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Rake Thoughts
Why does current BRITT NICOLE
radio single "Headphones" remind me of the logo for the South African band
from whom JEREMY CAMP found his wife, THE BENJAMIN GATE? Easy answer to
figure if you remeber the band's logo!
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Doesn't PHILLIPS,
CRAIG & DEAN's recent smasharoonie "Revelation Song" bear some strange
resemblance in melody and vibe to Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man"? That line
about Jesus being wrapped in "rainbows of living color" certainly sounds
as psychedelic as anything by the Scotsman who turned folks on to the possibilities
of smokling banana peels on "Mellow Yellow," eh? Besides, I imagine Him
wearing a robe in heaven.
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Am I the only one feeling
diffidently toward the name of NICK JONAS' new band apart from his brothers,
THE ADMINISTRATION? Is it original and nifty or dull and reeking of what
some folks my age call corporate rock? Here's to hoping the former is borne
out in their music being consistently good as the song they played on the
Grammy nominees' announcement concert TV special, anyway.
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Why am I nostalgic for a
non-existent MISS ANGIE album produced by STEVE FAIRNIE, the late male
half of U.K. synth-pop duo THE TECHNOS, when I think of how Christendom
could answer the fascinating scourge posed by Lady GaGa?
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Why are Euromerican roots
music enthusiasts who aren't likely to be Christian overwhelmingly apt
to pay attention to long lost Afrimerican soul gospel than the Southern
gospel made overwhelmingly by their fellow white folks? It certain has
led to a glaring disparity in the way of reissue CD's.
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To what degree does the
way AmerIcan Idol winner KRIS ALLEN got his backside handed to him
sales-wise by runner-up Adam Lambert have anything to do with how comfortable
Allen's work sounds on CCM radio? And if it's any degree at all, how does
that explain the contined success of intermittent Christian radio airplay
darling CARRIE UNDERWOOD? All that said, I kinda like Allen's "Live Like
We're Dying," even if he kinda ripped off Tim McGraw for the song's title.
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Further on the subject of
Idolatry, might there be a relationship to the length we will have
to wait for DANNY GOKEY's debut album and how middling it may be. Based
on his two-song halftime set for the Milwaukee Bucks season openner this
past Halloween (comprised of songs made hits by--oh, dear--Rascal Flatts),
I am not encouraged.
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Interested in hearing preaching
from the kind of black liberation theology perspective under which President
Obama sat for 20 years by the eisegetical homiletical stylings of Jeremiah
"God d**n America!" Wright? Wright no longer pastors there, but you can
still hear services from his former church, Chicago's Trinity United Congregational,
Sunday at 6:00 PM Central on the Windy City's Afrimerican, liberal-leaning
talker, WVON. If you live close enough, tune to 1640 AM. Otherwise, go
to www.WVON.com
Judging from the church's
website, www.TUCC.org
, Wright may be gone, but,
from the looks of its website and online bookstore, things don't look to
have changed doctrinally since his departure. Most, ahem, enlightening...
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How will REBECCA ST. JAMES
feel about former CCM Magazine editor MATTHEW PAUL TURNER's new
book, Hear No Evil, considering his reflections on the marketing
of virginity in evangeli-ghetto youth culture? Think what you will of that
subject, Turner's latest is a must-read for anyone coming from a legalistically
fundamentalist background and now has a different relationship with CCM.
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What difference might THE
KATINAS have made in the R&B world had they stayed with the general
market label that was interested in them, before the record company suits
wanted to add carnality (hoochie girles in their videos, among other things)
to their act?
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Should I be reviewing the
music of Hannah Montana cast member MITCHEL MUSO now that I know
he takes high school classes from an online Christian correspondence
school and is, presumably, Christian? I have been liking his work ever
since he hasn't been rapping, and who else gives saint-sung 'tween pop
more press/critical love in contempo' Christendom than I do? Yeah, I suppose
I will.
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Speaking of Hannah MT,
anybody else reading this just a little scared that once MILEY CYRUS hits
18, all kinds of Lohanic/Spearsian heck's gonna break loose in the gal's
life, even as she might still be claiming to "do it all for Jesus"? That
date's less than a year away now, so here's praying! (That said heck doesn't
break out, that is.) Her sartorially streetwalker-ish performance of the
otherwise brilliant "Party In The U.S.A.." for Queen Elizabeth (not to
mention the music video) feels like the dam wall creaking some...
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To stay on a Disney-an jag,
might the company have had a bit of a Cheap Trick fixation this year? Not
only did ALY MILCHAKA remake the band's "I Want You To Want Me" for her
maybe-should've-been-bigger solo moive debut in Bandslam, but so
did the company's rocking girl band, KSM (whom I like well enough but for
whom I now feel a bit sorry, considering their sharing initials with
a certain high-profile terrorism suspect to so be on trial in New York
City).
