"Safe" pop music - does it exist anymore?

[Lost_Wanderer]

I think he was fired because pressure groups complained. I further think that after they heard from the other half of the country, they released an FAQ.

I repeat: He was not fired. And really? The FAQ was released two days after the resignation was announced. Yeah. Two days to hear from half the country. Who’s being naive here?

I implore you to stop posting until you do some real research. You’re starting to sound like Alex Jones, thinking he’s privy to all corporate details and coming up with wild theories. You do your religion no favor until you produce actual material. So just, stop.

 

[Kamaduck]

Yes. Several people in the business, entertainment, and literary world have been officially or critically boycotted for being for marriage. Read the reviews of that kids space warrior movie written by a Mormon. The reviews mentioned it and some urged people not to see it for that reason. Also, the fact that almost no artists broach that subject. You can add things like the chairman of Mozilla and Chick Fil A.

You’re right, there was a boycott. To be fair, though, Ender’s Game wasn’t a very good movie. As a die-hard Orson Scott Card fan, I saw it in theaters and can confirm that they missed pretty much nothing.

Also of note is that in both the Chick Fil A boycott and the boycott of Ender’s Game, there was a response from conservative groups- lots of people decided to see the movie precisely because they wanted to stand against the boycott, and many people started eating at Chick Fil A for the same reason. I don’t think that the owners lost much money to the boycotts in either case, since the conservative response was also strong.

If economically supporting people whose views agree with ours is important, then going back to the original point of the thread, there are lots of Christian bands that have pop-style songs. And if the objection is that we’re looking for songs about life, not worship songs- well, there are lots of Christian bands that do that, too. This is a list of Christian rock bands, but a lot of them also do pop music. Barlowgirl, Superchick, and Lifehouse are good places to start, if you’re looking for stuff that’s more pop than rock.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with choosing to separate an artist’s personal life from their work- in fact, I think it’s good to be able to do that, and it’s important to listen to people whose viewpoints differ from our own (even for issues that we’re not going to change our minds on). But if the OP is specifically looking for artists whose views line up with her own, then I don’t think it makes sense to limit the search to secular work. The artists you’re looking for market themselves as CCM or Christian Rock, so that’s the logical place to look for them.

 

[John_Savage]

I think most people of faith would be happy with entertainment that isn’t preachy, but assumes a Christian world view. For example, songs and movies that assume that people date to eventually get married. Listen to music or watch movies before 1965 or thereabouts and you’ll get what I mean.

The reason movies and music did that back then is because people would be turned off by anything else, not necessarily because writers were very virtuous.

When Hollywood makes movies for an international audience it tones down or omits things like homosexuality and nudity.

 

[Kamaduck]

I think most people of faith would be happy with entertainment that isn’t preachy, but assumes a Christian world view. For example, songs and movies that assume that people date to eventually get married.

Yeah, I think that’s what a lot of us are looking for. When it comes to fiction, we might just be looking for an adventure about cyborgs or elves or action or romance that doesn’t consistently side against our worldview. We don’t want super-objectionable content in our stories, but we’re also not looking for a sermon dressed up as fiction- and sadly, that’s what a lot of Christian fiction is. Since there actually is a lot of decent secular fiction being written, I generally advise people to just do their research and look for the cleanest secular stuff they can find, rather than bothering with Christian fiction (since most of it is terrible).

When it comes to music, the situation is different; there’s a thriving (if somewhat niche) community of Christian musicians working in every musical genre under the sun, and a lot of what they produce is clearly not worship music. There are a lot of songs that talk about “normal” things, like relationships or loss or coming to grips with one’s feelings. They just happen to lack most of the objectionable content associated with most secular artists. There may be occasional references to God, but often his presence is assumed. Many of these Christian bands are good enough, music-wise, that they also have sizable non-Christian followings. Their lyrics ring true and their music is good, so I don’t see any reason to ignore these artists. For the most part, they have what we’re looking for.

Now, that’s not to say that secular bands never produce anything worth listening to- someone mentioned One Republic, and I’ll admit that I like several of their songs. But it’s just so much easier to look for clean stuff among Christian bands, and since the content is good and there isn’t a large difference in quality, I don’t see why we wouldn’t look to them first.

 

[RACJ]

I recommend Al Stewart. This guy is musical genius who writes many songs about historical events. Some of these historical tunes are actually metaphors for love interests. I do warn you that it is difficult to get many songs out of your head once you have heard them. Rob

 

[on_the_hill]

My 15 year old daughter has been a fan of Cody Simpson since he got his start on YouTube a few years ago. I don’t mind listening to his music.

