Favorite CCM/Christian rock music, old and new

So for those of us into, or into years ago, CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) or Christian rock, what artists are you into, or were you into? Been rediscovering some old favorites.

Comments

  • jrwjrw Shipmate
    I like much of Graham Kendrick's music but I probably like the very early stuff best, particularly this album, Paid on the Nail.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MU8uuHiHrhU&list=OLAK5uy_lsxH0kB40JojEzsrSSwapejmWei8Ghmlk&index=2
  • None
  • None

    Right. My impression is that it's become more varied and professional, but then as music in general has fractured into a million genres there are loads of things to listen to constantly that I don't feel the need to investigate.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Used to like Stryper, Bloodgood, Rez - but I dunno, they were never as good as the secular bands they emulated
  • Indeed.

    I'm with @Graven Image. None.

    After The Fire were alright.
  • TubbsTubbs Admin Emeritus, Epiphanies Host
    edited January 20
    There are loads of good musicians who are Christians just making music. Switchfoot, Raye, Mike Scott, Ricky Ross, Dave Gahan , U2 etc.

    I never particularly liked overly Christian music. Much of it wasn’t as good as the secular stuff we were meant to be keeping away from.
  • jrw wrote: »
    I like much of Graham Kendrick's music but I probably like the very early stuff best, particularly this album, Paid on the Nail.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MU8uuHiHrhU&list=OLAK5uy_lsxH0kB40JojEzsrSSwapejmWei8Ghmlk&index=2

    Saw him last year at a concert at a local church, and yes he did perform Paid on the Nail, I was singing along, really brought back memories!
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Used to like Stryper, Bloodgood, Rez - but I dunno, they were never as good as the secular bands they emulated

    I think this is the core issue. "Christian X", where X is any musical genre, is always going to be a niche market, and the statistics more or less guarantee that "Christian X" bands aren't going to be as good, musically speaking, as generic "X" bands. Perhaps I am fortunate that my taste in Christian music is more Palestrina than Pantokrator.
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    So for those of us into, or into years ago, CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) or Christian rock, what artists are you into, or were you into? Been rediscovering some old favorites.

    I could 100% guarantee that this thread would bring out of the woodwork all the people who felt a need to post on it just to say that they DON'T like CCM, never liked it, no value in it at all. I respect that people feel that way and they don't have to like it, but I also don't like being made to feel ashamed for loving some of the music that's been important to me over the years.

    I have loved a lot of CCM over the years. I used to be a huge fan of the late great Rich Mullins and his music still has a lot of meaning for me. A lot of that meaning is in the music and lyrics themselves, but some is attached to the fact that a very dear friend of mine who also loved Rich's music passed away in 2011. One of the last things we did on my last visit to him (when we knew he was dying) was sit and listen to A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band together, holding hands, talking about the lyrics, and crying while Rich sang "Hold Me Jesus." Both of us had experienced a lot of changes in our faith since we were young, "on fire for the Lord," and hanging out at the Christian record store choosing albums (my friend had experienced considerably more loss and changes than I had, having lost his church community after he came out). Rich's music was one thing that still connected us to God, to each other, and to those past versions of ourselves.

    In recent years another Christian musician I've become very fond of is Matt Maher. He's based in the US (Tennessee I think), though originally he is not just Canadian but from my hometown, which is pretty obscure. Unusually for a lot of people in the Christian music business, he's also Catholic, and while I'm not, I really like the fact that he is coming from a somewhat different place (theologically and geographically!) than a lot of American evangelicals. I didn't used to listen to his music a lot because it fell into the "praise and worship" category which I often don't like (too much repetition and the lyrics can be bland), but there was a period during the lockdown days of 2020 when I started listening to his song "Lord I Need You" (duet with Audrey Assad who is also very good!), and for awhile, listening to that on repeat was about the only music I could handle.
  • Trudy wrote: »
    I respect that people feel that way and they don't have to like it, but I also don't like being made to feel ashamed for loving some of the music that's been important to me over the years.

    Yeah, I hear that, and occasionally I track down something I listened to in the past, but am somewhat out of touch with CCM as it exists currently.

    For a while I used to use the pray as you podcast as a prayer aide while commuting, and was occasionally struck by some of their musical choices (more so on the classical and world music side rather than CCM).
  • TubbsTubbs Admin Emeritus, Epiphanies Host
    Trudy wrote: »
    I respect that people feel that way and they don't have to like it, but I also don't like being made to feel ashamed for loving some of the music that's been important to me over the years.

    Yeah, I hear that, and occasionally I track down something I listened to in the past, but am somewhat out of touch with CCM as it exists currently.

