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Christian rock

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Christian rock
Stylistic originsRock music
Jesus music
Christian music
Cultural originsLate 1960s, U.S.
Typical instrumentsVocals, Guitar, Drums, Keyboards, Organ
Subgenres
Christian punk - Christian metal
Fusion genres
Christian hardcore - Christian alternative rock
Other topics
Christian hip hop

Christian rock is a form of rock music played by bands whose members are Christians and who often focus the lyrics on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands. Much Christian rock has ties to the contemporary christian music (CCM) scene, while other bands are independent. The Christian rock genre is most popular in the United States, although some Christian bands have worldwide popularity.

History

Christian response to rock music (1950s-1960s)

Rock and roll music was not viewed favorably by most Traditional and fundamentalist Christians when it attained popularity with young people beginning in the 1950s, although early rock music was often influenced by country and gospel music. Religious people in many regions of the United States did not want their children exposed to music with unruly, impassioned vocals, loud guitar riffs and jarring, hypnotic rhythms. Often the music was overtly sexual in nature, as in the case of Elvis Presley, who became controversial and massively popular partly for his suggestive stage antics. Individual Christians may have listened to or even performed rock music in many cases, but it was seen as anathema to conservative church establishments, particularly in the American South. He Touched Me was a 1972 gospel music album by Elvis Presley which sold over 1 million copies in the US alone and earned Presley his second of three Grammy Awards. Not counting compilations, it was his third and final album devoted exclusively to gospel music. The song "He Touched Me" was written in 1963 by Bill Gaither, an American singer and songwriter of southern gospel and Contemporary Christian music.

In the 1960s, Rock music matured artistically, attained worldwide popularity and became associated with the radical counterculture, firmly alienating many Christians. In 1966, British act The Beatles, regarded as one of the most popular and influential rock bands of their era, ran into trouble with many of their American fans when John Lennon jokingly offered his opinion that Christianity was dying and that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now".[1][2] The romantic, melodic rock songs of the band's early career had formerly been viewed as relatively inoffensive, but after the remark, churches nationwide organized Beatles records burnings and Lennon was forced to apologize.[3] Subsequently the Beatles experimented with a more complex, psychedelic style of music and anti-establishment lyrics, while The Rolling Stones sang "Sympathy for the Devil", a song openly written from the point of view of Satan.

As the decade continued, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Paris student riots and other events served as catalysts for youth activism and political withdrawal or protest, which became associated with rock bands, whether or not they were openly political. Moreover, many saw the music as promoting a lifestyle of promiscuous "sex, drugs and rock and roll", also reflected in the behavior of many rock stars. However, there was growing recognition of the diverse musical and ideological potential of rock. Countless new bands sprang up in the mid-to-late 1960s, as rock displaced older, smoother pop styles to become the dominant form of pop music, a position it would enjoy almost continuously until the end of the 20th century, when hip-hop finally eclipsed it in sales.

Roots of "Christian rock" (late 1960s-1980s)

Main article: Jesus music
1976's "Welcome To Paradise"

Possibly the very first documented appearance of a rock band playing in church is Mind Garage in 1967, whose Electric Liturgy was recorded for RCA in 1969 at the "Nashville Sound" studio and was released in 1970. However, Mind Garage is not widely known to their contemporaries.[citation needed]

Larry Norman was a popular Christian rock musician who challenged a view held by some conservative Christians (predominantly fundamentalists) that rock music was anti-Christian. One of his songs, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?" summarized his attitude and his quest to pioneer Christian rock music[4]. Another Christian rock pioneer, Randy Stonehill, released his first album in 1971, entitled Born Twice. The album was produced with financial help from Pat Boone and recorded for only $800. Stonehill is quoted as saying "[it] sounds like every penny of it!".[5] In the most common pressing of the album, side one is entirely a live performance.[6]

A cover version of Larry Norman's Rapture-themed "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" appears in the Evangelical Christian feature film A Thief in the Night and appeared on Cliff Richard's Christian album Small Corners along with "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?".

