The richest man in CCM

The Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) just makes me mad a lot of times. I've heard lots of stories of people getting "sucked in" the industry and losing their faith as a result. I've personally seen divorce and broken homes as a result of the terribly secular and worldly industry that is CCM. Just listen to the music coming out of your local AFR affiliate and tell me that it has the depth of doctrine and truth of the great hymns of yesteryear. This CCM industry is run by business savvy executives that play all of the games that their pop music executives play in the skyscrapers across the street. Sometimes, they are themselves in the skyscrapers. Many secular labels have a "Christian" division, such as EMI, which owns Sparrow Records. EMI also owns Virgin Records and Capitol Records. Some of their artists on those labels include (please note that each one of these albums has the "explicit lyrics" warning on it) Bad Azz, Megadeth , and Fat Boy Slim. Companies like EMI have as their main goal to make money, NOT to glorify God.

Some Christian musicians have abandoned CCM altogether. Steve Camp is a great example of this. His 107 Theses are a clarion call to everybody in and around the CCM world for reformation.

Some folks however, are able to remain on the inside, and still keep the faith. Some have been able to produce God honoring music despite living and working in the CCM cesspool. Some musicians who come to mind are Steven Curtis Chapman (who records on Sparrow), Caedmon's Call (most recently recording on Brentwood), and Casting Crowns (who record on Reunion Records).

But, Rich Mullins topped them all.

Somehow, Rich was able to record many albums on a secular owned label (Reunion - which was partly owned by the very secular BMG) without succoming to the temptations of being a big name star. Rich died tragically on September 19, 1997. Nine days earlier, he recorded nine songs that he was going to put on an upcoming album. He had bought a cheap tape recorder and went to an old abandoned church to record the songs. This tape was found, cleaned up, and published under the title "The Jesus Demos." It was combined with a another disc with professional versions of the songs performed by some of Rich's friends. The first song on "The Jesus Demos" is called "Hard to Get", and it (Rich's demo version) is my favourite song of all time. You just don't have that kind of songwriting from 99% of the CCM "content providers."

See for yourself; compare some of Rich's songs to the standard CCM output.

Another one of my favourite songs by Rich is "O Come All Ye Faithful". (not the Christmas carol)


UPDATE 2006-12-07
Here is a paragraph from the wikipedia entry on Rich.

Mullins was seen as an enigma to the Christian music industry. Often barefoot, unshaven, and badly in need of a haircut, Mullins did not look like the average American gospel music writer. He was very much at home among the ungodly, and unafraid to name his own sin and inadequacies in public, often baffling the American Christian culture that he seemed oddly a part of. His lifestyle was unquestionably marked by devotion and discipline, yet his simultaneous refusal to buy-in to contemporary Christian niceties made him a bit of an uncomfortable presence in a music culture marked by artificiality. Although he achieved a good amount of success on Christian radio, he never received a GMA Music Award until after his death.