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alternative rock universe
Saturday, July 17 2004
From lofi to retro-70s to Nu Metal, I'm familiar with just about all of the white boy rock music that's out there. That's the kind of music I like, so very little of it has escaped me. It's impossible for me to listen to an internet rock station, no matter how obscure, and not be familiar with the vast bulk of the music. But such familiarity eventually becomes wearisome. Occasionally I'd like to listen to a station where every song is brand new. Perhaps it would just play local bands from some tiny Midwestern or Eastern European city.
Until I discover such a station, I've found an imperfect and somewhat embarrassing-to-admit substitute. There's a whole parallel rock universe out there of so-called "Christian Rock." A few short years ago such music was uniformly dreadful, stylistically stuck by its reactionary intentions a full ten to fifteen years behind current trends. The lyrics were impossible to ignore, and they were always cloyingly rich in repetitive references to Jesus and God. But today I noticed that contemporary Christian Rock has done something its fans plugged their ears to avoid learning about in school: it has evolved. Much of it sounds like various forms of secular alternative rock, often with interesting musicianship and occasionally good lyrics. There's less beating the audience over the head with God references, and, even if there is some of that, much of the time it's difficult to make out the words. Mind you, there's still plenty of dreadful Christian rock to be heard, especially when a Christian outfit is obviously trying to be the holy version of a well-known band. But I'm finding I can actually listen to it, and I'm really enjoying how completely unfamiliar it is.
By the way, my description of the way Christian rock used to sound before it evolved could now be used to describe the pabulum of the musical style known as Nu Country. You know, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and such ilk as they.
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