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
There was a time when religion was so revered by so many there was no higher achievement than to pay holy reverence to God almighty in as grand a scale as possible. All the best most productive people devoted their lives to it. Kind of like today they do it figuring out new ways to create money out of nothing and move it around with computers. Back then they built cathedrals, painted the Sistine Chapel, and wrote the Messiah. 

This comes up a couple times in the movie Margin Call. First its the kid who was trained as a rocket scientist, but finance pays better. Then it was the engineer who built one bridge that saved millions of man-hours, but then he went into finance and now realizes the awful waste of what could have been.

Anyway, this thread subject made me realize. Recently scanning the radio dial I came across some really interesting and quite good pop music. Took me a while at first, because it was so good, but gradually it dawned on me this was a Christian station. Every single song was Glory to God. It gets a little boring after a while, like if every song was like REO Heard it From A Friend. You know, all breakup songs. 

But the thing of it is, there was a time when this kind of religious music was universally awful. Unimaginative. Cliche. Now it is getting quite good. 

What this tells me, there's more interest, its becoming more widely admired, and its attracting more and greater talent. 

Good.

Janice Ian Breaking Silence has several songs with religious themes. Hard to beat Breaking Silence, on any level. Same with Jennifer Warnes The Well. Two bona-fide audiophile classics. The religious themes are in there, here and there, but always in the background never in your face. Perfect. In so many ways.
For those who do like jazz, the obvious one is John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."
The Fairfield Four, "Standing In The Safety Zone".  And you thought you knew something about a capella gospel singing...