Contemporary Christian Music: 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond

This Japanese label Cool Sounds reissues obscure AOR on CD, a lot of which looks sorta hip.. but there’s also a ton of 80s Christian AOR, some of which I presume is funky or w/e… I think it’s interesting how this stuff codes totally icky and beyond redemption to me but people in Japan don’t have the baggage with Christianity that western listeners have so it’s not an obstacle to hipness.. idk please flag me if I’m being offensive.

https://www.discogs.com/label/142531-Cool-Sound

Thanks brimstead! Gonna check some of that out. Any that you know of?

Ok lol I just made an ass out of myself and accidentally posted this on the politics thread:

I’ve really only tipped my toe into the secular stuff..
some of the christian stuff weirds me out a bit…like this one:

https://www.discogs.com/master/353648-Bob-Pauline-Wilson-Somebody-Loves-You

I forgot to mention that a lot of it is Hawaiian.. there’s some random stuff like this private press smooth funky Tender Leaf lp from1982

https://www.discogs.com/release/3083994-Tender-Leaf-Tender-Leaf

This next album is/was a pretty sought after yacht lp, “tropic lightning” rules:

https://www.discogs.com/release/6521508-Mike-Lundy-The-Rhythm-Of-Life

I’m fascinated by the demo compilations of would-be Andrew Golds or whatever.. Chris Rainbow.. things like this:

https://www.discogs.com/release/7426820-David-Lasley-Demos

A lot of stuff where it’s like, I’m just a little too trepidatious to start looking into 80s sweatshirt Jesus guys

https://www.discogs.com/release/7612914-Michael-James-Murphy-Surrender

Phil Keaggy (can't be from NE Ohio and not listen to him in some form, whether this or Glass Harp)

― Marco YOLO (Phil D.), Monday, July 30, 2012 10:24 AM (ten years ago)

He was big in central Kentucky, too. One of my guitar-geek friends wore a Keaggy t-shirt to school in the early-'90s, leading a teacher to confront him because she thought it was the name of a brand of bourbon (to be fair, it did have his name in some Olde-English typeface)! Whenever we saw other classmates at parties, it was a fun running joke to ask "I see you have Maker's Mark, but that's 'mixing bourbon'. Where's the good stuff, WHERE's THE PHIL KEAGGY?", or "Dude, sorry I didn't get back to you, I had a fifth of Phil Keaggy and was too fucked up to make it to practice", "Yeah, you gotta watch that Keaggy, shit'll knock you into next week!"

I'm guessing the non-drinkable guitarist version of Keaggy would not be too pleased with such risque silliness, although I could see him getting a chuckle out of the original mix-up.

brimstead, the Michael James Murphy record you mention is pretty standard white boy soul/R&B of the mid-80s variety. He has a nice voice.

"Tropic Lightning" is fucking JAM tho, wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDJdfx9q2rg