And the Winner Is...Nobody

How do you get Lady GaGa's attention?

You p-p-poke her face. ROFL.

The Grammy's (Grammies? The apostrophe bothers me, the other looks like a nickname for grandmothers) aired last night. Like everyone, I've been having to bear the onslaught of uninhibited opinion that inevitably follows any large-scale declaration of worth.

I've always been a fan of music. Er...I might need to refine that. Saying that is akin to saying, "I like food." It's information about oneself, per se, but it doesn't exactly serve to define you separate from the human race. Suffice it to say, I listen to music while doing anything and everything: walking, cleaning, playing video games, eating, writing, driving, showering.

Okay, maybe not showering.

When I get in a car, I don't listen to what the radio tells me to listen to. I am militant about what I play in the car. When you unwittingly climb into my car, I will forcibly subject you to what I think you should be listening to. For a (greatly abridged) list of bands I like, see my profile.

Egotism aside, I've never been a fan of the Grammy's, rarely a fan of mainstream music, and a fan of Christian music more rarely still. As a Christian, I'm disturbed by our condemnation of popular media while we scramble so hard to imitate it.

The Dove awards, the Grammy Awards better behaved younger brother, awards so-called Christian musical "artists" in many of the same categories as the Grammy's: Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Gospel Bluegrass-Country-Twang-Hybrid Album of the Year.

Had I my way, I'd eradicate all awards shows. That not being the case, I'll give you some of my ideas for award categories for the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards. Since I'm about as familiar with Christian music as I am with mainstream secular music, I can't assign winners to most of these. But I can tell you that in Christian music, each category has a very clear winner.

Best Band Who Signed to a Secular Label to "Attract Unbeliever$"

Best Band Trying to Sound like Popular Secular Rock Band

Best White Christian Rapper (TobyMac wins this automatically, though best is
debatable. I think he's won a Grammy, too. Go figure.)

Best Singing Group Pretending Gospel is Still Relevant

Best Band with Lyrics Ambiguous Enough to Sound Vaguely Christian

Best Aging Pop Star Turning to Gospel to Find New Audience

Anyway, that's just a few. Maybe leave some in the comments and we can get our own awards show going.

Don't Stand for that Devil Music

It's a little disturbing to me when I find Christian merchandise I'm pretty sure I never could have made up. Then I realize it's less work for me, so everything's cool.

Do any of you play video games? Sorry, stupid question.

Well, pretend that you do. Those music games are really popular right now. You know the ones. They're called like "Guitar God" or "Satanic Band" or something like that. You strum this fake, plastic guitar and press buttons in time to popular rock 'n roll songs. Sure, that sounds like oodles of fun, you're thinking. But I bet you wish that instead of getting your kicks to soul-corrupting tunes like "Slow Ride" and "Black Magic Woman" (need I say more?) you could jam out to something a little more, I don't know, holy?

No? Well, apparently someone did.

As you can see, this is Guitar Praise: Solid Rock. Get it? Solid Rock? As in "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." Clever, eh?

Seriously though, I have to give them some credit for moving beyond the usual Christian video game offering. However the fact that it's yet another attempt of Christians trying to copy what's popular in mainstream culture is a mark against them. I've railed on the Church's apparent lack of originality before.

One indication of just how far they want to take this can be seen in a quote from the game's Features page: "Power Duel Mode sends surprises to mess with your opponent."

Surprises? Seriously? Apparently you can send a bouquet of flowers with a nice note attached, or a box of kittens. I hope they claw your opponent's face off.

The song list does contain a few bands or artists notable for being genuinely talented in a sea of mediocrity (Caedmon's Call, David Crowder Band, Skillet). But there are definitely some questionable choices on there, such as tobyMac. The guy doesn't even capitalize his own name, and that always bothered me.

I think Jesus would even have a hard time listening to that guy droning on for three minutes.