God rock

By Günther Simmermacher

Christian music — it’s a bit of a turn-off term for many music fans, even among some committed Catholics. The Hillsong type albums, the kind one finds in Christian bookshops, are pleasant enough and serve their purpose. But they are also predictable (they all do sound a bit the same) and communicate little new about how we understand our faith. It’s niche market music. Few non- Christians are ever likely to put on a Hillsong CD.

But not all Christian music is like that. In fact, some Christian acts make Christian music without the casual listener even really noticing. And U2 aren’t the only ones.

A few years ago, everybody was dancing to Mary Mary’s infectious “Shackles” — a song of praise and thanksgiving on the dancefloor. And fans of alternative rock may well listen to groups like Switchfoot without realising that they are encountering Christian rock.

Even P.O.D., whose lyrics are often explicitly Christian, and before them Creed, managed the big crossover into the mainstream (it’s a pity that Alter-Bridge — basically Creed with a different singer and still God-rocking — are producing such dull music). Groups like Lifehouse, Evanescence or the excellent Mae (if you like rock, try to check out their Everglow album from last year) don’t necessarily like to be called Christian, but they do have a strong Christian influence. Their lyrics tend to give the listener room for different interpretations.

Take, for example, Lifehouse’s big hit Hanging By A Moment:

Forgetting all I’m lacking, completely incomplete;
I’ll take your invitation, you take all of me.

Could be he’s singing to a girl, or it could be to God.

Christian songs turn up in the strangest places these days. The rather eccentric and devoutly Christian Detroit singer Sufjan Stevens had a love song to Jesus, “To Be With You Alone”, featured on the TV series The O.C. And last year, many top music experts around the world hailed Sufjan’s Illinois CD as the best album of 2005; even though the lyrics of this weird and wonderful album are full of religious references. How often do you hear the secular critics raving about an album that features lyrics like this: “Lamb of God, we sound the horn. Hallelujah! To us your ghost is born”?

The R&B and, to a lesser extent, Hip Hop scene, on the other hand, has always been big on God. After all, much of it is rooted in gospel music. But where there used to be those huge chorus productions intoning praises to the Lord or the legendary Aretha Franklin over-emoting, now there are often understated and articulate singers, such as Yolanda Adams or Kirk Franklin, carrying on what the wonderful Winans started — and managing to cross over to the mainstream, thereby bringing God to a wider audience. And who can forget Kanye West’s preacherman turn on “Jesus Walks”, a massive hit single (that’s not to say that Kanye is anywhere close to being a paragon of virtue)?

And on the acoustic scene, there is Eastmountainsouth, who offer some of the most thoughtful Christian lyrics, some explicit, others open to interpretation. Check this sample, from “Still Runnin’”:

For you meant only love and love, and I felt only fear and pain.
So once in Israel love came,and we were all afraid.

Of course, one can find God in pop not only in acts that have an evident Christian connection. Listen to Robbie Williams, and you can hear a man who is seeking spirituality which he cannot seem to — or want to — find (in “Feel”, for example). Even rock giants Coldplay have a rich spiritual streak, even if they are not identifiable as a Christian group. But listen to “Speed Of Sound”, and then read Job 38-42. And the Goo Goo Dolls, whose singer John Rzeznik was brought up a Catholic, on their new single “Better Days” ask the listener for a prayer for the future.

Who said the devil has all the best tunes?