Mixtapemotions

  • (The Symphony of) “Blasé” by Anberlin + Anberlin Winter Songs Playlist, Wednesday, December 20, 2023

     

    We’ve come to the end of this year’s Anberlin: Seasons series. It’s been a big year for the band from the release of their second post-hiatus EP, Convinced. The shift in direction to post-hardcore didn’t necessarily translate to the band’s live show, as they only performed the lead single “Lacerate” live. The band played many legacy shows, including Hawethorne Heights’ …Is for Lovers and Furnace Fest. In August, Anberlin played a show in Dallas without lead singer Stephen Christian. Filling in for Christian was Memphis May Fire singer Matty Mullins. Then in October, the band announced that Stephen would be taking an indefinite hiatus from the band’s touring schedule in 2024 with Mullins taking on lead vocalist duties for Anberlin’s touring schedule. Stephen played his last show in North America last Friday, though he will tour with the band in Australia in early 2024. 



  • “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by Sleeping At Last, Tuesday, December 19, 2023 (updated repost)

     Sleeping at Last is a band that almost made a song of the day two days ago for their cover of “Chasing Cars” until I made time to listen to the Snow Patrol version and their music, eventually settling on “You’re All I Have.” Like Snow Patrol, Sleeping at Last came to fame, albeit not Snow Patrol-level of fame, from a well-placed appearance in Season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy. The indie-rock band turned solo project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ryan O’Neal has had many songs included in the ABC drama and its spin-off, Private Practice. Their cover of “Chasing Cars” was used to add a dramatic counterpoint in the series, as the audience had already heard the original in the Season 2 finale. O’Neal stays busy producing lots of music, composing albums based on larger concepts, such as the solar system, the Enneagram, emotions, land, oceans, and many other topics. 


    WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT. In the band’s large scope of theme music, they have recorded several Christmas albums. Today’s song is Sleeping At Last’s cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono‘s 1971 holiday hit, which was written in protest of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. My favorite version of the song is done by    Acceptance, but it’s not available on Apple Music. My inclusion of this song comes with a prejudice that I’m reexamining. When I was young and influenced by far-right Christian rhetoric, I believed that this song was dangerous, as was his hit “Imagine,” also released in ’71. I was taught that war is a last resort, but often necessary, and Lennon’s Marx-lifted lyrics in “Imagine” were driving people away from the very foundations of freedom: God, guns, and gold. “Happy Xmas” was a song that removed “Christ” from the title, and that was what the “War on Christmas” looked like in the ’90s and probably earlier. The song wishes Lennon’s son and Ono’s daughter a Merry Christmas at the beginning of the track, and the song never says “X,” but always “Christmas.” The lyrics of “War is over, if you want it” strike me as hopeful, idealistic, and naive depending on my mood. Not knowing much about the Christian influence or backgrounds of The Beatles (which would be a fascinating study), I’m assuming that Lennon would have been well-acquainted with popular notions of faith and virtues typically attributed to Christianity. Lennon and the Beatles strayed from the state religion of their homeland, venturing into the realm of Hinduism, Hare Krishna, and other eastern religions; however, to me, today, “Happy Xmas” seems to be pleading with the Christian country of the United States, even using some Christianese, using Christmas as a platform of peace and ending the war. If you’re in America and an evangelical, though, Lennon just sounds like a babbling heretic. After years of blatant racism and looking back at wars with no end game, it may be time to listen a little closer to the babbling.

    LET’S HOPE IT’S A GOOD ONE. “Happy Xmas” is proceeding a holiday season full of uncertainty. War in Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas has the world itchy. So many problems are left unaddressed, and the greedy take it all. Do we trust our fate to leaders strategic in war or do we try our hand at diplomacy? Could war really be over if we want it? My Christian upbringing tells me conflict will only escalate until the end. But my secular education remembers the history of harrowing circumstances in which negotiation leads to times of peace. Are we our human desires wired against each other? Are we so self-interested and selfish that we cannot get along on this sphere? Is war inevitable or avoidable? As we grapple with these questions on the eve of an election year, maybe we should ask ourselves, what can I do to promote peace? What can I do to promote peace in my life and in those around me? What can I do to help my neighbor understand my other neighbor? What can I do to get to the root of the problem rather than using information in my favor? How can we both win in this situation? How can we reduce damage? Maybe then war can be over, but do we want it?

