Introduction

A few months ago, I wrote the first part to this series. It almost too brazenly simply declared that Christians were interested and involved in dance music. It also attempted to establish that such an interest and involvement doe not conflict with the “pillars” of our faith. It also declared that we would not go away. What it did not do was discuss whether or not we were having an impact or if we were even really know to exist.

Part of the reason why I have waited so long to continue this series is that I still have my own questions as to what we are doing, why we are doing it and what the end result should be. There is also division among our “leaders” in regards to what we are doing, why we are doing it and what the end result should be. All of them, in some way passionately feel that their way is God’s way. I’m fully including myself in that statement by the way. One thing that I feel we need to do is get a reality check on our position in the larger scene. Hopefully, this article will do just that.

Scene Or Market Part I: The Basics

Very recently, it occurred to me that there is a slight difference between a market and a scene. For example, there can be a market for brown socks, yet you probably will not see people willing to stand in line for hours just to buy brown socks or to be the first person to get the latest style of brown socks. If there were a scene for brown socks, we should see this happening. It may even be truer with white tube socks. Likewise, there is a big difference between someone who will go out a buy a CD and someone going out and buying a concert ticket for that CD’s artists and an even greater difference between both of those and someone who is willing to become a member of that artist’s street team. It all comes down to commitment levels that in turn are at least somewhat based on the value one places on the shoulders of that artist in question.

Whatever the true distinction between a market and a scene is, it is not finite. The line is blurred, but where a scene exists, you cannot deny it. The only question is, how large does a market have to become before it becomes a scene or visa versa.

Scene Or Market Part II: A Look At The Numbers

In regards to Christianity’s involvement in the dance scene… or rather the existence OF a scene can also be based on this commitment level. For example, we know that people will buy Christian dance music. Well… we know they will buy it if:

1. It gets played on the radio.
2. It is on a label that supports it.
3. Its own artist takes time to really support it via touring and appearances. With almost every release, this never happens.

The two exceptions are:

1. Andy Hunter
2. Most of the Christian artists who release music strictly to the secular scene on secular labels.

The highest numbers of CDs sold for a Christian dance release on a Christian label (excluding Andy Hunter) is probably not much higher than 5,000 copies*. When you break that down financially, that means that most Christian dance CDs either were losses or just barely broke even. In the US, that is roughly 100 CDs sold in each state for the best selling release, compared to 1,000-2,000 for a popular CCM release.

If you expand this view to look at the active local dance community, the picture is a bit different. For simplicity’s sake, let’s define a local scene as a major metropolitan area and the people who are willing to do more than just buy a CD. Across the US, there are basically five major groups that have recently tried to build a local scene that meets regularly. Those groups are The Underground, Club Worship, Fusion, Groove Central and the Atlanta Fellowship. Of those, only Club Worship, Fusion, and the Underground are still meeting regularly. The Atlanta group has simply been too busy (although we are planning a new gathering now) and Groove Central lost one of their leaders in a move to Kansas. If look at the numbers of people willing to attend these events, you will see all of them draw less than 200 people on average. Atlanta only could pull in a maximum of 15 people and the core really consisted of about 5 people. In it’s hay day, Amplified Life, the Atlanta Fellowship’s predecessor, could pull in between 100-200 people.

If we look at radio support, it is fairly similar to the local scene. There are certain radio shows that stand out such as Carey Jarvis’ Dance Chapel, Rish’s Electric Circus on Radio U and Frankie Vibe’s House of Inspiration. They all have their endearing qualities, but as a whole they are just as few and far between as the local scene is. The one difference is that each show is able to broadcast their music to tens of thousands of people each week. However, as the local scene in these areas is not growing with people committed to leave their homes and take an active role in forming a local scene, radio has not been the most effective tool for building a scene or creating market interest for dance music by Christians. Of course, some, if not all, of the blame for this can be placed on the labels and artists for not given the radio stations material that will do well on the air and not supporting their releases.

Aspiring To Be Underground And Failing

Dance music is supposed to be underground. We all have heard that. We all pledge at least lip service to the thought that it is underground. At one point, electronic dance music as a whole was largely underground. That is not the case at all today. Today, everywhere you go, almost every TV show or movie you watch, and almost every pop song you hear on the radio has some element of electronic dance music buried in it somewhere. Prime examples of this include such radio hits as Madonna’s Ray of Light, Cher’s Believe, Moby’s Southside, Dirty Vegas’ Days Go By and Britney Spear’s Toxic. You cannot avoid it, the sound is everywhere and it really is not underground anymore when even BT, John Digweed, Moby, Tiësto and Paul Oakenfold have become near household names.

When people go to clubs, unless it is a club dedicated strictly to country, hip-hop, jazz or some other specific form of music, you will hear club remixes of pop songs mixed with some underground tracks. The concept of breaking into a warehouse and throwing an illegal rave/party is almost non-existent in the US today for various reasons. One being that enough people like dance music enough to dedicated legally established nightclubs to it. At this point, is dance music truly underground? Maybe the days of disco never really died, but rather evolved into today’s club culture. Regardless, those in the know of the secular scene fight to maintain the idea that they are underground.

