Jars of Clay - Good Monsters

[Josh Powell]

Those of you at CMC have probably already heard about this, but for those that aren't..

Its titled Good Monsters, was announced backstage at the GMA Music Awards, and will be released on Essential records on 9/28/06. It is supposed to be a more rock-focused album than any of Jars' previous stuff, and Leigh Nash is supposed to make a guest appearance.

All subject to change of course.. but it sounds interesting. Leigh Nash + Jars will be fun to hear.

Josh

[Brenden]

Fun to hear AGAIN, she did a duet with Dan on a COAH album (which I enjoyed).

[Josh Powell]

Fun to hear AGAIN, she did a duet with Dan on a COAH album (which I enjoyed).

What's the song called? I don't believe I've heard that...


Josh

[Brenden]

What's the song called? I don't believe I've heard that...


Josh

With Every Breath

[murlough23]

Well, it will come as no big surprise to anyone that I'm stoked! Man, this is gonna be a really long five months.

Wonder what made them decide to do a full-on rock album? They got tired of folk and country? They wanted to throw fans and critics a curveball? Label pressure? They wanted to throw their label a curveball?

Or perhaps the answer is simply, "Why not?"

[Josh Powell]

Well, it will come as no big surprise to anyone that I'm stoked! Man, this is gonna be a really long five months.

Wonder what made them decide to do a full-on rock album? They got tired of folk and country? They wanted to throw fans and critics a curveball? Label pressure? They wanted to throw their label a curveball?

Or perhaps the answer is simply, "Why not?"

Same here.

It'll be really fun to see how Jars of Clay attempts rock It'll also be great to have some new non-hymn material from them

Josh

[starhawk]

I'd say they've already attempted and been quite successful at making rock music in some of The Eleventh Hour and If I Left the Zoo.  No reason for me to think that it wouldn't turn out well again.  I'm excited to hear it!

[Josh Powell]

I'd say they've already attempted and been quite successful at making rock music in some of The Eleventh Hour and If I Left the Zoo.  No reason for me to think that it wouldn't turn out well again.  I'm excited to hear it!

I'd agree.. but this is supposedly their hardest album to date. So that'll be interesting.

I have no question they can pull it off, I just hope it doesn't turn into some radio/AC rock crap

Josh

[bloop]

I need to just wait until I hear the album this time.  I think Jars makes a very good folk/blues outfit, but I'm not crazy about much of their stuff that rocked earlier in their careers.  I guess I need convincing on this front.

[murlough23]

Snippet from a CCM Magazine article on Jars:

"I know what you're thinking-- Jars of Clay's career-defining album was its wildly-selling self-titled debut. For 10 years, I thought the same thing . . .until I heard Good Monsters. To Essential Records credit, the label is letting the album speak for itself. (In fact, the recent press releases announcing the disc merely leads with the headline: "New Project Signals a Return to Band's Award-Winning Rock Roots.")

Let me express my general annoyance at CCM for perpetuating the myth that Jars' self-titled debut was its "career-defining album", as if one album could possibly serve that role, and also, express my even greater annoyance at Essential for RECYCLING THE SAME DAMN CLAIM ABOUT THIS ALBUM THAT WILL UNDOUBDTEDLY BE FALSE. Rock roots? Since when? Only about 2 tracks on the self-titled could really be considered "rock". What universe do these morons live in?

[danny316]

C'mon Murlough, give 'em a few points for saying they've topped the self-titled now. They're sticking to the guns on the old myths, but at least they're done with one of them.

[murlough23]

[danny316]

[murlough23]

I don't have a problem with that, actually. It's not their best, but it's their most CCM-y.

Which is exactly why I have a problem with it getting praised at the expense of all of their other albums. Though at the time it came out, it wasn't typical of the CCM sound, or lyrics. It's just that it sounded so different to most folks that a lot of them started imitating that sound, and by 1997, CCM radio liked whatever sounded like Jars, and was baffled that Jars didn't sound like Jars.

It's the only that's become a "genre landmark" or an influential release of any sort.

