EVERY GENRE PROJECT - March 6 - Praise & Worship
Genre of the Day - Praise & Worship
Album of the Day - Becoming Who We Are by Kings Kaleidoscope (2014)
Yes, I too was shocked to see the words Praise & Worship spat out at me as a genre from the random selector today even though I put the list together. At least it’s to the point. It’s a bit bewildering to have such an out of left field genre after yesterday’s genre aligned so perfectly with what I was writing about for my EDM class paper that was due today at 4 PM. My brain is a bit boggled, honestly, and writing about Praise & Worship simply wasn’t what I was expecting. But one aspect of this column I love is that it’s a good challenge to stretch my brain a little bit by delving into a different interpretation of music.
Music has been intertwined with worship since ancient times. It’s plain to see why the two go hand in hand: the performance of music has always been mostly ceremonial rather than recreational in the early days of society, and even the human ability to produce music with our voices seems to indicate and affirm the presence of divine power. Music crystallizes reverence in a way simple pedestrian words are not always able to achieve. Religious songs have always formed a significant part of the corpus of musical compositions across societies, with centuries-old hymns like “Amazing Grace” remaining some of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world to this day.
That’s a lofty history to apply to a Seattle-based indie band making indie rock tinged worship music, but that’s where we find ourselves on the RateYourMusic charts today. Since the 1960s, American Christians have adopted popular music as a worthy medium to convey their godly reverence, starting with the Jesus movement that saw evangelical Christians harken back Restorationist ideals and a very all-encompassing, proselytizing view of Christianity and the imminence of Jesus’ return. How better than to get out the good word via a pop format? As Christian mass media became an industry of its own, Christian contemporary music has splintered into all sorts of genres.
Occasionally, praise & worship music in the past few decades has made smart use of subversively working with genres that seem antithetical to Christian values that are associated with youth reckless abandon, such as punk and hip-hop. By foraying into these genres, Christian musicians aim to show how modern Christianity can effectively evolve with the whims of youth and shifts in culture. While today’s featured artist Kings Kaleidoscope takes a more alt-rock approach, their musical experimentation combined with their visceral, rich religious imagery in their lyrics helps disprove praise & worship as a color-by-numbers affair where you sing about Jesus over some basic, phoned-in melodies. These songs tremble in the face of God’s power, calling back to the days of Biblical intensity and the zealousness of just how big it is to be saved by Christ. I may not necessarily be religious, but I do appreciate the approach: it may not sound radically different from what might find on alt radio in 2014, but there’s an intricacy and genuine passion for the music that accentuates the reverence. The hooky, insistent stomper “I Know” is bookended by lo-fi distortion on “Bloom.” “Felix Culpa” and “Redemption In Motion” sounds like The 1975 as Washington church goers, fusing the same sparkly pop flourishes and electronic blips with garage rock percussion. While sometimes the songs resort to more literal, simple appeals to Jesus’ love and devotion, tracks like “Felix Culpa” illustrate ideals like forgiveness of sins much more poetically: “And with His blood my hands are stained / See the God who reigns on high / He has opened His own veins / From His wounds a rushing torrent / That can wash it all away / Grace upon grace.” No matter your religious belief, what I feel we can all be sure about is that this album surely bangs at church camp.