To go along with Carey Jarvis’s July 2004 article, “The History of Christian Dance Music (Part 1?)” I would like to offer a sort of pre-history.  In the comic book world, I would be writing “issue # 0.” 

As Jarvis writes, things really took off with Christian electronic, dance and synthpop music in the early 1990’s.  Most of us know little about what happened in Christian electronic music prior to 1992…and that’s too bad.  It isn’t too bad just because some of the pre-1990 music is good and underappreciated.  It is also too bad because it is our history and we owe it to everybody to learn from it.  What happened before Scott Blackwell’s “Walk On The Wild Side” and the SLAVA “Voice Of The People” compilation?  What can we learn from the history that gave us those artists and those that have come since?

The short answer is that there was some Christian electronic music before 1992 but much of it had an authenticity problem.  Eventually, the record labels, producers and festivals got it right. The story has an important moral that works on multiple levels.  Here is how it happened.

The 1980’s and the growth of CCM.

Let me take you back to the mid 1980’s.  For all practical purposes, Christian techno, electronica or synthpop did not exist in any form.  Christian rock, although it had existed for over twenty years, was still a novelty.  Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Rez, Daniel Amos and other members of the first wave of Christian rock (grown from the upheaval that was The Jesus Movement of the 1960’s and 70’s) were well established in the corner of The Church that accepted them and the corner of the Christian music industry that put out their records.  The rest of The Church didn’t “get it.”  The rest of the music world didn’t care.

Then, in 1985 Amy Grant released her 9th full-length album, “Unguarded” and in ‘86 Stryper released their 3rd, “To Hell With The Devil.”  Through a combination of talent, clever marketing and broad distribution Grant and Stryper broke out of the CBA (Christian Bookseller’s Association) bookstore market in a way other Christian artists had not.  They didn’t just deliver a novelty single that got popular attention.  They moved into the mainstream of American popular culture in a way that sold T-shirts, concert tickets and back-catalog CDs.  They even did well on MTV.  Enigma, A&M, Word and Myrrh Records; the artists themselves and thousands of retailers made a lot of money.  CCM-friendly churches and youth ministries everywhere were overjoyed and thousands of Christian rock fans had artists to talk about that their un-churched friends had heard of and maybe even liked.

Christian Synthpop Surfs Stryper’s Wake

What the success of a pop-metal band and a pure pop vocalist moving from the CBA market to the mainstream did for Christian electronic music was critical, if indirect.  It grew the Christian music market as a whole and opened doors.  By the mid 90’s I’d be buying Mortal at Disk Jockey Records instead of Olive Branch Books.  In the mid 80’s the immediate effect was that listeners realized “religious” music didn’t have to sound sappy or churchy and the music industry realized it didn’t have to sell in small quantities.  Overnight, the style options on the big Christian record labels went from about four (southern gospel, black gospel, inspirational and worship) to almost limitless.  In theory at least, any style that sold in the mainstream market could be viable in the CBA market. 

CCM (Contemporty Christian Music) busted out.  In the 1980’s climate of intense fear within The Church about all things “Satanic” the race was on to find the Christian equivalent to every secular music act that hit a youth pastor’s radar.  In the ‘70s Resurrection Band had been the Christian Led Zepplin and Daniel Amos the Christian Eagles.  Now we had a Christian Motley Crue (Stryper) and a Christian Olivia Newton John (Grant).  Alternatives to Loverboy, Heart, Dan Fogelberg, Billy Joel, Iron Maiden, Hewey Lewis and Pat Benatar showed up in pretty short order.  However, we had no Christian Depeche Mode, Information Society, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Erasure, Dead Or Alive, OMD, Howard Jones, Ministry or Skinny Puppy…yet.

In the early and mid 1980s there were a few Christian synthpop records, most of which are very hard to find now.  Flock 14, Crumbacher, 441 and The Technos all put out full-length albums prior to 1987 that almost nobody heard.  For both records and live performances the right audience was hard to find. 

In the summer of ’86 Crumbacher ruined equipment playing in the rain for a disinterested audience at Sonshine festival in Minnesota.  Shortly after that the band played a set for an equally indifferent crowd at Greenfest in Kitchner, Ontario.  According to Dr. Tony Shore (now a writer, blogger and musicologist, then a DJ for KJIA radio), bandleader Stephen Crumbacher was extremely frustrated that summer by the Christian community’s failure to embrace synthpop the way they were embracing hard rock.  Both its entertainment and ministry value seemed lost on them.  The people showing up at festivals were not looking for a Christian Duran Duran.

