Christian alternative music, the arty, but unheralded stepchild of contemporary Christian music, is pinning its hopes for industry acceptance on a new crop of singers and songwriters who are exploring the fringes of Christian faith.
“Alternative music is where contemporary Christian music was 15 years ago,” says John Styll, editor and publisher of CCM Magazine. “But people are accepting it faster. They’re coming to grips with what these bands are all about.”
In its early stages, contemporary Christian music was itself seen as an “alternative” to gospel and sacred music. The genre endured criticism for musically sounding too much like secular rock music.
Retailers and radio stations avoided contemporary Christian music initially, but it is now an industry-accepted category, with radio airplay on Christian and secular stations.
ART OR MINISTRY? Christian alternative artists as a group have focused on innovative music and imaginative song lyrics, rather than words and harmonies now familiar in contemporary Christian music.
While most contemporary Christian artists strive to be evangelistic, alternative artists show a greater willingness to experiment artistically as well as to compose songs about the dark side of life.
“When I was younger, I thought that I was supposed to make all of my songs like evangelistic tracts,” says Mike Roe, lead singer for the Seventy Sevens, a Christian alternative blues band.
“After a while, you don’t want your music to be just propaganda. You want it to stand outside of its context.”
John J. Thompson, manager of True Tunes, an alternative Christian music store in Wheaton, Illinois, complains that retailers and radio stations seem to determine a band’s ministry by the number of times it sings the word Jesus.
“[Producers] are taking this art and breaking it down into these inane little parts, trying to calculate how much ministry is in it,” says Thompson. “Sometimes retailers pass judgment on bands that they don’t deem as having ministry value without knowing anything about them.” Thus, Christian alternative artists find themselves weighing the relative merits of artistic or commercial success.
INSPIRING CONTROVERSY: Additional problems for Christian alternative musicians have emerged with record companies, retailers, and radio stations because alternative bands at times inspire controversy.
For example, Terry Taylor, lead singer of the alternative band Daniel Amos, says he has repeatedly had to fight for artistic freedom.
“Our goal was to reach an album where we didn’t have to say, ‘Oh, don’t put that in. It might offend somebody,’ ” he says. “The price was controversy, and our audience shrunk.”
Taylor’s band endured criticism from several Christian colleges over a song about hypocrisy titled “Hide the Beer, the Pastor’s Here.” Taylor says the schools are the locale for the song, but not the target.
Rejection by the Christian community would be easier to take if the music industry in general recognized the Christian alternative category, which it does not.
“The gospel is intrinsically offensive to people,” says Thompson. “People keep waiting for Mike Roe and the Seventy Sevens to make it, but I don’t see it happening unless they completely abandon all references to Christianity and reinvent themselves.”
Thompson, who also runs a record label, a coffeehouse, a band, and True Tunes News, the largest Christian alternative music magazine, says one Christian artist who has attempted to reinvent himself is Chistian alternative music pioneer Mike Knott. His album Aunt Bettys, released in August, contains enough profanity to keep Thompson’s own store from carrying it.
“It’s been the quandary for musicians ever since Larry Norman,” says Thompson, 26, referring to the legendary Christian rock singer-songwriter who spearheaded aggressive rock in the seventies. “They’re too holy for the world and too worldly for the church.”
PRODUCT ISN’T MOVING: No Christian alternative artist has yet found a way to maintain an artistic vision and achieve commercial success. Roe, who released four albums in the last six months, says, “I feel a lot of artistic freedom, but that implies economic chains. You either have a poetic life or a financially secure life.”
Sold largely in Christian bookstores where teens rarely shop, even the top Christian alternative bands do not sell as well as other genres of Christian music.
“The consumer for the music is not the end user,” says Bob Elder, senior music buyer for Family Bookstores, a chain of 183 stores. “It’s someone buying for someone else, like a mother, or a grandmother.”
As a result, they do not know what albums to buy but are dependent on the retailer to tell them what albums to buy.
Elder says that even though Family Bookstores “aggressively” stocks alternative music, “the product just isn’t moving off the shelves.”
Without significant in-store sales or a major presence on the airwaves to promote it, Christian alternative music remains in the shadows of contemporary Christian music.
The Gospel Music Association and CCM Magazine do not distinguish Christian alternative music from other forms of Christian rock. Some listeners consider popular rock bands like dc Talk or Jars of Clay as alternative, while others consider these groups Christian pop rock. “The term alternative has been diluted,” says Thompson. “But generally, it is music that makes you think, has depth, and is innovative.”
The lack of industry recognition places Christian alternative in a Catch-22 in which recognition will come with commercial success that itself is nearly impossible without industry recognition. So the Christian alternative artists’ message of realistic Christianity does not reach its potential national audience.
LISTENER RESPONSE: In spite of the difficulties confronting Christian alternative music, its artists take solace from a small but loyal following of young people who connect to the experience-based lyrics of Christian alternative rock.
“In revealing myself, people have responded overwhelmingly,” says Taylor. “As people have a feeling that I am being personal and real in my music, they feel they can be personal and real with me.” Taylor released two albums in August: Sacred Cows, a recording that pokes fun at Christian contemporary music, and a solo album titled John Wayne.
Without radio play or accessibility of albums, however, many fans of alternative music turn to other sources to find music that resonates with what they are feeling.
“Every second- or third-generation Christian kid’s record collection is at least half secular alternative music like Pearl Jam, because that music reflects more of their movement than contemporary Christian music,” says Marc Quattrochi, an executive with Christian alternative label Tattoo Records.
Yet Bill Malonee, lead for Vigilantes of Love, says that the music industry is not as unfriendly as some charge. After releasing three albums on a secular label and three independently, Vigilantes has secured airplay on secular alternative stations around the country, and at least one-fourth of the band’s following is non-Christian.
Malonee, wanting to make his music more available to Christians, has released a Vigilantes of Love compilation album with Christian label Warner Resound this month.
Malonee says there are many misconceptions about Christianity and Christian music within the secular music industry, but little outright bias. The mainstream has accepted Christian artists on secular labels, such as the Call, Bruce Cockburn, and U2, but it is less open to Christian artists on Christian labels.
The Christian music industry, on the other hand, is taking steps to make Christian alternative bands more marketable. “You want to reach young listeners because they’re your future customers,” says Family Bookstores’ Elder. “And they’re the ones who are going to decide the direction music will go.”
Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Last Updated: October 2, 1996
