She seems to be of an age to pick up early Jennifer Knapp. Melissa Etheridge is a good choice. Third Day has bangers on most albums – Black Crowes are a good equivalent. Newsboys can be equivalent to TMBG for some albums. Scarecrow and Tinmen equivalent would be a boy band. Audio Adrenaline leads to Collective Soul. Jars of Clay is pretty secular but Live is a good choice. DC Talk’s closest equivalent is probably Run DMC.
Still, some Christian music really is excellent, though. Newsboys Going Public album – Elle G (about suicide), Lights Out (about apocalyptic beliefs), Truth and Consequences (about sexism and premarital sex). Some of their later albums get odd, hence the TMBG comparison – Take Me To Your Leader the album especially.
“Take Me To Your Leader” got me into The Newsboys! Because the cover was whacky and stood out to me in the catalog.
Agree with your comparisons. Reminds me of a flowchart in my youth group room that went the opposite way – “like this secular band! Try this Christian band!”
Yeah, Joyce has no reason to find change difficult or to be unaware of how to go looking for non-religious music. Nothing in her upbringing, neurodivergence, or traumatic recent history would at all have an impact on changing something she clearly fixated on.
My comment wasn’t meant to trivialize Joyce’s struggle, just suggest the solution would be simple. This is a problem with many simple solutions. A lot of Joyce’s challenges have had common and mundane solutions to what seemed big at the time but were solved very conveniently.
I know tone is hard to convey into text. I’ll try harder next time to articulate my words to not be read in the worst possible light.
A few years ago, one of the local bus drivers would have his Christian pandora radio on and this song came up a few times…not exactly my cup of tea, but Steely Dan was a better poison.
True, though I don’t know if Joe is familiar with their older songs, which are the only ones I can confirm rule.
I assume the newer ones also rule, but who knows (besides Willis) if Joe is familiar with their earlier work.
Minutes to Midnight was the last really good album with Chester imo (my definition of good is “I liked 50%+ of the songs.”), but I really like the new album with their new singer. Nothing really wrong with the other albums after MTM, they’re just really not my cup of tea, not even the songs that blew up off of them.
Ummm maybe the Larry Norman songs I’ve heard haven’t been representative? But the web says it’s a Charlie Peacock song and I’m not especially motivated to go search out more…
I mean all of those are a lot more recent than DC Talk so *shrug* At this point in the sliding timescale she probably would have found them by listening to her parents’ old music (kind of like my experience with like Petra, Amy Grant etc.)
It’s kind of weird, afaik there haven’t really been any successors to the non-ccm christian music from when I was a kid, in like the late 2000s/early 2010s there was a big die-off and hardly anything other than praise and worship was left. I think maybe it got crushed between the stigma against listening to anything other than like hillsong 24/7 from some quarters and the stigma against christian music from others. I don’t think anything ever really replaced that but maybe it’s just because I’m not in that kind of crowd anymore (thank god). At the very least, there certainly hasn’t been anyone I can think of like anywhere near as popular as relient k, switchfoot, newsboys, anberlin etc. back in the day, and all of those were probably a step down from like the previous generations of popular christian artists.
Wider cultural die-off of Christian fundamentalist influence, surely. The satanic panic cratered, creationist bullshit was a niche losing ground to friggin’ Pokemon, and it only got easier for anyone to listen to anything for zero dollars.
Aura
Maybe, although christian fundie culture still seems pretty influential in like politics and stuff. Looking back though there does seem to be a trend of christian artists having less and less mainstream appeal and smaller and smaller audiences even within the christian demographic.
Until literally 2 months ago, I was only familiar with Relient K from the song “Be My Escape”, which received mainstream radio play and was not immediately obviously religious, and I always quite liked.
2 months ago it happened to come up in conversation with a friend who was raised evangelical, at which point I found out they’re in fact a Christian band. I asked said friend to point me to what he would consider their signature early work, which is how I wound up listening to “My Girlfriend”, and holy shit. I then had to explain that “Be My Escape” is distinctly not like that.
