September 13, 2005
Accidental CCM
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I was driving home yesterday, frustrated at the static I was hearing on my usual talk radio station, so I picked up that little radio remote control that sits in my truck console and started flipping through the channels. I wasn’t paying any attention to the station…I was just flipping through, listening for something half-decent to hear.
I heard somebody doing a cover of the single “I’ll Be There” and thought to myself, “Well they’re no Four Tops, but they’re not too terribly awful.” So I stopped to listen for a minute. I was fine until I heard a little phrase added into the song. After one of the verses, and before the chorus line that goes “I’ll be there with a love that will shelter you”, the lead singer through in a lovely “Jesus said” before he hit the chorus.
WHAT?! What station was I listening to? I glanced down at the radio and saw those horrid numbers - 104.7 (the fish) - and quickly turned the radio off. I felt dirty.
I’m no big fan of CCM, but this really got me upset. Have Christian artists just run out of ideas for songs so that the only thing they can do is “Christianize” non-Christian music. I mean, if you increase the JPM, surely that’d make it a Christian song, right? That’ll turn this oldies song into a good praise chorus. How absolutely absurd! If an artist is to the point in his journey as a musician that the best he can turn out is a radio friendly cover of an old Four Tops song with a little “Jesus” thrown in for good measure, he needs to quit singing and go get a job selling lumber at the local Home Depot.
If we get people like that off the radio, maybe there’ll be room for some artists who write good music. When was the last time Randall Goodgame or Eric Peters ended up on the radio? Pierce who?
Start demanding quality in what comes through your radio. Maybe, just maybe, those JPM counting radio executives will get the hint one day.
Maybe.
9 Comments on Accidental CCM »
September 13, 2005
Gaines @ 10:35 am:
Ron, the Praise and Worship glut should have been plenty of proof that CCM has run out of creativity. I mean, how many versions of “Shout to the Lord” or “God of Wonders” do we need?
gregmuzak @ 10:58 am:
How many? Easy. Just one more…
We also need to re-record some hymns. Add some drums… give ‘em a snappy beat. The kids will eat that up. Smell that? It’s platinum baby.
Wulfgar42 @ 11:38 am:
You are fighting a losing battle. Commercial radio is a business. They need to draw people in to listen so they can charge big bucks for the commercial time. To do that, the safest way is to go with tried and true stuff. Stuff they KNOW the majority of people (let’s face it, you are not in the majority with your musical tastes) will listen to. It doesn’t help that “The Fish” is a ClearChannel station (I believe).
Lastly, this is not an oddity of CCM stations. This is radio-wide and one of the BIG reasons I upgraded to Sirius. Other than very short snippets while being in my wife’s Sirius-less Jeep, I have not listened to FM/AM broadcast radio in months and months.
Do yourself a favor. Do everyone a favor. Tell the broadcast stations how much you detest the way they do business by subscribing to Sirius (or XM) and never going back.
richard @ 2:18 pm:
Remember DC Talk covering Nirvana’s song “All Apologies” and instead of singing “everyone is gay” they sang “Jesus is the way”.
hm.
Of course, at the same time, Johnny Cash did a bang up job of redeeming an unbelieving, nonchristian song with Trent Reznor’s “hurt” by simply changing “crown of s**t” to “crown of thorns”.
I think the difference is sincere and artistic vs. superficial and cheap.
richard @ 2:20 pm:
“Do yourself a favor. Do everyone a favor. Tell the broadcast stations how much you detest the way they do business by subscribing to Sirius (or XM) and never going back.”
Better yet, buy an iPod. You can even download your favorite radio shows and listen to them on the road (it’s what i do!).
September 16, 2005
Chawndriquah @ 12:36 am:
Preach on Brother Ron!
Man oh man it’s an almost overwhelming urge to call the fish and win something (tickets to some ridiculous show or a free Christian singles ad) just so I can say, “Holy F***! This is great! What an answer to prayer!”
I suppose that the 5 second delay would get the necessary bleeps in, but still, it would make me laugh.
We all can use our stereotypes being stretched. Heaven forbid a Christian have a crappy day, struggle with faith, or drop an F-bomb. (Okay, the last is something that I shouldn’t do and I’m working on it.) But the point remains that what drives me craziest about the fish is the plastic Christianity that it portrays. Yuk.
September 17, 2005
skellee @ 10:11 am:
I just wanted to add that I recently read somewhere that there are churches singing the old Beatles tune ‘She loves you’….but changing the words to ‘He loves you’ lol and also singing a Celine Dion song….the one from that Robert Redford movie. I cannot remember the name of it right now.
You don’t have to look too hard to find great hymns…which is where you should be looking if you have run out of ideas concerning what music to sing in church.
October 26, 2005
tipsiew @ 12:59 am:
It was accidental that I found this. But I figured I would leave a reply. Evidentally you are not a christian. And I pity you. Because unless you know Jesus, you will be in Hell for eternity. The reason the fish 104.7 is on the air is because it is a good, christian, family station. There are a lot of very good christian artist. Like Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Third Day, Casting Crowns, Rebecca Saint James, Mercy Me. If you would just take the time to listen I believe you would actually enjoy it and maybe even turn your life around. I will pray for you . Love in Christ
Ron @ 1:10 am:
tipsiew - you missed the point of the post. it was to point out that Christian artists (good or bad) have run out of ideas for quality Christian music and have gone to “christianizing” secular tunes. check out the links on this site…you’ll find plenty of good artists that are Christians (who, btw, still have enough good content for songs that they don’t have to “christianize” a song to fill a CD).