Do You Like Good Music?, Or, The Things I Thought Ten Years Ago

I wrote this post in February of 2012 during a season in which my views on music were being personally challenged by members of the church I was on staff at. This post was the way that I chose to process that critique and when it went public it hurt the people that I was in dialog with: even though it doesn’t mention them personally they felt like I was broadcasting the disagreement behind their back. So, I took it down. I realized recently that it was still in my drafts folder and have decided that there has been enough time and space from that situation to publish it with a clean conscience.

Disagreements over art in the Christian world are interesting.  What makes good art, what kinds of art should we let influence us, and how exactly does art influence us? The most interesting perspective to me is that of the artist.  I follow a lot of Christian musicians on Twitter, and I think without exception, they have all at one point or another made a comment about art in the mainstream environment.  "Xxx's new album is great!" "Going to see Xxx in concert tonight, can't wait!" "You have to check out Xxx's new single." etc.  The fact is, people who want to make great art seek out great art to influence them wherever they can find it.  In my experience, the worldview of the artist, in general, doesn't really factor in to whether or not a musician values another musician’s musical contributions.

The interesting thing about the best of our "Christian" versions of art is that it rips off the music, from the mainstream, that has gone before it.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  That's the way art works.  It grows, it evolves, but it's one person building on the genius of another.  If our Christian artists were so concerned about mainstream art as some of their fans are, I guarantee their music would be much less appealing.

Art is a free market commodity.  Any time there is a cap placed on it, it suffers.  This is akin to monopoly in the corporate world.  When there is only one manufacturer of a given product, that manufacturer has very little motivation to make his product better.  When a direct competitor springs up, both companies fight for the same customers, and the quality of the product goes up (or the price goes down).  Art works the same way.  In an environment with little or no competition, there is little reason to improve.

This plays out personally (if I'm the best singer in the church, why would I take voice lessons?) as well as in the larger market place.  If the Christian consumer simply purchases music with a fish on the label, and the Christian artist is accepted as contributing positively to the medium if they simply bring praise to God in their lyrics, the art is stagnant.  However, if Christian artists and consumers of art are all present in the same market as the rest of the world, consumers will learn to distinguish good art from bad, and artists will be forced to make the best art possible to earn the support of the consumer.

Like I mentioned earlier, that's what most quality Christian artists do.  They learn and grow from the larger art world, not the somewhat ingrown Christian bubble.  When I was younger, before I began to realize this, it used to bother me that my favorite Christian artists named "secular" artists as influences.  Some of my favorite Christian bands listened to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Queen.  I have since come to realize that the very reason I enjoy these artists' music is because they allowed themselves to be shaped by the greats of the 60s and 70s.  Had they cited these guys as influences, I probably would not have been listening to their music in the first place.

So, I guess the point of this post is, if you want good Christian music in the world in which we live, you have to accept that your favorite Christian artists glean from the culture at large.  If they didn't, it wouldn't be too long before everyone was tired of listening to it.