Christian music industry

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Christian music industry is one aspect of the broader music industry, with a focus on Christian music and subgenres such as gospel music, southern gospel, contemporary Christian music, contemporary worship music, and even traditional church music. It is sometimes called the gospel music industry, a narrower term that does not encompass all the musical genres included here.

Like its broader category, the Christian music industry consists of individuals and organizations that earn money through

concerts, and performances on Christian radio. The Christian market also includes some unique aspects, such as hymnal production and church music
licensed for congregational singing.

From its roots in the 1920s, the developing Christian music industry exhibited unique tensions between religious, musical, and commercial goals.[1] While it was subject to the same economic and market forces as the entire music industry, the Christian subgenre was also subject to different aesthetic and social boundaries. This was often expressed as a tension between “secular” and “sacred” ideals. Recent scholarship explores why Christian music remained marginal to the general market, was largely critiqued by mainstream media, and was often criticized for being derivative.[2]

History

The contemporary Christian music industry has roots in the late 1960s and early 1970s Jesus movement and its Jesus music artists. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music points out three reasons that the Christian music industry developed as a parallel structure to the general music industry.[3] First, the Jesus movement produced a large number of bands in a very short period, which the general market was unable and/or unwilling to absorb.[3] This was in part due to a lack of appreciation for the ideology expressed by such artists.[3] Finally, Jesus music artists tended toward mistrust of secular corporations.[3] According to another critic, the industry in this period was defined by four characteristics: lack of audience acceptance for styles, inferior production, inefficient distribution, and lack of wide radio exposure.[4] Petra, for instance, struggled to find an audience for their hard rock sound, partially due to limited distribution to Christian bookstores.[5]

Even so, the 1970s saw established corporations become involved in the Christian music market. Word Records, founded in 1951, was bought in 1976 by ABC.[6] Other music industry giants also got involved, CBS started a short-lived Christian label, Priority Records, and MCA also fielded a label, Songbird Records, for a time.

While the Jesus movement had ended by the 1980s, the Christian music industry was maturing and transforming into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. The early 1980s saw an increase Christian booksellers taking product, and an increase in sales followed, despite

Sandi Patti and Michael W. Smith also gained influence within Christian music, each playing significant roles in the development of the industry.[5]

Harder forms of Christian music, such as

heavy metal, also began to gain acceptance. This is largely credited to Stryper, who had begun making inroads into the general market by 1985.[7] Still, rock and alternative acts faced a longer battle for acceptance than contemporary acts, as the form was opposed by prominent religious leaders such as Jimmy Swaggart and others on the Christian right.[8][9] While in 1981 total gospel music industry revenues were approximately $180 million, only ten years later they would total $680 million, according to CCM Magazine.[10]

RIAA sales, 1995–2000
Year % $ Source
1995 3.1 381 [11]
1996 4.3 538 [11]
1997 4.5 549 [12]
1998 6.3 836 [12]
1999 5.1 744 [13]
2000 4.8 688 [13]

According to RIAA data, market share for sales of Christian music albums more than doubled between 1993 and 1997.[14] In the 1990s the Christian music industry became the fastest growing segment of the music industry.[14] This was due to several factors, including consolidation of record labels, and independent Christian bookstores into chains.[5]

The Christian music industry began adopting SoundScan in 1995, although implementation was spotty even into the millennium. Even so, the adoption caused the visibility of Christian artists to increase significantly, and brought credibility to the industry as Christian albums became integrated into all Billboard charts.[5][15][16]

In 1985, 90% of Christian music sales originated at Christian bookstores. By 1995, that number had dropped to 64%, with general retailers taking 21%, and the remainder accountable through other methods, such as direct mail.

Soundscan numbers.[19][20] This phenomenon was partially responsible for crossover successes. P.O.D., for example, sold 1.4 million albums in 2001, although sales at Christian retail outlets accounted for only 10%.[19]

The new millennium has brought

challenges for the record industry as a whole, and these have affected the Christian music industry as well.[21] Contemporary worship music, a long time staple of the industry, began to gain significant market share in about the year 2000.[22][23] By focusing on marketing worship music to youth culture, this genre became a growth driver despite the downturn in the general music industry.[24][25][26][27]

"The money is just drying up.
And it's not being replaced."

