I ran across a nice article on the history of Christian rock featuring a rundown of some of the bigger acts on the scene:
It is hard to imagine anyone who likes Billy Joel or Paul Simon not enjoying Steven Curtis Chapman’s musical style. Chapman is to pop music what The Waltons was to television: he has a sweet, homey and nostalgic sound. His songs have strong melodies and catchy hooks like songs from the 1960s, and they are sung with warmth and tenderness.
BeBe and CeCe Winans are an African-American duo (brother and sister) who draw on both gospel and R&B roots to craft polished recordings that showcase their impressive vocal abilities. CeCe is Christian music’s Whitney Houston, and Houston has cited CeCe as “my personal favorite singer.” BeBe recently shook up the Christian music world with allegations of racism in the industry, accompanied by hints that he might abandon ship for a career in the general market. He told CCM magazine, “It’s more difficult to be raped by people who are supposed to be kindred spirits than by people who don’t know who Jesus is.
Jars of Clay has a less commercial sound that appeals to “alternative rock” fans drawn to groups like R.E.M. or Matchbox Twenty. The band has enjoyed some crossover success in the secular market. Its first album went double platinum with astonishing sales of over 2 million copies (making it one of the best-selling albums of 1996). The band’s third disc was chosen by Playboy as Album of the Month. (Its fourth album, Eleventh Hour, was reviewed in the April 24-May 1 CENTURY.)
D.C. Talk is a vibrant, racially integrated group that has been on the cutting edge of the rock industry. Its best song, “Jesus Freak,” is now a standard of modern rock. The first-ever wedding of rap and grunge, it succeeded in winning over many general market broadcasters — even Rolling Stone magazine loved it, though it ridiculed the lyrics. Often loud and brash, D.C. Talk can also be soulful and sensitive. In “What If I Stumble?” singer Toby McKeehan reflects upon his celebrity status: “What if I stumble? What if I fall? What if I go and make fools of us all?”
One of the biggest success stories in recent Christian music is the rapcore trio P.O.D. (short for Payable On Death). “Rapcore” is a relatively new style of music that sets rapped lyrics (usually screamed) to the sounds of heavy metal; it is not for the faint of heart. P.O.D. is good at it, though the group has received little support from the Christian music industry and quite a bit of criticism when it toured each year as part of the “Ozzfest,” a raucous rock festival headlined by one of conservative Christianity’s worst nightmares, Ozzy Osbourne. Over the years, the blatantly Christian band screamed its way into the hearts of rowdy crowds, and by 2002 it had sold millions of albums and become one of the hottest acts in the land. Suddenly P.O.D. was on the cover of HM magazine and was featured in the more cautious CCM, where the trio copped a bit of an attitude: “Oh yeah! Now you down with P.O.D.! Where was you before?”
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