pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

yeah I didn't like when they started to get tricky

haha, wow

In truth, Jesus Freak was a Nashville pop-rock record: impeccably performed and results-oriented. As with so many Music City productions, the collective CV of its players is boggling: Shania Twain, Reba McEntire, Jerry Jeff Walker, Scritti Politti.

great review

UMS, 2nd Chapter of Acts were first introduced to me via the instagram of Carly Ptak. The bridge to this track (running in circles/running in circles) was playing in the background of some video she filmed, and I became obsessed with them for a month or so. Have a bunch of their records now lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agUnLvQNQX0

Though I think Ocean Liner is a bit better tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHFwggBzIrQ

Going to revive the CCM thread, sorry y'all.

All this CCM fetishization is way less fun when you didn't grow up in a nigh-abusive christian 80s milieu. Fuck these asshats.

or way more fun, whatever

my straight-up abusive (psychologically, if you ask me) christian 80s milieu had a country band that kind of sounded like the flying burrito brothers, during their better songs. i've never heard CCM. but yeah, if they were ever played at any jesus camp (maybe i've heard them there) while some kid finally gives in to the pressure and sacrifices his life to a megachurch, or turning point usa or anything in that nexus, then yes, fuck these asshats 4 life.

had no idea sixpence none the richer were a ccm act before the jesus freak review, but i guess i wasn't aware of anything by them except "kiss me"

I don't think I actually knew that but just assumed. There was a Lilith Fair-adjacent subgenre of Jesus music that all the girls in my grade with convertibles were really into and Sixpence was definitely in the CD rotation.

sixpence's faith background was written about quite a bit at the time, iirc, but never with the letters "ccm" attached. the phrases "christian rock" and "ccm" were the kiss of death for anyone who wanted to be played on mainstream pop/rock radio, and artists and labels knew to avoid them at all costs if that was their goal. you could cover gospel songs and talk about your savior jesus christ all you wanted, but if you got labeled with either of the magic phrases, your mainstream radio career was over. that, at least, is my memory of the time.

I believe that it was a common clause in a lot of recording contracts at that time that artists that had been signed as mainstream acts were forbidden to "go gospel".

This passage from a 2004 John Jeremiah Sullivan essay comes to mind.

The fact that I didn't think I heard a single interesting bar of music from the forty or so acts I caught or overheard at Creation shouldn't be read as a knock on the acts themselves, much less as contempt for the underlying notion of Christians playing rock. These were not Christian bands, you see; these were Christian rock bands. The key to digging this scene lies in that one syllable distinction. Christian rock is a genre that exists to edify and make money off of evangelical Christians. It's message music for listeners who know the message cold, and, what's more, it operates under a perceived responsibility—one the artists embrace—to "reach people." As such, it rewards both obviousness and maximum palatability (the artists would say clarity), which in turn means parasitism. Remember those perfume dispensers they used to have in pharmacies—"If you like Drakkar Noir, you'll love Sexy Musk" Well, Christian rock works like that. Every successful crappy secular group has its Christian offbrand, and that's proper, because culturally speaking, it's supposed to serve as a standin for, not an alternative to or an improvement on, those very groups. In this it succeeds wonderfully. If you think it profoundly sucks, that's because your priorities are not its priorities; you want to hear something cool and new, it needs to play something proven to please…while praising Jesus Christ. That's Christian rock. A Christian band, on the other hand, is just a band that has more than one Christian in it. U2 is the emplar, held aloft by believers and nonbelievers alike, but there have been others through the years, bands about which people would say, "Did you know those guys were Christians I know—it's freaky. They're still fuckin' good, though." The Call was like that; Lone Justice was like that. These days you hear it about indie acts like Pedro the Lion and Damien Jurado (or P.O.D. and Evanescence—de gustibus). In most cases, bands like these make a very, very careful effort not to be seen as playing "Christian rock." It's largely a matter of phrasing Don't tell the interviewer you're born again; say faith is a very important part of your life. And here, if I can drop the openminded pretense real quick, is where the stickier problem of actually being any good comes in, because a question that must be asked is whether a hardcore Christian who turns 19 and finds he or she can write first rate songs (someone like Damien Jurado) would ever have anything whatsoever to do with Christian rock. Talent tends to come hand in hand with a certain base level of subtlety. And believe it or not, the Christian rock establishment sometimes expresses a kind of resigned approval of the way groups like U2 or Switchfoot (who played Creation while I was there and had a monster secular radio hit at the time with "Meant to Live" but whose management wouldn't allow them to be photographed onstage) take quiet pains to distance themselves from any unambiguous Jesus loving, recognizing that this is the surest way to connect with the world (you know that's how they refer to us, right We're "of the world"). So it's possible—and indeed seems likely—that Christian rock is a musical genre, the only one I can think of, that has excellence-proofed itself.

Not sure I agree with that, but in the end that has more to do with genre distinctions, Christian sectarianism, stadium faith vs. private faith, etc.

I have never heard the term “CCM” before.

switchfoot have always had way stronger ties to the christian rock scene than say, u2, who just happen to be a very successful band that occasionally mention their faith in their lyrics

been checking out the All Saves Freak Band, house band of this early 70s Christian cult, pretty cool, def that feral hippie vibe

all SaveD

That essay def jibes with my experience of Xian rock when I was 13-14, bands were always presented to us as "oh you like Metallica? You should just listen to [Xian band] instead! They are exactly the same and you won't go to hell!"

