Revolution! The Subculture is Dying
Anyone who is familiar with the writing of Walker and myself over the past 7 years (Kingdom of Couches, Postcards from Corinth, the Musings blog) knows that we have relentlessly bashed the Christian subculture - that culture within the culture that "[picks] up the major media's scraps and [glues] them back together with a cross on top" (quoted in Kingdom of Couches, p. 153). In light of our disdain for Christian-bookstore spirituality, we are celebrating a small victory for the gospel today. World Magazine reports that CCM magazine, a bastion of the Christian subculture, is going out of print next month.
CCM stands for "contemporary Christian music." The magazine has chronicled the major trends in "Christian" music for almost 3 decades. Though the death of the magazine's print version is being billed as a daring move into new media, those close to the situation confirm that CCM has been losing readership dramatically in recent years. The "Christian music" genre as a whole is in trouble due to the digital music revolution, the weak artistic value of commercialized Christian music, and the courage of talented major-label-shunning artists like Derek Webb who resent their art being pigeonholed into the "Christian" category. CCM the magazine has been caught in the whirlpool of a sinking genre. I can only hope other elements of the subculture are sucked under as well.
May the death of CCM mark the re-emergence of biblically thoughtful, culturally savvy, artistically excellent music. The tide is turning! I'm off to go listen to some Sufjan.
CCM stands for "contemporary Christian music." The magazine has chronicled the major trends in "Christian" music for almost 3 decades. Though the death of the magazine's print version is being billed as a daring move into new media, those close to the situation confirm that CCM has been losing readership dramatically in recent years. The "Christian music" genre as a whole is in trouble due to the digital music revolution, the weak artistic value of commercialized Christian music, and the courage of talented major-label-shunning artists like Derek Webb who resent their art being pigeonholed into the "Christian" category. CCM the magazine has been caught in the whirlpool of a sinking genre. I can only hope other elements of the subculture are sucked under as well.
May the death of CCM mark the re-emergence of biblically thoughtful, culturally savvy, artistically excellent music. The tide is turning! I'm off to go listen to some Sufjan.
posted by Bob | 6:27 PM
4 Comments:
but what if distancing oneself from a constructed "traditional" christian culture becomes the new trap? what if we just find ourselves defining the ideal christian life with a new set of parameters?
subtle sarcasm, carefully unkempt hair, untucked oxfords, and sad acoustic music
I'm inclined to join you in celebrating the death of bad taste, but don't we immediately face the same problems of pride and exclusion in championing a "new" Christianity.
I hope this is not taken as an attempt to in any way subvert or discourage our (joining God's) movement. I am excited to be a small part of this ministry, and these questions are genuinely interrogative.
I wonder what Keith Green would say about all this. I miss that guy - he was radical, truly. Let's say he was in the pre-subculture era, shall we?
Good Comment Micah,. .
Not to burst everyone's bubble, but Derek Webb is a part of the "major label" system just like anyone else. The reason he has been given the artistic freedom that he has, is because he can sell records with his profound, prophetic writing.
Does this devalue his art? No. . but let's not be idealists. To be in the music business means you have to sell records.
Although equally skeptical of many CCM things. . . I'm not sure I agree with this post.
I do agree that the tide is turning. . within CCM, and without.
Aaron
Micah: "Don't we immediately face the same problems of pride and exclusion in championing a 'new' Christianity?"
Sure, those will always be problems, because of indwelling sin. The point of the post wasn't really to champion a new Christianity, but to celebrate the death of a non-Christianity that has masqueraded as Christianity for a number of years.
Aaron, my view is that the creation of the "CCM" genre effectively lowered the artistic bar: no longer did you have to compete artistically, because if your music was about Jesus, Christians would buy it. I do not mean to bash all CCM artists. I do mean to say that we have done a disservice to the gospel by suggesting that the "Christian" standard for what is good and beautiful in the realm of music is LOWER than the secular standard.
I will be coming forth with a post soon that will make the case that beauty, especially in art, is objective. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Good music is NOT simply whatever the listener thinks is good. There are objective standards for beauty just like there are objective standards for truth and meaning. The CCM genre has done violence to that biblical worldview by conforming to pop culture instead of SHAPING culture.
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