The mid 80’s also saw artists known for other things bringing some electronic sounds to the CCM audience.  Most notable were Petra, Bash-n-the-Code and Steve Taylor.

Petra’s contribution was simple.  Their keyboard player, John Lawry, was one of the stars of the band and would show off basic sampling technology in concert.  He had the sentence “Jesus Loves You” sampled.  When he got his solo spot in the concert he would play it back at different pitches, stuttering “Jesus” and then playing the full sample at a low pitch so it was really slow.  It was goofy.  It was a gimmick.  It was the 80’s.  The crowds loved it.

At the same time, pop group Bash-n-the-Code was having some success with a light electronic dance sound.  Being a quintessential “play-preach-alter call-play some more” teen/pre-teen music ministry more than a band, Bash had zero artistic credibility.  This is too bad.  After stripping away the contrived images, silly stage show and childish lyrics, the sound was actually not bad. 

Steve Taylor’s mid 80’s sound was semi-electronic, too.  He even released remixes…after a fashion.  Being the first of it’s kind (for me, at least), the maxi-single of “Meltdown” remixes was exciting to see, if not to listen to.  In one interview he named The Transatlantic Remixes (a split release with Sheila Walsh) as his worst release ever.  Taylor’s wit and topicality probably undermined these records as serious dance music or techno as much as the second-rate production.  Taylor’s strengths were, and are, a snide wit and an eye for social criticism.  Those things aren’t at the top of the resume for a dance or electronic artist.

1987 was an important year for Christian electronic music.  This was because of both good and bad things.  In 1987 Frontline Records (who would eventually bring Scott Blackwell to the attention of the CCM community) released Mad At The World’s self-titled debut album.  This was the best-produced Christian synthpop release to date.  The sound quality, serious mood, keyboard patches and conspicuous use of technology were all up to the minute and ready for anybody and everybody to hear.

As good as this record and some later MATW records were, there were also problems, general ones and specific ones for electronic music fans.  On the debut record the life-long Californian singing lead did so with a fake English accent, referencing Depeche Mode and New Order.  This was a big problem for anybody who cares about authenticity.  In short order we saw the copped accent go away but so did the techno beats.   Over the next five years, each successive MATW record was less electronic than the last.  Clearly, Roger and Randy Rose, the brothers at the core of MATW, were not committed technophiles.  No problem for the bass, guitar and drum crowd.  Big problem for the sampler, drum machine, flanged vocals set.  Our new best friend, and best hope for developing a real scene, bailed on us.

Mad At The World put out one great sounding electronic dance record but the follow through and credibility just was not there.  By the early 90’s MATW were a steamroller of a live hard rock band--something that came much more naturally for them.  Our loss, rock ‘n roll’s gain.

In my opinion, the single worst thing to happen to Christian dance and electronic music fans in 1987 was also the release of an individual CD.  I think this one album, more than any other, captures what we were up against in the 80’s and early 90’s, and still are, to a lesser extent.  It was a various artists compilation released by the otherwise respectable Myrrh Records.  It was called “Adventures In The Land Of Big Beats And Happy Feets.”

To say that the album was bad is both an understatement and unfair to the artists who contributed tracks to it.  The album contains good songs by everybody from Amy Grant to Phillip Bailey and Mark Heard (under the name, Ideola).  What made this record embarrassing, aside from the saccharine cute name, was that it was presented as a continuous mix.  Unfortunately, Myrrh did not hire a skilled DJ/Producer to properly remix and/or beat-match the songs.  In stead, the songs are linked together by bad additional music by Lee Cahuenga.  These short tracks have names as cute as the album title and are likewise attributed to made-up artists, also with cute names, in the track list.  Cahuenga is credited in the notes for the additional music and “remixing.” 

Where was Scott Blackwell when we needed him back then?  That’s not a rhetorical question.  He was spinning real dance records in real clubs and producing tracks with artists like Book of Love and Debbie (Deborah) Gibson.  I’ll wager nobody at Myrrh even knew his name.

