From: ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman)
Subject: Re: Top 40 CCM albums of 1992
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:34:19 GMT

In article <104074@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.152505.8673@cbnews.cb.att.com> ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:

Thanks for your response, Lauren.  I'd be particularly interested in
hearing more about some of the world beat/international music you
mentioned.
 
>I still buy pop once in a while.  I bought Suzanne Vega's latest ... I
>bought a Bing Crosby Christmas album (stop wheezing, Andy) ... that's
>about it for the past six months or so.  I suspect I'll buckle and buy
>Kate and Anna Mcgarrigle's latest soon, though I don't know as I'd
>classify them as pop.  Oh, I also bought Amy Grant's pop album -- I
>actually like it quite a bit.  First thing I've bought of hers.  

No wheezing from this geezer.  I've bought albums by Frank Sinatra
and Mel Torme within the past year, so I don't have much room to talk.
Which Kate and Anna McGarrigle album are you thinking about buying?
The last one I heard, "Heartbeats Accelerating," was okay but not as
good as "Dancer with Bruised Knees" or the album with all the French
songs.  Is that their latest?

>At this point, I'd like to more deeply explore classical music and also
>CCM.  I really only know the mainstream folks; this group has piqued my
>interest in getting to know the lesser-knowns a bit better.  I'd
>definitely like to get my hands on some great black gospel stuff.  And maybe
>some jazz.  I *hate* fusion; I classify it with heavy metal as the only
>two forms of music I can't seem to develop a taste for.  But I like Pat
>Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Larry Corryell (sp?), and a few others I've
>heard.   

Depends on what you're calling fusion, I guess.  Originally the term
referred to a fusion of rock and jazz music, and was inspired by some of 
Miles Davis' more exotic albums and typified by late sixties/early seventies 
bands such as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Return to Forever.
I think this is pretty good stuff.  But when I think of fusion now I think 
of a fusion of jazz and pop music, as typified by Kenny G., Spyro Gyra,
Earl Klugh, Bob James, Dave Grusin, Lee Ritenour, etc.  This stuff has
an ultra-high glucose content, and I can't stand it.  

All of this is, of course, my opinion, and I make no claims to musical
objectivity except in the case of Kenny G., who has already proven 
that he is beyond redemption and has already been consigned to the
outer darkness of hell, where he will be forced to torture Lucifer and 
his minions with a never-ending version of "Songbird."

>>I can appreciate the desire for music that is "easy on the ears" and
>>that doesn't make too many demands on one's attention.  But I guess 
>>I'm also finding that the more one listens, the more comfortable one
>>becomes with genres of music that were once strange and inaccessible.
>>To a certain extent you have to work at it.  But it gets a lot 
>>easier with increasing exposure and familiarity.  
>
>As I say, that's worked for me for every genre I've encountered except the
>two I've mentioned above.  It's possible I could eventually like fusion
>jazz.  But I expect I'll be raptured first.  I also think I've just plain
>outgrown some pop music.  Maybe if I shut out the lyrics ... 

I'm still a sucker for three-minute pop songs that feature jangly
guitars and choruses about girls and cars and True Love.  Song titles 
in which girl's names appear are almost invariably good for some reason. 
There are still a few performers/bands making songs like this, among
them The Posies and Matthew Sweet and The La's and E and NRBQ
and The Bats and Material Issue.  It's pop music at its most fluffy
and vacuous, and it's simply great.  Eat your heart out, Rushfans.

>Oh, one other genre I'm having some trouble with:  rap.  I tend to like
>rap spin-offs, the ones that include some melody somewhere, and there've
>been a couple of rap songs I've actually enjoyed somewhat, but I've yet to
>hear anything in that genre that's tempted me even remotely to buy it. 
>Except Sinead O'Connor's "I Am Spread(?) on Your Grave."  Who would've
>thought to combine rap with traditional Irish music?  

You know what?  That song is actually more than twenty years old,
and was written by a guy named Phillip King, who played (plays?)
in an obscure Irish band called Scullion.  I mention this only
because the original version, recorded in 1971, is definitely a
rap song.  And it was a rap song before anybody had even invented
the term.

In general rap doesn't do much for me, but Public Enemy is certainly
one exception.  Arrested Development is another.  These folks are
carrying on in the grand tradition of protest music, and they're doing
it very well.  And I find a lot of the sampling to be very creative
too.  I find a lot of rap to be sexist, misogynist crap, and pretty
boring crap at that, but PE and AD give me real hope for the genre.

>Which brings me to what is probably my current favorite musical trend: 
>mongrelizing.  Mixing genres, blending countries.  It's why I love a lot
>of world beat music -- Indian jazz (Sheila Chandra), Middle Eastern pop
>(Ofra Haza), and the above-mentioned Irish rap.  This stuff I could listen
>to forever.  I don't suppose anyone in CCM is doing anything like this? 

Not much that I'm aware of.  The Proclaimers, an Irish band whose members
are Christians but who don't record for a CCM label, mix up a bit of
Celtic and punk influences, although the punk aspect is relatively
subdued as far as it goes.  

But I too love the mongrelizing trend.  Some of my favorites come from 
the Celtic/punk hybrid.  I'd highly recommend The Pogues, everybody's 
favorite drunken louts, as well as mid-western U.S. bands Boiled in Lead 
and Cordelia's Dad.  The Pogues sound like The Clash forced to play 
a St. Patrick's Day gig in Irish Pub hell.  Boiled in Lead mixes
Celtic, punk, Turkish, Russian, and Beatles influences.  Cordelia's
Dad, produced on Columbus' own Okra Records label, actually sounds
a lot like The Ramones, but they play high-energy versions of "Loch
Lomond" and "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier."  No need to be leary
at all.  It's wonderful music. 

>>It's sort of like visitng the mall bookstore where your only choices
>>are Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, Stephen King, Anne Rice, and 
>>Barbara Cartland.  You can read the stuff, and maybe there are times
>>when it's appropriate to kick back and turn off your mind and read
>>the stuff, but a steady diet turns you into mental mush.  I find
>>the same ideas apply to music that is easy on the ears and readily
>>accessible.  It may not be harmful in the short run, but before
>>you know it you're buying Harry Connick Jr. and Michael Bolton albums :-).  
>>It's just a short step from there to watching "Entertainment Tonight" and 
>>studying the Billboard charts.  At that point radical measures may
>>be necessary - either intensive study of Sartre's "Being and Nothingness"
>>for non-Christians or a forty-page term paper on The Book of Leviticus
>>for Christians.  Either way it's not pleasant.  Better to buy some
>>jazz today.  
>
>Uh-oh.  What about watching "M*A*S*H" reruns for the 20th time and reading
>Dorothy Sayers?  Am I playing with fire?  Is it just a matter of time
>before I'll have to explicate the mildew passage in Leviticus 13?

Dorothy Sayers is probably okay, but G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown
mysteries would probably be a safer Christian alternative.  "M*A*S*H"
is straight from the pit of hell, and features a certain character
"Hawkeye" (a Satanic talisman, isn't it?) who is a secular humanist and 
who frequently engages in the sins of humor and practical jokes.  I'll 
pray for your deranged soul.  The mildew passage has been done to
death.  I'd suggest an 200-page thesis on "Thou shalt not boil a
kid in its mother's milk" instead.  

>The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
>if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
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Newsgroups: rec.music.christian