Catchy way to start this blog. I hope I have your attention. My other thought for a title was "the repercussions of K-love radio and a dangerous mind" but that seems way too arrogant.
I spent the last week listening to 2 different christian radio stations here in town. One I hear all the time at work. Mainly because we are forced. I haven't see any super-natural life changes happen over a plate of rice and an egg roll yet because of this station. Eh, doesn't bother me too bad. Anyway, I made myself listen to these 2 stations as kind of a...let's say...experiment. It wasn't painful or anything. It was a change from my usual, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage stuff on AM radio.
Some songs I knew and some I didn't. Some were catchy and some were just...bad. Don't get me wrong, I like some christian music. Heck, I consider myself a worship leader so I have to like a majority of it. I'm just tired of the songs that have nothing to say. I'm not one to judge an artist by their art but, come on. I literally changed the station several times because I could not listen to the garbage they were playing.
At times it wasn't even the songs but the things the DJ's were saying. For instance, they talked about how we needed to give money for the station to stay afloat and things of that nature, which makes sense but not 2 minutes later they have a Hollywood approved nutritionist on to tell us how to eat. Tangent but relevant.
Now for the songs themselves, the majority of them were "Jesus is my girlfriend" songs. Feel good about myself and really over positive type songs that just made me sick. Sounds like christian "artists" are never sad or never struggle with anything. That's the song I would like to hear on K-love. "I struggle with porn and my wife hates me." Honesty might not work in the christian music industry. I think it's gone too far now. Past artists have set a pace or paved a path for others that honesty or truth seems too far out of reach.
Disclaimer: I like some worship songs. God deserves praise and how else will the world hear it without some songs the church sings? I know this. My reason for writing this is to question the heart of an artist. Why make pointless art or like Paul said in Corinthians, "a clanging gong"? Are we writing songs to make a buck or are we writing songs that have something to say?
-much love
3 comments:
I agree 100% It was funny, because I was going to write a blog along the same lines, but slightly different. For me, I think a lot of the songs are "childish" or "basic" or "surface level" stuff. But at the same time some people are at that point in their lives. I honestly can't wait to see what Derek Webb has written that his own record label won't produce it. It will be great I'm sure. The only other thing that I would say is this, we should support K-Love or Air 1 because I can get these stations in China through itunes. Even though the majority of the songs are "cheesy" it really helps to have worship music going through the house. So yes yes yes. I agree. I wish you would write some songs that weren't surface level. Can't wait for DWEBB. I MISS YOU. COME SEE ME!
Kyle
Aesthetics 101:
Is there pointless art?
This is an interesting post and I agree with much of what you have to say. I especially can't stand Christian radio stations because of the DJ's, they are horrible. I don't know where they get these people. But I also agree about the music, very shallow and very fake, now I will say there are wonderful worship songs out there that I can listen to all the time, problem is they only play on my ipod, not on the christian radio stations. Thanks for the post rick
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