I miss CCM

Going to the mall is one of my favorite escapes. I know. This is a pretty shallow indictment of my own materialism. Yet, there is something about malls that still relaxs me. Just sitting in the food court, watching people mill around. The mall, of course, is where 80's movies tell us that teens love to hang out. We had to drive an hour to the nearest mall, but it was still our favorite destination when we went to see our grandparents. There was one place I would head as soon as I entered into that hallowed halls. You might be thinking...the arcade? Spencer Gifts? Game Spot? No, no and no. It was the Christian bookstore!

The fact that I could spend an hour in a Christian bookstore did not make me very popular with friends. It didn't even make me very popular with my mom. But I was interested in one thing and one thing only: the Christian music racks. I loved CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) as it was called then. I could spend hours listening to every demo cassette on the demo rack, trying to find the next Christian band to 'get into' before I got dragged out of there. I loved Christian Rock, even before it was cool to walk around with a Relient K t-shirt on. Boy how I miss those days.

Back in the 80s and 90s, Christian rock music was very much a novelty. Most of the posters on the wall were of milquetoast rockers like Stephen Curtis Chapman and Micheal W. Smith. But if you dug deep, you could find the real diamonds in the rough. Christian metal! While I listened to bands like Cinderella, Poison, Bang Tango, and Skid Row I always felt secretly guilty for doing so. When I heard about Stryper, a real live Christian metal band, I was hooked. From then on, I would head straight to the Rock section to see (and hear!) about other bands that jumped on the bandwagon.

Back then I was in the loop. I loved all the stuff on Frontline Records: Vengeance Rising, Tourniquet, Mortification, etc. My taste became harder as CCM embraced more extreme forms of metal. Tooth and Nail records introduced punk, hardcore, and alternative. Before long even the clean-cut kiddie groups like DC Talk and Newsboys began to get a harder edge. Oh, I didn't know what I had until it was gone. I listened to heavier music than most of my friends and could also pull of the whole "indie" thing because no one had ever heard of most of my music. It was great. I even swore one day I would kick the secular music habit completely.

Well, that day never came. Honestly, there were a lot of things that went into that. Mainly it was because like all good things, CCM came to an end. Don't get me wrong. You can still buy music in Christian bookstores to day. But little of it is CCM. A lot of bands have ditched the 'Christian' thing, which is fine in some cases, but then why would I buy their CD instead of the more talented mainstream equivalent. Much of the Christian music is not what I would call contemporary. Praise Music has ruined much of CCM's musical innovation. And well, I will just be a jerk and say that much of what is pressed on CDs and labelled CCM these days is such bad music that it is just...well, sad.

These days I don't care much for most Christian bookstores. Many only carry books and resources by conservative evangelical publishing corporations that confuse the word 'theology' with 'End Times prophecy'. Of the few I frequent, I usually stay away from their music section. Too many memories. I'd rather remember the music I liked from those pioneers of pop culture. Tattooed emo kids will never understand.