Home › Blogs › Ben's blog

The greatest Christian rock album ever

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 09:29 — Ben

My musical tastes tend to be quite varied -- you might say ecumenical -- but Christian rock is not a favorite. For some reason, Kathryn Jean Lopez has been posting a great deal about Christian rock at the Corner over the past day. I found myself nodding in agreement with one of her correspondents, who wrote "I prefer my decadence pure."
Master of Reality: Greatest Christian Rock album ever.Master of Reality: Greatest Christian Rock album ever.
In what Lopez promises will be the last word on the subject, she quotes an e-mailer who makes an excellent observation:

(T)here is a great body of Christian Rock out there by bands who don’t try to market themselves as “Christian Rock” .... Heck, even Ozzy Osbourne, once you get past the flamboyant stage act, actually has a message that is quite consistent with Judeo-Christian values -- take a serious listen (to) “Iron Man,” “The Ultimate Sin,” or “Crazy Train.”

Quite right. I'll go one better. I contend that the greatest "Christian Rock" album of the past 35 years is Black Sabbath's "Master of Reality." Apart from "Sweet Leaf," the album features some of the most explicitly religious -- and, indeed, Christian -- music you'll find from a hard rock band.

And if you don't believe me, you can go to straight to the Devil.

Bookmark/Search this post with:
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Propeller
  • Reddit
  • Magnoliacom
  • Newsvine
  • Furl
  • Facebook
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Buzz Up!
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Icerocket

Trackback URL for this post:

http://blog.infinitemonkeysblog.com/?q=trackback/6757

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Tue, 10/27/2009 - 09:57 — crywalt

You're a Little Behind

Lester Bangs, writing about a hundred years ago, said that Black Sabbath was the world's first truly Roman Catholic rock band. And he was absolutely right. The lyrics to "After Forever" are especially blatant.

A lot of what I thought was evil in heavy metal has, twenty years on, turned out to be kids fooling around. I always thought Iron Maiden was pretty evil, but looking back I find most of their songs are about movies and TV shows they liked. Judas Priest seemed rough and tough but now I realize they were mostly about gay fetishwear. Led Zeppelin seemed to have an undercurrent of dark weirdness, but most of their songs are about getting laid. Even Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water," which sounds like just about the most evil song of all time, is only about a fire breaking out at a Frank Zappa concert.

Only Rush has pretty much stayed the same, and their songs are still about nerdy stuff. Ayn Rand, fitting into suburbia, how hard science is. These days I actually prefer songs about getting laid.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:03 — Ben

Re: Behind

Lester Bangs, writing about a hundred years ago, said that Black Sabbath was the world's first truly Roman Catholic rock band. And he was absolutely right. The lyrics to "After Forever" are especially blatant.

I couldn't find that reference, but I did find this review. I don't think he meant the Roman Catholic comparison -- wherever it is -- to be complimentary.

Incidentally, Master of Reality is not my favorite Sabbath album. Far from it. That would be Volume 4, followed closely by Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:19 — crywalt

Re: Lester

I'm not sure if he noted it in one of the essays in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung or Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste. I'm going to say the latter because that's the one I have a copy of. Somewhere.

I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment, either, but he wasn't being insulting. I don't think. I'd have to check the context.

Master of Reality isn't my favorite, either. I'm a huge fan of the first album, actually.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:33 — Ben

Black Sabbath

I should have mentioned the first album, too. During my brief, undistinguished stint as a drummer in a power trio at UCSD, we covered N.I.B. After our singer/bass player graduated, we added a singer who couldn't sing and a bass player who could play very well loud. I wanted to cover "The Warning," but nobody else was as into evil progressive jazz-blues as I was. We broke up soon afterward.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:47 — Joel

Re: Black Sabbath

This is the UCSD Power Trio Mark 2!

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:55 — Ben

Re: The UCSD Power Trio Mark 2

Haven't I told you this story? The band I played with in college was called Rainbow Weasel. I wanted to call ourselves Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards, because we were an Indian, a Mexican, and, well, me. The guitarist was leaning my way, but he was closer friends with our bassist/singer, who wanted to call the band Aquarian Revival. The guitarist and I thought that was a terrible idea, but we couldn't agree on Belgian Bastards, so Rainbow Weasel was the compromise.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:53 — Wry Mouth

Evil Progressive Jazz Blues and Jewish Metal

Fellahs, look up "Naftule's Dream," out of Seattle (album: "Smash, Clap"). That should cover both genres nicely.

Joel: I'm a Terry Scott Taylor (Daniel Amos, Swirling Eddies, solo projects) fanatic, myself, but the 77's were a nice break from Undercover ;o/

As to the gist of the post, I'ma check out that album. I have no exposure to head-banging music of that era, save what bled through the dorm walls for 3 years. I may know more Black Sabbath than I think I do, come to think on it.

Thanks anyways for the steer, Ben!

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:58 — Joel

Re: Checking out the album

It's more blues rock, really, than head-banging. And it holds up really well. Especially a 12-minute-barnburner at the back of the disc called "You Don't Scare Me." Fabulous song. Lead singer Michael Roe sounds like he's trying to do Jim Morrison, but it's pretty great over all.

Also: This seems an appropriate time to share my favorite scene ever from the Simpsons:


Tue, 10/27/2009 - 14:54 — crywalt

Copyleft

I like the way they flopped the video so YouTube's copyright flagging software can't find them. Yet. Another video I saw recently used a Jimi Hendrix song, but to keep it from matching the video author had kicked the song's key up a couple of steps. The song was "Mannish Boy", ironically enough.

Tue, 11/03/2009 - 11:33 — crywalt

Bring Your Mother to the Gas Chamber

I finally dug out my copy of Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste and in fact it contains the essay wherein Lester Bangs says Black Sabbath is "probably the first truly Catholic rock group". Finding that gave me the essay's title, which enabled me to find it online: "Bring Your Mother to the Gas Chamber".

You know you needed to know this.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:02 — crywalt

Incidentally

Incidentally, when I was young my dad would play Black Sabbath when he drove me to school. I clearly remember asking him about "N.I.B." and getting an explanation of who Lucifer is.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:07 — Joel

Christian rock

I'm something of an expert on the late-80s-early-90s version of the genre. Put it this way: I once drove six hours to see this band:


Seen and Not Heard by Petra


♫Shel♪ | MySpace Video

I'm no longer proud of that.

There is one Christian band from that era that I still listen to, happily: The Seventy Sevens. And their live album, 88, is still one of the greatest live rock albums I've ever heard. Too bad me and Jesus ain't tight no more.

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:12 — Joel

...and yes...

Having watched that video, that damnable song is going to be in my head the rest of the day. Curses!

Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:22 — crywalt

Jewish Heavy Metal

During the heyday of Stryper -- was that five or six minutes of fame? -- my friends and I considered starting a Jewish heavy metal band. We'd throw Torahs at the audience and sing "Shabbas Bloody Shabbas". Imagine one of those impossibly high hair-metal lead singers screeching "L'CHAIM! Shalom!" and you've got it.

There actually was a joke Jewish rock band called the Moody Jews, I think it was. I read about them. I may have folded some of their jokes into my memory of the band we wanted to start.

Instead my friends started a punk band called Dead Baby Sandwich.