Monday, August 22, 2011

Reflections on Contemporary Christian Music

Meghan O’Gieblyn has written a thought-provoking essay for Guernica of her experiences and observations in Contemporary Christian Music and its attempts at relevancy.  Here is one paragraph.
Basically, CCM caught on to the number one rule of coolness: don’t let your marketing show.  The best bands—the successful ones, at least—learned to gloss over the gospel message the same way TV producers camouflaged corporate sponsorship.  Explicitly Christian lyrics prevented DC Talk from crossing over to the secular market in the ’90s; today it’s difficult to imagine their unapologetic faith making it in the Christian circuit.
Got that right.

Her conclusion is that all this attempted relevancy has produced a message with no authenticity.  The piece is relatively long but well worth the read.  Take time for it.

No comments: