Pop Music In Christian music, will business bury faith?
By ROBIN TAYLOR
Im a Christian, but I never really liked Christian music.
Its not that I didnt give it a chance. In high school in the early
1980s, I was hungry for faith-filled music that spoke to me.
Somehow, I ended up with an album by the Bill Gaither Trio. I
remember sitting alone in my room, desperately wanting to connect with their
smooth harmonies and perky lyrics. It never happened.
Occasionally, Id tune in to area Christian radio stations
and find more of the same. It reminded me of the easy listening my parents
favored, toned-down elevator versions of classic rock and pop songs. Frankly,
it was depressing.
Little did I know that Christian music was about to explode. Today
it commands more than $500 million in annual sales -- up 290 percent in the
period 1985-94 and averaging 22 percent growth every year since 1991 (pop, rock
and country have grown at only a 5 percent clip over the same time). Christian
music is now the sixth most popular genre in the market, according to industry
statistics.
Christians have their own nationally televised annual awards show
modeled after the Grammys, called the Dove Awards, and Christian artists make
regular appearances on mainstream album charts like the Billboard Top 200.
According to one recent study, four out of 10 adults listen to Christian radio
on a weekly basis, forming an audience of some 75-80 million people -- a
tremendous market for Christian musicians.
Visit your neighborhood Christian book store, and music --- all
kinds of music --- abounds. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Kmart, Sam Goody and
Borders have increased their Christian album selections, too; they accounted
for nearly half of all Christian music sales in 1997.
Glance through the shelves, and youll find Christian swing.
Christian ska. Christian rap. Christian country. Christian urban music.
Christian hip-hop. Christian alternative. Christian heavy metal. No matter what
kind of popular music you favor, theres a Christian version available
today.
Experts cite a variety of forces behind this growth, including an
expanding Christian fan base, an inspirational message that is more
consistent with societal trends and consumer attitudes, increased
exposure through mainstream media, creative marketing strategies and the
takeover of formerly independent Christian record labels by mainstream
companies.
Of all these factors, its mostly the corporate investment in
Christian music that has fueled the recent surge in profits -- if not always
prophets.
The trend is perhaps best illustrated by the WoW album
series. These double-CD sets premiered with a 1996 edition and claim to feature
the years 30 top Christian artists and songs. Theyve sold more than
a million copies, and the just-released 1999 version has sat solidly on the
Billboard 200 album chart for weeks now, powering in at number 12 on the 1998
Christian year-end best-seller list.
The artists featured are the heavy-hitters of Christian music: Amy
Grant, who has four of the top 10 best-selling Christian albums of all time,
Michael W. Smith, Grammy winners Jars of Clay and dc Talk, and Bob Carlisle, of
Butterfly Kisses, fame, who was the first Christian artist to have
an album hit number one on the Billboard 200 sales chart.
The 1998 WoW CD boasts that it had music that can make an
eternal difference. The 1999 jacket says that over the past three
years, millions of people have had their lives affected by the music from the
WoW projects. Were convinced that theres something here that can
change your life.
Such sweeping claims are hard to verify. More clear is that
however life-changing a message may be, getting on the WoW CD is just as much
about contacts and contracts. All the CDs artists are distributed by the
three major Christian market distributors: EMI Christian Music Group, which is
owned by EMI Music Worldwide; Word Entertainment, which is owned by the Gaylord
Corporation; and Provident Music Group, which is owned by the Zomba Group.
Along with its Christian branch, EMI owns both Chrysalis and
Virgin Records and sponsors artists including Iron Maiden and Chumbawamba.
Gaylord says its proud of its Word artists. Its also proud of its
business ventures that include the Opryland Music Group, the Opryland Hotel,
and the Wildhorse Saloon. Zomba is an international corporation that bills
itself on one of its Web sites as the worlds leading and largest
independent music company. Together, these three distributors were
responsible for more than 90 percent of Christian record sales in 1998.
Given such access to corporate deep pockets, Christian artists can
tap distribution channels (and, hence, make money) that Sunday morning gospel
singers could only have dreamed of even a decade ago.
dc Talks latest album, Supernatural, was
released under both the Christian label ForeFront and to general market outlets
through Virgin Records. Band members say that the record will have a bigger
impact with the cross market release, that Virgin is just a bigger cannon
thats able to shoot the record out there.
Evidently, the strategy was successful. Supernatural
premiered at number four on the Billboard 200 album chart last October and sold
more than 100,000 copies in one week.
Jars of Clay, another group with widespread mainstream success,
has records distributed both on Christian label Essential Records and
mainstream Silvertone. Essential and Silvertone are both owned by the Zomba
Group.
A Faustian pact
Some worry that this mainstream distribution amounts to a Faustian
pact for Christian musicians. Cracking the Billboard Top 200, they charge, has
meant surrendering some of what gave gospel music its identity.
Such concerns would hardly be assuaged by the kind of reviews Jars
of Clays second album, Much Afraid, drew. Bob Gulla, reviewer
for Internet music site Wall of Sound, said the group buried the
Christian elements of their sound well enough for us pagans to enjoy Much
Afraid without feeling much discomfort.
That kind of talk has made some Christian musicians distinctly
uncomfortable. Rich Mullins, dubbed the uneasy conscience of Christian
music at the 1998 Dove Awards, was a successful songwriter who took a vow
of poverty and moved to a Navajo reservation to teach music. Mullins was
posthumously awarded the Dove award for Artist of the Year after he
was killed in an auto accident in September 1997.
