True story. I was walking campus cursing this blaring, screeching, electric guitar music somebody was blaring and it turned out to be a man on the water tower with a grinder grinding some welds.
Please, Doug and others, if you’re going to praise that garbage, don’t turn around and make fun of modern art. At least try to retain a modicum of self-awareness and consistency.
More garbage. As I recently (and correctly) pointed out elsewhere: Suffice it to say that if whites, not blacks, had invented rap, and this was some white guy from Buford’s Holler, Alabama, Doug and everyone else on here who’s praising it would instead be roundly ridiculing and denouncing it, condemning both the infantile doggerel that makes up the lyrics, and the guttural delivery and ugly “music” as incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Reducing the profound teachings of the Bible to infantile, ungrammatical gibberish and delivering it in guttural speech set to a hideously discordant cacophony is not “glorifying… Read more »
Oh you misunderstood why I put that link up. It wasn’t to know what your opinion would be. I already knew that. It was just to get you to listen to some more of the “garbage”. Thanks for playing. :-)
What style of music do you believe IS compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e., is not infantile doggerel, is not ugly, does not reduce “the profound teachings of the Bible to infantile, ungrammatical gibberish”)?
Here I am talking about what you think is suitable or appropriate outside the context of corporate worship, not what style is Scripturally consistent (e.g., exclusive Psalmody).
There are several acceptable styles of music. At the risk of being accused of immanentizing the eschaton, here’s a list. I may have missed one or two, but not many:
Baroque
Choral
Classical
Bluegrass
Texas Swing
Polka
Traditional country (not “bro country” or “hip hop country”)
British Invasion (“Mersey Beat”)
California Surf (ca. 1960-1966)
Classic rock
Alternative rock
New Wave
Emo
Trance
Shoegaze (but not the real heavy stuff)
If it’s not Baroque, don’t try to fix it, right? Regarding British Invasion. Camel’s instrumental album “Snow Goose” is quality stuff (Camel was/is not as well-known as the other British bands of the time, but part of the British invasion). Regarding rap. It seems like much rap isn’t especially focused on music but on rhythm — especially the rhythm of the words. Anyway, I am wondering if what I write here below about country music is in any degree analogous at all to your hatred for rap (or anyone else’s hatred or strong dislike for a given genre or style… Read more »
I understand how southerners feel about that, and I don’t think it is right to mock them. A whole generation of baby boomers grew up feeling that way about rock and roll. It’s kind of a shorthand to express emotions we don’t have words for. And, unless you count LA as southern, I’ve never been south of Denver.
They hate country because it’s long been the music of working class white Southerners, and The Synagogue has been pushing hatred of working class whites, especially Southerners, for well over 50 years, and they’ve been extremely successful. So successful that millions of white people, even Southerners, despise other whites, and everything about their culture.
Perhaps hatred for working class white Southerners is the reason for some — but it is certainly not the reason for those I had in mind. I did not grow up surrounded by southern culture (I grew up in Utah), but I know people who were so surrounded. For them, a song that typifies some (not all) of the things they hate about country music is “If the South Woulda Won.”
My goodness, I wonder how my Jewish family and friends manage to earn a living and mow their lawns what with being so busy trying to take over the world. Or trying to oppress righteous Southerners by ridiculing their music. If Jews hate working class whites, why do they tend to vote Dem?
My goodness, I wonder how my Jewish family and friends manage to earn a living and mow their lawns what with being so busy trying to take over the world.
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes ya wonder how they keep from goin’ under.
If Jews hate working class whites, why do they tend to vote Dem?
Because, while both parties despise working class whites, Dems are stronger in their hatred and more open about it than the GOP.
Wow. I’m-a bookmark this. Still, parts of southern culture I adore and consider “correct.” See Atticus in Mockingbird. And yet… theres so much here thats absolutely true.
Same Atticus – 2 sides of the same coin. Southern Stoic who believes in the protection of the law, and the aristocracy’s protection of the underclasses to hold society together.
