I’m not a Christian, but I always kind of wished I was. As someone who grew up in a family of drug addicts, losers and criminals, that stuff has never really been exciting or interesting to me. When 5 of your 8 uncles have done time and 2 of the other ones got killed, the novelty of “the dark side” kind of wears off, you know? I guess we always want what we don’t have, because even though I don’t believe in God, I’ve always admired and envied the Christian lifestyle.
“Living on the edge” doesn’t sound cool to me, it sounds stressful and humiliating. What sounds exotic and enchanting to me is being a middle-class white person with a 9-5 job whose biggest concern is whether to let his kids play M-rated video games. Like the Belgians who live out their fantasies about being cool American thugs by listening to Madball and Sworn Enemy, I live out my dream of being a boring G-rated suburbanite by listening to its official soundtrack: YOUTHGROUPCORE.
Let’s start with what I consider to be the posterchildren for YOUTHGROUPCORE, RELIANT K. Mainstays of the CD section at the Christian bookstore, if ur parents thought that GOOD CHARLOTTE was “too worldly” for u too handle, these guys were probably your introduction to the world of pop-punk-thats-not-really-punk-at-all. They’re so painfully dorky and G-rated that this song is about Sadie Hawkins dances– I love it!!!
I am obsessed with the Christian Memes page. So advanced!!!!
“Life is good, eternal life is better” *crying with laughter emoji*
And then we have STELLAR KART, aka ”the Christian SIMPLE PLAN.” Gotta love them rocking the single-sweatband-on-your-forearm, bleached spiky hair, Dickies shorts and Atticus tee look in 2005, 5-7 years after it was even remotely acceptable in the secular world. But as we know from “the Christian/Euro rule,” those two demographics are always a solid half-decade behind the times so it totally works in their case.
Switching things up a bit, we have FAMILY FORCE 5, who are kind of like COBRA STARSHIP or 3OH!3 if everybody in the band was a home-schooled virgin. I’ve tried several times to get into this band but I just can’t. There’s nothing WRONG with their music but idk, it just doesn’t do it for me– maybe because I assume that songs like “Love Addict” aren’t about a girl they want to eff, they’re about being addicted to Christ’s love.
A girl who listens to STELLAR KART, wears a purity ring, and apologizes for saying “frickin” = instantly wife
FM STATIC is actually a legit solid powerpop/rock band. You can think of them as the Christian MEST, but without the self-hatred and darkness that makes MEST attractive to fucked up losers instead of happy, well-adjusted teens who text their moms “just to say I miss u.” IDK that they’ll go down as one of my favorite bands of all time, but FM STATIC are definitely a cut above the rest. I’d also file HAWK NELSON under this heading– solid band.
While they’re a bit more on the ‘hard rock’ side of things we can’t talk about YOUTHGROUPCORE without mentioning SKILLET. The band is absolutely awful but their videos have 25-75 million views; it’s baffling how giant they are. Definitely a staple of the church scene, and a safe alternative to ‘worldly’ bands like FFDP (who use the ‘f’ word in several songs).
Another band that transcends “adorably lulzy Christian music” status is MXPX, who are also pioneers of the whole “delicately avoiding the topic of whether they’re a Christian band or not” thing. This is so the secular kids will think they’re a secular band, but the Christian kids will think they’re a Christian band, and they can sell stuff to both markets. Bands like ATTACK ATTACK and BLESSTHEFALL later perfected this technique, but MXPX were among the first to do it.
Speaking of fake Christians, I feel like this is a good time to talk about how fucking awesome BLESSED BY A BROKEN HEART were. It’s really a shame that they got ghettoized into the Christian scene because the truth is that they were one of the most advanced bands of all time. Watch this video a few times because it’s almost impossible to catch everything in one go: the FF7 battle music, the Mortal Kombat movie clips, the Beverly Hills Cop theme, and not to mention that they were doing ESCAPE THE FATE before ESCAPE THE FATE (and much better imo). If you haven’t given this band a shot you really should; “Pedal To The Metal” is a fucking classic.