I accept that it is their most influential album. But therein lies the problem. Their other albums were less influential only because they weren't as immediately accessible to listeners who expected the same sound as the first album. If people hadn't been so closed-minded, those other albums would have been influential as well. So why are we continuing to celebrate this? The first album was great. LET'S MOVE ON.

In a larger sense, it's stupid to hail it as their best, but from a purely "Christian music" or "Christian rock" standpoint, sure, they can get away with it.

And agin... AAH-OOH-GA! Not a rock album.

None of their other releases did the inoffensive "positive Christian" stuff as much in the lyric department - which I'm thankful for, but I can see how the types that appreciate that thing might say that they need more of that.

And I don't want to support or celebrate that type of thinking. The self-titled album actually did have its heavier subject matter and its meatier lyrics. Very little of it is just "positive Christian" fluff. I don't mean to say that people are morons if they think it's a great album that did a lot for CCM. It is, and it did. I'm just frustrated with the lack of recognition for the rest of their work. It's as if every time they put out another album, their label promises that it will be more like their first album, and they feel the need to apologize that their other albums didn't (which they wouldn't have to do if they hadn't made such promises to sell albums before). Then publications like CCM Magazine just propagate the narrow thinking by marginalizing the rest of the band's career thus far in light of their first album and their current album.

NP: "Colored People", The Gotee Brothers feat. Ayeisha Woods & John Reuben

[bloop]

Well, calling the self-titled debut their best wouldn't qualify as a myth - I mean, it is debatable, but I would disagree with them on that issue and I'm not liking the way their brushing off the others so easily.

I'm listening to my favorite Jars album right now, and it won't be easy to top in my book.  "Good Monsters" is a daily search for me over at Oink's, though.

[murlough23]

I'm listening to my favorite Jars album right now, and it won't be easy to top in my book.

One thing I'm sure we can all agree on (and probably even most of the fairweather first-album-was-best fans, for that matter) is that whatever your favorite Jars album is, it's not going to be easy for them to top.

NP: "What If I Stumble?", Sarah Kelly

[danny316]

Mur, I was thinking that "Christian rock" is a meaningless term now, to some extent. Ever note how most Christian pop stations are refered to as "Christian rock"? I think anything even remotely related to Christian music is painted with that term now, regardless of whether or not it actually has a rock side of it or not.

The label has to pull that idiotic "rock roots" shit every time to try to sell CDs. It's stupid, but not at all surprising anymore.

I think that the rest of their work deserves more recognition too, but to be honest, I don't exactly think it's a good thing to be recognized by the "Christian rock" crowd. Their respect for Jars' self-titled severely damages their rock credibility as it is. In a just world, "Bands like Jars of Clay" would mean "Toad the Wet Sprocket, Counting Crows, Caedmon's Call, and Sixpence None the Richer" instead of "FFH, Kutless, Caedmon's Call, and Sixpence None the Richer. Let's face it, most people who listen to Christian music don't "get it", and probably won't anytime soon. As long as the industry in general encourages people to lump "Christian rock" together instead of lumping sounds or artistic ideas together, we're not going to see the industry acknowledge that Jars isn't one of "THE Christian rock bands".

[bloop]

Well, true, unless a person doesn't like any of their albums (a lot of people who really only like very heavy music for example).

But, shoot, my second-favorite Jars of Clay album isn't going to be easy to top!

[ewok20t3]

I hope it's similar to their first two albums. I find myself going back and listening to those alot.

[murlough23]

I hope it's similar to their first two albums. I find myself going back and listening to those alot.

I hope it's not similar to any of their albums.

[danny316]

We've all heard "Dead Man" now, right? This doesn't sound much like anything we've heard from them before. If I'm hearing the guitars right, it may have been recorded in a bit of a Much Afraid-type style, but the chorus sounds like a bad compilation appearance and the "rawk" feel would seem more at home on The Eleventh Hour, or maybe a Franz Ferdinand album.