    Check out the original with annotations

    John Lennon & Yoko Ono version:

    Sleeping at Last version:

    Acceptance version:







  • "Frail" by Jars of Clay, Monday, December 18, 2023 (repost)

    Before their massively successful 1995 studio debut, Jars of Clay released a self-produced demo titled Frail, which included several songs that made it to their eponymous release. Two songs, though, were reworked and found their way onto their less commercially successful sophomore release, Much Afraid. Departing from their acoustic folk-rock sound, Much Afraid sounds like a 1997 album. It spawned two singles, “Crazy Times,” peaking at #38 on the Modern Rock singles, and “Five Candles” (You Were There), originally written for Jim Carrey‘s Liar Liar, but eventually used in Michael Keaton‘s Jack Frost.  Much Afraid is a fine Jars of Clay album. It’s more fun to listen to than their debut, varying between folk-rock and modern rock. However, it failed to propel Jars of Clay into the 1997 rock scene. Listeners may not remember them amongst their contemporaries, like The Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind, and Matchbox Twenty. Instead, they are a solid entry on the WOW 1999  tracklist, right after dc talk and the Newsboys. 

    YOUR PAIN BECOMES MY PEACE. Every year a collection of Contemporary Christian radio singles is released on a compilation CD. This collection was a list of songs that either were big hits on the charts or were projected to be big hits in the following year. In November 1995, WOW 1996 was released. I became aware of the collection because of summer camp in the year when I was a middle school student. While WOW 2000 had already been released, the camp counselors seemed to love WOW 1999 and incorporated the songs into everything. The activities that I signed up for were canoeing and rock climbing. The rock climbing wall was located in the same place and time as gymnastics, which meant that the young gymnasts had to practice for a routine they would perform on the final Saturday night. They tried the routine with disc 1 of WOW 1999. “Into Jesus?” Too slow. “Entertaining Angels?” Not quite. “Crazy Times?” A little too varied in tempo. “Love Me Good?” They blasted Michael W. Smith‘s vibey, electronic-bass-lined track over and over. So I came home from camp and thought I could buy this cool, new Christian album. But then I came to find out that rock music, of any kind, is evil. I hadn’t listened to much secular music up until that point, but I do remember hearing my dad’s music, classic Southern rock, Pink Floyd and ’90s bands, but it was pretty much confined to the garage when he was tinkering on a car, which, to me, was just a messy, uninteresting puzzle. However, my mom, who had stopped listening to popular music when she back to church only played classical or traditional music in the house. As a teenager with new feelings of questioning the world and sometimes anger, rock music could speak to those feelings in ways that Bach couldn’t. But after my mom’s friend’s special testimony about how her husband had been a wild rebel, “Runnin’ with the Devil” until he threw all of his tapes, including a Christian metal group, off the bridge (putting more plastic into the earth), it was concluded: no rock music was allowed in the house. I would have to sneak all of my CDs–for a time.

    IF I WAS NOT SO WEAK. . . It wasn’t until years later that I finally bought Much Afraid. Eventually, my mom even started listening to this music. She grew to love Michael W. Smith, especially his This Is Your Time album. My mom’s friend started listening to the Newsboys. All that talk about the evils of rock music seemed to be hinged on an unclear definition of what rock music is. The Newsboys = ok. Skillet, P.O.D. =hide. But one group I could never play in the car was Jars of Clay. Somehow, my mom thought they were Nirvana-heavy. I thought that their debut album would be like something I had heard from dc talk. Turns out it was one of the calmest albums in my collection. Eventually, I bought Much Afraid at a discount as a cassette. The album was much better than their debut, and not weird like If I Left the Zoo. One of the standout tracks on Much Afraid was the nearly 7-minute fifth track, “Frail.” The song gets more chill as it goes on, using a New Age-sounding English horn in the spaces between the lyrics. Dan Haseltine’s voice is always calm, which was probably one of the reasons they never made it as a rock band. “Frail” is beautifully meditative. But, when I read the meditation in the lyrics, it’s a bit disturbing to my current deconstructed Christian worldview.  “If I was not so weak, if I was not so cold . . . I would be “What? We finally hear the final word of the sentence at the end of the song: frail. Rock music has its problems, and parents can help their teenage children make the right decisions for the right songs at the right time. But Christian Rock, well, it can focus so much on one’s lack of self-worth–not saying that secular music doesn’t do that–that it can be harmful to a person’s mental health. “Frail” is one take on Christianity, and it’s valid. But, if you meditate on it too much, you might fall into the trope of Christian songs that dwell on the fact that you are an unredeemable “piece of shit,” in the words of Kevin and Caroline from Good Christian Fun.  

