Religious music for less than devout
^^^Van Morrison went through a Christian phase for a while. He has quite a few popular religious songs. These are the Days is another one. Some folks hear some Christian themes in Astral Weeks, but I think you can hear anything you want to in that album. All Bach. U2's albums are suffused with Christian themes. Bono says he is a devout Christian. For some spectacular R&B/Gospel check out Leon Bridges album Coming Home. It is not a religious or gospel album per se but there are three of four excellent songs with Christian themes. On some of them you have to listen carefully to hear them. The songs are fantastic as is the whole album. The theology is deep and solid without being cheesy or in-your-face. This one, River, is probably the best and deepest: https://youtu.be/0Hegd4xNfRo I am a devout Christian but other than classical, traditional hymns and a few I've mentioned here, I do not particularly like religious music. Especially religious pop music. Several of you have mentioned above that it has gotten better, and that is good. Because not long ago I would have said it was the worst music of all. It wasn't good pop. It wasn't good gospel. No catchy tunes. Overly emotional and sentimental. Shallow and vapid. And that always makes me a little sad, as a Christian. As millercarbon mentioned, western religious music was, at one time, the highest level or artistic expression in music. And it might still be. |
@ millercarbon
There was a time forty years ago I when I lived in Gallup NM, a small town in the middle of nowhere with only 4 radio stations. One station was all in Navajo, one was rock/pop, one was Country and the last was Gospel format. Yes the quality of the Gospel genre was not what one might hope and I listened to very little of it then. It was explained to me that since most listeners listen in their vehicle and only for a few minutes it was perfectly acceptable to play the song “9 to 5” twice and hour all day long. I have a recollection of driving across all of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on a Sunday in August steering a badly over loaded 24’ Ryder truck towing my pickup behind me. Maximum speed may have been 50 mph, no AC and only an AM radio. Under those conditions the only acoustic selections were not so much religious as what I would call “red neck toothless gospel”. My yellow Lab named Bismark was riding shotgun, so we turned up the “Old time Gospel” and Bismark and I had our personal revival the width of all of 3 states combined. I agree with your general point, that the quality and variety of religious music is vastly improved. Twila Paris, Phil Driscol, David Meece, John Fahey are examples of those who write and perform as well as anyone. Many C&W acts have worthwhile religious content in their repertoire. |