    For a while I used to use the pray as you podcast as a prayer aide while commuting, and was occasionally struck by some of their musical choices (more so on the classical and world music side rather than CCM).

    Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you feel ashamed.

    Many of the really successful CCM artists I remember from back in the day were from the US. Many of them were / are musically excellent but the world they were singing about didn’t resonate much.
  • I wonder if there’s worth in merging the posts here with the posts in this thread from May, which is still in Heaven.


  • @Trudy I mean no offence and just because I don't like CCM doesn't mean I expect you to do likewise.

    I had a good friend, sadly no longer with us, who was a DJ and something of an expert on CCM. Good for him. He championed some of the less well known artists who had a lot of integrity.

    I'm not knocking that.

    But give me Allegri, Palestrina, Bach and Mahalia Jackson any day of the week.
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    Iona were good
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Trudy I mean no offence and just because I don't like CCM doesn't mean I expect you to do likewise.

    No serious offense taken, but I often find that here on the Ship, even in our cozy little Heavenly corner, someone will start a thread by saying something like, "I like fantasy novels/manga/trains/CCM/rom-com movies/Shakespeare/Terry's chocolate oranges -- can those of us who like those things have a conversation about it?"

    And the first several responses will include several people saying "Oh, [that thing you like] is terrible, I can't stand it at all, it's absolute trash."

    All perspectives are valid, of course, but I'm just surprised by the impulse to jump in on a thread about something you're not into, just to make the point that you're not into it. And there's always the possibility that someone might feel quite genuinely hurt, that so many folks are piling on to say "I really dislike that thing you like." So I guess that's why I decided to mention it -- to interrogate that practice. But the human tendency to do that is probably better questioned in Purgatory than in Heaven, so my comment may just be a distraction.


  • I was not saying it was wrong for other people to like it. I was saying it was not something that I liked. Thankfully, there are many different types of music, so each can enjoy what appeals to them.
  • KendelKendel Shipmate
    Still love a lot of Michael Card's work.
    But like many people have mentioned, most CCM just wasn't as good as "secular" bands.
    I have long appreciated U2 not always for their music (but mostly) but their commitment to justice work and critique.

    One of the all time best CCM cds I know of might really be DCCM (D for deconstructing) -- Derek Webb's album Mockingbird. Will it ever not be relevant in the US? Probably not in my lifetime.

    Lore have mercy.
  • DeeValleyBantamDeeValleyBantam Shipmate Posts: 45
    Larry Norman takes some beating. Lauded by the late great John Peel IIRC. And for a more recent Christian band I’m not ashamed to play in polite company, Jars of Clay. I don’t know whether Dave Cousins is a believer, but the Strawbs’ recent “When the Spirit Moves” is beautiful.
  • Larry Norman takes some beating. Lauded by the late great John Peel IIRC.
    i heard Larry live in a church hall in Southampton in, must have been, 1972. Not being into CCM (I was 100% classical at the time) I had no idea he was so celebrated but simply went with my friends. And yes, he did sing "I wish we'd all been ready".

  • DardaDarda Shipmate
    Quite liked Larry Norman back in the day. Shame that one of his best known songs is all about crazy "left behind' rapture theology.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Darda wrote: »
    Quite liked Larry Norman back in the day. Shame that one of his best known songs is all about crazy "left behind' rapture theology.

    Can't be helped. He drank the "not allowed to pray in school" coolaid as well.

    I liked Pardon Me.
  • MrsBeakyMrsBeaky Shipmate
    I have on my shelf here albums by a few Christians- some with overt Christian content, some not so much. I used to listen to them a lot and still do from time to time.

    Better known artists include: Deacon Blue, Fat and Frantic, Martyn Joseph
    Less well known artists:
    Nick and Anita Haigh (former teaching colleagues of mine, he's now a PP in our diocese. They are members of the Northumbria Community, write and have produced three excellent albums of Celtic style music).
    My son in law, Aaron Frith who played in several Christian bands at festivals like Spring Harvest and has written countless songs- this is one of his more well known ones:
    https://thepushcommunity.bandcamp.com/track/carry-me-aaron-david-frith
    Godfrey Birtell, a sort of wandering Christian minstrel
    And a series of albums by Ian White of the Psalms set to modern music.
  • Martyn Joseph is still around, we went to hear him a couple of years ago. He's got two successive gigs near Cardiff in a fortnight's time, both sold out: https://acapela.co.uk/events/martyn-joseph/
  • Twangist wrote: »
    Iona were good

    I think they were good live, as they tended to cut loose a bit and become heavier and more improvisational.
  • Bob Bennett.
  • I remember a friend sharing some of his favourites with me when we were at school together, Larry Norman, Keith Green and he liked Noel Paul Stookey as well. One of my own favourite records was The Witness by Jimmy and Carol Owens and I waited over a year for an import copy to arrive, having heard it in a friend's car. Our youth group leader introduced us to U2 and I enjoyed both War and October, not so much some of the more recent stuff.

    Being of limited funds there was definitely a choice between spending money on music or books and books won every time.

    When Cheery husband was part of the music team at church he would try to buy some current music to try to introduce more recent music to the congregation, I don't think he's bought anything new in the last 7 or so years and I don't listen to a lot of music of any description these days.
  • None - with one exception, Bobby Bare's Dropkick me Jesus which is a class apart.
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    edited January 22
    I like mostly 80s stuff, and am listening to a bunch of stuff I haven't listened to much over the last array of years. Apart from the tiny exception of one or two of his earliest songs, I love everything by Steve Taylor; I like some of Petra (mainly Beat the System); some of Michael W. Smith (I suspect mainly his early stuff, especially as his (later?) politics make me sad); Amy Grant; Daniel Amos, 100% (they are very ... different--also their lead creator, Terry Scott Taylor, does a lot of great stuff--I mean, they have a punk/new wave/hard to classify style, with references to Dostoyevsky and T.S. Eliot and The Price is Right and old sci-fi movies and such, and they were doing this in the early 1980s); what I have heard of Randy Stonehill's stuff, and more... I liked Stryper back in the day, though their lyrics were never very complex ("Jesus, King of Kings, Jesus, makes me want to sing," etc.). Some of Sheila Walsh and Cliff Richard (there was a collection of his Christian music called Walking in the Light) and such as well. Oh, Jeff Johnson too! It's really been uplifting/inspiring for me recently.
  • IGeekIGeek Shipmate Posts: 10
    I do have a listen (via Apple music) now and then.

    Second Chapter of Acts, Chris Rice, John Michael Talbot, Michael Card are artists I listen to now and again.
  • I guess Bill Gaither isn't considered contemporary any more. I don't really care for much written since then.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 23
    I was not saying it was wrong for other people to like it. I was saying it was not something that I liked. Thankfully, there are many different types of music, so each can enjoy what appeals to them.

    Might be more productive, then, to start thread called Why CCM Is So Awful.

    (Which I, for the record, would be totally supportive of, since takedown threads are usually pretty entertaining.)
  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    edited January 23
    stetson wrote: »
    I was not saying it was wrong for other people to like it. I was saying it was not something that I liked. Thankfully, there are many different types of music, so each can enjoy what appeals to them.

    Might be more productive, then, to start thread called Why CCM Is So Awful.

    (Which I, for the record, would be totally supportive of, since takedown threads are usually pretty entertaining.)

    There were certainly awful groups back in the day, and awful ones now. Some artists like Steve Taylor have talked about problems in the industry, and even written songs about it, like “Sock Heaven”—
    Out of the wringer, into the dryer
    Couldn't just retire
    Had to try tempting the fates
    One little band spinning 'round together
    Couldn't cling forever
    God, I think I'm losing my mates

    Seven good years, followed by a feeling I'd hit the glass ceiling
    Maybe I'd best disappear
    Pick any market
    Pick a straitjacket
    If you can't act it
    Misfit, you don't belong here
  • People have named names I'd forgotten.

    Iona were good live.

    Martyn Joseph is good live too. I've seen him 3 times in a pub not far from here and he was excellent. Somehow, though, his recordings don't do much for me.

    Some of the others mentioned were certainly good at what they did but again didn't light my fire for whatever reason.

    @Stetson, I'm such a contrary so-and-so that if anyone started a thread on why CCM was so awful I'm go on there and defend it against such a charge. 😉

    Or else say that it was both/and ...

    I could set up my own CCM beat combo, The Both And Band.
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    People have named names I'd forgotten.

    Iona were good live.

    Martyn Joseph is good live too. I've seen him 3 times in a pub not far from here and he was excellent. Somehow, though, his recordings don't do much for me.

    Some of the others mentioned were certainly good at what they did but again didn't light my fire for whatever reason.

    @Stetson, I'm such a contrary so-and-so that if anyone started a thread on why CCM was so awful I'm go on there and defend it against such a charge. 😉

    Or else say that it was both/and ...

    I could set up my own CCM beat combo, The Both And Band.

    They would have to be supported by the Overegged Pudding Ensemble
Sign In or Register to comment.