Music that Never Leaves my Car
Though I really like music, I am what some folks would call an “Audio-Nazi.” I only like good music (or at least what I believe constitutes good). I’m one of those guys you might catch wearing a t-shirt that says, “Your Favorite Band Sucks.” 
I own about 500 CDs and I’m a sucker for a strong melody and deep, textured harmonies. But there’s another side to my music snobbery - I play several instruments at a decent level of competency (though certainly not a virtuoso at anything). So, though I loathe country music, I totally dig bluegrass ’cause it’s so stinkin’ difficult to play. Same with heavy metal - I listen to thrash. Though I love all standard jazz, my favorite is “hard bop.” Similarly the complexity of fugues, extreme polyphony, and counterpoint in Baroque classical music is my favorite. So most of the music I listen to has at least a moderate level of complexity so my ADD brain doesn’t pick it apart, assign it a numerical system, and reconstruct it. Yet, as a Christian, I own every Petra, Whiteheart, and DeGarmo & Key album, plus a whole bunch of praise and worship. Weird huh?
My favorite bands of all time:
In random order, the Beatles, King’s X, Chicago, Whiteheart, and Yes
CDs that never leave my car:
Beatles (Revolver through Abbey Road), Chicago (I through VII), various King’s X CDs and side projects, Yes (Fragile through Going for the One), Big Wreck, Thornley, Jeff Buckley (Grace), Silverchair (Diorama), Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, Miles Davis Quintet (’65-’68), Keith Jarrett (solo and trio albums), Extol, Avenged Sevenfold, Foo Fighters, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Queen (’73-’7 
CSNY (Deja Vu), Electric Light Orchestra, Rush, David Bowie, Bruce Hornsby, The Police, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder (’72-’75), Believer (Dimensions), 2nd Chapter of Acts, The Bird and the Bee, U2, Collective Soul, Mika, the Complete Piano Works of Claude Debussy performed by Walter Gieseking, AND Handel’s Water Music.
Though I have led worship in churches on and off, you’ll see there’s not a lot of praise and worship music in here. Plus, boring groups like Casting Crowns or Mercy Me never assault my ear drums. That’s because I believe worship and contemporary music should be held separate to a degree. When worship music becomes familiar, it loses its freshness in a corporate worship setting. That’s why songs like “I Can Only Imagine” should never be used as corporate worship. It’s not. It’s a pop song.
I’ll talk about praise and worship and contemporary Christian music in my next post.
Tags: Christianity, favorite bands, music, praise and worship
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March 4, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I also love the Beatles, Ben Folds, Jimi Hendrix, and many others on your list. I am interested and will keep checking back for more of your thoughts on contemporary praise and worship music. I am worried that Christian worship has become so marketable and shallow that it has lost a lot of its power. I worry a lot about worship in the church.
March 5, 2008 at 11:50 am
Ahhh…another discerning musical palette…
March 7, 2008 at 10:40 pm
In the past year I’ve come to enjoy listening to The Decemberists. I appreciate them more for the lyrical quality in general but I like the music equally well. You can listen to them on YouTube if you’re curious.
March 8, 2008 at 12:25 am
Thanks - I’ll check them out….
March 8, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I agree with you on Mercy Me - it’s pop and not worship - I can only Imagine SHOULD NOT be played in a church worship service. And I agree that MUCH of what is construed as “worship” music is in fact far from it. I think too, too many “worship” songs are too wordy and too complex.
March 9, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Brian -
Thanks for the comment. You’re dead on about worship being difficult to follow with too many words. It’s difficult for people to “own” a song when they are always staring at a projector screen. When I was a worship leader, no matter how much I liked a song, if its words were not “congregational” I would exclude it as a possibility, even if every church in the city was doing it. Worship songs that are “wordy” are usually attempting to express doctrine rather than relational intimacy. Those are two very different functions.
Thanks,
Sam
May 14, 2008 at 12:30 am
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