     

  • “Cold” by Crossfade, Sunday, December 17, 2023 + Winter Songs, Pt. 1 Playlist

    Crossfade formed in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1991 under the name The Nothing. Later, in 2000, the band changed their name to Sugardaddy Superstar, which fortunately, changed to Crossfade in 2002, just before the band started getting vetted by record labels. The band is best known for their #2 Modern Rock hit, “Cold,” which, according to lead singer Ed Sloan, was about how he thought that he was perceived by people who he couldn’t keep in touch with. He told SongFacts.com, “I wrote that song after neglecting a lot of my friends, family and loved ones because of my music. Which wound up paying off, but I lost some friends because of all the time that I devoted to that record.” These days the weather is also getting cold, and I seem to have caught a cold. The last thing I want to do is to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. Today, I offer a playlist that hopefully cuts through the cold with a Winter playlist. I hope you enjoy it!

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

     Listen on Spotify

  • “How to Love” by Cash Cash ft. Sofia Reyes+ Top 25 Most Played Apple Music, December 16, 2023

    Today, I’m going to share the songs that I have listened to the most on Apple Music. I can’t actually share the playlist because of Apple Music settings, but I found it surprising what made my most played. I think a lot of the plays come from playlist placements, particularly my Coffee playlist that I listened to at work until this year. I have blogged about most of the songs on this list, but today’s song is the most-played track I haven’t blogged about yet.


     I’VE GOT FAITH IN NOTHING. I’ve blogged about 17 of the 25 songs listed. The number is approximate because there’s several technicalities that I’ll address as I write link to each blog post. Then at the bottom, I’ll post a shareable Apple Music playlist.  
    1. “Far” by Canopy Climbers. I’ve posted this track twice, first in January 2021. Many of the songs on my list are kind of background music that don’t intrude with my thoughts. 
    2. “How to Love” by Cash Cash ft. Sofia Reyes. I haven’t written about today’s song yet. I think I first heard this song in the gym, but I added it to my coffee list. 
    3. “My Secrets Have Secrets Too” by Search the City is the a cappella opener to the band’s sophomore album. It’s not available on streaming services, though, so I’ve substituted it with the another track from the album, “Light the Fire.”

    4. “Live Forever” by The Fold. I listened to the demo of this song more than the studio version because it was part of a Jesusfreakshideout.com compilation, Songs We’ve Been Trying to Tell You About (And Others We Haven’t), Volume Two. The album version more refined and the demo version isn’t streaming anywhere, but I think it’s a worthy listen.

    5. “Intro” by Paper Route. While I haven’t actually blogged about this song, I have blogged about both the proceeding track “Writing on the Wall” and “Untitled,” which the album’s intro is based on.

    6. “Don’t Blink” by Relient K. Relient K makes their way onto my playlist of most-played songs twice and Anberlin doesn’t get any songs. Irony. 

    7. “The Bowery” by William Ryan Key

    8. “Sanctuary” by Chris Rodriguez. I’ve blogged about two of the tracks from Streams, “I Will Rest in You” by Jaci Velasquez and “Breathe” by Sixpence None the Richer, but not this one.

    9. “Cold Air” by Acceptance. This simple song is my song of 2020. It’s a song about division and finding a place that is warmer.

    10. “Can’t Deny My Love” by Brandon Flowers. I’m sure I’ll blog about this one at some point.

    11. “Blind” by Lifehouse. 

    12. “Foundation” by Years & Years.

    13. “August 6th” by mewithoutYou.

    14. “Bad Dreams” by Daes Vail

    15. “Cascades” by Metric. Not much to say about this moody song, but it kind of shaped my 2020-2021 in music listening.

    16. “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. It’s a little unbelievable I haven’t blogged about MJ yet.

    17. “Bike” by Adoy

    18. “I Already See It” by Kye Kye

    19. “Fire & Rain” by Mat Kearney. I haven’t blogged about Mat Kearney much or his best album, City of Black & White. 

    20. “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd. I’ve only written about a cover of this song.

    21. “Suite for Two Guitars: II. Alman” (composed by William Lawes) by Julian Bream & John Williams. This instrumental piece is ineligible for my blog because I don’t write about instrumentals. But I certainly love some classical guitar. 

    22. “Stay Out of Trouble” by Kings of Convenience

    23. “Mrs. Hippopotamuses’” by Relient K.

    24. “Dizzy” by Jimmy Eat World.

    25. “World” by New Order

     


  • “Broken” by Seether ft. Amy Lee, Friday, December 15, 2023

     

    In 1999, Seether formed in Pretoria, South Africa, under the name Saron Gas. After a successful independent first album in their home country, American label Wind-Up Records became interested in the band, signing them. The band changed their name to avoid the association with sarin gas, a toxic chemical Nazis used in chemical warfare. The band chose Seether because of the 1994 song of the same name by Veruca Salt. Seether’s breakthrough in the United States came with the release of their album Disclaimer and their Active Rock single “Fine Again.” Disclaimer also featured an acoustic version of “Broken,” which would become the band’s biggest pop hit. 


    I WANTED YOU TO KNOW, I LOVE THE WAY YOU LAUGH. In 1997, Alan and Diana Meltzer founded Wind-Up Records. The label’s first successful act was Creed with their 1997 record, My Own Prison. The label became a trendy label, churning out Hard and Active Rock hitmakers, including Finger Eleven, Seether, and Drowning Pool. The label’s second-most successful act was Evanescence, whose lead singer, Amy Lee, is featured on a re-recording of “Broken.” Following the success of Creed, especially with a number of Christians buying the band’s records, the label started releasing Christian bands. Creed, due to their lead singer’s colorful antics, wasn’t played on Christian radio, but the label released 12 Stones and Big Dismal (and for a time, mistakenly, Evanescence) in the Christian Rock format. While Big Dismal only lasted for one album and had little crossover appeal, 12 Stones had a few minor Active Rock hits. Albums on Wind-Up Records often featured a singer from another band on their albums. For instance, Evanescence’s biggest hit, “Bring Me to Life” features 12 Stones’ Paul McCoy. Big Dismal’s “Missing You” features vocals by Amy Lee. Today’s song, “Broken” also features Amy Lee.


    THE WORST IS OVER NOW, AND I CAN BREATHE AGAIN. A history of Wind-Up Entertainment would be remiss without mentioning the film soundtracks the label produced. In 2003, Wind-Up released the soundtrack for Daredevil. Not every band on Daredevil: The Album, or any of the follow-up soundtracks Wind-Up released, was a Wind-Up band. However, the label heavily promoted their own bands. “Bring Me to Life” became a huge hit thanks to its placement on the soundtrack and placement in the film. While the film received mixed reviews and the 2005 sequel Elektra was panned, Wind-Up’s soundtrack to the film was perhaps the biggest hit. The next year, Wind-Up produced another pre-Disney Marvel soundtrack, this time the edgy R-rated action film The Punisher. Unlike Daredevil, the filmmakers chose not to blast music throughout the entire film. Wind-Up made a soundtrack of music that Frank Castle might listen to when he was punishing his enemies. The exception was “Broken” by Seether, which appears in the film several times. The song reached number 20 on Billboard’s Hot 100, modest compared to “Bring Me to Life” with its peak at number 5. At the time of the duet, Amy Lee and Seether’s Shaun Morgan were dating. “Broken” is a break-up song, and in the context of a movie in which the protagonist’s family is slaughtered in front of him, is pretty dark. Eventually Wind-Up’s empire of soundtracks, too, was broken. Their 2005 Elektra soundtrack didn’t produce another Evanescence, especially because the film wasn’t a hit. And while Fantastic Four was a bigger hit than Elektra, the soundtrack was in no way comparable to Daredevil’s. Wind-Up also produced the pop-punk and Emo soundtrack for Josh Tucker Must Die. The label also produced the soundtracks for Scream 3 and Walk the Line. Wind-Up Records was dissolved in 2016 after being shuffled around by several distributors. 

  • “Home” by Daughtry, Thursday, December 14, 2023

    In 2006, American Idol still had a grip on pop culture. The show’s fifth season 

    was the highest-rated season, with an average of 30.1 million viewers per episode. The season featured gospel singer Mandisa, country singer Kelly Pickler, country-rocker Taylor Hicks–who won the season, and rocker Chris Daughtry. The show had already produced stars such as Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, and Carrie Underwood. It would launch the careers of several other acts like David Archuleta, Kris Allen, and Adam Lambert. While the show became much less culturally significant at some point, the first seasons had the hearts of pop listeners.

    I’M STARING OUT INTO THE NIGHT. Chris Daughtry was born in North Carolina and grew up in Greensboro. He performed with local bands in high school. His band was called Cadence, which produced one album in 1999. Before auditioning for American Idol and forming the band Daughtry, Chris was the lead singer of Absent Element. In 2005, Chris auditioned for Rockstar: INXS, an American Idol-like show to determine who would be the lead singer for the re-formed Australian band that had suffered the loss of its lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997 when he committed suicide. Chris was not selected for the show but then auditioned for American Idol. On his American Idol run, Daughtry performed rock songs to a mostly pop-oriented audience. His performance of Fuel’s “Hemorrhage” (In My Hands) even led to an offer for Daughtry to become Fuel’s lead singer as they were between vocalists. Daughtry became a voice for rock on American primetime. His vocal styling happened to fit at the end of the post-grunge revival. If he had premiered today, he would probably end up in Country music due to the decline of rock music in the ‘10s. He made the top 4 before being eliminated on May 10, 2006.


    WHERE YOUR LOVE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ENOUGH FOR ME. Shortly after his tenure on American Idol, Chris Daughtry entered the studio with Howard Benson to produce a debut record from the newly formed band, Daughtry. But the band Daughtry wasn’t actually formed until after recording the self-titled debut. Accompanying Chris on Daughtry were session musicians. When a band was formed, they toured and were recorded starting with Daughtry’s second album, Leave This Town. Daughtry’s debut album was the band’s most successful. Partly because of Daughtry’s name recognition, the album was the fastest-selling debut rock record and the best-selling album of 2007. The singles “It’s Not Over” and “Home” were Daughtry’s highest charting hits on Billboard’s Hot 100, reaching 4 and 5, respectively. Chris wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the album, except for the album’s closer, the adult contemporary hit “What About Now?” and “Feels Like Tonight.” While Daughtry clearly has a rock-inspired sound, the band was usually played on pop and adult contemporary stations. Many of the songs feel like a well-produced late-‘90s radio rock. And while Daughtry’s post-RCA catalogue leans into a hard rock sound, “Home” is still one of the band’s signature songs. It was a song that Chris wrote just before appearing on American Idol. It was a prophetic song imagining what a post-fame Chris Daughtry would feel like after being on tour, coming home to his family. So, as we near the holiday season, many families are reuniting. But some of us can only dream of a time when the family is all together. I wish everyone the peaceful mindset of home this holiday season. 


  • “Gloria” by Hawk Nelson, Wednesday, December 13, 2023

    Hawk Nelson released two Christmas EPs in the earlier part of their career, starting with 2005’s Gloria. The four-song EP featured two original songs with familiar choruses and two covers–the sacred “I Heard the Bells” and the secular “Last Chrismas.” The original songs, “Alleluia” and “Gloria” were also divided into sacred and secular. While all of the songs on the EP are interpreted with a mid-’00s emotion, the two original songs are especially emotionally charged. “Alleluia” is a song about the nativity that uses the tune of a liturgical chant for the chorus. “Gloria,” on the other hand is a cheesy Christmas love song that talks about Santa giving the speaker a girl for Christmas named Gloria. Singer Jason Dunn adds a lot of emotion into the first verse, which feels strange given that the song can’t be that serious. The song ultimately interpolates the chorus of the French carol, “Angels We Have Heard on High,” because the girl that the speaker wants for Christmas is named Gloria. 


