JOYFUL
NOISE
2006, and accounted for 6. 75 percent of all
album sales in 2006 – a higher percentage
than Latin, classical or jazz. Over 20 million
fans listen to Christian radio every week – a
number rapidly approaching National Public
Radio’s 26. 5 million weekly draw, according
to Arbitron, an international media and marketing research firm.
In a music industry dealing with unstoppable
piracy, sizeable downturns in album sales and
a user-driven move toward digital formats,
these numbers, generated by a genre once
considered fringe, have been causing record
executives in Los Angeles and New York to
take notice. John W. Styll, President of the
GMA, says, “There may be many reasons
why [sales are up], but I think among them is
that people seem to be drawn to the inspiring and compassionate message of gospel
music amid uncertain times.”
And while Christian rock sales may have
something to do with a looming sense of
anxiety in post-9/11 America, a significant
part of the upward trend can be attributed
John Shaw’s worship rig
to a musical maturation within the church.
While Christian rock rose out of the ‘60s and
‘70s and their related excesses – beginning
with the introduction of acoustic guitars
and folk-rock sounds to church services – it
long remained on the margins of Christian
consciousness. Early Christian rock had the
particular stigma of simply aping the popular sounds of the day; creativity wasn’t as
important as setting religious messages to
modern genres. Bruce Adolph recalls, “It
was ridiculous – early Christian rock was a
good five years behind mainstream sounds.
But now, bands have caught up or have
even gotten ahead.” Beginning in the early
‘90s, with the advent of bands like P.O.D.,
heavy textures and electric guitars have
been gaining popularity, and are now being
welcomed into the church.
The fact that this change has manifested
itself so quickly, and has been accepted
so seamlessly in the last ten years is somewhat surprising to Lance Winkler, director
of contemporary worship at Church of the
Resurrection, a large community serving