Christian rock was often viewed as a marginal part of the nascent Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and contemporary gospel industry in the 1970s and '80s,[7] though Christian folk rock artists like Bruce Cockburn and rock fusion artists like Phil Keaggy had some success. Petra, one of the bands who brought harder rock into the early CCM community, had its origins in the early-to-mid 1970s. They reached their height in popularity in the late eighties along side other Christian-identifying hard rock acts such as Stryper. The latter had videos played on MTV, one being "To Hell with the Devil", and even saw some airtime on mainstream radio stations with their hit song "Honestly".

Stryper

In reality, Christian rock started to become big business in the 1980s; Billboard magazine started publishing lists of top 10 best selling Christian albums and 'Hot Christian Songs', and radio stations and music magazines were established to focus on Christian rock.[citation needed]]

In 1985, Amy Grant's music began to reach a wider audience when her albums Unguarded and "The Collection" crossed over onto mainstream charts.[8][9]

1990s-present

Jars of Clay in concert, 2007.

The 1990s saw an explosion of Christian Rock, heavily inspired by the success of U2, as well as by the musical style of grunge bands.[citation needed]

Many of the popular 90s Christian bands were initially identified as "Christian Alternative rock", including Jars of Clay, Audio Adrenaline, and others. Outside Anglophone countries, bands like Oficina G3 (Brazil) and The Kry (Quebec, Canada), have achieved moderate success. This decade also saw a notable boom in the Christian / R&B / Hip Hop / Rap, and the Christian / Punk / Pop, and Christian / Metal / Death Metal circles.[citation needed]

Switchfoot

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the success of Christian-inspired acts like Skillet, Thousand Foot Krutch, Decyfer Down, Underoath, Kutless, and Relient K, saw a shift toward mainstream exposure in the Christian Rock scene. Tooth & Nail Records saw their roster of artists and bands gain wider popularity and acclaim despite existing outside the walls of a traditional mainstream industry.[citation needed]

Christian rock has primarily been a Protestant phenomenon[citation needed], but there are also some Roman Catholic bands such as Critical Mass. Some Eastern Orthodox Christian rock groups, mostly from Russia and the Soviet Union, started performing in the late 1980s and 1990s. Alisa[10], Black Coffee[11] are credited as the most prominent examples. The Orthodox Christian lyrics of these bands often overlap with historical and patriotic songs about ancient Rus. Christian rock is on the rise in the Russian music underground in 2000s, and Orgia Pravednikov[12] is one of the most notable happenings.

Definitions

There are multiple definitions of what qualifies as a "Christian rock" band. Christian rock bands that explicitly state their beliefs and use religious imagery in their lyrics, like Servant, Third Day, and Petra, tend to be considered a part of the contemporary Christian music (CCM) industry and play for a predominantly Christian market.[citation needed]

Other bands perform music influenced by their faith or containing Christian imagery, but see their audience as the general public. They may avoid specific mention of God or Jesus, or they may write more personal, cryptic, or humorous lyrics concerning their faith rather than direct praise songs.[citation needed]

Such bands are sometimes rejected by the CCM rock scene and may specifically reject the CCM label, however many have been accepted as Christian bands.[citation needed] Other bands may experiment with more abrasive musical styles, which until recently met with resistance from the CCM scene.[citation needed] However, beginning in the 1990s and 2000s there was much wider acceptance even by religious purists of Christian metal, Christian industrial and Christian punk. Many of these bands are on predominantly Christian record labels, such as Tooth and Nail Records and Facedown Records.

I'm an artist who's a Christian, because I don't write music to be evangelical. Now, if that happens, it happens.