The way it was always smuggled in as "normal music" profoundly creeped me out when I was a kid and still makes my skin crawl to this day

A buddy of mine in high school worked at some big Christian chain bookstore that sold those product parody T-shirts with Christian logos and slogans and had a pretty big music section that was exactly predicated on that RIYL model. I particularly remember a sign saying "Like 'Gangsta Rap'? You'll like...". There was a also a sizable Christian ska/punk section.

Xian ska is a whole thing, the band/theatre kid pipeline to ska was equally prevalent in Xian circles it seemed like

The existence of Christian ska made me think that Five Iron Frenzy were a bigger deal than they actually were.

The existence of Christian ska makes me think Satan is Real.

i was a heavy ska fan in high school and for the xian kids it was some of the only music i was into that they'd latch onto, even secular stuff. something about the midwestern band geek/christian kid axis i think

I definitely got the full-court press on listening to Petra a few times in sunday school

Had a friend in high school with a Spazz-styke grindcore band, they had a song titled "All the Kids Who Listen to Ska Get Good Grades and Are in Lots of After-School Activities." The Xian ska thing definitely checks out.

hopefully, in true grindcore fashion, the song is shorter than the time it takes to say its full title

"You guys like Ska? You wanna come to a party on Friday?"

voodoo chili, believe so.

their best song was the anti-emo "Whining About Your Pain Only Makes Us Hate You More."

Their name was Affirmative Action Jackson. Still have the demo. lol.

Aside from a few matinees in Deep Ellum, Christians had a local monopoly on all ages shows, so whatever your beliefs or musical tastes you were eventually going to end up at a Christian ska/punk/industrial/thrash show.

i will go to bat for a few ccm-related tracks as some of my all-time favs, including "crush on you" by the jets and "baby baby" by amy grant.

the jets are tongan-american and mormon. there is a very weird history of mini-colonialism going on in the mormon faith involving people in places like tonga and american samoa that really hit it off with missionaries' bizarre message and people who converted partially because they saw a better life in fromt of them afaict. anyway, that's my mormon/jets bullet point which i'm sure i've shared several other times on this board.

i would read the hell out of a deep ethnography of mormon-associated pop culture but as far as i'm aware the venn diagram of 'people with a mormon background who have access to the ins and outs of the culture and are experts on it' and 'people who are insightful cultural critics' is vanishingly small.

also, on the other hand, maybe i wouldn't, because the objections coming from people who have experienced trauma because of these cultures also applies to me.

i did listen to jesus freak w/apologies to the big man in the sky that album is ass

https://i.imgflip.com/5ihtyc.jpg

Holy shit, I didn't know about the Jets. "Crush on You" is one of my favorites of its kind.

Once in the late 80s (before the whole "christian version of X" band was a thing) we were skateboarding outside a church that happened to have a big regional youth group thing going on. A couple of the kids came out to proselytize to us.

They asked what kind of music we listened to, so we told them that we liked Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Misfits, NWA, Ice-T, etc. They were extremely pleased that we didn't mention any 'bad' bands like Judas Priest or AC/DC, then started talking about how Stryper and Petra were great.

looool

"what music do you listen to, fellow youths?"

"Bathory. only Bathory."

"...oh yeah, Bathory! well, just stay away from that Judas Priest!"

All hail Ka.

Oh wow that's fucking awesome, so well deserved for an artist who's been so great for so long

that's a good review, i've been meaning to listen to him!

in this $uicideboy$ review:

Three 6 Mafia used the imagery of slashers and demonic possession to express their condition as inhabitants of a society in which they had little to no power over their lives due to racial and economic oppression.

idk did they? i kinda figured they just thought that stuff sounded cool.

I didn't even know about the new album, can't seem to find it (yet).

the ka album is only available to buy from his website for now, getting a wider release eventually though i think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOdf3etKNyE

guess I missed that 96-21 poll, though narrowing down beyond the obvious All for You / Adam & Eve / Embrya / Blackheart / I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One top five was seeming impossible anyway. hopefully the lone Catherine Wheel vote came from elsewhere?

definitely worth buying if you liked his previous stuff, especially last year's album.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/baby-keem-kendrick-lamar-family-ties/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6HBZC9pZHQ

He embarks on an extended ramble, zeroing in on phrases like, “I am the omega, pgLang, Rollie gang, S.I.E.,” and, “I’m not a trending topic, I’m a prophet,” sounding increasingly unhinged with each bar. He reaches for a bizarre Hulk Hogan impression, distorting his voice as he finishes multiple lines with “brother.”

this doesn't really sound at all like he's trying to be hulk hogan to me, and it feels pretty..um..not great to assume an african american person using the word "brother" which has a pretty long history is imitating a pro wrestler (who's actually a big racist too)

Pitchfork isn't the only place calling it a Hulk imitation

yeah I guess I'm not 100%, but they can be wrong too. I dunno maybe i'm wrong

It's like when Liam Gallagher reached for that bizarre Hank Kingsley impression on "Hey Now!"

It's not particularly good is the thing

i've warmed up to his dumb arm swinging