Why is CCM so bland and boring?

[ripple the car]

It's suspiciously juxtaposed to a suggestion to give money.

Yep.

 

[jayem]

I'm not a religious believer. But I appreciate good music of any kind. This is on Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming album from 1979. The first album from his Christian period. I think Precious Angel is one of his best songs. And Mark Knopfler's guitar work fits in perfectly.

 

[Ricky Everitt]

Agreed that most CCM isn’t great, there’s the odd good song like the current big song Anne Wilson - my Jesus, but I find the best Christian music is within country music. Check out apple musics ‘country faith’ playlist for example, all really decent songs. Also the ‘front porch country gospel’ is an excellent playlist

 

[Tempura]

Yep, I have to really dig under every rock to find something I really like, something that moves me. The best stuff I've found isn't exactly worship music and not explicitly Christian all the time. Take a guy like Sufjan Stevens, an awesome talent, who composed one of the best spiritual albums I know - Seven Swans. It's a more Christian album than not, but if one is looking for music with Christian elements to it, it could be very hard for them to find this gem or something like it.

Lately I found Christian artists like Jon Foreman and John Lucas. To me they seem to have their own voice, in a way. Not quite A+ material but some of their songs actually touched me, I'm so thankful I found them. And I found them entirely by accident. Actively trying to search this stuff can be quite demoralizing.

I'll link a few songs here in case someone wants to hear them. Oh and you people can recommend stuff like this to me anytime, I'd love it. I like a lot of the "searcher" stuff too.

That last video, even if it's kind of relevant to the subject, I put it there for music lovers. Spot your heroes, you might find a few of them.

 

[mama2one]

I only played our local Christian music station when driving child to and from school in various grades

we know the words to several & sing along often

 

[Sketcher]

I think it's the quality of the music itself. There's a college radio station that plays a lot of variety, and I've heard secular music there that sounds exactly like CCM, except it doesn't have God-honoring lyrics to redeem it. Makes me change the station every time something like that starts playing.

 

[theeblackestblu]

Its been interesting to see so many thoughts and perspectives. I just wanted to add the https://www.youtube.com/c/Real80sCCM channel. They are always looking to expand so if you have bands or old lps. tapes or cds. Theres tons of bands i've never heard.. fun times. Also band camp has some really great artists..(and of course some not so!)I've found some good stuff. Im finding myself so tired of all worship music sounding the same. Glad im not the only one. I cant really listen to the rock much anymore. God convicted me about... but i miss it greatly.. So i've been trying to go back in time musically and find older stuff. It seemed to have better instrumentation and skill sometimes. Also worship music from different countries adds to the mix..

 

[Larniavc]

I used to be someone who always listened to stations like K-Love. A few years ago where I live K-Love moved to another channel and in that channels place came a new Christian station which is slightly better, more rock, some hip hop mixed in but still has the same problems. In CCM stations whether it be local or satellite, all the songs sounds the same, same repetitive chords and voices. Nothing just sounds creative, it's all bland. It's all boring. I am a Christian but I admit I do have my own musical tastes and the slow worship songs are fine but not for me. Why does Christian radio have the most boring and bland collection of Christian music? You really have to search for actual good Christian artist, I been looking at more indie Christian musicians and other alternative bands who you won't hear on CCM radio and they are great. Sometimes I would rather listen to secular music because those artists for the most part care about creating art, why can't Christian music have that mentality, you can still worship God while creating something good.

I’ll take a punt. The creative process is normally an internal process for expression and invoking emotion.

The Christian song is about God or Jesus- not about the self. Another reason I can think of is that secular music invokes the whole gamut of emotional experience love/hate, happy/sad, calm/angry.

Christian music (from an outsider looking in) many seems to focus on who much they love/need Jesus. Which limits the kind of emotion you can have in the song.

 

[mama2one]

my young teen attended Christian camp in July & they sang this song:

I love it especially the part @ 4:18
May his favor be upon you
and a thousand generations
and your family and your children
and their children and their children