I've ridiculed the "pop punk" music set more than a few times - often with eminently good cause. These guys do an especially poor job trying to deal with larger themes, which makes them frequent targets for hilarious sendups by MuchMusic TV's Ed the Sock (for a treat, go to YouTube and enter "ed the sock" fromage).
The genre has produced some good music, however, and on the whole I'd have to say that its existence has left pop music better off. Not hard, I know, but every little bit helps.
Anyway, some of you who went to see Relient K's Christmas video yesterday may have noticed another Gotee Records vid called "In the Valley of the Dying Sun," by House of Heroes. I thought it was a nice exception to the "large themes/poor job" inverse rule. Perhaps not a surprise, in this case - you don't see may artists outside of the explicitly Christian genre explaining that biblical references helped contribute to their latest song.
"Perhaps not a surprise, in this case - you don't see may artists outside of the explicitly Christian genre explaining that biblical references helped contribute to their latest song."
So true. I remember having an argument years ago with a friend that insisted the band Live should be classified as Christian Rock because of their lyrics on their album Throwing Copper (probably the most underrated album of the 90s imo).
I think that mindset is unfortunate, but I will say the christian rock movement is culpable for delluging every song, verse, and phrase with religion. I get that its the genre, but come on, can't a song or two just be mostly about Jesus instead of entirely? There are some really good song writers and musicians in that movement, but it feels so stifled to me. It would be like John Lennon singing about nothing but anti-war songs album after album. One 'Give Peace a Chance' is already one too many.
Someone was quick on the draw in nailing the spam post before Mark's. Thanks!
MB: Live is a great band, and 'Throwing Copper' is one of my all time favorite albums, but Christian band they are not.
My understanding is that the band members, or at least Ed Kowalczyk, was a Buddhist.
In any event, the Christian references in 'Throwing Copper' generally do not throw Christianity in a good light, or else are out right sacriledgious.
One of the things that I've discovered over the years is that Christian culture is diminished enough in the mainstream, that most people can't tell when a song is Christian and when it isn't. For example, I've also had someone ask me whether Live was a Christian band - presumably because they mention 'Christ' without a leading profanity. At the same time, I've knew alot of people who were really surprised to find out Creed was a Christian band, and the Rolling Stone magazine's review of Creed's first album - which utterly failed to pick up on Creed's pro-Christian undertones - struck me as extremely funny in it's cluelessness inability to tell when someone was using the language of belief or non-belief. It wasn't even like Rolling Stone could complain that they couldn't hear the lyrics or had never paid them any attention - they had clearly read them and still didn't pick up things I considered to be pretty overt.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I find your complaint to quite relevant to the bands at hand. I find 'Christian Punk' really odd to listen to at times just because it's not dripping with overt Christian references on every line and with its wailing and tortured sounding vocals its nearly indistinguishable to listen to than secular music. Even when Christian rock isn't necessarily dripping with Christ references - say 'Dog Named David' or some of 'Jars of Clay' - I'm used to it having a particular tonal quality, which for the lack of a better term is 'positive', which signals the presence of the sacred.
One thing I find really interesting lately is the movement of sacred religious music into the secular precisely because that particular tonal quality is otherwise absent in popular music. On many occassions lately, I've found myself flipping past a TV program and hearing familiar chords or lyrics of some Christian ballad being recast as a secular song of sadness, mourning, or love presumably for lack of a comparably themed non-religious bit of background music.
Jars of Clay and Creed are good counterpoints. Maybe i'm just a cynic. You make a great point about the space open to Christian Rock these days. Music has gotten so far away from anything melodic there is certainly room. If somebody can show up and sound like Muse or Brand New they can talk about god all they like as far as i'm concerned.