I am guessing you would like it better if there were no growls? So, various combinations or elements of melodic and heavy, but no growls and just clean (i.e., “regular”) singing?
This guy makes some haunting music. He’s gay, and he’s often accused of using “fascist” imagery, and even of supposedly secretly having Nazi sympathies, but he performs in concert in Israel, so that seems extremely unlikely. I think Israel is probably really good at keeping Nazis out.
Bull (may I call you Bull?), take care to remember everything I have said about hip hop. I am more than willing to say that black people can do a bad job. Craft competence is not a race thing.
Doug’s comment about craft competence brought to mind Michael Horton’s observation regarding “inferior artists” who profess the name of Christ. “The pressure to justify art, science, and entertainment in terms of their spiritual value or evangelistic usefulness ends up damaging both the gift of creation and the gift of the Gospel, devaluing the former and distorting the latter in the process. For instance, ‘Christian music’ is often an excuse for inferior artists to make it in a Christian subculture that mimics the glitz and glamour of secular entertainment, including its own awards ceremonies and superstar ambience. That, of course, may… Read more »
That, of course, may not be the intention on the part of a great many artists who set out to contribute to contemporary Christian music, but the industry nevertheless ends up churning out mostly uncreative, repetitive, shallow imitations of popular music.
Michael Horton’s right. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but years ago I was in a “Christian rock” band. We were basically a Van Halen clone. And, frankly, we were awful. Thankfully, though, we knew we were awful, and we broke up after releasing only one song, Hot for Preacher.
In “An Evening with N.D. Wilson: Hosted by Joe Rigney,” the topic of cheesy, non-substantive, “evangelical schlock” was discussed. This “schlock” could be applied to book-writing, as well as to song-writing, lyric-writing, instrument-playing, etc. Anyway, here are a some more interesting observations from Horton (not necessarily a blanket-agreement of Horton): “Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is a good piece of fiction in its own right, and that is why it is studied as a Western classic (not in a special category of ‘Christian literature’) in secular classes. The church music of Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel is more famous in many concert halls… Read more »
True story. I was about 10 in the national gallery of art in DC. Some of the paintings were really big. I wondered – how do they hang these things up so securely? I found a nice decently sized work – I’m not sure what it was but in the recesses of my mind it seems that the subject matter was Daniel in the lions den. (Those were the days before Christ in urine was considered art.) I stepped over to the picture, pulled it about 8 inches out from the wall and checked it out. I was able to… Read more »
jigawatt
8 years ago
I was at the third floor of the St. Louis Art Museum where some of the modern stuff is kept. They had one of those water “tornados” like we used to make with 2L coke bottles, but it was made with plexiglass and a fan or something causing the vortex. There was some pea gravel (looked like the stuff you can get at Lowes) around the base of the thing and it was all up on a three foot or so pedastal. There was no rope or anything else blocking people from coming right up to it. Sort of neat,… Read more »
Ha! Let’s hear it for a lack of appreciation for modern art. Not long ago I actually heard the words, “Doesn’t that orange dot on white canvas speak to the struggles within the artist’s soul, his desire to reconcile the sadistic nature of the universe with his own masochistic tendencies?”
No, no it does not, I see nothing more than an orange dot on white canvas, except now you people are really starting to scare me. Also, six grand for that piece? Seriously? I think I prefer to just remain confused….
Rob Steele
8 years ago
True story. Visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. Hated hated hated it. Almost every piece looked like a middle finger raised to Heaven except for one that turned out to be a door.
Another true story – When my oldest daughter was in college back in the early 2000’s, she took us to the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago. She took us to an exhibit by this artist that consisted of a bunch of candy in shiny wrappers leaning against a wall. The observers were encouraged to take and eat the candy. every day the museum staff were to add to it to make it weigh something like 128 lbs., which was the weight that the artist’s gay lover weighed when he died of AIDS. I was so offended, because to me… Read more »
What is it with candy wrappers? There’s piece in the Carnegie in Pittsburgh that consists of green tomato cages twisted around one another, with candy wrappers (the kind that might go around colorful hard candies) attached at various places. I don’t even know what the artist was trying to say, but it always induces mirth in my family members when we reminisce about seeing it. Perhaps it is also bad art to you because art is about more than a creative “idea,” it should also involve a creative and beautiful execution. A pile of candy is not that. A creative… Read more »
I know, right? A couple weeks ago when Anonymous made the video announcing they’re going to expose Ted Cruz’s cheating history, they asked him if the phrase “candy wrapper” means anything to him.