I still like “Be My Escape”, but I would definitely give that up if it meant I could erase their other songs from existence.
Relient k got progressively less preachy over their career, ‘Be my escape’ was from their 4th album by which they had hardly anything explicity christian (that was probably just about the most explicitly christian it got on that album). There were still traces of explicit christianity here and there on the odd song throughout their career but for the most part it remained a very minor theme only referenced sideways from about the third album on.
What I am saying is please don’t erase their other songs from existence they were my favourite band for all of my teens and my gateway into actual music and I am very nostalgic about them.
They still are, though much less prolific! And this may just be me, but I can’t think of Relient K without thinking of Five Iron Frenzy.
FIF came out the gate kicking ass, and they kick ass to this day. The opening track of their first album goes for the throat in its criticism of Manifest Destiny and Christian brutality toward Native American populations. And while their pronounced goofy side surfaces in songs about the joys of Canada, heavy-metal mullets, and nerd pride, they also punch up hard against conservative book bans, music-industry hypocrisy, gun violence, police brutality, the abuses of capitalism, and more. Their latest album, “Until This Shakes Apart,” is essentially a savage thirteen-track takedown of Evangelical Trumpism.
Nearly three decades of sharp-witted, high-integrity brass rock. Can’t recommend FIF enough.
Aura
I really love that last album ^^
They were good, they were good, they were really really really good. Even if they’ve been dead or dying for like 2 decades at this point 😛
God, Joe and Joyce’s dynamic can be so damn fun. I love that he’s so willing to razz her about some of this stuff, but it’s still clearly from a place of love.
230 thoughts on “Bops”
Charles Phipps
Joyce needs to discover Sisters of Mercy.
Rage against the Machine.
JOIN US.
Hof1991
They might be giants. Instant ear worms. And the lyrics are ultimately sad and depressing.
Osopescado
He ended up sad! He ended up sad! He ended up really really really sad!
Wizard
Hey now, hey now, now, now
Sing this corrosion to me
Just Karen
She seems to be of an age to pick up early Jennifer Knapp. Melissa Etheridge is a good choice. Third Day has bangers on most albums – Black Crowes are a good equivalent. Newsboys can be equivalent to TMBG for some albums. Scarecrow and Tinmen equivalent would be a boy band. Audio Adrenaline leads to Collective Soul. Jars of Clay is pretty secular but Live is a good choice. DC Talk’s closest equivalent is probably Run DMC.
Still, some Christian music really is excellent, though. Newsboys Going Public album – Elle G (about suicide), Lights Out (about apocalyptic beliefs), Truth and Consequences (about sexism and premarital sex). Some of their later albums get odd, hence the TMBG comparison – Take Me To Your Leader the album especially.
TsunamiJane
“Take Me To Your Leader” got me into The Newsboys! Because the cover was whacky and stood out to me in the catalog.
Agree with your comparisons. Reminds me of a flowchart in my youth group room that went the opposite way – “like this secular band! Try this Christian band!”
GT
Type O Negative in general and “Christian Woman” in particular.
Furie
Joyce singing “Fudge you, I won’t do what you tell me” has been a wish for so long that thae got to the point she’d sing the proper lyrics now.
shadowcell
it is, strictly speaking, a banger
Tan
*gives it a listen*
A bop, sure, but no banger.
Opus the Poet
The tune is upbeat, but that’s as far as it goes.
Dara
oh gods
will this be joyce’s emo or goth era?
Charles Phipps
I am thinking Danny will introduce Joyce to the Monkey Master videos set to Linkin Park.
Because Danny is way too young for Dragonball Z ones now.
zee
Idk Kai reruns were probably still playing on Nick toons when he was s kid
NGPZ
yee, can confirm, was one of those kids who watched DBZ Kai religiously ^^
obligatory Long Live Akira Toriyama o7
Taffy
I can only hope.
morleuca
Bauhaus, Siouxie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Cult, and top it all of with the ironically named Christian Death
Doctor_Who
Huh. Maybe Joyce should look into Death Metal.
Charles Phipps
How much do we have to pay Willis to do Goth Joyce?