Scott Stapp, lead vocalist for Creed[13]

Many rock artists including Switchfoot, Blind Guardian and Collective Soul do not claim to be "Christian bands," but include members who openly profess to be Christians or at times may feature Christian thought, imagery, Scripture or other influences in their music.[citation needed]

Some of these bands, like Creed, played up the spiritual content of their music and were widely considered a "Christian band" by the popular media, despite their later disavowals of the label.[citation needed] Some bands reject the label because they do not wish to exclusively attract Christian fans, or because they have been identified with another particular music genre, such as heavy metal or indie rock, and feel more creative kinship with members of that scene.[citation needed]

Evangelistic goals

The aims for making Christian music vary among different artists and bands. Often, the music makes evangelist calls for Christian forms of praise and worship.

This is accompanied by street outreach, local festivities, church functions, and many alternative forms of internal or (soulful) expression. In this current millennium we have seen the likes of such Christian artist such as Third Day, Kutless, and Thousand Foot Krutch sing more explicit Christian songs incorporating lyrics that directly worship Jesus. Other bands, such as Underoath, Blessthefall, and Haste the Day incorporate symbolism and Christian messages in a less direct way to draw in non-Christian and Christian listeners to their music.[citation needed]

Other bands do not necessarily call themselves Christian bands (though all the members are Christians), but have spiritual lyrics and say that their Christian faith affects their music. (Paramore, The Fray, Chevelle, Flyleaf, and The Classic Crime, are good examples of this.)[citation needed] Bands such as Switchfoot have said they try to write music for both Christians and non-Christians alike. Evanescence, who were distributed within the Christian market on their debut album, have since announced their disassociation with the genre and removed their material from Christian musical retailers.[citation needed]

Festivals

Main article: Christian music festival
File:Robert Pierre on iShineLive.jpg

Festivals range from single day events to four-day festivals that provide camping and other activities.

Significant festivals in the US are Creation Festival (the largest)[citation needed] , Ichthus Festival (the longest running)[citation needed] , and Cornerstone Festival (the most progressive)[citation needed] . There is also a festival in Orlando, Florida called Rock the Universe, a two-day festival at Universal Orlando Resort that overlaps with the Night of Joy event at Walt Disney World. Ichthus, currently held in Kentucky, is a three-day festival that involves over 65 bands. In Buffalo, New York, the annual Kingdom Bound festival at Darien Lake Theme Park Resort attracts more than 55,000 Christians annually.[citation needed] There is also HeavenFest hosted by WayFM a Christian music radio station, and there are multiple festivals a year in multiple locations.

There are also many in the UK, including Greenbelt Festival (the largest of UK Christian festivals)[citation needed] , Soul Survivor, 'Ultimate Events' at Alton Towers, Frenzy in Edinburgh and Creation Fest, Woolacombe, Devon, which is not related to Creationfest in the United States. The Flevo Festival of The Netherlands, which offers seminars, theater, stand-up comedy, sports and movies as well as Christian music from a wide variety of genres, is considered to be one of the biggest Christian festivals in Europe[citation needed] . Another large festival in the northern Europe is Skjærgårdsfestivalen in Norway.

In the southern Hemisphere, the largest is Parachute music festival[citation needed] . Every year it headlines Christian rock bands. Many events are held in Australia called, Easterfest (in Toowoomba) Encounterfest, Jam United, Black Stump and Big Exo Day.

Christian rock has been a subject of parody in popular culture, particularly in television sitcom series. Associated Content writer Steven Wyble states in an article that "To the uninitiated, Christian rock has a reputation of being lame, cheesy, and just terrible all around. This stereotype is not helped when references to Christian rock largely reinforce these stereotypes." For example in the South Park episode "Christian Rock Hard", Eric Cartman forms a Christian rock band simply to make financial profit of this kind of music by taking secular lyrics and replacing certain words with "Jesus", "so that all Christians will buy our crap."