John W. Styll, president, Gospel Music Association and longtime CCM publisher[21]

Growth continued until about 2003,

John J. Thompson told Christianity Today that "The lack of monetary benefit has filtered out some of the people who should not have been doing this in the first place. If the people who are in it for the money are gone, it leaves more turf for those who had something a little bit loftier in mind."[21]

Criticisms

"Ghetto" assertion

Christian music is sometimes cited as a "ghetto,"[4][29][30] meaning that the majority of artists in the industry are pigeonholed to operate solely in it. These artists are isolated from the mainstream public, to Christian media, including radio, magazines, and book stores. For many this is a conscious choice, however others, not content to stay in an isolated industry segment, attempt to "cross over" and gain acceptance in the general market. For many artists, being called Christian becomes a stigma.[31]

Name recognition in Christian music
Artist Familiarity
Amy Grant
  
 70%
  
 67%
BeBe and CeCe Winans
  
 43%
  
 13%
Sandi Patty
  
 42%
  
 13%
Carman
  
 33%
  
 9%
Michael W. Smith
  
 30%
  
 10%
dc Talk
  
 26%
  
 11%
Steven Curtis Chapman
  
 26%
  
 6%
A 1997 survey looked at familiarity with "well-known" Christian artists. Self-identified Christian music listeners in are shown in green, and the general public in red.[32]

A 1997 study revealed that a self-identified audience of "Christian music listeners" had what was considered a lacking recognition of Christian artists.

Grammy Award winner, and had albums certified
Gold or higher.

Even so, the survey found that the Christian music audience was no more familiar with artists in the field than they were with

Hootie & The Blowfish, a popular act at that time. The study concluded that the word "Christian" was the problem, causing a stigma. "It's the label, not the music, that dissuades," one Christian music executive was quoted as saying, agreeing with the survey.[32]

Another aspect of the "ghetto" is that some artists have trouble gaining audience with Christians due to their non-conservative image.[33] Stryper is a well-known example. Stryper received large amounts of criticism from groups on the Christian right, who argue (among other things) that their image as rock stars contradict their espoused faith. One critic wrote that the marriage of secular and religious elements in "Christian music" "violates all that God has commanded in the Bible about separation."[34]

The "ghetto" has several effects, critics point out that the audience of such artists are often already Christians, thus limiting the impact of any supposed "evangelism."[35] Another is that artists sometimes have trouble appealing to and maintaining both secular and religious audiences. For example:

  • One
    drug possessed.[36][37]
    Matthews was later dropped from the tour.
  • After Bob Dylan announced his conversion to Christianity in 1979, he released three albums widely cited as being based on his newfound faith.[38] Dylan spent several years touring and preaching from stage, though he never became a part of the "Christian music subculture."[38] The result, as one critic bluntly puts it, was that "It didn't work. Christian music fans were characteristically suspicious of Dylan's failure to leave the world behind and become a part of their little ghetto, and the world at large tired quickly of paying money to hear him sing about religion."[38] By 1981, Dylan had dropped the explicit religious references; both critics and audiences returned his music to acclaim.
  • While commonly cited as the father of Christian rock, Larry Norman struggled to gain acceptance from the Christian music industry, and was largely estranged from it for his career.[39][40] His 1969 solo debut has been described by secular observers as "perhaps the first truly accomplished and relevant Christian rock testimony ever recorded,"[41] and 1972's Only Visiting This Planet became one of the most revered albums of all time in Christian music. Even so, Norman became, according to CCM "so far outside the mainstream that most of today's Christian music fans have no idea who Larry Norman is."[42]

The problem, as summed by one critic, was that the music was too religious for secular audience, while simultaneously too aggressive for religious audiences.[29][30] One critic describes the situation, stating that for a band "to be taken seriously outside the Christian scene, a band must stay far, far away from that scene."[43]

Their first release sold almost 30,000 copies, with "bulk of sales coming from the Christian market," according to Billboard.[44] The band had been placed in the Christian market by their record label largely because their lead singer, Paul Meany, was previously with the band Earthsuit, whose only major label release was released on a Christian label
.

This caused the band to not get taken seriously by music critics, and by the release of

evangelistic agenda with what we're doing... You know, you don't want to be ashamed of your faith and your beliefs, but you don't want to be marketed by that, either."[45]

On the other hand, some artists operate solely within the "ghetto" of Christian music, and find great success in doing so.

