I could have a lot to say about religion in general but this isn’t going to be the place for it. Also I typically talk about music on my review blog thing but this is more just breaking something down that I tend to perceive.
There are songs that mention God and Jesus, and there are songs about God and Jesus. I have to say, the former seems to have a lot more variety going, even if you discount the times where it’s used in vain. I’m not really a religious person, honestly more agnostic, but that doesn’t exactly have anything to do with my feelings about Christian music in general. My main hangup here is that it tends to not deviate much from a pattern. I know pop music tends to do the same, but this genre seems to deviate even less.
I know there’s things in there like rock and even rap, both genres probably thought to be of the devil before, but on the times I’ve had to listen to radio stations which specialize in it, it seems to just blend into this light airy pop sappy kinda thing where “praise Him” and “thank Him” are almost said as often as the word “the”. Just that for as long as the car ride lasts, because when I say “I’ve had to”, I mean that I’ve carpooled with people who just switch over to Christian radio or just seem to listen to that all the time and I’m polite enough to not just complain and ask to change the radio. I’ve sometimes had the urge to blast death metal while in such a situation. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would only listen to the oldies station. I later discovered a lot of the music from the era I grew up in a decade or more later, and some was good. However, the oldies are also varied and often good. I feel variety is important. I also feel pop music is pretty hit or miss these days and a lot of songs are just up there because they’re being paid to play them.
Now, I mention I’m not exactly religious, but I wouldn’t have a problem if the songs were good and also about God and Jesus in some way. I don’t really have anything against religion. It’s more against extremists, but that’s another topic. A lot of it is moral values, and I can agree with a bunch of those across several religions. It’s kinda like how I am about political parties, also a very controversial subject you shouldn’t bring up much. My complaint is that the songs seem to fall into something even more generic than pop, so branch from that, like some bands have, even in terms of the subject because religion has more than just praise for the deities, and you can get a good variety. I am fairly certain you can find Christian thrash metal with all of that screaming and growling, really, you have a lot of material to draw from, I’ve been told the Old Testament can be pretty hardcore.