' and was at Chichester Cathedral, much to the annoyance of a well-known evangelical Anglican I won't name here.
I've commented before on these boards that music amongst several other topics can bring out some not particularly kind or helpful comments from us and to my mind this is sadly one such. It may be simply a matter of infelicitous wording but having know Ishmael for many years I think this an unfair representation.
Firstly, Ishmael's music is in a very niche category, predominantly worship songs for children and young people. My own children grew up here in Chichester and enjoyed attending Ishmael's cross-church Praise Parties and as older teenagers socialised with Ishmael's own children. I don't personally particularly enjoy Ishmael's music style but I know his songs have been deeply appreciated by many other people.
Both Ishmael and his wife joined our Cathedral (where I am a member of the congregation) many years ago and both are retired ordained Deacons and have contributed hugely to the life of the whole diocese for some considerable time. Like you, their church affiliation has changed but I can testify to the fact that their spirituality has enriched many people. Chichester Cathedral has for many years prided itself on having a clergy team which represents the breadth of the Anglican tradition and when Ishmael was one of our deacons he was part of that.
Indeed, I steward at the weekly family Eucharist and he regularly attends that with his guitar to lead the congregation in singing one of his songs. Despite being quite elderly and in not brilliant health he still travels the country serving churches, yes mainly evangelical, with his praise parties.
He is also part of our local hospital Chaplaincy team and remains very much appreciated by many members of our congregation- from the very high to the very low.