In an interview just nine months before his death, Mullins
admitted that he had been really nasty about the contemporary
Christian music industry. He complained that people didnt get the
politics of his songs (for example, theres something offensive to
me about having an American flag in a church building), and said that he
wasnt sure that people with our cultural disabilities were
capable of having souls, or being saved.
Mullins said that U.S. Christians grow up in a culture that
worships pleasure, leisure and affluence and that the church is
doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of
that. Other Christian musicians saw in Mullins remarks a pointed
criticism of their tacit alliance with big business.
Steve Camp, who released his first Christian album in 1978, issued
A Call for Reformation in the Contemporary Christian Music Industry
in 1997, urging his fellow artists to return to their roots, where they
fearlessly sang clearly about the gospel.
Now, he complains, Christian music yodels of a Christ-less,
watered down, pabulum-based, positive alternative, aura-fluff, cream of wheat,
mush-kind-of-syrupy, God-as-my-girlfriend kind of thing. He adds,
The promise of increased financial resources, wider distribution and a
larger audience is not justification for the surrender of our spiritual
autonomy.
Gospel Music Association President Frank Breeden, perhaps
unsurprisingly, disagrees. There was a significant amount of fear when
the big entertainment conglomerates got involved in Christian music, he
said. What reality shows us is that these companies are investing because
theres a market, its what people wanted.
They didnt buy gospel music companies to put them out
of business. They bought them because thats what the culture is
responding to.
Breeden said, The big companies are some of our best friends
for our cause. Theyre not asking artists to water down their lyrics or
faith. If anything, they say, I spent several tens of millions of dollars
buying you. I want you to be what you are. Theyll help keep us
authentic and original and unique.
Christian artists certainly do sing about Gods love, prayer,
faith and Jesus. One example was ForeFront Records late 1997 What
Would Jesus Do? album which debuted on the Billboard Top 200 album chart,
part of a What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD) movement that saw teens and
adults nationwide wearing WWJD bracelets, buying albums and reading the WWJD
Interactive Devotional book, which included devotionals by WWJD artists,
complete song lyrics from the album and a 16-page full-color photo section.
Yet its also clear that despite lyrics touting faith, much
of the Christian music business is modeled on its secular counterparts.
Its not just that the pop/rock rhythms sound exactly the
same as generic Top 40 music. Even the awards show looks and feels like a
secular event.
Last years Dove Awards were a glitzy, glamour-filled event.
Cohosts Naomi Judd and John Tesh opened the show with banter about Judds
gown, which she changed twice. Not bad, Naomi, he said. Very,
very nice.
She replied, Thank you. It was actually either this Richard
Tyler original design, or my breakaway nuns habit.
As the shows end credits rolled, Brentwood Jewelers was
thanked for supplying Judds jewelry.
Aside from charges of selling ones soul for a hit record,
secular critics often bring a different prejudice to Christian music -- the
sneaking suspicion that its part of a plot by the religious right.
Nothing is further from the truth, Breeden said.
Christian musicians are not by nature involved in politics.
Yet if Christian musicians and culture warriors dont always
have the same agenda, that doesnt mean they cant be on friendly
terms. Focus on the Family, for example, recently worked with ForeFront Records
to release an album, life on the edge, which goes along with a book
of the same title by Familys founder, James Dobson. In album promotional
materials, ForeFront representatives said that the company has a deep
respect for Focus youth and family programs and the faithful impact they
are making on this country.
Focus on the Family is, of course, a conservative Christian
advocacy group that has criticized the National Education Association, opposed
all forms of legalized gambling and endorsed the nationwide Disney boycott.
Still, some Christian performers seem to embrace socially
responsible causes often associated with this countrys political
left. Steve Camp organized a series of AIDS benefit concerts with Tony Campolo.
dc Talk members Michael Tait, Toby McKeehan and Kevin Max formed the E.R.A.C.E
(Eliminating Racism and Creating Equality) Foundation in late 1997 in hopes of
encouraging racial reconciliation among young people through campus outreach, a
Web site (http://www.erace.com/), and special events.
With few exceptions, todays Christian artists are model
thin, movie actor beautiful and society cool. Steve Barnett, head of Epic
Worldwide marketing, said that he first became interested in increasing
exposure of Word artists, especially teen Jaci Velasquez, after viewing a
Velasquez video.
Here was a fantastic singer, a captivating personality, a
beautiful young woman, he said. It occurred to me that there was no
reason why an artist like this shouldnt be promoted with all the tools
Epic has at its disposal.
Perhaps all this hustling for the right look, for a
sound indistinguishable from mainstream genres, and for the increased sales and
profits these qualities bring, can be justified if it exposes people to
Jesus.
But critics still wonder just who the Jesus is that these artists
promote. Would he, for example, feel comfortable joining more than 100 industry
executives, promoters, producers, and managers at last Septembers third
annual dc Talk/Michael W. Smith Golf Classic? Would he be there, decked out in
the latest golf garb, networking with cronies, striving to better his game by a
few points?
What Would Jesus Do in this highly corporate, platinum-album,
mega-concert industry? Only heaven knows -- and so far, none of the big labels
has signed its choir.
Robin Taylor writes from Dayton, Nev.
National Catholic Reporter, February 12,
1999
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