Something Tom said in his blog tickled my writer's fancy. He was mentioning how excited he gets when he hears Christian artists on secular radio. That used to excite me, too. Only I got so into it that I found out that lots of Christian people are already on the radio. Even if I don't agree with their lifestyles or choices of vocabulary, they claim to be followers of JC, and so it became fascinating for me to do the research. Eventually, my favorite artists were artists whose music was "touched" by the HS and it ministered to me in a new way that Christian music never had before. I was listening to artists whose intention was to make music, and when the subject of God or Christ came up, it wasn't because they were trying to convert people with their songs, and it wasn't music for sale with the intent of uniting believers in worship (a concept that still really bothers me). The songs were just actual thoughts of how God relates to them. You see humanity's hunger for God in in all sorts of shapes and sizes. People who ask the honest questions about God. Artists who explore other perspectives than those held by Sparrow Music or Forefront Records. You'd find artists who are artists for the sake art who happen to be believers. They say weird things. Not churchy things. Not always good things. Always honest things. Always challenging things for the complacent believer to hear.
So here is my listening list for the believers who rock, and actually make decent art to boot.
U2, Switchfoot, Lifehouse, Dashboard Confessional, Lenny Kravitz, MXPX, Blink 182 (seriously), Jimmy Eat World, The Juliana Theory, Chevelle, Sixpence None The Richer, R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige, 12 Stones, Creed, Alter Bridge, Evanescence, P.O.D., Accedental Experiment, ZWAN, Billy Corgan (again, seriously), Unwritten Law, Alice Cooper, Johnny Cash, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean (therefore, the Fugees) King's X, M.C. Hammer, Mario Winans, Mase, DMX, and others. I'm looking forward to hearing the new group, Big Dismal from Wind-up Records, the label that produces Creed, Alter Bridge, Evanescence, and Scott Stapp (of Creed). Kid Rock was recently interviewed in Rolling Stone and stated that he was looking for a church that he and his son could attend in the Detroit Area near his new home. What do you do with that? I don't know really. Is the music necessarily "Christian"? Not really. But it is valuable. It is useful. And it is art. It is pure expression. Credit for that.