THE EXHAUSTIVE CHRISTIAN MUSIC DISCOGRAPHY
SECULAR vs CHRISTIAN
 
The purpose of my "Secular" discography page (subsequently referred to as "this page") is to distinguish between artists that declare themselves to be "Christian artists" and those who are unwilling to go beyond calling themselves "Christian in a band", or who simply disassociate themselves from the Christian music industry altogether.  Basically, if the artist is willing to state in their biography, mission statement, or to interviewers that their purpose in making music is to spread the Gospel in some way or other, and they do not shy away from the classification of themselves as a "Christian band" or "Christian artist", then my intent is to list them in the main Exhaustive Christian Music Discography pages.  There are many reasons why Christian artists may want to stay away from the label of "Christian music", not least of which is the frequent (reported) corruption and/or sloppy/careless business practices often found at some Christian music record companies.  Other motives are based in a desire to appear to be more mainstream to the music buying public, and can often lead to mild or great success in the secular markets.  Amy Grant, P.O.D. and Switchfoot are good examples of this.  And there are also many other artists who have been mistakenly lumped in with Christian music lists because of a particular song on one of their albums, frequent religious/spiritual lyrical references in some songs which are usually associated with the Christian faith, or sometimes even based solely on the cover art of a particular album, and it was never their intention to be(come) known as a Christian music artist, even if Christianity happens to be their professed faith.

My intent in separating these artists from the main discography pages is not to offend, but rather to aid people in knowing what to expect lyrically.  Most of these bands do not have typical "Contemporary Christian Music" lyrics which declare the Truth of the Gospel loud and clear.  Most of their albums, if they mention Jesus' name at all, will do so only once or twice.  Their lyrics are more along the lines of the moralistic and vaguely spiritual type, which I believe most serious non-Fundamentalist Christians would not find offensive in and of themselves (i.e. disabusing ourselves of the notion that all "true" Christians can only make "Christian" music if they are to fulfill God's call for their life).  If I say an artist is "not recommended", it simply means that the artist has shown a willingness to use curse words in their lyrics, which is one of the least advisable things (in my opinion) that any artist who's attempting to make an impact in the world of spiritual music could do.  It's obviously true that anger and frustration are a part of life, and a lot of Christian music may come across to people who have suffered many strenuous trials in their lives as being happy-go-lucky or naive and idealistic.  But to put that anger and frustration with life that we all feel sometimes onto tape in the form of curse words to be played over and over again is a line that I think any serious artist who truly wants to "make a difference" would not cross.  The fact that an artist is in any of my discography page lists means that 99+% of their songs which I have heard do not contain any highly offensive words in them.  I must confess that I personally do not mind the d*** word as much as the others, and it has been used in several songs from some of the more popular "controversial" Christian artists, such as Terry Taylor and Mark Heard.  However, most of the other common cuss words (a**, b****, f***, s***) are not what I care to hear in any of the music I play on a regular basis.  An artist that uses the f-word in any of their albums is either excluded from my discography listings, or has their entry cut off at the previous album.  A few artists, like Impellitteri, will have some vocalists that are recommended, and others that are not.  Of course, only the albums with recommended vocalists (such as Rob Rock) who appear to regularly refrain from singing songs that have offensive words will be listed on this page.  A few more examples are as follows: (1) King's X - one of my favorite "secular" bands, decided to use the f-word in a studio track on their 2005 Ogre Tones album.  So I have ended their discography listing, as well as my collecting of their albums, with the 2003 release Black like Sunday.  However, Ty Tabor, who is the only remaining professed Christian in King's X to my knowledge, has not (yet) sung any songs with curse words which I am aware of.  His solo albums are still highly recommended, and if I get a chance to check out some of his side projects (Platypus and Jelly Jam) one of these years, I may add them to this list if the lyrics appear to have some spiritual content.  (2) When Trouble (with Bruce Franklin) came onto the scene, I have read in some media that they were touting themselves as a Christian band.  I have only heard their Psalm 9 album.  While not officially part of the printed lyrics, the singer used the f-word at the end of the 5th song.  Given that not all of their albums have religiously influenced lyrics (only the first 3, I think), and due to the fact that their very first album is not recommended, I have simply excluded Trouble from this list since, from what I can tell, they were never a serious Christian band.

If you want to argue about the concept of "Christian cursing", which I have actually done in one liberal internet forum for Christian music, then don't bother.  One of these years I plan to prepare another page for my site that gives my opinion of this (unbelievably) controversial issue, and link to it on this page.  For the time being, however, an "E" designation in the symbology to the left of an album title indicates an album which has mildly offensive wording (d***, a**, b****) in the audible lyrics of one or more tracks.  Albums that have the f-word or s-word will not be listed, and most of those artists, like Trouble, will not be listed at all.

This page does not yet address the issue of secular albums being released on labels that are known for releasing mostly Christian albums - labels (usually small independent and often short-lived) such as Blonde Vinyl, Jackson/Rubio, Tooth & Nail, etc., which will occasionally or frequently release albums that have very little to no spiritual content in the lyrics.  If my purpose with this page, as stated above, is to clue people in to lyrical content, then I am duty bound to eventually move groups such as Fluffy, The Huntingtons, Flight 180 and many others to this page.  These are only a few of many artists/groups with at least one or more albums of completely secular and/or political lyrical content.  The above mentioned groups are still in the main discography listings only because their albums are on the aforementioned "Christian" labels, and I am not familiar enough with their complete works to know whether their listing needs to be moved to this page or removed altogether from my site.  The reason I haven't started doing this yet is because I would like to have a page on my site that addresses the critical and very controversial question 'What is Christian music?'.  Having acquired (but not read) most of the CCM, Heaven's Metal/HM, and Cross Rhythms magazines up through the the year 2000, I have access to a large number of articles written on this subject, and would like to have/find most of these articles and read them, as well as peruse the numerous internet sites/articles that are also at my disposal before I attempt to prepare my official opinion.  I am fairly certain it will not change from my presently held belief, but I wish to prepare the most informative page possible when I address it.  Obviously, this is a very important question if I am going to start announcing by virtue of these discography pages what I would officially call a "Christian album".  There are many groups, some of which I collect like Sixpence None The Richer, with lyrics that are vaguely spiritual or lamentatory, but not very instructive or helpful in finding the Answer to the questions that are raised.  This, of course, is probably the artist's purpose - not to answer the question but to encourage the search that will hopefully lead the listener to the Truth eventually.  So I obviously wish to proceed carefully with this aspect of my discography project, and wish to make all of my opinions carefully explained before I proceed with the forthcoming changes.  I cannot give an estimate at this time as to when I might start, but it will probably be a good while yet from my last update to this explanation page (February 2017).

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