I have a pretty wide open taste in music, and in such I have spent some time listening to "Contemporary Christian Music." I don't really spend much time with the genre these days, but there was a period of time in my life where it was all i listened to, and i dj'ed a radio show on my college radio station that played solely CCM.
I liked the idea of being able to worship a little differently than the standard hymns and praise and worship songs allowed. i liked that the music that i was listening to was positive and uplifting, because i realized that a lot of what what out there in popular culture was fairly negative. i spent a lot of time with bands like the newsboys, five iron frenzy, jars of clay and relient k. i was happy and having a good time, but there was one thing that used to bug me.
quite often its been said that the basic formula for a hit CCM song is to write a regular love song, and then replace "baby" with "Jesus." this used to upset me a little bit because i liked to think that these bands that i was more or less putting my faith in were making music for worship, and not for money. now I'm not naive enough to think that they were doing all of the recording and touring and everything else for free, but i really, really wanted to believe that the dollar wasn't the bottom line.
my musical taste has evolved over the last ten years, and i don't really find myself listening to CCM much at all anymore, but there are still a few bands that i pay attention to. remember how i got excited last year when FIF announced that they were back? i still love them, despite my statements otherwise (i talked a lot of smack on them after the break up. i was heart-broken.) i also still gave a decent amount of attention to jars of clay. i always connected with their music, even when i had fallen away from everyone else, and always believed that they were actually in it for the love of Jesus, and not for the cash.
but today i was watching TV, and i saw the new commercial for Christianmingle.com. guess what song was playing in the background? Jars of Clay's "Love Song for a Savior."
everything i ever thought was wrong, and I'm pissed.
Ugh, serious?
ReplyDeleteyeah. i tried to find the commercial in question on youtube, but it doesnt seem to have made its way there yet.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf7QY-8hJoE&feature=share&list=UUbIwMVeWIkm-6Jf7NUJq1sg
ReplyDeleteUhm... Jars of Clay has no control over the commercial use of their music; it's the record label they signed with (Essential), and the music licensing companies like ASCAP and BMI that allowed such a thing to happen. I saw the commercial today and was disgusted, but as someone who's worked in the music industry (I not only DJed in college but worked in radio professionally for ten years), I can tell you that it was not Jars' call to allow the dating site to use their song. Don't blame the band, it's not something they had any say in, and knowing Dan Haseltine's views on such things, I'm pretty sure he's disgusted with it himself.
ReplyDelete