Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Thoughts on Christian Music (and stuff)

Faithful blog reader: hello. Welcome to a new post. Welcome to the cynical side of Jeremy.

Life is steady right now - full, fun, hard. . .I don't really know where to start with life lately - so I'll not start with it. I have other thoughts tonight.

I have progressed from being a full-fledged "laborer" (awesome) to becoming a heavy equipment driver.

Yes, I am living the dream of most 6 year old boys: driving things that can move tons of dirt. . . .DIRT!!! The great part though is an easier workload (I sit and drive stuff now - nice), air conditioning, and. . . .AM/FM radios. Yesssss!!! I also have the respect of more construction workers - which we all aspire to have, right?

So I have been priviledged to spend a full day as a captive audience to car commercials, sports center updates and witty banter by highly skilled DJ's. I have the jingles for the Midwest Hemerroid treatment center, Toyota and Chevy and Ford

And at a point, sports radio and standard rock stations - even NPR itself - get a bit stale. And, sigh. . . .being a christian, I. . . yes. . . .go to Christian radio. Positive. . . .encouraging. . . .Christian. . . nauseating.

And so - I have listened. And I have been positively encouraged. . . not to listen to Christian music. Ok - to be fair - one out of ten songs is good. But, the DJ's witty banter and the rest of the songs - they drive me toward jerking the wheel of the bulldozer into a bridge embankment.

Hightlights of Christian music:

First - "Christian Rock" is most definitely not rock. . . .and I'm wondering if Jesus likes it. When I first heard a Christian DJ remark: Man, that Jeremy Camp. . .he rocks!!, I thought, are you kidding me? Positive. . .encouraging. . . .Much of the time, life isn't encouraging or positive - so most Christian music is brutally wrong, most Christian music sounds the same as everything else. Why I listen to it at times is a mystery to me.

Second - Any radio station that goes to a satellite location to broadcast and has prizes to give away like. . . keychains. . . . that's just not a good radio station. Keychains? Are you freaking kidding me?

Third - Lyrics of Christian songs are definitely good at Spiritual cliches:

Ooooh Lord, you save me in the pouring rain
Your loooooove is new agaiiiiiin
Ohooooooooooooh Lord you get me through the daaaaaark night
(cue the orchetra, then sing the chorus again)

Fourth - to be a Christian music artist, your qualifications for "making it" are:

1) be good looking. You MUST be good looking to be a Christian artist - have you ever seen one who isn't? They just LOOK blessed, wealthy, happy. And most every cover of a Christian music CD featrues the artist on the cover alone - casually looking into the distance "thoughtfully", or smiling "full of the joy of the Lord" right at the camera, "broken" in worship (that just happens to show off how ripped the artist is). . . .or like this - with no explanation needed:


2) make a worship album. . . .with the songs on it that everyone else has already played (and feature Mac Powell)
.

Sample song list:

-Enough (already)
-How Great is our God
-Holy is the Lord
-Here I am to worship
(my worship set-list tomorrow includes how great is our god. . .sigh)

Fifth - inspire generations with non-Christian lyrics like: "it doesn't matter who you know, it's how you live" (real lyrics) Retards.

I'm done writing - now I'm pissed. What do I do now? I need some encouragement. . . .

%$&*!!. . . .I'm heading for the radio.

7 comments:

jerashparsons said...

the obligatory wife's commment.
done.
;)

hootenannie said...

How about how every Christian song manages to use the rhyme "adore you / before you"? Rock on. BTW, I'm going to be staring thoughtfully into the distance on my new website.

Jeremy Parsons said...

Obligatory wife's comments raise my self esteem. . . . a lot.

bec said...

carmen - often imitated, never replicated.

who's in the house?

Wearing a Man-Skirt (for now) said...

Bro-

When you roll up your sleeves you ain't just puttin' on the ritz...

Love,
Tim

Jeremy Parsons said...

I am in Tim Koehns debt for blessing me with "Awesome God" lyrics. Another instant classic:

And the lord wasn't joking when He kicked em out of eden. . . .

Patricia Long said...

Look these guys up and broaden your knowledge of christian music:

The Listening
Brooke Fraser
Fireflight
Flatfoot 56
Lecrae
Newworldson
Ruth
Wavorly
JR

Just for starters.