His lyrics are clean, so far as I know.

We’re not fans of Taylor Swift (despite her Pennsylvania roots) because all of her songs seem like nasty comments on ex-boyfriends.

And One Republic is popular with my kids. Definitely not One Direction (mostly because my daughter was a Cody Simpson fan when one of her friends was a One Direction fan, and there got to be a bit of “my band’s better than your band” drama)

 

[MrZoom]

Britt Nicole is a Christian pop music singer who has been making some inroads into mainstream pop. Her single “Gold” made it onto Volume 44 of the “NOW That’s What I Call Music” compilations, alongside such mainstream stars as Pink, Maroon 5 and Justin Bieber.

Her music video for the song: youtube.com/watch?v=p9PjrtcHJPo

I have her album “Gold” (digital download). Lots of catchy, danceable and positive-message songs.

 

[ltravis]

My 15 year old daughter has been a fan of Cody Simpson since he got his start on YouTube a few years ago. I don’t mind listening to his music.

His lyrics are clean, so far as I know.

We’re not fans of Taylor Swift (despite her Pennsylvania roots) because all of her songs seem like nasty comments on ex-boyfriends.

And One Republic is popular with my kids. Definitely not One Direction (mostly because my daughter was a Cody Simpson fan when one of her friends was a One Direction fan, and there got to be a bit of “my band’s better than your band” drama)

Lots of great replies on this thread (thanks, all) but I just had to respond to this one. I love it. I can just see the kids getting into their favorite acts and having those spirited rivalries that come with the territory of kids that age - but the debates aren’t focused on moral worldviews and heavy social agendas because these artists leave all that garbage aside. For the kids its simple and innocent. Awesome.

LT

 

[faithfulwannabe]

Yes, I agree with those who opined OneRepublic here. Good songs they have!

 

[Tenofovir]

Most JPOP is safe.

Usual lyrics are often about first time meetings and not forgetting them. That’s about that.

AKB48 stirred controversy about a song involving lyrics about them “removing their school uniforms” but not much more beyond that. But it was controversial and fans don’t like those sorts of songs so most JPOP is renai, light non-sexual romantic love stuff. AKB48 girls are not allowed to have boyfriends and have to stay chaste, not probably because it’s a high ideal, but because a girl who has a boyfriend can’t be “adored” by numerous male fans, and they can’t take her for their imaginary “waifu”. Still for Western kids, JPOP is safe, it’s also upbeat and can lift one’s spirits-even though one doesn’t understand most of what they sing about - although the word “Wasurenai” occurs frequently.

Still compared to Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus, Japanese JPOP is incredibly innocent, even the controversial stuff is miles behind the West.

 

[John_Savage]

This is a Twitter exchange.

Hampton ‏@hcatlin Apr 2

It had been a couple weeks since I’d gotten some sort of @BrendanEich related hate mail. How things going over there on your side, Brendan?

BrendanEich ‏@BrendanEich

@hcatlin You demanded I be “completely removed from any day to day activities at Mozilla” & got your wish. I’m still unemployed. How’re you?

Hampton ‏@hcatlin Apr 2

@BrendanEich married and able to live in the USA! .  .  . and working together on open source stuff! In like, a loving, happy gay married way!

Eich thought he was fired.

I’m sorry is Chick-Fil-A out of business? According to this, it’s completely contrary. As for the Mozilla chairman, you might want to double check your facts. For one thing, the CEO insisted on resignation. He wasn’t ‘booted out.’

Coincidentally, I researched both topics (and other similar subjects) before because it’s part of my job as an online marketer. With all due respect, I’m not sure naive is something I would apply to myself when it came to the business of reputation and promotion.

The only thing I’ve never head of is this Mormon space warrior flick. Are you talking about Ender’s Game? The movie seemed to flop simply because it wasn’t the best film out there and nothing to do with gay marriage.

 

[Norm_The_Robot]

We try to teach out tween daughter that celebrities are not role models and often point out all the former Disney celebrities that have run amok. I try to teach her to separate art from artists. I hope it is working.

She is exposed to a lot of what I like, which is pretty much hard rock music and outlaw country music. I always tell her band names and band factoids as songs come on whenever she is around while I am listening to music. Hopefully this is broadening her musical palate and helping her realize that music can be much deeper than stupid (safe) pop music.

On her own she has gotten into the Beatles and loves 80’s pop music. Boy George, Cindy Lauper, all that sort of stuff. No boy bands or mindlessly safe pop so far. I have faith in her!