Listening to the (Christian) Radio
29 May 2006
After a long, hard day of helping Boof and Funky move house on Saturday, Boof was giving me a lift home when we decided to indulge in one of our favourite guilty past times: listening to, and consequently poking fun at, the local Christian radio station.
Saturday evening was a corker. There was an American Christian rock top twenty countdown playing. I wonder how they work out what the top twenty will be - do people pray for it or something? No, I know that it would be based on sales, which seems rather presumptuous. Surely a real Christian countdown should be God's favourite twenty songs for the week? (And I bet God prefers listening to The Clash).
The songs were, well...a little simplistic. Boof, who has musical talent, remarked after a paticularly insipid number about how much freedom the singer feels to pray, remarked "These songs are very repetitive." I replied, "Yes, they've got to be that way so Christians will understand them..."
Then the DJ announced "Up next...this week's music news!" I had to wonder what could possibly consititute Christian music news - "Cooper Blake, lead singer of I Found God And Lost My Talent, was recovering at home last week after an all-night not-drinking binge"? But no. The main story of the week was about a singer and his wife welcoming a new addition to the family - their fifth. Of course.
Then the ads came on. A perky voice intoned, "Have you ever wanted to be a DJ?" Boof said, "Well there's the perfect job for you...DJ at a Christian radio station!" Yes I can just see it now, me in my little DJ booth: "Good morning, this is Nico with todays scripture...OH FUCK! I just spilt my coffee in my lap!"
But we had to stop listening. We feared that if we were tuned in any longer we'd become Christians ourselves, and probably end up marrying each other *insert Sideshow Bob shudder*. You've heard of people needing to get the taste out of their mouths. Well, as soon as I got home, I needed to get the sound out of my ears. I played Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails for an hour before I felt okay again (I don't really listen to that stuff anymore, but I felt a need to do so then).
I dunno. I feel that Christian radio may be the final proof that there is no God. If I was an omnipotent being, there's no way I'd let my followers carry on such rubbish in my name...
Word. My co-workers like to turn up the 'christian' rock when I'm around. I think they feel that it's good for me, with me being a heathen and all.
ReplyDeleteOne of my co-workers is also an aspiring artist himself, so he often breaks into song . . .
I believe the repetition in their music is for the same reason you will see two Applebees commercials in a row - not cuz they made some mess up at the station, cuz repetition claws at the brain and digs in deep.
Also, I've noticed that a lot of the male singers in the genre must listen to gay rock, then just change the words from 'my boyfriend', to 'my savior' etc. For a religion that exploits anti-gay sentiment daily, their music often gets into a grey area for me.
Yep, I hate christian music.
Groovy blog. The color scheme, at least for this post was pretty hard to read. I had to select the text just to be able to decypher it.
The problem with the post not displaying properly seems to happen to all firefox users - in IE it should display as black text on an off-white background.
ReplyDeleteThere's two Xtian guys at my work who have the cubicles next to mine; their names are Rod and Glenn, but I started calling them Rod and Todd, and now everyone else does too :)
I get that your joking, it was afunny blog and well written as always.
ReplyDeleteI dont think I would like to live in a world where God had subjective musical tastes which he enforced on listeners of musical radio stations. I attribute God with a lot more stability and reliability then that...and am happy to blame humans (even christians) for silliness and lack of musical talent. And fickelness, unkindness and opinionated animous. And Im gratefull that these are human conditions, and not God's. Otherwise we all would have been indiscriminantly smitten 1000 times over by now.
...and I agree that christian music isnt nearly as good as well...any other genre. The closest it gets to good (and this is a long bow) might be Ben Harper, but...yeah...he's only very loosely gospel. Why I dont...make fun of how often crap it can be, is because I know most christians have grat intentions, and that means something. If making genuine attempts to live a more moral, loving life is worth anything, then...well I beleive it isnt worth having a go at those attempts.
I hope this doesnt open me up to such wonderfull sophistry as 'Well some christians kill people and hurt people and arent right wing red knecks christians and arent they bad poeple?'. These are just my thoughts...
Yes it is meant to be a joke, whether or not it's funny I can't say. I'm not making fun of Christians, just the people who perform on and program Christian radio.
ReplyDeleteI guess the important thing is that you are making fun of something....right?
ReplyDeleteAlso,I imagine they are probably christains programming the christian radio station...heh..anyway, moving on.
Well I guess all people on Christian radio are Christians, but not all Christians are on Christian radio...
ReplyDeleteHello. According to Blogshares you are the second most popular Newcastle Blog. My blog is the third most popular (once it was first).
ReplyDeleteI'm a Christian... but I absolutely hate Rhema. Like you I would probably prefer to listen to "Closer" than some of the the stuff that's played there - in fact NIN probably has more biblically correct lyrics than some of the drivel my fellow Christians listen to.
I'm a teacher and occasionally I teach at Christians schools. Usually while I'm there I make fun of Rhema.
Hi there. I don't know how I got to be the 2nd most popular...my shares are so darn cheap!
ReplyDelete