Does Christian music have to suck?

Hello and welcome to Throwaway Relics, the newsletter where I take a look at religion, pop culture and the internet.

This edition’s topic was inspired by a suggestion made by subscriber Michael Collett. Comment below with a suggestion and you might see it in a future issue.

A little introduction for the uninitiated

Contemporary Christian music isn’t a genre pre se, but it is an industry, with seperate record labels, famous-in-their-sphere musicians and completely separate charts to the rest of the music industry.

It largely runs parallel to mainstream music, following mainstream trends, but the lack of competition means broadly speaking, CCM lacks innovation and imitates popular mainstream acts. Of course, in other ways it’s subject to unique market forces resulting in fads of its own - like the worship album explosion in the mid ‘00s.

As you might imagine, some of it is good, but most of it is really bad. But that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting as a collection of cultural artefacts, and that’s the whole reason I write this dang newsletter.

dc Talk is a mirror of American evangelicalism

If you grew up listening to CCM, a few bands probably come to mind, but one of them is certainly dc Talk. The first ever full-length album I bought was their CD, Intermission: the Greatest Hits. (Less embarrassingly, the first single I ever bought was Janet Jackson’s Together Again, which is still in my regular rotation.)

dc Talk was formed at the bastion of evangelicalism, Liberty University in 1989, and went on to be the biggest Christian band of its time. Singers Michael Tait and Kevin Max, and rapper TobyMac, were known for their evolving musical style and commitment to anti-racism.

Their biggest song was probably Jesus Freak (which sounds suspiciously like Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana) and it was so popular it inspired two dc Talk–branded books of martyrdom stories, which, yes, I read several times.

The band went on hiatus in 2000 and never re-formed except for a few “reunion cruises” - literally on cruise ships - in 2017 and 2019. Here’s a sweet video recorded by a fan during the 2019 cruise. I love the little debrief they have at the end over a glass of wine.

What’s particularly interesting about the reunion cruises are the vastly different paths the members took politically and faith-wise. Michael Tait became the lead singer of the Christian band The Newsboys and has continued to back the Republican Party. He opposed Donald Trump and supported Ted Cruz in 2016, but then endorsed him in 2020 at an Evangelicals for Trump rally.

TobyMac continued as president of the Christian record label Gotee Records, and he doesn’t talk about politics that much. But Kevin Max became the lead singer of Audio Adrenaline, yet another popular Christian rock band, and is a self-described hippie, socialist exvangelical.

I think there’s a whole other edition of Relics which could address the figures in Christian music which went on to deconstruct and follow radically different spiritual paths. For now I’ll just say that each member of dc Talk seems to represent a different aspect of splintering American evangelicalism, and it’s impressive that they still have a warm relationship.

In this interview from the 2017 reunion cruise, a journalist asks the band why they never officially broke up. Michael Tait insists it’s the fans, but Kevin Max responds:

“I think it’s friendship. Friendship is what brought us together in the first place, and friendship is difficult sometimes.”

TobyMac agrees it’s their shared history and “the friendship - the foundation that we have” that has kept them together. It’s impressive - not often seen in the increasingly-polarised, post-Trump American church.

Anyway, here was my favourite song of theirs, In the Light, originally by Charlie Peacock.

Here’s some on-theme stand up comedy

I am not familiar with Taylor Tomlinson’s work but I think I probably should be? Extremely my areas.

Jesus is a friend of mine

It might be hard to believe now, but CCM was highly controversial in the 1960s when it began. The idea that you could just put different lyrics to the “devil’s music” was inconceivable to more conservative Christians.

CCM musicians fought back - through song! - and thank God they did, because it gave us the absolute gem that is Jesus Is My Friend by the Catholic band Sonseed. Please, I beg you: watch this. It is a camp classic.

It resurfaced and went viral in 2008 in Christian and non-Christian circles alike. It means we have covers by worship outfit David Crowder*Band and on Glee. Truly incredible.

Charles Wesley was the original CCM star

Amy Grant said gay rights

The undisputed queen of Christian music surely has to be Amy Grant, who achieved the rare feat of becoming a ‘crossover hit’ and achieving success in mainstream music. She’s best known for her 1991 hit Baby Baby.

I’ll always love her 1982 song Sing Your Praise To The Lord, which is used every episode of the Good Christian Fun podcast to melodramatically and triumphantly introduce their guests.

Anyway, sorry, I got carried away. It came out this week Amy Grant supports gay rights apparently? Here’s queer Christian musician Semler and drag queen Flamy Grant with a report on TikTok.

This is what digital projectors stole from us

Some Christian music that’s good, actually

The risk of running a newsletter about religious pop culture - especially religious pop culture you grew up with - is it could potentially become too fun-pokingly cynical. It’s probably apparent that I have a complicated relationship with a lot of religious popular culture, but I do also consume a lot of it non-ironically.

Here’s some music I actually listen to and enjoy (most of it is folk or country). Recently I’ve been playing a lot of John Mark McMillan’s 2016 album Mercury & Lightning, in particular its title track.

MuteMath, from New Orleans are possibly my favourite band of all time. They don’t classify themselves as a Christian band anymore, but I discovered them as a bonus track on the 2005 WOW Christian hits compilation. They’re a bit pop and a bit rock.

Sandra McCracken is so good, and my fav album of hers is In Feast or Fallow. In a similar Christian folk vein is New Zealand musician Strahan, who is always in my high rotation. This is Help Me Believe.

Another fav of mine is Thad Cockrell. His song Rosalyn is one of my favourite songs ever. His band LEAGUES is also outstanding.

A few articles I found interesting this week:

• I enjoyed this article about the Satanic Panic
• White American mainline Christians are growing, says Public Religion Research Institute. Not so fast, says Religion Unplugged

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If you have a tip or a post I should see, especially about a religion you don’t hear about all that often, please email me: rohansalmond@gmail.com. Also, follow me on Twitter: @RJSalmond.

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