Sirksome
If Joyce has been internalizing these lyrics I think we’ve been witnessing her goth era this whole time.
Endplanets
Bah. Doom Guy music all the way.
I mean its still pro Christian but whatever.
Azrael
Dio – Holy Diver then. Perfect album for Joyce.
ID basically ripped off Stand Up and Shout for the E1M1 music in the original Doom, setting the tone for the series to this day.
Riley
showing joyce alters of madness and watching it shift her brain chemistry
june gloom
No no no. Acid Bath and Queens of the Stone Age. Those lyrics are macabre.
Taffy
Everybody always goes straight to that. Maybe start her off with a better genre, like hair metal.
Mr. Random
Even MY upbringing wasn’t quite as self-harm inducing.
Sirksome
Just get spotify and listen to any recent top 40 playlist. This isn’t hard.
Nymph
Yeah, Joyce has no reason to find change difficult or to be unaware of how to go looking for non-religious music. Nothing in her upbringing, neurodivergence, or traumatic recent history would at all have an impact on changing something she clearly fixated on.
It’s not that hard! ?
Sirksome
My comment wasn’t meant to trivialize Joyce’s struggle, just suggest the solution would be simple. This is a problem with many simple solutions. A lot of Joyce’s challenges have had common and mundane solutions to what seemed big at the time but were solved very conveniently.
I know tone is hard to convey into text. I’ll try harder next time to articulate my words to not be read in the worst possible light.
Stephen Bierce
*notices Johnny Rotten and Alice Cooper looking at one another and nodding*
Joe Moose
This…is a memory unlocked.
A few years ago, one of the local bus drivers would have his Christian pandora radio on and this song came up a few times…not exactly my cup of tea, but Steely Dan was a better poison.
Matthew Davis
Why was Steely Dan on the Christian pandora station?
Needfuldoer
Nothin’ but blues and Elvis
And somebody else’s favorite song
IntangibleMatter
Well Joe, you should know that it starts with one.
Jeff K!
One thing? I don’t know why.
SailorCakes
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try
SailorCakes
To get these lyrics started and totally failed 🙁
oyouej
LINKIN PARK RULESSSSS!!!!
cbwroses
True, though I don’t know if Joe is familiar with their older songs, which are the only ones I can confirm rule.
I assume the newer ones also rule, but who knows (besides Willis) if Joe is familiar with their earlier work.
Charles Phipps
Obligatory “Dan knew about Linkin Park before it was cool” strip:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/longtimecoming/
Thomas
Technically, that’s Ethan recognizing the lyrics, not Danny.
june gloom
I can confirm that pretty much everything they did up until Chester’s death is fire.
Bittersweet
Minutes to Midnight was the last really good album with Chester imo (my definition of good is “I liked 50%+ of the songs.”), but I really like the new album with their new singer. Nothing really wrong with the other albums after MTM, they’re just really not my cup of tea, not even the songs that blew up off of them.
Taffy
Eh, they dropped off after Meteora.
NinjaNick
Can’t beat the first two albums. (MTM and ATS has its moments, though.) Let’s pretend From Zero doesn’t exist.
Nymph
Oh wow, I really like some of the songs on From Zero. Definitely not as good as Hybrid Theory and Meteora, but so few things are.
Taffy
That’ll be easy, cuz this is the first time I’ve heard of that album at all.
Steve C.
Completely secular AMEN!
Yakumo
But that doesn’t deny that Joe’s placement of them in the metric isn’t spot on.
cbwroses
Am I the only only one reminded of that one song from the Lion King?
Taffy
Oh yeah, Numb.
RassilonTDavros
…I mean I knew Joyce’s favorite music was gonna be fucked up, but wow.
Needfuldoer
I’m sure it’s fine if you don’t pay any attention to the lyrics, or don’t understand the English language.
Steve
Ahh yes, the Larry Norman cover. All his songs were like this.
butting
Ummm maybe the Larry Norman songs I’ve heard haven’t been representative? But the web says it’s a Charlie Peacock song and I’m not especially motivated to go search out more…
Amós Batista
Larry Norman is very cool. I respect these kind of christians
Smooti
On a scale of 1 to 10, how into Relient K was Joyce?