Downplayed religious content

An early Christian record label, Lamb & Lion Records (founded by Pat Boone) reported in 1978 that it was their goal to produce crossover artists, but they were limited by lack of distribution to the secular marketplace.[46] Both problems affected Christian labels into the 1990s.[35] "Since people don't understand [the term] 'the Blood of Jesus, '" stated a manager for Lamb & Lion, "...music that communicates must approach it another way. We've got to present a subtle but sensitive Christian message."[46] Lyrics with subdued religious content have become commonplace in the industry; One critic points out that the secular hit "Spirit in the Sky" "has more explicit religious references than do many recent Christian radio hits."[47]

Some critics have alleged that CCM often uses "minimal direct theology," and promotes a "Jesus is my boyfriend" image of God.

Almost There produced the Christian and secular chart hit "I Can Only Imagine." However, the lyrics of the single, while Christian in nature, contain what one critic calls "rather vacuous theology."[29]

Sometimes "crossing over" creates ambiguity over whether an artist is Christian (a "Christian band"),[30] or the artist is composed of Christians and produces music that appeals to Christian music fans but does not cater to the Christian market ("Christians in a band").[30] Such artists are:

  • Dove awards.[48][49] However, the band is not generally considered to be a "Christian band" today. On that topic the band states "We originally signed with a record company that was backed by Word (a Christian label housing John Tesh and Amy Grant
    ), so the record was in Christian bookstores. It was really an accidental thing."
  • Project 86 has sometimes been labeled a "Christian band", although the band itself eschewed the label. The band considers its art to be the best conveyance of their message.[50] Frontman Andrew Schwab has offered several statements on the topic. "We're not going to go in there and say 'Hey we're the Christian band. We're going to carry ourselves like a normal band. Hopefully people will like our music and investigate into the band [...] and they will learn our beliefs."[51] "If we're playing at Ozzfest or on Family Values...," the band told 7ball after the release of their second album, "there is a greater level of tact necessary in order to reach that sort of audience."[52] In a 2007 interview, Schwab further opined "We always tell people that the goal has been to just write music that we love, and write music hopefully that is challenging and inspiring to people and doesn't sound like everything else out there."[53]
  • Dove Awards, even after having been signed to the mainstream Columbia Records. Spin writer Andrew Beaujon takes the view that "their lyrics often have two different meanings, one meaning for a Christian audience and one meaning for the rest of us. They try to relate to two different groups of people at once".[56]

In video

The trend continues when examining religious videos. Many Christian bands produce videos with rotation on MTV in mind, however, the images can lead to an ambiguous impression of the portrayal.

In 1982 MTV featured two videos, "Constantly Changing" and "It's Mad" (which was the first one to be featured), made by the Swedish Christian rock band

Dove award in a category created specially for it, "Gospel Music Visual Song" in 1985.[59]

Another artist, Brian Welch, whose solo debut was released to Christian markets, found their album pulled from some Christian bookstores after the music video for "Flush" was released.[60] The video is an interpretation of the authors personal experience with methamphetamine, before his religious conversion. At the time the album was pulled, Brian Welsh released a statement about the visual content of the video, relating its symbolism to his personal experiences of addiction and redemption. He also issued the following statement: "The video for 'Flush' is about crystal meth addiction and the crazy things anyone addicted to meth will do while they're high or to get their fix. Everything the models were doing in the video is what I was wrapped up in while I was addicted to meth... I believe I would be dead right now if I continued using meth, but instead, I chose to surrender my life to Christ and die to myself so He could share His resurrection with me... There is a huge message of hope on my CD and I believe those retailers that are pulling the CD from their shelves are robbing someone spiritually by taking it off of the shelves."[60]

Classification of videos on Z Music by content[61]

  Ambiguously Religious (31%)
  Moderately Religious (52%)
  Unequivocally Religious (17%)

A study of visual elements of Christian music videos on Z Music Television, a now defunct MTV-like channel for Christian music, found that almost one third of the channel's videos could be described as "Ambiguously Religious" at best (red area, right).[61] The conclusion was that the channel's programming was designed to make its Christian nature "apparent only to those willing to listen for it."[61]

Other arguments

Some critics describe the Christian music industry as being committed "to the goals and strategies of the commercial marketplace – industrial growth, increased market share, and greater profits."

