With the volatile state of the music industry and changing technology’s effect on consumers and industry execs alike, labels, artists, songwriters and media are having to get more creative about the products they deliver and the ways they deliver them. As
CCM Magazine moves exclusively online next month, this very publication is evidence of this changing effect and leaves us asking the question: What does the future of Christian music look like? As such, we asked our old friend
Charlie Peacock to tell us where he thinks Christian music is headed…
I’m a man with an opinion, and opinions are cheap. I’m riffing here—that’s what musicians do. Keep your eyes and ears open. See what comes true.
The music business aspect of Christian music (labels, radio, touring, etc.) will continue to follow the pattern of the world, especially as long as baby-boomers and Gen-X people are in charge. The pattern is an increasingly unsuccessful business model run by people trapped in a system intent on slow, incremental change in the face of monumental cultural shifts.
The music business, Christian and otherwise, has been a wealth-creation mechanism for a small, elite group of executives, songwriters, producers and artists. Those days are over. Still, the old guard won’t go peaceably. They’ll fight for control to the end. When they finally exit, the new music business will be underway.
Nevertheless, the majors (EMI CMG, Provident, Word) are not going out of business anytime soon. They will function as the genre’s archivists and primary copyright holders for music publishing and sound recordings. Unfortunately, the majority of the recordings created over the last 35+ years were “youth targeted” mainstream music knock-offs at their conception and designed to get past a host of gatekeepers with agendas other than the promotion of good music. This will prove to be a significant future problem. All the companies will continue to downsize as the cumulative catalog devalues over time. Ultimately, there may be only one company left to steward the music of the “ccm” era. That company will be Bill Hearn’s to lead if he wants it.
Christian music as a genre has always been a music you move on from. Young Christian baby-boomers and Gen-X once in love with the music abandoned it in adulthood and have not returned. As a result, legacy artist catalogs (ranging from Larry Norman to Amy Grant to dcTalk and beyond) do not and will not have the staying power of their mainstream counterparts such as The Beatles, The Eagles, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Celine Dion, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and U2. All these artists, and a hundred others, remain popular and economically viable today. Sadly, the pattern does not hold true for what was contemporary Christian music.
The sum of Christian music’s contribution will be under-utilized and underappreciated by the church and viewed as irrelevant by the world. I see no reason to believe that the cumulative catalog of music will increase in value and popularity. Great songs are less forgettable than irrelevant recordings though. There will be a portfolio of songs (and some recordings) that are remembered and held in esteem by the church—a kind of canon from the era. The church will perpetuate these songs, and the Christian music industry will capitalize on the enthusiasm as best they can.
