A positive blog post
From Ruth, a.k.a. anduril05’s LiveJournal:
Along with looking at CCM, Beaujon took a shot at the parallel universe of praise/worship music, as well. Once again, not much quality musicianship there, but he saw a few streams of light poking out in some acts. He attended a few conferences, interviewed some artists, did a ton of research, and came out with a well-balanced look on the entire contemporary Christian world. I also appreciated the fact that he jumped over to the culture. He attended a pro-life rally in Washington DC, Calvin College’s “Festival of Faith and Music” and a handful of worship services.
One of Ruth’s commenters asked to borrow her copy (NO!!!!!!); another said s/he was interested in reading my buddy Andy Greenwald’s book about emo, Nothing Feels Good, as well. True story: After I finished the book, I said one thing to the missus about the cover— “Gee, I hope it’s not gonna be a picture of a teenager wearing a T-shirt with the title on it like Andy’s book.”
Sigh.
July 18th, 2006 at 5:54 am
really enjoyed the book. finished last night around midnight. i am involved with a calvary chapel in florida, so it felt like i was getting a real history lesson in the whole worship music movement. also, i was blown away to read about a former classmate and friend of mine in bible college, james morelos. i did a little research and found that he did indeed move on to nyc to work in a hair salon. thanks again for your hard work and your ability to articulatly share it with the world.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
The RSS feed for this website is now available on livejournal as bpsml_feed.
Thanks for the book; it’s almost a Baedeker to contemporary Christian culture. I’m not surprised that you couldn’t get access to various names. It’s a very corporate culture that likes to stay on-message. I think you guessed that within the culture there are two distinct groups of opinion leaders: the early adopter/cool kids and the pastors; the former can shift units while the latter can collectively stop someone’s career cold.
I was surprised by several things in your book: one is that Cheap Trick Live at Budokan was actually a live album; I’ve thought all these years that the audience noise was canned. I was also surprised that you devoted a whole chapter (Chapter 9) to the anti-abortion crowd; I didn’t see the connection. And I was surprised that you didn’t devote more space to Third Day. I guess I thought of them as popular and influential, but maybe they’re just popular.
I haven’t tried to track down the anecdote on U2 and the Shalom reaction, but I’m pretty sure October is their second album and Boy their third. Did the Shalom folks want them to disband after October or Boy? The former I can almost understand, the latter not so much.
I was also surprised by your detailing of Amy Grant’s career; I honestly thought she became a pariah after her divorce, and I’m glad to hear that she was rehabilitated.
Thanks again for writing this book; I’d put it on par with Last Night A DJ Saved My Life and This Band Could Be Your Life. I hope you’re not offended by either comparison.