Music Mondays: because life’s better with a soundtrack.
Having grown up in a pentecostal church, I rode the wave of mediocre CCM (that’s Contemporary Christian Music) like a champion surfer. It wasn’t until my late teen years that I started to question how a faith that claims to have a direct line of communication with the Creator could produce such inferior art. Clearly this wasn’t always the case. So much of the history of great art (though certainly not all of it) was created in the name of God.
It’s a breath of fresh air to see artists exploring themes of humanity through the lens of their faith instead of “creating” as proselytizing automatons. David Bazan was doing it years ago (and his searching led him to abandon his faith). Of course The Atlantic touted Sufjan Stevens as the poster boy of this anti-movement. I’ll take it. At least it’s happening.
Sufjan Stevens is fantastic, but I think that mewithoutYou has done the best job of exploring faith-based music without watering down their art for the sake of the church. I was also raised Pentecostal, and listened to my fair share of almost-decent CCM (Further Seems Forever, anyone?) but fell out of my faith at a fairly young age. Even so, mwy transcends the genre and is never in your face about their beliefs while also not hiding them. In short: I think The Atlantic missed the mark a bit.
I agree with the sentiment, but I wouldn’t say the article missed any mark. By most accounts, Sufjan is the more successful mainstream artist. I think, like most publications, The Atlantic has to concern itself with broad appeal. A story with Sufjan as the lede is a strong pull for more readers than one with mwy (or, more recently me w/o u).
Add to that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sufjan sold in a christian bookstore. mwy, Pedro the Lion, et al have all had their time in such stores, much thanks to Brandon Ebel.
I went back and re-read the article, and I actually agree with you now. Sufjan is definitely way more mainstream and successful, and I understand the point they were making using him as the posterboy for this “movement” or whatever you want to call it.
Speaking of mwy, by the way, I saw them last night and they were fantastic as usual. They played three songs off the upcoming album and they were all great.