In the King of the Hill series' episode 151 Reborn to Be Wild, Bobby Hill gets into Christian rock when he goes to a church group that consists of punks who worship God through skateboarding and rock. Hank Hill approves of Bobby's newfound interest in religion, but disapproves of the way the group treats Christianity as a fad, commenting to someone at a Christian rock festival that "You people are not making Christianity any better, you're just making rock 'n' roll worse." In the Seinfeld episode 172, The Burning, when Elaine Benes has found out that her on-and-off boyfriend David Puddy's car radio's memory is filled with Christian rock stations, George Costanza comments "I like Christian rock. It's very positive. It's not like those real musicians who think they're so cool and hip." In a The Simpsons episode, Ned Flanders's date named Rachel Jordon fronts a Christian rock band called "Kovenant." A documentary film about Christian rock titled Bleed into One has been filmed and will probably be released in 2009.[14] Another documentary about Christian rock titled, Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music? was released on DVD in 2006[15]. The title is a reference to the song of the same name by Larry Norman.

The most "underground" expression of Christian rock is the annual Cornerstone Festival, sponsored by the Jesus People USA, a community which formed during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s.

Controversy

Christian rock has been called an oxymoron, mainly because rock music is often associated with themes that are antithetical to the teachings of Christianity, a reason why "many fundamentalist religious groups and denominations decry rock music in general."[16] In the eyes of such groups, Christian rock bands may be no less reprehensible than some secular acts. According to Barnet, Christian rock bands "too have come under criticism for supposedly promoting satanism."[16]

It has been argued that some Christian acts are controversial because they do not meet the Fundamental Evangelistic Association's criteria for a truly "Christian" song: must be doctrinally and politically correct, and contains no syncopation. Organizations such as Dial-The-Truth Ministries believe Christian rock bands fail to adhere to the prohibitions of II Corinthians 6:14, which instructs Christians against uniting the righteous with the unrighteous.[16]

Despite such criticism, Barnet concludes: "It should be noted that Christian rock also has millions of supporters, even among the ministry." Frank Breeden, president of the Gospel Music Association, the organization that sponsors the Dove Awards, the Christian music equivalent of the Grammies, states that "There really is no such things as a Christian B-flat, Music in itself is an amoral vehicle."[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Time. According to John. August 12, 1966.
  2. ^ Cleave, Maureen. "The John Lennon I Knew". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
  3. ^ Bielen, Kenneth (2000-05-11). "The Lyrics of Civility". Garland Publishing. Retrieved 2008-03-03.
  4. ^ In Another Land (Media notes). Solid Rock Records: Solid Rock Records. 1976. {{cite AV media notes}}: |format= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |publisherid=, |coauthors=, and |notestitle= (help); Unknown parameter |albumlink= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |bandname= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Powell, Mark Allan (2002). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Paebody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. p. 879. ISBN 1-56563-679-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ Powell, Mark Allan (2002). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Paebody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers. p. 880. ISBN 1-56563-679-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Baker, Paul (1985). Contemporary Christian Music. Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books. pp. 74, 80, 105–108. ISBN 0-89107-343-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ CNN (2003). "Interview With Amy Grant, Vince Gill". CNN. Retrieved August 29 2008. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  9. ^ RIAA (2008). "Top Selling Artists". RIAA. Retrieved August 29 2008. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |dateformat= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Newsweek. A Russian Woodstock.
    Once an anti-establishment rebel, Kinchev's most recent work includes Orthodox Christian rock and Russian patriotic songs.
  11. ^ Encyclopaedia Metallum. Black Coffee
  12. ^ Music in the light of the Liturgy
  13. ^ Moring, Mark (2004-08-09). "Stapp: I Am a Christian". ChristianityToday.com. Retrieved 2008-04-01. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ http://www.bleedintoone.com/
  15. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Should-Devil-Have-Good-Music/dp/B000BTITH6
  16. ^ a b c d Barnet, Richard D. (2001). Controversies of the music industry (1st ed.). pp. 92–94. Retrieved 2006-02-17.

Young, Shawn David, Hippies, Jesus Freaks, and Music (Ann Arbor: Xanedu/Copley Original Works, 2005). ISBN 1-59399-201-7

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