     

    AS SANTA CAME AND WENT. Hawk Nelson’s Christmas songs were included on several compilations. In 2005, the band’s cover of “Last Christmas” appeared on Tooth & Nail Records’ Happy Christmas, Vol. 4. The Happy Christmas collections were the standard for Christian Rock and Christmas music in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, however, only the fourth volume is available on streaming services. There were five volumes released in the Happy Christmas series beginning in 1998 and concluding in 2010 with the fifth volume, to which Hawk Nelson contributed “The Chipmunk Song” (Christmas Don’t Be Late). Each Happy Christmas album encapsulated the artists at the center of the musical zeitgeist. In 1998, that meant ska, punk, electronica, and singer-songwriter with artists like The O.C. Supertones, The Dingees, Joy Electric, and Sarah Masen. In 2005, the record label was in its golden age as the forefront record in Christian Rock. Happy Christmas, Vol. 4 contains songs by Switchfoot, Emery, Anberlin, Copeland, Mae, and Hawk Nelson. The final installment contains many one-to-two album wonders in Tooth & Nail’s catalog, except for Copeland, Hawk Nelson, and Demon Hunter.


    MY PACKAGE NEVER CAME. In 2003, the prominent Christian record companies coordinated an effort to make a two-disc compilation of Christian Rock hits of the year, titled X2003. The compilation seemed to be a response to the WOW series in the Contemporary Christian series, which was a response to the Now That’s What I Call Music series. The next year, though, X2004 was slimmed down to a one-disc album, and more and more Tooth & Nail artists started taking up more tracks on the album every year until the project concluded with X2010. In 2006 and 2007, additional albums were released: X Worship 2006 and X Worship 2007, and in 2010, the final compilation was released: X Christmas. The merry compilation features new covers from Thousand Foot Krutch, FM Static, and Seventh Day Slumber and a new song by Capital Lights as well as songs songs already part of other projects. These include The Almost’s “Little Drummer Boy,” which made an appearance on their 2008 EP, No Gift to Bring; Anberlin’s (Christmas) “<a href="” target=”_blank”>Baby Please Come Home” and Switchfoot’s “Evergreen” from Happy Christmas Volume 4; and today’s song “Gloria,” from Hawk Nelson’s 2005 EP. X Christmas doesn’t have any nostalgic value for me like Happy Christmas Volume 3 and Volume 4. Just as the golden age of Tooth & Nail came to an end in the late ‘00s it seems that Christian Rock also kind of ended with the collapse of the music industry that was based on physical sales. Something about the compilation didn’t translate to the post-Christian Rock ‘10s. 


    Read the lyrics on Genius.


  • "The Coldest Heart" by The Classic Crime, Tuesday, December 12, 2023 (Repost)

    I talked before about how Albatross, The Classic Crime‘s debut album was set to be the breakthrough mainstream album for both the band and for Tooth & Nail Records. And of course, neither of those happened because someone at iTunes or Tooth & Nail or EMI or any combination released this record in the genre “Christian Rock.” Of the two 2006 secular signings of Tooth & Nail, Jonezetta avoided Christian radio, but The Classic Crime admitted defeat and even embraced the genre. With an album like Albatross, it would be hard to hear the songs and not think of Christian Rock. “The Coldest Heart” is a bit Calvinistic for the general music listener.

    A COUPLE OF TEARS AND I’M A BROKEN MESS. “The Coldest Heart” belongs to a sub-genre of Christian Rock I’ve heard called “Shamecore,” a term coined by licensed professional counselor Krispin Mayfield on his podcast The Prophetic Imagination Station.  Shamecore comes from a Calvinist interpretation of the Bible, and verses like Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things” with a focus on the depravity of the human condition as an inescapable reality without the grace of Christ’s sacrifice. Many Christian denominations and congregations take these teachings to the extreme. Pastors demand that their followers examine their hearts and surrender everything to Christ. Lay down your thoughts, your plans, and your ambitions. Let Christ mold you into who he wants you to be. Beat yourself down with humility. When you think you’re doing well, check your intentions. Your righteousness was nothing more than filthy rags to God. And there was a constant soundtrack reinforcing this. So often these songs had to do with sexual purity, like Anberlin‘s “Feel Good Drag” or Seventh Day Slumber‘s “Innocence,” but it could also be about perfection. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Songs like “Everything You’ve Ever Wanted” by Hawk Nelson, “Mirror” by BarlowGirl, and “Don’t Look at Me” by Stacie Orrico all propitiated this idea that self-worth was found in Christ alone. Paper Route‘s “Are We All Forgotten?” asks the question “If we’ve all forgotten you, are we all forgotten too?”