Christian rock festivals."[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ Mungons & Yeo 2021, pp. 91–112
  2. ^ Mall 2020, pp. 13–16
  3. ^ a b c d Powell 2002, "Introduction" pp. 9–13.
  4. ^ a b c Forbes & Mahan 2000, "Evangelicals and Popular Music: The Contemporary Christian Music Industry" pp. 105–109
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cusic 2002, Part Four, pp. 279–386
  6. ^ Mount, Daniel J. (2005). A City on a Hilltop? The History of Contemporary Christian Music. p. 50. Archived from the original on February 3, 2007. Retrieved February 12, 2007.
  7. ISBN 1-56075-029-4
    .
  8. ISSN 1524-7848
    .
  9. ^ "Articles / Christian Music". Dial-the-Truth Ministries.
  10. ISSN 1524-7848
    .
  11. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  12. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  13. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  14. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  15. OCLC 22937802
    .
  16. OCLC 22937802
    .
  17. ^ "God's Own Country". The Economist. Vol. 336, no. 7928. August 19, 1995.
  18. OCLC 22937802
    .
  19. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  20. OCLC 22937802
    .
  21. ^
    ISSN 0009-5753
    .
  22. ^ Feinberg, Margaret (April 15, 2000). "Modern Worship Is Exploding". Christian Retailing. 46 (8): 45–56.
  23. ^ McCabe, Ginny (July 1999). "Praise & Worship Music Changing for the Millennium". CBA Marketplace. 32 (7): 222.
  24. ISSN 0006-2510
    .
  25. ^
    ISSN 0006-2510
    .
  26. ISSN 0006-2510
    .
  27. OCLC 22937802
    .
  28. ^ Blow, Charles M. (July 31, 2009). "Swan Songs?". The New York Times. p. A17. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
  29. ^ a b c d Nichols 2008, Chapter 5: "Jesus on Vinyl" pp. 122 – 146
  30. ^ a b c d e Howard & Streck 1999, p. 9
  31. ^ a b Hendershot 2004, pp. 39–84
  32. ^
    OCLC 22937802
    .
  33. ^ Kyle 2006, "If You Can't Beat 'em Join 'em" pp. 281–286
  34. ISBN 0-87398-839-6
    .
  35. ^
    doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1992.t01-1-00079.x
    .
  36. ^ a b Powell 2002, "Randy Matthews" pp. 566–569.
  37. ISSN 1524-7848
    .
  38. ^ a b c Powell 2002, "Bob Dylan" pp. 277 – 286.
  39. ^ Powell 2002, "Larry Norman" pp. 633–641.
  40. ISSN 0009-5753
    .
  41. ^ Jeffries, Vincent. "Upon This Rock". Allmusic. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
  42. ISSN 1524-7848
    .
  43. ^ Moll, Rob (June 2006). "Rock Un-Solid: When Christian bands bite the hands that praised them". Christianity Today.
  44. Billboard Magazine
    . 118 (11).
  45. ^ a b Holub, Annie (January 19, 2006). "Church and State: Mutemath fights the machine at Warner Bros". Tucson Weekly.
  46. ^ a b Hortegas, Steve (May 1978). "H-E-R-E-S'S Christian Show Biz!". Eternity. 29 (5).
  47. ^ Alfonso 2002, "Contemporary Christian music: A History" pp. 11–29.
  48. ^ "Dove Award Recipients for Hard Music Recorded Song". Gospel Music Association. Archived from the original on January 6, 2002. Retrieved November 15, 2006.
  49. ^ "Dove Award Recipients for Hard Music Album". Gospel Music Association. Archived from the original on April 6, 2002. Retrieved November 15, 2006.
  50. ISSN 1044-2197
    .
  51. ^ Gonzales, Ron (May 28, 2004). "Wide range of music inspires Project 86". Albuquerque Journal. p. 2D.
  52. ISSN 1082-3980
    .
  53. ^ DiBase, John (April 23, 2007). "I want Rival Factions". Jesus Freak Hideout. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  54. ^ "Switchfoot steps toward stardom". The Boston Globe. January 9, 2004. Archived from the original on January 23, 2005. Retrieved August 9, 2006.
  55. ^ "Question and Answer with Switchfoot's Jon Foreman". October 13, 2004. Archived from the original on February 8, 2013. Retrieved August 9, 2006.
  56. ^ "Rocking for Jesus". June 30, 2006. Archived from the original on July 6, 2006. Retrieved August 9, 2006.
  57. Billboard Magazine
    . November 20, 1982. p. 43.
  58. ISSN 0746-7656
    .
  59. ^
    ISSN 0746-7656
    .
  60. ^ a b "Ex-Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch defends 'controversial' video". Blabbermouth.net. September 25, 2008. Retrieved November 1, 2008.
  61. ^
    ISSN 0300-7766
    .
  62. ^ a b Forbes & Mahan 2000, "Evangelicals and Popular Music: The Art World of Contemporary Christian Music" pp. 109–115

Sources

External links

Industry organizations

Other

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christian_music_industry&oldid=1155979252"