CBEB’s

Awhile back, For the Kids posted this atrocious video for “Beautiful One” by CCM singer Jeremy Camp at her echo chamber blog:

Since describing the video or giving any background info on the artist would have required FtK to conjure up an original thought or two, there’s nothing there but the video. Being the nice person that I am, I watched the video so that you don’t have to. I am now more qualified to critique this abortion than Michael Behe is to speak about the human immune system. Jeremy Camp’s song, “Beautiful One” exemplifies everything that is wrong with so-called “Contemporary Christian Music”. To paraphrase Voltaire, it’s neither contemporary nor Christian, and it’s not music, it’s Muzak. I think I heard one of the background singers say the word “Jesus” once, but for all we know, Jeremy Camp could be singing about a girlfriend. At least Faith + 1 weren’t afraid to say the word “Jesus”.

FtK’s BFF and partner in slime, Salvador Cordova, recently posted some idiotic crap about how “Darwinists” can’t appreciate music. Maybe, just maybe, if God was sitting in with Jeremy Camp and throwing down some nasty guitar licks, I might be able to appreciate the song a little more, but whether or not there is a god has absolutely no bearing on the mediocrity of “Beautiful One”.

Music is nothing more than a collection of sounds. The appreciation of music stems from many factors, all of them subjective. Though it’s the same notes on paper, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony will sound wildly different when played by the London Philharmonic or a high school orchestra, but it’s still going to be Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Should both be appreciated equally? A parent of a child in the high school orchestra might have a preference for their child’s version, for purely sentimental reasons.

There are people who genuinely appreciate The Shaggs because of their naive approach to music. I don’t count myself as a fan of The Shaggs, but I can understand where they’re coming from; I enjoy the songs of Wild Man Fischer. The majority of people find the music of both The Shaggs and Wild Man Fischer to be unlistenable… does that mean it’s not really music?

As I said earlier, the appreciation of music is based on many subjective criteria. Technical proficiency is important for jazz and classical music, but it can be a liability in a genre like punk or sub-genre such as lo-fi. There’s an old story about how Bob Wills used to be criticized by jazz musicians. Wills always hired crack instrumentalists for his band, but some musicians felt that playing popular music was slumming. When told that most serious jazz players considered his band a joke, Bob Wills responded with “yeah, nobody likes us but the people”.

To think that a belief in god is required before one can appreciate music is utterly ridiculous. Just as silly is the whole notion of “god-given talent”. If god gave people talent, there wouldn’t be any need for music schools. Talent comes from study and practice, not faith. This is part of the reason that the Contemporary Christian Music scene is infested with mediocre performers. If you’ve worked hard most of your life to be really good at what you do, you don’t want to squander it by playing inoffensive pabulum. Talent can be seen as a liability in the religious music world. After all, Christian musicians are supposed to inspire kids to pick up Bibles, not guitars. Even passion for one’s religious beliefs can work against a Christian artist. The few times I’ve listened to Christian radio, the only thing that gave it away as being Christian radio was the all-encompassing blandness of the songs. Programmers don’t want to alienate listeners over doctrinal differences, so an aggressively generic brand of Christianity is promoted. On the other hand, there are artists who sing about hellfire and The  Wrath of God and all that good stuff; Carman comes to mind. The fact that Carman is a recognizable name in the Christian Music industry is a good sign that talent is of little importance in the world of CCM.

Believe it or not, people actually listen to this and think it glorifies their god.

So… what the fuck am I doing writing about Christian music? I happen to - get this, Sal - appreciate it. Yesterday fellow AtBCer and FtK fan PTET sent me an awesome mp3 of Billy Joe Shaver’s “If You Don’t Love Jesus, Go To Hell”. This -  coupled with Sal’s magnificently stupid post about how only evolution deniers can appreciate music - got me thinking about the place gospel music has in the world of church burnin’ and ebola spreadin’.

Below the fold are eight songs dating from the late 1930s to the late 1990s - some gospel, some decidedly anti-gospel. Enjoy!

The Blue Sky Boys - I’m S-A-V-E-D: Do the Blue Sky Boys have to spell it out for you? Yes, they do. When Bill and Earl Bollick went into the recording studio in 1936, they were told to come up with a name other than “The Bollick Brothers” so as to distinguish themselves from other popular brother acts of the day, i.e.; The Monroe Brothers and The Delmore Brothers. I always thought “The Blue Sky Boys” was sort of inappropriate, since for every song they sing that might make one think of blue skies, they do about three songs that deal with someone dying. No death in this song, but plenty of drinking P-O-P, and getting one’s hair B-O-B-B-E-D.

The Louvin Brothers - Broad Minded: Continuing with the spelling theme, brothers Ira and Charlie Louvin tell us how to spell that word, “broadminded”, and fail miserably. Recorded around 1954, that’s probably Chet Atkins playing guitar.

The Louvin Brothers - Don’t Let Them Take The Bible Out of Our Schoolroom: If you need proof that the Abington School District v. Schempp  decision is responsible for all of America’s woes, look no further: The Louvin Brothers sang about it, I believe it, that settles it!

Kitty Wells - Will Your Lawyer Talk to God?: One of the all-time greatest female voices in country music sings a lovely anti-divorce number. A word of advice to the fictional ex-husband in the song: if your lawyer is Casey Luskin, try to plea-bargain; maybe you can get purgatory.

George Jones & Tammy Wynette - God’s Gonna Get’cha (For That): Turn off your irony meters, because those paragons of sobriety and marital bliss, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, are going to sing about the evils of hypocrisy.

Ernest Tubb - What Kind of God Do You Think That You Are?: A few word changes here and there, and this would be the most awesome song ever.

Eugene Chadbourne - Jesus Protects Mexico: A word of caution… Eugene Chadbourne is definitely an acquired taste. If improvisational avant-garde jazz/country music with a left-wing political slant isn’t something that appeals to you, skip this one. As Wes Craven said, “There’s no buffer in Dr. Chadbourne’s shop”.

Robbie Fulks - God Isn’t Real: By no means is this Fulks’ best song, but it’s a nice way to close out CBEB’s Hillbilly Gospel Show. Fulks shuns the atheist label, describing himself as “a reluctant disbeliever”. This is sort of a country version of XTC’s classic “Dear God”.