After 17 years of professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from all new music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order, to take stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs.
"The Glory Of Man" by Minutemen
Nashville is both the capital of country music and the base of operations for a large number of Contemporary Christian labels and bands, many of them populated by gung-ho folks who first came to town to study music (and the music business) at Belmont University. People are drawn to CCM for a variety of reasons: some because it may seem easier to break through and find a fan base in CCM than in the broader industry; some because they grew up with the genre and have a fannish interest; some because they come from strict church-going families and want to explore their passion for secular popular culture without upsetting their parents; and some because they're genuinely devout, and want to explore their personal relationship with the Lord in a format that'll reach a built-in audience.
During the half-decade or so that I covered the local music beat in Nashville, I talked to a few songwriters and musicians who were exiles from the CCM industry. They'd served time in bands and in the songwriting mills (sitting in suburban office parks with other songwriters, banging out bright, shiny praise songs by the sheaf), and they'd found the whole experience disillusioning. Off the record during interviews, they'd tell me how originality was frowned upon in CCM, and how their songs went through a rigorous editing process by their bosses, to make sure that that they adhered to the same sonic formula as everything else on the radio, and to make sure there weren't any lyrics that could be misconstrued as blasphemous, glib, or—worst of all—expressing any kind of doubt.
"God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" by Moby
I grew up in the Bible belt, and have had ample opportunity to observe what I call "The Snackwells Effect" of religious-themed entertainment. Ignoring the old admonition about "be ye not conformed to this world," most Christian music, Christian TV, Christian videogame or Christian movie producers tout how indistinguishable their product is from the real thing. ("We spared no expense!" they'll say. "This looks like a real movie!" their audiences testify.) Many's the time I've flipped past a Christian-themed cartoon or a Christian radio station and have been momentarily confused by what I've stumbled on. And usually, what tips me off isn't the proselytizing, but the style. Just as a dietetic cookie often tastes too sweet, Christian entertainment often packs too much visceral oomph. The images on the screen are too clean and bright, and the music too boosted-up and busy. (Not unlike Radio Disney, but with more references to "Him" and "He.") Our local Christian pop station repeatedly touts their motto "Positive, Encouraging," and while I'll occasionally dial it up for 20 minutes or so in my car—just for the novelty of hearing something different—eventually the relentlessly upbeat tone starts to feel too forced. I start to get hungry for music that's negative, discouraging.
"God Been Good To Me" by Mighty Walker Brothers
Having said that, I should add that I also resent the way the mainstream media tends to treat religion in America as a curiosity (or worse). I watched the premiere episode of The Secret Life Of The American Teenager on ABC Family a few weeks ago, and mixed in among the regular cast of ten or so teens were two had been tagged as "The Christians." Now, one-to-five may be a higher ratio of Christian-to-heathen than most high school soaps allow, but it still seems rigged, and out of touch. I've never attended a school in my life—college included—in which the majority of students weren't self-identified Christians. And out of that majority, only a handful were in the Young Life/True Love Waits/Campus Crusade crowd; the rest were casually religious folks who largely confined their faith to Sunday mornings, summer camps and saying grace before dinner. Oddly enough, The Simpsons frequently offers the truest depiction on TV of how religion and the American way of life intersect on a daily basis—not just because it features a cast of characters with diverse beliefs, but because those beliefs are portrayed as a routine part of everyone's weekly rituals.
When it comes to religion in music, I prefer artists who deal with their beliefs (and doubts) as one topic among many—who focus on originality and/or authentic personal expression, instead or working to marry a carefully vetted message to a market-tested sound. Barring that, I want my religious entertainment to be odd and funky. Give me low-budget gospel or spooky blues or jaunty klezmer music or something else completely outside the mainstream in its style and content. Give me something that emerges from a culture of its own. Give me a cookie that doesn't look or taste like every other cookie.
"Jesus Is On The Mainline" by Mississippi Fred McDowell
I'd say the same of patriotic music, or any song that tries to convey a direct political message (regardless of whether it's coming from the left or right). Bob Dylan irritated the old guard in the hootenanny scene when he started writing songs that weren't all about social justice and honoring traditional forms, and 15 years later annoyed the rock crowd when he started singing about Jesus. Yet Dylan's body of work as a whole paints a fuller picture of the human experience than the complete works of The Weavers or The Staple Singers (both of whom are wonderful in their own way). As much as I appreciate the blunt political diatribes of artists like Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked, to me one of the best political songs ever recorded is Midnight Oil's "The Dead Heart," which tackles colonialism from the perspective of the colonized, utilizing a sound that's at once triumphant and melancholy, in order to convey the emotions of a people who'd rather not be seen as mere victims. "The Dead Heart" has a straightforward message, but a complex presentation (unlike the same album's "Beds Are Burning," which is so didactic that it wears out its welcome.)
"The Dead Heart" by Midnight Oil
In the end, I'm more likely to listen to someone's opinions about global warming or the epistles of Paul if I also know a little something about what kind of food they crave, which is their favorite baseball team, and how much trouble they had getting their first marriage to work. Messages and music alike are more effective when they're presented by well-rounded human beings, not fervor-bots who've sublimated their selves in the name of some higher calling. I'm not opposed to Christian Rock in theory—or even in practice, in a few cases. But more often than not, "Christian rock" has as much in common with actual rock as Turkish Star Wars has with the actual Star Wars.
