Just as it has been every year in recent memory, the official line of this year’s Gospel Music Week was that Christian music is going to be the next big thing in popular entertainment. Young talent,
major-label distribution and marketing, network exposure for the Dove Awards, and better sales monitoring by Soundscan will soon combine—so the scenario goes—to make contemporary Christian music a serious competitor of rock and country. I, for one, fervently hope not. It has been a testimony to America’s good sense that it has so far failed to embrace this profoundly anti-human branch of entertainment.
The champions of gospel music say that its most vital element is its message. That’s true. And if you think gansta rap is scary, then you ought to check out the ravings of modern gospel performers. It would be one thing if these people simply wanted to share their religious fantasies and folklore with the rest of us, but their ambitions are larger. They are the psychological vanguard for the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons who are bent on reordering all our lives—by persuasion if possible, but by law if necessary.
Apparently fearful that the God they worship will not be stern enough in dealing with the human race, the True Believers plunge into their own battles against abortion, separation of church and state, equal rights for homosexuals, and free political and artistic expression. To True Believers, toleration is a weakness.
The thing that makes gospel music so ominous in this whole equation—particularly when it’s backed by clever promotion and marketing—is that it works systematically to undermine our trust in our own worth and strength. And that starts the dominoes tumbling. If we can be made to think that we are nothing on our own, then it ultimately doesn’t matter what we want for ourselves or what we aspire to achieve for others. The only important question, we’re led to believe, is whether our wants square with God’s murky and elusive master plan. If they don’t, then lop them off.
Self-debasement has always been the central theme of Christian music, but it gains respectability when Kris Kristofferson, an ex-Rhodes Scholar who should know better, warbles, “Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known.” In the same vein, a more current flagellant sings, “If I waited on myself to get it right, I’d be waiting here forever.” And another simpers, “I could never be logical—I just want to be with You.”
In “Our Turn Now,” Carman offers this stunning summation of history to urge Christian students to “take back” the public schools: “The ball got dropped in ’62/They wouldn’t let children pray in school/Violent crime began to rise/The grades went down and the kids got high.” Out of this sorry state of affairs, he continues, came “abortion on demand...VD, AIDS and no morality.” There’s enough specious reasoning in these short lyrics to keep a logic class busy all semester. But in the strange world that Carman and his kind advocate, revelation beats reason every time.
I don’t think for a moment that contemporary Christian artists should be muzzled in any way, and I promise to join them on the picket lines should anyone try. But I do believe that their message—no matter how hiply and sunnily it is presented—should be exposed for the menace to humanity it is. We should encourage people to be heroic—not servile.
Currents
♦ Viewers of Great American Country (GAC), the new Colorado-based video network, will notice that it substantially resembles Country Music Television in its choice of clips and frequency of airplay. Unlike CMT, however, GAC has fewer divisions of rotation. It splits its playlists into “extra heavy” rotation (50 or more plays a week), “heavy” (35 or more), and “hitbound” (20 or more). CMT’s categories are “heavy” (28-35 plays a week), “hotshot” (21-28 plays), “medium” (14-21 plays), and “light” (up to 7 plays).
GAC’s extra heavy rotation list for the week of May 1-7 included “I’m Not Supposed to Love You Anymore,” Bryan White; “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” Jo Dee Messina; “The River and the Highway,” Pam Tillis; “It’s What I Do,” Billy Dean; “You Win My Love,” Shania Twain; “Does That Blue Moon Ever Shine on You,” Toby Keith; “Almost a Memory Now,” BlackHawk; “All I Want Is a Life,” Tim McGraw; “If I Were You,” Terri Clark; “Ten Thousand Angels,” Mindy McCready; and “I Think About You,” Collin Raye.
The entire GAC playlist for the week had 56 selections; CMT’s list of currents for the same period numbered 60. GAC is a division of Jones Intercable in Littleton.
♦ Country Weekly will present its second annual Golden Pick Awards on TNN’s Prime Time Country show May 21. The winners will be chosen through the magazine’s poll of readers in 16 country music categories. In addition to its official nominees, each category is also open to a write-in vote.
Awards will be given in these divisions: favorite entertainer, female artist, male artist, duo, group, instrumentalist, album, song, video, male newcomer, female newcomer, new group, line dance song, “the duet you’d most like to see,” and “star with the biggest heart.” Contenders in this last and iffiest category are Mark Collie, Vince Gill, Randy Travis, Billy Ray Cyrus, Kathy Mattea, Reba McEntire, Joe Diffie, Garth Brooks, Alabama, Willie Nelson and Diamond Rio.
♦ Keene Garrett, who formerly owned and operated Keene & Co., has joined Pecos Films as executive producer. She brought with her four of the video directors her company represented: Michael McNamara, D.J. Webster, Lynn Spinnato and Jayne Rogovin.
♦ Capitol Nashville has released two terrific Merle Travis albums in its Vintage series: Folk Songs of the Hills and Walkin’ the Strings. The former album, released in 1947, features such timeless Travis compositions as “Dark As a Dungeon,” “That’s All” and the song that would sweep America eight years later via Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Sixteen Tons.”
Comments (0)