Music Monday – Christian Pop Crossover

I’ll just start this off by saying that I’m not a super religious person.  I’ve got my relationship with God and I don’t find it necessary to go to church.  Part of my issue with church is all the standing and singing and sitting and standing and singing and sitting and…you get the picture.  Organ music grates on me and while the songs that are played/sung, even those without organ accompaniment,  are supposed to be uplifting to the church members and guests and to offer praise to God, they bore and/or annoy me.  I’m not saying no on e should listen to it, it’s just not for me.  That being said, there are a number of artists who have made careers singing gospel/Christian music.

The name that pops first to mind, in the Gospel category, is the group The Winans, followed by Take 6, a group that I mistakenly purchased looking for a song years ago, and then Kirk Franklin.  Franklin’s been a major headliner in the annual Gospel Fest (don’t recall the name exactly) in my area.  Back in the late 90’s, Kirk Franklin collaborated with God’s Property and had a huge crossover hit with Stomp!, also featuring Cheryl “Salt” James.

 

On the more rockin’ side of the Christian music scene, we’ve got metal band Stryper, Third Day, Newsboys, and Jars of Clay.  Jars of Clay kind of burst onto the crossover scene with a great little tune, Flood.

 

In the last few years, Busch Gardens Williamsburg has hosted Glory at the Gardens, a concert series held on Sundays that features Christian pop and rock artists.  This past year, Newsboys kicked off the series, which included their drummer on spinning platform.

If you’ve got kids who were young over the last decade, you may have heard of the Veggie Tales.  It’s a show with animated vegetables as the characters that teaches kids about about God and Christian values and life lessons, some more overt than others, some much sillier than others.  The video below is the Newsboys video for In the Belly of the Whale, their song from Jonah, A Veggie Tales Movie.  It’s got a catchy tune and the movie was pretty funny, as are most of the Veggie Tales movies, and episodes, especially Silly Songs with Larry.