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Religious music for less than devout

We have a thread " Jazz for someone who doesn’t like jazz. " In a similar vein perhaps "Religious music for the less than devout".

"people get ready" - Rod Stewart
"Amazing Grace" - Jessye Norman
2009 "Duets" - Five Blind Boys of Alabama, The - entire CD
1988 "Sweet Fellowship" - Acappella, the entire CD

In 1989 I was working in NJ, I may have been the only guy on the job who did not know he was working for the Irish Mafia. I would lend people the CD "Sweet Fellowship" and they were willing to pay for it but never return it:

"Here is $20 kid, go buy yourself another cuz youz can’t have mine back. Now don’t ever ask me again."


timothywright
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,797 posts
 
A fave of mine:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Salzburger Kirchenmusik 1774
Gema Records 1985
Carus 83.103 CD

Wonderful choral music!

BTW, I tried to return my Fairfield Four album to Best Buy and get my money back. The clerk asked what was wrong with it. I said: "The title says Fairfield Four but there are five people on the cover. It's obviously defective!". Didn't get my money back...  
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Definitely much less than devout here.
But I do listen to a lot of Christian rock and metal, Probably not quite what you had in mind though.
Bands like Skillet, Stryper , Barren Cross, Angelica, Rez, Angie Lewis.
ericsch
756 posts
 
Van Morrison: "In The Garden", "Whenever God Shines His Light On Me", “When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God?",  “If I Ever Needed Someone”. There are others. 
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten.  On Argo Records.  Choir of Saint John's College, Cambridge.
n80
2,133 posts
 
^^^Van Morrison went through a Christian phase for a while. He has quite a few popular religious songs. These are the Days is another one. Some folks hear some Christian themes in Astral Weeks, but I think you can hear anything you want to in that album.

All Bach.


U2's albums are suffused with Christian themes. Bono says he is a devout Christian.

For some spectacular R&B/Gospel check out Leon Bridges album Coming Home. It is not a religious or gospel album per se but there are three of four excellent songs with Christian themes. On some of them you have to listen carefully to hear them. The songs are fantastic as is the whole album. The theology is deep and solid without being cheesy or in-your-face. This one, River, is probably the best and deepest:

https://youtu.be/0Hegd4xNfRo

I am a devout Christian but other than classical, traditional hymns and a few I've mentioned here, I do not particularly like religious music. Especially religious pop music. Several of you have mentioned above that it has gotten better, and that is good. Because not long ago I would have said it was the worst music of all. It wasn't good pop. It wasn't good gospel. No catchy tunes. Overly emotional and sentimental. Shallow and vapid. And that always makes me a little sad, as a Christian. As millercarbon mentioned, western religious music was, at one time, the highest level or artistic expression in music. And it might still be.


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