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Pieces Of The Puzzle
Michael Franks/Michael Hedges
Years Of Operation 1973-present/1974-97
Fits Between Al Stewart and Rupert Holmes/Will Ackerman and Leo Kotke
"The Lady Wants To Know" by Michael Franks
"Layover" by Michael Hedges
Personal Correspondence At some point in the mid-'80s, my dad started taking an interest in jazz, but only inasmuch as it intersected with music he already liked and understood. He wasn't taking a trip with Ornette Coleman, in other words; he liked the light jazz-fusion guys and the singer-songwriters with jazzy inflections, like Michael Franks. Meanwhile, my mom and stepfather were getting into New Age music. They had zero interest in crystals or healing or freeform pan-flute solos, but they dug the collected output of Windham Hill, and we spent a lot of time in the family sedan grooving to Shadowfax and Michael Hedges. In both cases, I found my parents' new pursuits to be a welcome change of pace from the bluegrass and classic rock my dad usually listened to and the sappy adult contemporary my mom tended to play. Franks I liked because he was like a smarter, more light-fingered variation on the radio-ready soft rock of the late '70s; and Hedges I liked because he had such strong musicianship, and because at his best—as on the practically perfect instrumental LP Breakfast In The Field—he had the capacity to create something so pristine and natural-sounding that it left me agape. I had some friends in high school—my drama class pals, mainly—who bought into New Age beyond the music, and I spent the occasional Saturday night enduring some dreary ritual at a downtown crystal shop, or nursing the one glass of soda I could afford at a local riverside café that hosted acoustic acts. The funny thing is, that café—Windows On The Cumberland, for my fellow Nashvillians—was also a regular haunt of my mom and stepdad when they went out. Our paths never crossed there—probably because I was following behind them.
Enduring presence? My jazzy/woodsy/folky phase didn't survive senior year of high school, and to be honest, I can only take Michael Franks now in very small doses. His urbane sophistication now seems kind of small-city to me—Cincinnati, not New York. Hedges though, I still like so much that I even enjoy his sometimes cringe-inducingly sincere vocal album Watching My Life Go By. I saw Hedges in concert when I was in college, about six years before he died. I hadn't bought any of his albums since high school, and I went more or less for nostalgia's sake. I'm glad I did—Hedges was an authentic entertainer, as ingratiating as he was virtuosic.
Michael Jackson
Years Of Operation 1972-present (solo)
Fits Between Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder
"Rock With You" by Michael Jackson
Personal Correspondence It may be hard to believe now, after all his career and personal missteps, but in the early '80s, Michael Jackson was one of the few pop phenomena that almost nobody hated. He was the E.T. of pop stars: as sweet-natured as he was culturally and technically groundbreaking, and with the instincts of an old-fashioned entertainer. I had a copy of Thriller—it was practically issued to children back then, like polio shots—and even though I was more into album rock than Top 40, I admired the album's hooks and diversity, and the bubbly keyboards of Greg Phillinganes (the record's unsung hero). By the time Bad came out, the tide was already starting to turn. What had seemed calculated but in a smart and generous way on Thriller now seemed too cold and clamorous. (In Jackson's defense, that's pretty much how all music sounded in 1987.) The exorbitantly priced tickets and relentless merchandising of The Jacksons' Victory tour hadn't helped; nor had the ubiquitous Pepsi commercials. People even started suggesting that Thriller wasn't all it was touted to be, and that Off The Wall was Jackson's real masterpiece. (I'm inclined to agree with that, actually; maybe it's a simple case of over-saturation, but I'd rather hear "Rock With You" than any song on Thriller right now.) I never bought Bad, and haven't bought any Jackson album since Thriller, aside from a couple of anthologies. In a way, the Thriller experience—which took almost five years to play out—made the idea of ever buying another Jackson album seem ludicrous. Michael Jackson's music was everywhere in the '80s, so who needed to own a physical copy? It would be like buying bottled water. (Oh wait…)
Enduring presence? Thriller had its big anniversary reissue rlier this year, accompanied by a lot of think pieces about whether the album holds up. It's almost impossible for me to judge, frankly, because I've heard those songs so much that I can't really take them in with fresh ears. I do still like "P.Y.T." and "Human Nature," for what that's worth, and the guitar solo in "Beat It" still prompts a little twinge of nostalgia, amid memories of what that rock/R&B crossover meant back when the song was released. Jackson receives—and deserves—a lot of credit for crossing the invisible color lines at MTV and rock radio, and probably did as much as hip-hop to integrate mainstream popular culture. But at the same time, I can't help feeling partly responsible for Jackson's downfall, because I chuckled and smirked along with everyone else at all the jokes about his bizarre behavior, and I get the feeling that someday, after Jackson's gone and his kids write memoirs and we get the full story of what went down at Neverland and who got hurt by it, we're all going to wonder why we found this tortured freak and his reported perversions so funny. It's an American tragedy, honestly.
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