music that matters
Musings on music culture and the way it interacts with activism and spirituality.
Life is filled with pain and disappointment. You can shut it all out and be numb to everything, or you can face the hurt and enjoy the good experiences. There's not a lot I know for sure, but I definitely know this: it was only after I spent years living as someone who was already dead that I began to realize how beautiful life really is.
"Feel good" anthems become something more in times like these. They become a powerful affirmation of all the living we are invited to do, even in the face of the dark.
Hayley Williams is one voice in what I believe is a growing conversation: what happens when the emo kids grow up?
RED continues to demonstrate how musically tight and in sync they are as they present one of the most exciting and technically sound live shows, night in and night out. On this raw and cool autumn night, this was everything that my soul was craving, and I left fulfilled.
This post contributed to Rock On Purpose by September Grace Redemption is often shown in fiction as a clear-cut story: Point A to Point Fall-from-Grace to Point Happily-Ever-After. In so many stories--musically, cinematically, literarily--we gravitate toward sharp contrast redemptions. We want to see someone at rock bottom be stabilized, someone awful become someone good. If [...]
Intro Supernatural. This was the album that followed THE album for a rock, rap and soul trio who defined an era in Christian music. dc Talk’s fifth and last all-new studio project was released by Forefront Records twenty years ago on September 22, 1998. The ultra-popular group was coming off an album, Jesus Freak, that [...]
In the Bible, James 1 reminds us to be slow to speak and quick to listen. These words are a lifetime challenge, one that I’ve been wrestling with since growing up in a Christian conservative household. As I grow in age and gain wisdom, these words have taught me that by taking time to listen [...]
The music community, and especially the rock community, has become inextricably tied to the mental health conversation in America. And it's a time when that conversation is more urgent than ever before: the suicide rate in the United States has risen 25% in the last 20 years. That tragic number has been felt in losses [...]
On August 24, I walked from my parents' house to a college performing arts center. Skillet's buses and semi were huddled around the back of the building, and a small crowd of concert-goers in emblazoned t-shirts clustered around the front. I checked in at will call for my pass, got my camera's settings in place, [...]
The Song: "Awake and Alive" by Skillet The Story: "I got into Christian music completely unintentionally. My family was Christian, I was Christian, but I was never really into praise and worship," Amy shares. "I preferred modern music." It would be Pokemon that unexpectedly led Amy to music that would change her life. "Soon, I [...]
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