I didn't really have a lesson plan for this Wednesday, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. During the school year, we have a group in excess of 30 and, without a lesson plan, things can become quite chatoic. During the summer, however, when you're lucky to get a group of 10, you can go on the fly. This particular Wednesday, we had only five kids, so it was simple enough. The lesson was quick, but I kept them in the room and chatted them up until 8. One of they made note of my iPod mini and said that she had the same one. One of the guys then asked to look at it. Eventually I allowed him to. He started looking at some of the songs on my iPod. "50 Cent?" he questioned. "Are you serious? The only good rapper is Mike Jones." I laughed that off, making note that having two 50 Cent songs on my iPod does not qualify as me saying he is a "good rapper," however, to say that a guy who says his name 10 times in one song is a "good rapper"...that tells me you need some serious help with your musical tastes. Next up was Dashboard Confessional and a jab at emo music. I told him he may as well just skip right on past Dashboard, since I wasn't going to argue the point of it being good music this time around. Then he got to Underoath. "This is the only good band you have on your iPod," the kid said. And, while I think the kid is crazy for missing all the other quality artists making appearances on my iPod and the playlists on it, I gave him props for recognizing Underoath as a quality band. "You know what makes them even better?" I said. "They're a Christian band." The kid didn't believe me. "I'd bet you a hundred dollars they're not, and I have the money here in my pocket." Frankly, I should've made the kid pay up, but this was church, so I simply told him, "Dude, I have the CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) magazine with them on the cover to prove it. I have the websites showing their singles landing in Christian radio's Top 30's. They're a Christian band, straight up."
So then he felt the need to listen to something. It was close enough to 8 that I gave in. He sticks the headphones in, listening to Underoath. Not more than 10 seconds later, he spoke the words, "I don't like them anymore." I was shocked for about a split second and then realized that I was dealing with a kid who had never been to the church and only ended up there because he ran into two of the girls that were on their way there. "What," I questioned, "Now that you know a Christian band, they can't be good music anymore?" He claimed that he simply didn't like the screamo style as much as he had first claimed. But I knew.
This is what irks me so. And it works both ways. When an artist like Underoath, Switchfoot or Relient K hits the mainstream radio waves, they are able to become the newest big thing in music. Why? Well, aside from the fact that the latter two make radio appealing music (I don't think the same can be said for Underoath, but they still get the plays), it's the fact that these bands are making quality music. But for some people, as soon as they find out it's a Christian band or even the becomeing-ever-so-cliche' "Band made up of Christians," suddenly they suck. The excuses begin. For this kid, the excuse was the idea that he didn't like the style of music anymore, even though a minute before I told him they were Christian he did enjoy it. There's so many excuses people use to claim the music sucks now.
On the other side, Christians begin to complain about the mainstream success of an artist. They worry about the mainstream world having an adverse effect on these artist's and their music and, because they get mainstream exposure, they are suddenly uncool.
It's a very delicate situation for Christian artists to do well in the mainstream, and that angers me. Why should Christian artists be shunned by either side if they're making truly quality music? It just makes no sense.