by A. Le Donne
I’m not a fan of Christian music. I mostly hate it. I feel of it much the same way that C.S. Lewis felt of the Anglican hymnal. Lewis spoke of “hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music.”
But, on occasion, I must relent from my non-sectarian arrogance and acknowledge aesthetics for the sake of aesthetics. See www.myspace.com/anathallo "dokkoise" and you might agree that the phoenix dost arise – eucatastrophe is possible in Mordor.
Sometimes, not often, a Christian album proves to be just too damned good for Christian Radio. Make Me New by folk duo After the Chase is such an album.
Now, if this were a traditional review, I’d start in with phrases like “dulcet musicality” and “adroit harmony”. I might suggest less bedroom whispers (a la About Your Love) and more full-throated melody (a la Apple of My Eye). If this were a review, I'd mention my discomfort with the back cover and ask Nathan to stop undressing me with his eyes.
But I don’t write reviews for Christian bands, so this won’t be a review. Rather, I’ll use this opportunity to get on my anti-establish soapbox, that old whore on a hill.
I happen to know that After the Chase is frequently requested by listeners of Christian radio from Atlanta to the opposite coast. Principal players Nathan and Jenna have amassed a fan-base of thousands in under four years spanning two albums (Make Me New is their second album – just recently released: afterthechase.com). Yet these requests are uniformly ignored on all but the most eclectic Christian stations. It seems that Christians, once the predominant investors in art, have become overly accustomed to lyrical clichés and synthesized cogwork.
Christian radio has become the musical equivalent to a colostomy bag.
The ironic reality is that the best Christian artists aren’t shoddy enough to appeal to the key demographics of Christian radio. Take Sara Groves for example. She is, perhaps, the best female singer/song writer this side of Lauren Hill. Groves produces for an established label. Every major Christian radio station owns a Sara Groves album. Most importantly, she is better than anything else being played on these stations. Yet Sara Groves hardly gets air. Did I mention Lauren Hill? Again, too good for Christian radio. And there was an obscure 80’s band called U2 that comes to mind, deemed too religious for the Christian mainstream.
Oddly, the conventional country stations have become more open minded to Christian artists than most Christian stations. You can’t listen to a country station for five minutes (and I can hardly stand that much) without hearing Jesus-talk. It turns out that the general public is warming to Jesus-talk again – as long as it meets some sort of standard of authenticity.
On the flipside, Christian music aficionados commonly supplement their diet with mainstream, LA produced, decidedly “non-Christian” music. I know scores of twenty-something Christians who ran out to buy Ben Folds’ album just for his “Jesus Land”. They’re not stupid; they know that Fold’s song is an indictment of Bible-belt America. They bought the album for that very reason! Folds’ grief over demijesus society is the same grief that many Christians feel. They liked the song because they agreed with the indictment.
Ben Folds, U2, Lauren Hill, Sara Groves, Anathallo, Bob Dylan.
All of the above have music worth listening to regardless of Jesus-lyrics. At the same time, all of the above have enough God-talk to warrant play on Christian radio. I guarantee that if a Christian station started playing these artists ratings would double. So why not play artists who exhibit the caliber of After the Chase?
There is only one reason: Dollars. Most Christian radio stations are kept going because of a donor-base. Advertising dollars alone cannot keep these stations afloat. These stations know that their donor-base constitutes 30-60 year-old women. I’ve been told that new music is often vetted through a test audience of soccer-moms named Becky. The crucial point here is that listening-demographics are much less important than giving-demographics. Bands like Anathallo would indeed increase ratings, but would do nothing for the donor-base. Twenty-four year old Myspace surfers do not normally send their tithe to Christian radio stations.
Aside from the dubious ethics of giving money to radio rather than, say, anything else, it also lacks business ethics. In the same way that fast-food corporations know that their product is an affront to human physiology, Christian music stations know that their product is aesthetic junk-food.
It’ll take some getting used to. My cousin was raised on a steady diet of Burger King and Dr. Pepper. His home-side pallet wasn’t much larger than macaroni and cheese and spaghetti. Now, as an adult, he resists anything that doesn’t come in a wrapper. If I were to force-feed him lobster tail and European chocolate for a week, I bet he’d come around. But it would take some doing.
Many Christian music listeners are like my cousin. They regularly consume crap. So when a group like After the Chase comes along they’re largely oblivious. It’s not because they don’t want good music, it’s because the hand that feeds them has never made a concerted effort.
Even worse, those Christian listeners who don’t fall into category A, fall into category B: they know that they want good music and they ask for it over and over again only to be denied by so-called Christian stations. I say if you’re not going to play good music, you ought not market yourself as a Christian station. What father, if asked for bread, gives his son a stone?