Christians Are The Underground

Compare that view with the view of a Christian scene with the numbers I mentioned earlier. The Christian dance scene is a subset of the whole dance scene. It is not a very attractive subset of the whole, outside of the clean behavior we infuse because of our faith because:

1. You cannot find dance music in most Christian bookstores or secular music stores.
2. Very few Christian events of any size occur.
3. Because of a lack of support from the labels, radio stations and the artists themselves.

People largely do not know that we even exist. If by underground, the larger scene means hard to find and little appreciated, you cannot get any more underground and under appreciated than the Christian scene currently is. In a way, we have succeeded where the secular dance scene has now failed. We are truly underground.

To take that a step further still, we can look at some web stats. We can start with the stats of this vary website. Tastyfresh.com has been around since December 1996. It has been the communication “hub” of the Christian dance scene through most of that time. As of July, the site drew 7,292 unique visitors. That number is based on unique IP addresses, so a few could be the same people, so it may be more accurate to say the readership is between 6,000 – 7,000 people. The message boards currently have 450 members. That’s about one third the number it had prior to installing the new system, but many of the accounts on the old boards were duplicates. What this tells us is that between 7.5 - 6.4% of the visitors are willing to take their involvement one step beyond simply reading the site. The average number of posts per member is 35. 82% of all the viewers of the site are American.

That may seem like a bunch of useless facts, but they are important and tie right back into my earlier statements. If Tastyfresh.com is the largest website dedicated to Christian dance music, then these numbers support just how underground we are. Numerically, we are just about 50% larger than the sales number I mentioned for the highest selling Christian dance CDs. 80% of the Tastyfresh.com readers are from the US, which means that roughly 4,800 – 5,600 people are American. This puts between 96 – 112 people in each state on average. Compared to the event attendance numbers I mention earlier, this accounts for almost all the attendees of every event. If you take a look a Cornerstone’s dance club in particular, you have about 300 to 600 people willing to travel each year to one-week festival. 300 to 600 people in a sea of more than 25,000 people is not a high percentage by any stretch of the imagination. Numerically, we are underground both in terms the larger dance scene and the Christian music scene in general. This is a fact that cannot be denied.

The Best Things Come in Small Packages

So we are truly underground in the most literal sense of the word. So what? Why should that even bother us? Why should we even care? I think these are valid questions, but all that truly matters is that each of us follows God’s will for our involvement in building this scene. Not everybody is the best lighting expert. Not everybody is the superstar DJ. Most of us can’t even write a half-decent tune, although the progress made in this area in the past year or two has been nothing short of mind-blowing. What we have here is nothing but opportunity. Despite the fact that after just over 13 years of existence, the Christian dance scene is truly to the point now where we can start growing and impacting the lives of others in some very meaningful ways. We just need to determine where God wants us to be and what he wants us to do. That means we all individually need to sit down and listen to God for his direction. I think we have seen part of that develop over the past few weeks.

Small Packages make for Small Groups and Firm Foundations

On May 31 st, DJ Rish, Carey Jarvis, DJ Saryn, a few others and myself started a debate on the message boards here. The subject was the existence of this Christian scene and how it is or is not growing. That eventually led to a mutual consensus that the best way to effect people for God, to grow the scene, and to fellowship is not to hold huge parties, but to start local small groups. The idea is that in each major town, a Tastyfresh.com member will start a small group. These groups will meet once a month and have some type of activity, even if only a few people show up. They would also be independent from Tastyfresh.com so they can operate effectively in their local scene. These local Groove Fellowships can form the basis for a new, stronger and hopefully larger Christian dance scene, although their goal should not be to duplicate a separate but equal scene. If you would like more information about these Groove Fellowships check out the new forum on the message boards.

We are clearly at a point in time where we need to grow. We have a good base to start with that was founded by the first generation of Christian dance artists, label execs, promoters, and DJs, so of whom are still active in the scene today. We have also been blessed in that we have seen first hand mistakes that have been made and how they were resolved. We have all the knowledge we need to build the first floor of this house of God wants to see built. Now is the time for that to start happening. It’s time for more than just talk. It’s time for the past to be a lesson applied rather than an anchor holding us back. Regardless of whether you think there should or should not be a Christian dance scene, God wants and is moving to move in the lives of the club goers. Your job is to do what God leads you to do. That could mean throwing parties in your church’s gym or that could mean hanging out in the back of some secular club building a relationship with a DJ. The thing is, God is ready to move. Are you ready to let Him? Good things come in small packages. That small package is you. You are God’s tool.

* Unfortunately at the time of publication, I was unable to find a wholly accurate number via my sources. This was a very rough estimate given to me regarding sales of an earlier Faith Massive album some time ago.