Music About God

Stryper: The Yellow N' Black Attack in full effect

A secret pleasure of mine is church music. I'm actually not referring to the lone organist tinkling a little ivory. Rather, the "new age" church band that often features a guitarist, pianist, and assorted other instruments. When they add the drums though, I'm out. But I very much enjoy a good band singing songs of praise to God (I swear I'm not being sarcastic). For one thing, the songs are usually very infectious with strong melodies. This makes a lot of sense - after thousands of years only the best songs make it into a hymnal. I often walk away from church with a smile on my face thinking those guys rocked.

So I often wonder - why is mainstream Christian music so awful? To make my point, I've gone into a little detail about a few of the most popular Christian rock acts of the last 20 years. As you'll probably see, they all really suck. Is this really the best we can do? And please point out if I'm missing some legitimately good bands:

• Stryper - This band may be before your time. But they were the preeminent Christian rock band of the '80s. For some reason they dressed like bees and talked about fighting the devil in God's name - they nicknamed themselves the Yellow N' Black Attack. The most startling thing about these guys were they were popular. At a time when the rock genre was dominated by chauvistic rock by guys in spandex and big hair, these guys sang about God. And they were constantly in the Dial MTV Countdown. I will give them some props - "To Hell With the Devil" did rock in my suburban adolescent world. But the song "Honestly" was a huge pile of crap as were all post-Hell albums. Overall, I would say they were just better than Dokken, which is not a good thing.
• Amy Grant - For the longest time she WAS the face of Christian music. It was definitely better than having Michael Sweet (Stryper singer) as the face - I'll give Amy some cuteness props. She did have a few hits in the late '80s/early '90s such as "Baby Baby" and "Next Time I Fall" (with Peter Cetera). But I dare anyone to tell me those songs were good. I can not envision a scenario where those songs would come on the radio and I would not immediately change the channel. Once again, awful music made in the name of God.
• Creed - Holy Crap!!! Total suckfest!!! With almost any other band I'll allow some indiscretion - you should see all the '80s hair bands I once listened to. But sometimes you have to draw a line and I draw that line with Creed. To be blunt, I can never be friends with anyone who ever liked Creed. They sucked so much it just says too many negative things about you if you ever liked them. If some smoking hot chick was naked and put on Creed, I would leave. Even if she mentioned the name Creed, I would leave - unless there was a chance she was referring to Apollo Creed. I secretly believe Creed was working for Satan by making the worst music possible. It had to have turned off millions of people from God.

Does God get mad at these awful musicians who make music in his name? Or does God actually prefer bad music? I like to believe that God has good taste in music, which is why Keith Richards will easily get into heaven.

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