Christian Rock: Difference between revisions
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The genre of rock and popular music that explicitly incorporates or mentions Christian themes.
There's often a perception that Christian variations are watered-down imitations of popular genres, typically with low production values, and sometimes bands just shoehorn Christianity into the lyrics to get played on gospel stations. The reality is quite different. As with any genre, production values and talent vary greatly between bands, but they're on average no more derivative than any group playing on mainstream radio. Additionally, '''Christian Rock''' is less [[The Moral Substitute]] than is popularly believed. Most often, it is simply a chosen way for its performers to entertain, enjoy themselves, and/or express their faith. People who are liable to condemn rock music simply because of its genre (without regards to its lyrical content) often don't listen to Christian rock, either. Some church groups (and [[Jack Chick]]) believe that ''all'' rock music, including Christian rock, is something to be avoided.
It should be noted that this genre can be as diverse as the secular form of rock music. ''Just as diverse.'' Everything from soft rock to the various forms of [[Heavy Mithril]] will be covered. And it's erroneous to assume the viewpoint/theology of any Christian band or its members, because Christian rock's theologies are as diverse and unpredictable as the entire population of Christians, which is pretty diverse.
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** Occasionally used by hairband fans as proof that theirs is the Greatest Genre EVER: because [[Stryper]] is Christian rock, but are comparable in quality to most bands in the genre. The argument being, "Even ''Christian'' hairband is good, because we're just ''that'' awesome."
* Cezare Bonizzi is a Capuchin monk, with long flowing beard and vows of piety and all that... and he's also the lead singer of an Italian heavy metal band and is known as Brother Metal. He's appeared with such metal giants as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Slayer.
* [[Amy Grant]] started out making explicitly Christian pop
** Whether Grant could be honestly said to have ''left'' Christian music is debatable. It's true that in the early part of [[The Nineties]], she began downplaying her typical Christian subject matter in favor of songs with more universal themes, but she never quite abandoned it altogether; even ''Heart in Motion'' has two explicitly Christian songs, "Ask Me" and "Hope Set High". And at any rate, Grant has drifted back toward religious music in recent years; two of her last three albums have been collections of religious songs. And even at the height of her mainstream success, her albums were carried in both Christian and mainstream record stores.
* [[Switchfoot]] is somewhat on the fence, as most of their music does not explicitly reference Christianity, but some of it makes no sense until a Christian perspective is taken on the lyrics. "Dare You To Move" from the ''Learning to Breathe'' album is a good example. Jon Foreman (the group's lead singer and usual writer) is a Christian and his work does tend to reflect that fact.
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* Similarly, it's debatable whether [[Creed]] is Christian rock or simply post-grunge. If they're the former, then they're by far the most successful band the genre has ever seen.
* [[POD|P.O.D.]] has probably had the most mainstream success of any Christian rock band (unless you count Creed within the genre). If anybody doubts that they're Christian rock, then listen to the lyrics of their hit "Alive", and get back to me. They were popular enough that, when frontman Sonny Sandovol named his daughter Nevaeh ("heaven" spelled backwards), that name quickly shot up from being unheard of to being one of the most popular baby names in the country. It's even on the page for [[The Red Stapler]].
* [[Evanescence]] is a subversion. They were initially referred to as a Christian rock band, but they have publicly rejected the label, even asking for Christian music stores to stop selling their albums. It was a smart move on their
* [[Mutemath]] is a similar example. Their first EP was released under a Christian sub-label, so the band found a different company to sign with. They've since seen much more exposure, but their albums can still be found in Christian music stores. (Don't think they qualify as Christian rock? Go listen to "Peculiar People", read Isaiah 40:31 and get back to me.)
* [[Katy Perry]] used to be a Christian pop singer before switching to mainstream pop songs.
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* [[Relient K]] is a Christian punk-pop band with a penchant for quirky lyrics and, early on especially, pop culture references. They've become a bit more vague, but they are still in the genre.
** They even did a cover of "[[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]]" which - while not actually a religious song - was originally written by Christian cartoon show, [[Veggie Tales]].
* One of the pioneers of the genre was [[Petra]], founded in 1974. Their name is Greek for "rock", and that's pretty much the only descriptor of their style that's vague enough to remain accurate throughout their history (in the '80s alone, they went from sounding like [[Kansas]] to being a heavy metal band), with synthesizer-fueled pop-rock somewhere in the middle. They got a ''lot'' of flak early on for daring to play rock music (which many Christians at the time were still uneasy about), and levered a couple [[Take That
* KJ-52 is a comedy rapper as much as he is a Christian rapper.
* The band Red is a Christian rock band (although if you don't pay attention to their lyrics you wouldn't know). If you don't believe it, listen to "Already Over".
* Christian pop musician Carman ('''not''' Cartman, though [[South Park|he and his friends dabbled in this trope as well]] ... sort of). He is probably one of the biggest stars that the Christian music scene has ever produced, having sold over ten million albums and holding the records for the largest Christian concerts in history.
* Special mention needs to go to the band Mortification. They're an Australian death metal band (yes, I know it's covered above, but these guys ''need'' to be mentioned), probably most famous around these parts for doing the song "Livin' Like a Zombie"
* Welcome, my friends, to the world of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZN-yjz6iw&feature=PlayList&p=61708A6D7D21EA02&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2 Christian screamo.]
* Neal Morse of the [[Progressive Rock|Prog Rock]] groups Spock's Beard and Transatlantic. After converting to Christianity, Morse produced the Christian themed concept album, ''Snow'', with Spock's Beard, after which he focused on a solo career focused on his new found faith, often deviating from his prog rock roots, though he has produced several prog rock Christian concept albums, including ''?'' about the tabernacle and ''Sola Scriptur'' about Martin Luther.
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* Before many of these examples were the Bible-themed rock musicals of the early seventies, ''[[Jesus Christ Superstar]]'' and ''[[Godspell]]''. The albums of music from these shows (and later from the movie versions of each) showed many record executives that there really was a market for Christian Rock/Pop.
=== Fictional examples
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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{{quote|"Christian rock's just like regular rock; you just replace the word "Jesus" with "baby"."}}
** Larry Norman made a similar joke in the early '90s. "I mean, replace 'baby' with 'Jesus'..."
*** Allegedly, Ray Charles once said something similar about the blues and
** Played with in another episode when Ned expressed his happiness with scoring tickets to a Christian Rock concert. When he shows the tickets to Homer, we see that they are actually for a ''Chris'' Rock concert.
{{quote|"Well sir, I've never heard a preacher use the MF word so many times!"}}
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