What Adventures… (along with similarly misguided dance, synthpop and rap releases from Star Song, Benson, Reunion, Arcade and even Frontline) revealed was that most Christian record labels of the day, ones that had the resources to put out good electronic or dance records, weren’t doing it.  They put out products that they wanted to be able to call dance, hip-hop, techno or synthpop but it too often arrived in a form that crushed any possibility of it being taken seriously.  Like the executives and producers at the labels, Christian electronic and dance music fans wanted Adventures… to be a driving dance mix that made you want to move.  For those of us who had heard the real thing the distance from that wish to the truth was not just disappointing, it was embarrassing.

The brightest star in the Chrsitian techno sky in ’87 was the Mad At The World debut (fake accents and all) and we focused on that.  What most of us didn’t know was that there were other things brewing.  Soon, Mortal’s precursor band, Mortal Wish, would form.  ’87 saw Mark Planquet begin work on what would become the Gadget album, Joyful Noize.  Gadget was as underground as could be, most people wouldn’t hear it until 1990 and you couldn’t dance to it.  It was, however, proof beyond all doubt that it was possible to make electronic and in this case quite experimental and avant-garde Christian music and get it heard, at least by a few people.  There was even a Gadget live set at Cornerstone, 1990.

Speaking of 1990, that is when things started to really look up.  Synthpop band Painted Orange opened Cornerstone Festival 1990 to an enthusiastic crowd and had a well-produced independent cassette on sale.  The shadowy industrial act, Blackhouse released the spooky, deliciously noisy album, Material World.  Like Gadget, you couldn’t dance to it but it was electronic, provocative and good.  Christian rap was starting to blossom, which brought attention to big beats, DJing, dancing and house music. 

Then, finally, came 1992, when it all came together and we started to get full servings of the dance and other electronic music we were oh, so hungry for.  By the end of the year Deitiphobia, Mortal, Jyradelix, Technokcraci, and Scott Blackwell would all have full-length albums out on well-distributed CBA market labels.  Blonde Vinyl’s SLAVA compilation, “Voice Of The People,” also came out that year.  Releases by Dancehouse Children, Prodigal Sons, Echoing Green, Code Of Ethics, globalwavesystem, Dead Artist Syndrome, Under Midnight, Circle of Dust, Eric Champion and Native Son And The Foundation were either in the works or in the can.  Not only that, most of them were good.

True Tunes News declared Cornerstone 1992 “The Year Of The Synthesizer.”

Aside from quantity, what changed?  There was a lot more going on than Scott Blackwell needing a breath of fresh air and Blonde Vinyl taking risks with Deitiphobia and Dancehouse Children.  And it wasn’t just Frontline Records’ desperation to be the label that broke the Christian alternative to Nine Inch Nails—Mortal.  All those things were true (it is said that Mortal was signed without anybody at Frontline even listening to their demo tapes) but something else had changed, too. 

The music was no longer being made by people who knew nothing about it or the scenes it came from.  Almost every attempt at Christian electronic and dance music prior to 1990 lacked authenticity and the artistic credibility that comes with it.  It took a combination of Christians who had been listening secular electronic music all along (on the sly, if their church was like the one where I got saved in ‘86) and people who were part of secular electronic and dance scenes coming in from outside.  They got The Church, the labels and the festival organizers to listen to them, rather than the pre-existing industry professionals.  When that change took place, the audiences and the music had a chance to size each other up properly for the first time.

The established CCM industry people had backgrounds in gospel, worship or, if you were lucky, rock.  That’s where records like “Adventures…” come from.   It took somebody who had been spinning house for years in smoky clubs and needed a change of scene to give us Scott Blackwell’s “Walk On The Wild Side.”  It’s far from my favorite CD, but it was oh, so important in 1992.  It was real and it made so much that was to come possible.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the lesson here is that you have to be real. Electronic music is all about synthetic sounds, appropriation and the creation of things that are inherently unnatural.  We then use those things, those most “fake” of all sounds, to communicate the most real of emotions and to tell the truth about ourselves.  As Christians, that means putting our faith, as lived out in our lives, into the music, not somebody else’s. 

What changed in the early 90’s was that several Christian producers for whom electronic music was their natural language had the chance to release Christ centered records to the CBA market and in some cases, beyond.  Before that the labels were trying to fake it with rock and gospel producers.  We were all very glad for the change.  Let’s not spoil it.  Let’s keep it real.