Actually, do the Christian kids still listen to Relient K? Skillet? Newsboys?
I mean surely still the Newsboys.
Aura
I mean all of those are a lot more recent than DC Talk so *shrug* At this point in the sliding timescale she probably would have found them by listening to her parents’ old music (kind of like my experience with like Petra, Amy Grant etc.)
It’s kind of weird, afaik there haven’t really been any successors to the non-ccm christian music from when I was a kid, in like the late 2000s/early 2010s there was a big die-off and hardly anything other than praise and worship was left. I think maybe it got crushed between the stigma against listening to anything other than like hillsong 24/7 from some quarters and the stigma against christian music from others. I don’t think anything ever really replaced that but maybe it’s just because I’m not in that kind of crowd anymore (thank god). At the very least, there certainly hasn’t been anyone I can think of like anywhere near as popular as relient k, switchfoot, newsboys, anberlin etc. back in the day, and all of those were probably a step down from like the previous generations of popular christian artists.
Aura
Now I’m thinking about Semler’s song TobyMac (about trying to make a mixtape for her girlfriend when she only knows christian artists)
mindbleach
Wider cultural die-off of Christian fundamentalist influence, surely. The satanic panic cratered, creationist bullshit was a niche losing ground to friggin’ Pokemon, and it only got easier for anyone to listen to anything for zero dollars.
Aura
Maybe, although christian fundie culture still seems pretty influential in like politics and stuff. Looking back though there does seem to be a trend of christian artists having less and less mainstream appeal and smaller and smaller audiences even within the christian demographic.
Tan
Until literally 2 months ago, I was only familiar with Relient K from the song “Be My Escape”, which received mainstream radio play and was not immediately obviously religious, and I always quite liked.
2 months ago it happened to come up in conversation with a friend who was raised evangelical, at which point I found out they’re in fact a Christian band. I asked said friend to point me to what he would consider their signature early work, which is how I wound up listening to “My Girlfriend”, and holy shit. I then had to explain that “Be My Escape” is distinctly not like that.
I still like “Be My Escape”, but I would definitely give that up if it meant I could erase their other songs from existence.
Aura
Relient k got progressively less preachy over their career, ‘Be my escape’ was from their 4th album by which they had hardly anything explicity christian (that was probably just about the most explicitly christian it got on that album). There were still traces of explicit christianity here and there on the odd song throughout their career but for the most part it remained a very minor theme only referenced sideways from about the third album on.
What I am saying is please don’t erase their other songs from existence they were my favourite band for all of my teens and my gateway into actual music and I am very nostalgic about them.
Mark
I thought that was a Chrysler.
Aura
They were named after one of the band member’s Plymouth Reliant K. The misspelling is a very 2000s band way of trying to avoid copyright trouble.
Schpoonman
Oh man, Relient K was great.
Jackson
They still are, though much less prolific! And this may just be me, but I can’t think of Relient K without thinking of Five Iron Frenzy.
FIF came out the gate kicking ass, and they kick ass to this day. The opening track of their first album goes for the throat in its criticism of Manifest Destiny and Christian brutality toward Native American populations. And while their pronounced goofy side surfaces in songs about the joys of Canada, heavy-metal mullets, and nerd pride, they also punch up hard against conservative book bans, music-industry hypocrisy, gun violence, police brutality, the abuses of capitalism, and more. Their latest album, “Until This Shakes Apart,” is essentially a savage thirteen-track takedown of Evangelical Trumpism.
Nearly three decades of sharp-witted, high-integrity brass rock. Can’t recommend FIF enough.
Aura
I really love that last album ^^
They were good, they were good, they were really really really good. Even if they’ve been dead or dying for like 2 decades at this point 😛
DailyBrad
God, Joe and Joyce’s dynamic can be so damn fun. I love that he’s so willing to razz her about some of this stuff, but it’s still clearly from a place of love.
Mewzard