    I WAS BLIND TO THE THINGS I DID. I’m not talking about this to be sacrilegious. On the contrary, I believe that faith can be healthy. But one of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t try harder to accomplish my dreams. I felt manipulated by my upbringing. “God doesn’t want you to go to that college or study that,” was in the back of my mind. God called me to Missionary College where I would study English literature and become an Adventist teacher. I couldn’t imagine allowing myself to go to the much cheaper, much easier to transfer to state schools. Why? Because there was drinking and weekend hook-ups. There my faith would be tested. I bought into the idea that college could be a time when I would build up immunity to what the world offered. I would learn about my faith deeply and be equipped to fight against the damned world. What was my alternative? I was scared that at state school I would surely succumb to the life of drinking and partying and I would probably just become gay. But going to Adventist College really just put me behind because all of that would happen anyway. But I certainly learned a lot about Adventist teachings.


  • "Invincible" by Aaron Sprinkle ft. Elle Puckett, Monday, December 11, 2023

    Since Larry Norman asked in 1972, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” Christian music was taking shape into what would eventually become a multi-million dollar industry.  A big part of the industry became the testimony of the bands and artists who participated in the genre. The Christian musician was a poster child of what the evangelical message taught. The mostly clean-cut musicians didn’t smoke, drink, or use bad language. Because CCM doesn’t have a particular denomination, a Christian star neededn’t talk about belonging to a certain faith tradition–the less specific, the better. Inevitably, scandals befell the industry, but musicians would disappear from radio rather than having the scandal addressed. This created a kind of idolatry surrounding the faithful in the industry.

    CASTING A SHADOW TEN FEET TALL. Tooth & Nail Records was always on the rougher end of Christian music, but the bands signed to the label were to a lesser extent, subject to morality policing. In 2017, Aaron Sprinkle released his final record with Tooth & Nail Records, Real Life before becoming a fully independent artist. The singer has talked about his journey into deconstruction on many podcasts, but perhaps most succinctly on the Growing Up Christian podcast. He talks about the results of the 2016 presidential election being the reason for him no longer attending church after so many evangelicals voted for Donald Trump and justified their vote as the Christian thing to do, and this created a church environment that was too different from Sprinkle’s already diverging spiritual journey. Real Life is an album written during the time of Sprinkle’s departure from church. On the Christian Rock 20 radio show, Sprinkle talked about the song “Invincible,” the album’s first track on the album. He explains that the song is about realizing that his heroes were ordinary people with flaws. Someone that the speaker thinks is bigger than any scandal suddenly becomes the center of one. And for Sprinkle’s deconstruction, this was especially true of both the mega-church pastor’s fall from grace as it was the fellow deconstructor who renounced Christianity vocally. 


    JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS UNDER CONTROL, IT ALL FALLS APART.  Though Aaron Sprinkle started talking about his change in beliefs only after releasing Real Life, he had been on a journey for many years. And as Sprinkle was at the center of many of the bands on Tooth & Nail Records, fans of the label and its roster wondered how many other groups were not believers.     According to Sprinkle, many. One of the interviewers on Growing Up Christian asked Sprinkle when his studio became a safe space for bands to start talking about their beliefs and non-beliefs. Sprinkle says that it “evolved over time.” He goes on to give a few examples: “It started with gossip. Did you know that he’s not even a Christian? He’s in the band, and [the band] know[s] it, and they still let him stay in the band.” Then musicians would start to tell Aaron that they weren’t Christian. Some of the artists could play along with the Christian component of the label. Some artists had to pretend to be Christian. Others simply had to “nod their head and go along with it.” Sprinkle goes on to talk about how he had a fear of facing reality, which caused his self-destructive behavior–alcoholism being a battle that he’s come forward with. He was working to produce Christian albums by some groups who didn’t believe the message of the industry they were part of, and he was also part of that as well. It could be quite the fall from grace if deconstruction didn’t become the trend hit had in the mid-‘10s. In “Invincible,” Poema’s Elle Puckett brings grace and redemption when she sings the bridge: “You didn’t have to be invincible / You got your shadow and a place to go.”