Are they implying that not only is Cruz unfaithful to his “wife”, but that he also takes the women he’s cheating with to modern art museums?
The cleaners don’t get the message (which is a commentary on the artists, not the cleaners).
timothy
8 years ago
Does anybody know the name of the artist and album that includes the version of The Old One Hundreth that used to start the Allistair Begg Truth for Life program?
He switched to a guitar version and it does not compare. I miss the soaring melody that featured the oboe and the massive orchestral sound of the earlier version.
Links to an album to purchase or a youtube video would be most appreciated.
True story. I was walking campus cursing this blaring, screeching, electric guitar music somebody was blaring and it turned out to be a man on the water tower with a grinder grinding some welds.
In other words, you heard a horrible noise and thought it was horrible music.
Which, if the guy with the grinder was black, isn’t cool.
When Christians hear black people making horrible noises, they’re supposed to call it good music:
https://dougwils.com/books/willie-will-5-solas.html
Please, Doug and others, if you’re going to praise that garbage, don’t turn around and make fun of modern art. At least try to retain a modicum of self-awareness and consistency.
http://youtu.be/i9jkJ1lV4oE
More garbage. As I recently (and correctly) pointed out elsewhere: Suffice it to say that if whites, not blacks, had invented rap, and this was some white guy from Buford’s Holler, Alabama, Doug and everyone else on here who’s praising it would instead be roundly ridiculing and denouncing it, condemning both the infantile doggerel that makes up the lyrics, and the guttural delivery and ugly “music” as incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Reducing the profound teachings of the Bible to infantile, ungrammatical gibberish and delivering it in guttural speech set to a hideously discordant cacophony is not “glorifying… Read more »
Oh you misunderstood why I put that link up. It wasn’t to know what your opinion would be. I already knew that. It was just to get you to listen to some more of the “garbage”. Thanks for playing. :-)
Curses! Foiled again!
I’m liking the new name Bull! However, I was going to suggest Burgermeister Meisterburger
Hello, Bull-
What style of music do you believe IS compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e., is not infantile doggerel, is not ugly, does not reduce “the profound teachings of the Bible to infantile, ungrammatical gibberish”)?
Here I am talking about what you think is suitable or appropriate outside the context of corporate worship, not what style is Scripturally consistent (e.g., exclusive Psalmody).
There are several acceptable styles of music. At the risk of being accused of immanentizing the eschaton, here’s a list. I may have missed one or two, but not many:
Baroque
Choral
Classical
Bluegrass
Texas Swing
Polka
Traditional country (not “bro country” or “hip hop country”)
British Invasion (“Mersey Beat”)
California Surf (ca. 1960-1966)
Classic rock
Alternative rock
New Wave
Emo
Trance
Shoegaze (but not the real heavy stuff)
If it’s not Baroque, don’t try to fix it, right? Regarding British Invasion. Camel’s instrumental album “Snow Goose” is quality stuff (Camel was/is not as well-known as the other British bands of the time, but part of the British invasion). Regarding rap. It seems like much rap isn’t especially focused on music but on rhythm — especially the rhythm of the words. Anyway, I am wondering if what I write here below about country music is in any degree analogous at all to your hatred for rap (or anyone else’s hatred or strong dislike for a given genre or style… Read more »
I understand how southerners feel about that, and I don’t think it is right to mock them. A whole generation of baby boomers grew up feeling that way about rock and roll. It’s kind of a shorthand to express emotions we don’t have words for. And, unless you count LA as southern, I’ve never been south of Denver.
You’re making it way too complicated, brother.