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Now that the Twilight
movies have made her a celebrity, isn't it easy to see how Kristen Stewart
could pass for TIFFANY "PLUMB" ARBUCKLE LEE's little sister or neice? Gladly,
Tiff'/Plumb doesn't have her junior semi-doppleganger's look of lethargy
and sullenness (and Cullenness?). And hopefully, she won't be contributing
to the next of the franchise's movie soundtracks, either.
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Doesn't the logo on the
cover of DAVID CROWDER BAND's Church Music look like what Crowder
would wear as a disco medallion or hang as a customized Christmas tree
ornament? I like it OK enough, but that's what it looks ilke to me. Mostly
fine music, though, too.
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Were you FRANCESCA BATTISTELLI,
wouldn't you be at least a tad embarrassed that your first general market
crossover single, "It's Your Life," reached __Billboard__'s Hot 100
in great part (or solely?) due to being featured on Jon & Kate Plus
8? Royalty checks of suitable size probably assuage whatever shame
might have come from that song placement, eh?
And, though I don't know
much about the gal, don't you think one of her professional handlers suggested
she change her stage name before embarking upon a recording career? She
has a lovely monkier, but it's a heckuva mouthful, too.
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Want to know what kind of
article someone should pay me to write? A survey of the campus food service
at the top 25 (or so) Christian colleges. The Lord, edjumacation and meals
(and shouldn't students know what they're getting into for three squares
a day before they or their 'rents plunk down the tuition money?)-what's
not to want to write about?
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Shouldn't RED's remake of
Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" have been their big crossover general market
multi-format smash by now?
And does my having had that
thought prove that my hit-predicting ears are off, the band's handlers
don't have their stuff together, or both?
I also thought DC TALK's
"Godsend" should have been the natural outside-the-evangelighetto biggie
to follow "Just Between You And Me," but that wisdom went unfollowed by
anyone who could have done anything about it, too.
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Which is more of a genius
move for JOHN REUBEN: referencing Ian Dury & The Blockheads' "Sex &
Drugs & Rock & Roll" for his latest longplayer's title while making
said album a counter-argument to Dury's menu for all his brain &
body needed, or making that album sound like a refutation of a majority
of Lady GaGa's aesthetic/philosophical agenda while employing roughly as
many killer hooks and production flourishes as the aforementioned gal with
current pop music's most outrageous sartoroial sense? Just about a tie,
I say.
I feel no need to apologize
for mentioning GaGa twice in one column. This time, anyway.
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Were CCM to be as self-referential
a genre as commercial country music, would singers namecheck anyone from
longer ago than KEITH GREEN, seeing as he's the oldest act to have his
catalog kept in print?
Thankfully, CCM is supposed
to be about Someone more important than anybody singing it, right?
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If anyone reading this knows
JOE MARKO, would you please tell him that he would still do well to seek
out a publisher for his memoirs about his days with one of the last of
the great indie Jesus hippie rock groups, THE ALL SAVED FREAK BAND, and
the spiralling into apostacy of the ministry that discipled them?
Sad and cautionary as the
tale is, it would not only make a compelling book, but a warning for others,
too.
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Wouldn't the yet-unsolved
(last I knew of, anyway) murder of late godly rapper DANNY "D-BOY" RODRIGUEZ
make for fine premise for an episide on a basic cable show that specializes
in such cases? Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of his murder,
and should there be a perp behind bars or frying in an electric chair by
now for the crime?
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What might BEYONCE KNOWLES
think of her husband's, Jay-Z's, dismissal of Christianity and Jesus Christ
on his current hit with
Alicia Keys, "New York State
of Mind." considering Yoncy's status as a Methodist church-going gal? Considering
her singing about acting like a ho' in __her__ current single, "Video Phone,"
and dressing like one in the song's vid', might her opinion on matters
ecclesiastical be more or less moot at this point?
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Doesn't the definition of
Jesus music bleed over into what would, by the end of the 1970s, be called
CCM on the __Full Circle Jesus Music__ radio show (www.Full CircleJesusMusic.com
)? To my mind, its producers
should contact KEN SCOTT, author of what's now four editions of his book,
__The Archivist__, the great fan/collector guide to pre-1980 Christianny
rock & pop, for access to his enormous collection of the music he documents.
So what if most of it is-and will likely remain-out of print? Listen to
the right DJs on the right non-commercial/community-sponsored radio stations,
and you'll hear plenty of out-of-print goodies.
When did Jesus music become
CCM, anyway? I say it's a fact by the time that JOHN STYLL started publishing
the magazine that popularized the latter designation, at least (1978).
I'm open to other theories, though.
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However much her own life
may defy the song's seemingly obvious spiritual meaning, isn't Florence
(Walsh) & The Machine's recent U.K. hit remake of CANDI STATON &
THE SOURCE's gospel house classic, "You Got The Love," a jam?
I say "seemingly obvious"
because Staon was definitely singing about the Lord in the song. How a
gal that sweet and sincere winds up on TBN is curious, at best, but whatever,
I suppose.
And what did La Candi think
of her song getting Sex and City soundtrack play, eh?
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Jamie Lee Rake |