Greetings, Christian music fans! I'm Joanne Brokaw and I'll be your host at the new Gospel Soundcheck blog.
Depending on your previous experience with Christian music, the term can conjure up images of everything from cheesy rock wannabes to introspective worship to entertaining pop. The phrase can make you feel all warm inside or nauseous.
I admit that I've been both.
Over the past 8 years that I've been covering Christian music, I've seen great bands fly under the radar (and sometimes into oblivion) and trite bands cause a media frenzy. I've seen bands launch onto the national scene and bands happily and successfully doing God's will in their own backyards.
But the one thing that I think is clear: Christian music is getting better. It's crossing over with more culturally relevant music, the artists are taking their craft as seriously as they take their message, and the lines are being blurred between Christian music and music made by Christians.
Which brings us to the new Gospel Soundcheck blog.
We'll be taking a look at bands making it in the Christian industry and bands crossing over into mainstream and bands with a foot in both worlds. We'll talk about praise and worship, rock, and pop, with some gospel, hip hop and southern gospel thrown in, too.
We'll talk about bands you like, bands you hate, and bands you've never heard of.
The key is, we'll talk about Christians and we'll talk about music, and we'll talk about how the two intersect.
In addition to my other life as a humor columnist and editor at NewChristianVoices.com (just call me Sybil), I've been covering Christian music for about 8 years for dozens of publications in the U.S. and Canada. I write a monthly entertainment column for the Christian Examiner chain of newspapers, which covers Southern California, Minneapolis, and Seattle, as well as the Ozarks Christian News in Branson, Missouri. I also write for Christian Voice Magazine.
I travel to Gospel Music Week in Nashville every year, network within the industry, and try to keep my finger on the pulse of Christian music.
But there's one thing that you should know right off the bat: it's impossible for one person to know every band and every album and every tour happening in every place in the whole world.
That's where you come in. I want you to keep me posted on bands you love, and especially hot local acts on the verge of breaking out. Who knows, you may have the next Flyleaf, Switchfoot or Jonas Brothers playing at your church or a local club.
I hope we'll have some fun talking about Christian music and I'm looking forward to being your host here at the Gospel Soundcheck blog!
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Your column ROCKS! Can't wait for more upcoming news on your blog.
Kudos to you, Joanne. I have already bookmarked this site. You are a star!!
you might check out Cory Morrow's new video / CD. He has some really great faith based music and lyrics. "He Carries Me" is fabulous and touched my life!
this is what i've been looking for. I was going to start a blog like this myself on my myspace page! i love how GOD is showing out in a very big way!!!
Wow, this is really great. And I'm so glad I found you, and this blog today. I'm an ASCAP singer-songwriter. I'm always inspired by God to write the ecclectic songs, words and music, that I write in most
genres. I wrote a song, last year 2007, called,
'A MESSAGE FROM OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN'(c)Diane Wayne 2007 (ASCAP)
I prayed so much to write this song, and many more I am writing.
This song, in particular, I wrote, with the hope and prayers, that it will touch and bring together the hearts and minds and souls of all of us here. And that we all will, eventually around this whole world, be singing this song, 'A MESSAGE FROM OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN", together, one and all. I've been writing more songs lately, too. Songs I call,"new soul spiritual songs",true. I feel so blessed everytime I am called to write a song. I write them all, I believe and feel, with Our Father in Heaven, so real. Please google me, Diane Wayne singer-songwriter. Thank you all for receiving me. And may God bless us all.
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