They hate country because it’s long been the music of working class white Southerners, and The Synagogue has been pushing hatred of working class whites, especially Southerners, for well over 50 years, and they’ve been extremely successful. So successful that millions of white people, even Southerners, despise other whites, and everything about their culture.
Perhaps hatred for working class white Southerners is the reason for some — but it is certainly not the reason for those I had in mind. I did not grow up surrounded by southern culture (I grew up in Utah), but I know people who were so surrounded. For them, a song that typifies some (not all) of the things they hate about country music is “If the South Woulda Won.”
My goodness, I wonder how my Jewish family and friends manage to earn a living and mow their lawns what with being so busy trying to take over the world. Or trying to oppress righteous Southerners by ridiculing their music. If Jews hate working class whites, why do they tend to vote Dem?
My goodness, I wonder how my Jewish family and friends manage to earn a living and mow their lawns what with being so busy trying to take over the world.
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes ya wonder how they keep from goin’ under.
If Jews hate working class whites, why do they tend to vote Dem?
Because, while both parties despise working class whites, Dems are stronger in their hatred and more open about it than the GOP.
Doug, I don’t know if the Logos Dads Band is taking requests for this Thursday night, but if so, would you guys mind playing Jilly, Don’t Be a Hero?
Here’s the tune if you need it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlK9TJvuSk
Wow. I’m-a bookmark this. Still, parts of southern culture I adore and consider “correct.” See Atticus in Mockingbird. And yet… theres so much here thats absolutely true.
What about Atticus in Go Set a Watchman?
Same Atticus – 2 sides of the same coin. Southern Stoic who believes in the protection of the law, and the aristocracy’s protection of the underclasses to hold society together.
I’m curious what you think of this style?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9LrIPAiGxo
I don’t care for that kind of music. But it’s qualitatively better than rap.
I am guessing you would like it better if there were no growls? So, various combinations or elements of melodic and heavy, but no growls and just clean (i.e., “regular”) singing?
Probably, yes.
This is what I like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bqrRNowf1Q
Nice female vocals — I like that style of singing. I like this style of Agnete M. Kirkevaag even better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smsUmAKH5nE
She has a great voice, but I don’t care for the screaming.
Yeah. The screaming is not my fave either. Just one more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J0jzOy57jg
Very nice. I like that quite a bit.
This guy makes some haunting music. He’s gay, and he’s often accused of using “fascist” imagery, and even of supposedly secretly having Nazi sympathies, but he performs in concert in Israel, so that seems extremely unlikely. I think Israel is probably really good at keeping Nazis out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_S8bPXK8ao
Not sure why you left metal off that list.
All of an Englishman’s preferences are a matter of principle.
Easy there princess…
Noise, dog whistles, bloviating, it’s all music to me.
Bull (may I call you Bull?), take care to remember everything I have said about hip hop. I am more than willing to say that black people can do a bad job. Craft competence is not a race thing.
https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/rap-tide.html
Sure, you can call me Bull.
Probably going to change my name anyway, as people don’t seem to get what I’m driving at with BCWAH.
So I’m probably going to change it to Caitlyn Wayne Gacy.
Either that or Carl McIntire.
Before selecting Carl McIntire you ought to read the transcript of his sermon “Why Christians Should be Kind to the Jews” at http://www.carlmcintire.org/t-sermons-jews.php.
Thanks, jilly. You have saved me weeks of fraught cogitation.
Caitlyn Wayne Gacy it is!
Doug’s comment about craft competence brought to mind Michael Horton’s observation regarding “inferior artists” who profess the name of Christ. “The pressure to justify art, science, and entertainment in terms of their spiritual value or evangelistic usefulness ends up damaging both the gift of creation and the gift of the Gospel, devaluing the former and distorting the latter in the process. For instance, ‘Christian music’ is often an excuse for inferior artists to make it in a Christian subculture that mimics the glitz and glamour of secular entertainment, including its own awards ceremonies and superstar ambience. That, of course, may… Read more »
That, of course, may not be the intention on the part of a great many artists who set out to contribute to contemporary Christian music, but the industry nevertheless ends up churning out mostly uncreative, repetitive, shallow imitations of popular music.
