Christian Rock: someone please explain it to me.

[Quantess]

I kind of DO get it. I get the feel-good, original, catchy songs.
The compulsive radio-station-changer I am, I sometimes end up on a "christian rock" station. Fortunately, that isn't too often. Sometimes I end up listening, only to pay attention to the lyrics.

Does anyone here ever give a listen to what Christian Rock radio has to offer?

I will state up front, I am non-religious, agnostic.

[GoneOffShore]

1. It is an abomination.

It is not rock, it is pablum saccharine pop, even the "heavy metal death thrash xtian "rock"(sic)".

[Skip Intro]

2. Eh, kind hard for me to harsh on Christian Rock/Metal when I dig Slayer...

For me, hard rock and metal has ALWAYS been about the music, with the lyrics secondary. Give me some brutal guitar solos and killer riffs, and you could sing the phone book, you know? Now, that's not to say vocalists don't have their special place. David Lee Roth, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickenson, Ronnie James Dio (dating myself a bit?) - good vocals, great vocals, can surely be a big part of the sound, but then again, vocals are really just another instrument.

So I got Slayer singing Angel of Death, and that song effin' rocks. I can't slam a band just because they have a different message. At least not at this point. But man, did I use to give Stryper hell, so to speak...

But the music, the sound, is the thing. Good music is good music...

[City of Mills]

14. You'd probably dig Vengeance Rising

An awesome Christian metal band from the late 80's...I had no problem listening to them or Slayer, the lyrics and content are silly in either case. I'm just a fan of the power chord! Stryper are crap no matter what they represent :)

Vengeance Rising:

Ascension (Instrumental)

Whipping Post

Beheaded

If you didn't know better, you'd think these guys were satanic, LOL

[WildEyedLiberal]

3. Depends on what you mean by "Christian rock"

A lot of the "contemporary Christian rock" bands are horrible musically. But there are some decent Christian metal bands that have pretty good musicianship, and with metal, most of the time you can't tell what they're saying anyway, so there's not a lot of discernible difference between Christian metal and "evil" metal, haha.

Most of the radio Christian rock I don't care for, though.

[pokerfan]

4. You mean like...

[Dappleganger]

5. dupe

[Dappleganger]

6. Christian radio is horrific.

We like Skillet, Red, UnderOath, As I Lay Dying, Norma Jean, etc. The appeal to me as a parent is a concert where the words aren't extremely vulgar and we can go to a concert with decent music and not everyone is completely buzzed (well, some are but it's not as prevalent). We definitely don't get into the praise song garbage though.

[Quantess]

7. You seem to know the christian rock names,

so you are one step ahead of me. :hi:

If it were me, I...actually do not know how I would be.

Edit to add: I do understand, kind of. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us! :)

[Dappleganger]

8. It's because we have teens who drag us to these events...

they need a ride downtown, so guess who's driving, LOL? Too bad my neck won't let me headbang though. ;)

It's actually pretty decent music and a heck of a lot better than dealing w/the top 50 pop crap songs. The bands are pretty friendly and accessible, too.

[Quantess]

9. See,, that is what gets me.

Shine...blah de blahe bha
Let them see what you are not
Let them stick a fat fork in it...

But OTOH, I do see what you are saying. I really do want to understand, and I know that this viewpoint isn't "cool" at DU.

[Lucian]

10. Christian Rock is an abomination.

But I'm an atheist, so there you go.

[Quantess]

11. Really? You're really an atheist? LOL

teasing.

[JeffersonChick]

12. To me, Christian rock is kind of like... a fake plant

An imitation of both rock and spirituality. But then, I find main-stream Christianity itself to be an imitation of the real thing.

I prefer bands and songs that are either activist (eg. Rage Against the Machine), or have a positive message (eg. "Love Train" by The O'Jays).

[City of Mills]

13. There's some good Christian metal out there

Not sure if metal counts as 'rock' to you, but I'm only familiar with stuff from the late 80's...but there's some great stuff out there. I'm not religious.

[Frank Cannon]

15. We had a Christian rock station in town that wasn't too bad.

In fact, I listened to it for about three days before I realized what I was listening to.

[bbernardini]

16. There's always Christian Prog Rock...

http://www.cprogrock.com/

I'll admit, I'm only familiar with a few of the names, and that's because they did standard prog first: Neal Morse (formerly of Spock's Beard) and Kerry Livgren (formerly of Kansas). Neal has made some returns to standard prog with his recent reunion with Transatlantic.

[KamaAina]

17. In the words of the immortal Hank Hill,

"You're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock 'n' roll worse."

[cbdo2007]

18. Just like all popular music nowadays. It's a niche just to make money.

Many people with dreams of being rock stars realize they can't cut it in LA so they go to Nashville to try to be a part of the Country music scene. When they get there, they find the Christian music scene is even EASIER to get into, with the same financial payout as many of the country and real rock stars are getting, so they put their mediocre songwriting skills to use, write some catchy, religious themed songs and cash in.

Think about it. They have all these built in fans, and concert venues all over the country. Besides the royalties from radio play and cd sales, they also get royalties FROM the churches who sing their songs as part of their worship/praise music thing, so many of them are really raking in the dough. All from a crowd that sees it as "morally wrong" to download music, no less.

[superduperfarleft]

19. I'm as militant an atheist as you're going to get, but even I listen to some Christian artists.

Surfjan Stevens is not my favorite, but he's very creative, and he's Christian. Thrice is a post-hardcore/metalcore band with many Christian themes in their music. Pedro the Lion is another band that focuses on Christian themes, although David Bazan has since kind of renounced his faith.

Then there's Woven Hand and 16 Horsepower, which are Christian-oriented psychedelic alt-country bands, but sound more like the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Great stuff.

Woven Hand - Dirty Blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImvMxXY64EU
16 Horsepower - Sinnerman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlFP2CBOhDs (it's a Nina Simone song, I think, but a good cover nonetheless)

[guitar man]

20. Billy Connolly

Billy has a funny take on it :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUSwLWh5Huk

[LeftinOH]

23. Christian Rock = O'Doul's Beer

[guitar man]

24. LOL!!

I tried one of those right after I quit drinking. I figured I was better off without lol

[GoneOffShore]

25. The beige sisters of premenstrual agony!

Arrggh!

I almost fell out of my chair.

That and the last line -

I am the devil and I want to 6666 your mother!

[guitar man]

27. I think he's the funniest man alive

And yeah, he leans into the politically incorrect territory at times but he's always hilarious :rofl:

[applegrove]

21. I thought you wrote 'Chris Rock'. LOL!

[dawg]

22. There are lots of good Christian rock bands ...

meaning good rock bands, where all, or a majority of the songwriting members are Chrisitans.

On the other hand, the "Christian Rock" genre, is pretty bland, and sounds like the music that comes with the VBS packages that you order from Lifeway or the SBC.

I enjoy some music from Jars of Clay, a song or two from Petra, and I once owned a Stephen Curtis Chapman cassette, although I am unsure as to how I obtained it.

[trof]

26. Read "The Rise and Fall of the Bible" - Timothy Beal

"The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book".
Among other things it covers Christian Rock.

[Common Sense Party]

28. I'm quite Christian, but musically most of the genre has zero appeal to me.

It just seems too forced and contrived.

Christian country--like Johnny cash singin' his favorite old gospel hymns--is a brazilian times better, and more honest.

[Mopar151]

29. I've heard that Kings X was a christian band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR0G9XKuHdE ain't too shabby.

IMHO, Jesus has been a cool subject for rock songs for a long time - Doobie Brothers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie9sY_zp9xg