Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: rock@sun.com (Bill Petro) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: amy grant Message-ID: Date: 10 Nov 89 07:20:21 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 58 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [This article has been reconstructed somewhat. About half the lines in it were duplicated. I trust this is what Bill intended. --clh] nelson@vax1.acs.udel.edu (Todd M Nelson) writes: >I'm don't know what Amy feels her mission is, but what I see >now is an entertainer who is a Christian. >I've listened to her newest album,_Lead_Me_On_, and I enjoy a lot >of it, and it presents a godly message, however you have to look >to find it. I mean she doesn't come out and bash you on the head >with "Jesus is the way" or something similar. Whether this is good >or not I don't know. But I like her anyway. > > Todd M. Nelson I too have enjoyed Amy's music for many years. In recent years, her work has evolved, if not matured. In any event, it has changed. Not only has she become a successful "cross-over" artist, crossing over from one style of music ("Gospel") to another ("Pop"), but her audience has changed. My wife and I attended one of her recent concerts at an open air amphitheater. Shortly after it began, I knew I was disappointed. Her music was LOUD. When I say LOUD, I mean that our throats vibrated and our clothes thumped. Her husband, on base, felt it was his ministry to aid those with pacemakers. And I have been to other concerts before and since, including the Guiness Book of World Eardrum Bursting Record group the WHO, but Amy was louder! Her music was so amplified that the lyrics were virtually indiscernible except to those teenyboppers who had memorized her latest album. For my part, I couldn't follow it. And even those recent tunes that I know and love, were sonicly distorted. "Angels Watching Over Me" was oppressive and dark, and its lyrics were drowned by bombastic music. She gave a quasi-relevant attribution to God by way of significance, but it was so ambiguous that most non-Christians wouldn't get the point, and Christians would find it to be mere token. I was most unclear about her intended audience. Her music was almost entirely without worshipfulness for mature Christians (with the possible "goosebump" exception of El Shaddai"). For the non-Christian, I imagine that her music was virtually indistinguishable from secular music; any difference the lyrics might have made was lost. It seemed to me to appeal only to the young people with whom hard driving "pop" (not far from rock) music is currently popular. I saw the Doobie Brothers in the same place a couple of months later. They were not as loud. Don't get me wrong, I love her music, especially her new stuff. But I didn't care for her performance, or her carriage on stage. Her warm-up group "First Call" (get their album!) I was much more impressed with. The display a wide range of styles and a kinetic presence on stage. And they involved me in the experience without violating my auditory organs. Bill Petro {decwrl,hplabs,ucbvax}!sun!Eng!rock "UNIX for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 19:12