Michael Horton’s right. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but years ago I was in a “Christian rock” band. We were basically a Van Halen clone. And, frankly, we were awful. Thankfully, though, we knew we were awful, and we broke up after releasing only one song, Hot for Preacher.
In “An Evening with N.D. Wilson: Hosted by Joe Rigney,” the topic of cheesy, non-substantive, “evangelical schlock” was discussed. This “schlock” could be applied to book-writing, as well as to song-writing, lyric-writing, instrument-playing, etc. Anyway, here are a some more interesting observations from Horton (not necessarily a blanket-agreement of Horton): “Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is a good piece of fiction in its own right, and that is why it is studied as a Western classic (not in a special category of ‘Christian literature’) in secular classes. The church music of Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel is more famous in many concert halls… Read more »
True story. I was about 10 in the national gallery of art in DC. Some of the paintings were really big. I wondered – how do they hang these things up so securely? I found a nice decently sized work – I’m not sure what it was but in the recesses of my mind it seems that the subject matter was Daniel in the lions den. (Those were the days before Christ in urine was considered art.) I stepped over to the picture, pulled it about 8 inches out from the wall and checked it out. I was able to… Read more »
I was at the third floor of the St. Louis Art Museum where some of the modern stuff is kept. They had one of those water “tornados” like we used to make with 2L coke bottles, but it was made with plexiglass and a fan or something causing the vortex. There was some pea gravel (looked like the stuff you can get at Lowes) around the base of the thing and it was all up on a three foot or so pedastal. There was no rope or anything else blocking people from coming right up to it. Sort of neat,… Read more »
Ha! Let’s hear it for a lack of appreciation for modern art. Not long ago I actually heard the words, “Doesn’t that orange dot on white canvas speak to the struggles within the artist’s soul, his desire to reconcile the sadistic nature of the universe with his own masochistic tendencies?”
No, no it does not, I see nothing more than an orange dot on white canvas, except now you people are really starting to scare me. Also, six grand for that piece? Seriously? I think I prefer to just remain confused….
True story. Visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. Hated hated hated it. Almost every piece looked like a middle finger raised to Heaven except for one that turned out to be a door.
Did the door open to a stairway to heaven?
Probably opened to the gift shop…
Loading dock. So yes.
Another true story – When my oldest daughter was in college back in the early 2000’s, she took us to the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago. She took us to an exhibit by this artist that consisted of a bunch of candy in shiny wrappers leaning against a wall. The observers were encouraged to take and eat the candy. every day the museum staff were to add to it to make it weigh something like 128 lbs., which was the weight that the artist’s gay lover weighed when he died of AIDS. I was so offended, because to me… Read more »
What is it with candy wrappers? There’s piece in the Carnegie in Pittsburgh that consists of green tomato cages twisted around one another, with candy wrappers (the kind that might go around colorful hard candies) attached at various places. I don’t even know what the artist was trying to say, but it always induces mirth in my family members when we reminisce about seeing it. Perhaps it is also bad art to you because art is about more than a creative “idea,” it should also involve a creative and beautiful execution. A pile of candy is not that. A creative… Read more »
What is it with candy wrappers?
I know, right? A couple weeks ago when Anonymous made the video announcing they’re going to expose Ted Cruz’s cheating history, they asked him if the phrase “candy wrapper” means anything to him.
Are they implying that not only is Cruz unfaithful to his “wife”, but that he also takes the women he’s cheating with to modern art museums?
If so, he’s truly sick.
Art installation in Italy ended up in the bin
And 3 times prior to that.
The cleaners don’t get the message (which is a commentary on the artists, not the cleaners).
Does anybody know the name of the artist and album that includes the version of The Old One Hundreth that used to start the Allistair Begg Truth for Life program?
He switched to a guitar version and it does not compare. I miss the soaring melody that featured the oboe and the massive orchestral sound of the earlier version.
Links to an album to purchase or a youtube video would be most appreciated.
thx.