[murlough23]

[danny316]

Oh, come on. There's music that has achieved respect among that crowd that also happens to be well-made, respectable music. Tons of people from the "Christian rock" crowd like U2 (select songs, at least, and those songs are generally very good ones even if they aren't a full representation of U2's skills), for example (I know that's a bad example because you're all "whatever" about U2, but the point is, U2 has attained ridiculous amounts of mainstream respect). I know there are a lot of morons out there who wouldn't know good music if it whacked them upside the head, but all the same, just because some fans of bad music happen to like you doesn't mean that your music is bad simply by association.

Think about it though - if someone says, "I love Christian music, liek Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, and Kutless", it doesn't mean the same thing to you as it someone saying "I love Christian music, like Sufjan Stevens, U2, and Jars of Clay". There's a certain credibility issue. People who've been sthingy-fed "Christian rock" for all this time don't understand that, and have destroyed Jars' reputation because of it. The actual quality of music isn't contingent on the fans of it, but the way people perceive music - and decide whether or not to try something - is.

I'm not really all "whatever" about U2. I abhor that word, and actually, I rather like most of U2's first 15 years or so of output. I haven't given "Pop" a fair chance, but I love "Achtung Baby" and even "Zooropa". I'm a bit more orthodox for 80's favorites, but I hate "Rattle and Hum" and love "War". The only major missteps they've made, in my mind, were ATYCLB and HTDAAB. It's as if they heard that Delirious has less "cred" than they used to, and then Bono said, "you know, I think the world really needs a Christian knock-off of U2"...

The issue there is more that a band gets labelled as "Christian" and some people automatically won't listen to it just because of that label, not so much how "typical CCM" a band's sound is from one album to the next. It goes back to our conversation in the ListMania! thread about Christian music as a "genre". It's problematic because of the walls that this classificiation inevitably puts up between CCM and "everything else", but I'm just talking about \how Christian labels and Christian publications are trying to advertise this stuff to fellow Christians.

The Christian label is easy to escape if you can get the right people paying attention to you. I'm thinking of Sufjan and Danielson here. Jars, however, has gotten stuck with the indie-cred-less youth groups. Part of the issue is that Jars simply doesn't land on many people's radar outside of the CCM world these days. The CCM people are allowed to label them, and the CCM people are expected to understand the labels. If their first album hadn't done so well with youth groups and CCM radio programmers, they'd be a bit more respected, even if they were less well-known. I'm perfectly happy trying to get people who aren't into CCM to try WWAI, IILTZ and MA instead, and just let the self-titled remain the CCM classic we all agree it is.

At any rate, I think things like that cokemachineglow review of Much Afraid are a far better sign for Jars than any CCM press release that's trying to sell things to the church folk is. The church folk have been pretty clear that they liked that first one and are a bit stubborn about it - and what are we going to do about that?

Agreed. But that's largely because those who serve as the voices of the industry are perpetutating their ignorance with ludicrous statements like the ones I'm complaining about. At the very least, those whose job it is to market this stuff, or write about it, should make some attempt to respect who the artist is now instead of constantly holding them up to the lens of people's expectations from 10 years ago.

I have a feeling that both Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney agree with you. Bono, too, maybe. What happened to your complaints about ignoring an artist's career when commenting on new albums? I think that we should compare to stuff earlier in the artist's career when we can, and if we have to stick to well-known comparisons to connect to readers, sure, we might. It's wrong to say "it rocks like this album that doesn't rock at all", but at least it gives a nod to what people expect from them and says "this one's good too". Granted, there's no excusing them lying about how similar something is...

We could stand to better understand our genres, yes. I'm sure a lot of people do regard Jars' self-titled as a "rock album".  guess I'm more old-school in the sense that I expect "rock albums" to have acoustic guitars and some level of aggression, unless it's qualified as folk/rock (which is more accurate) or art-rock or whatever. In the traditional sense of the word, very little on that album actually "rocks" aside from "Liquid" and "Flood". It's not meant to.

You mean "electric guitars", not "acoustic guitars", right? If so, I agree with you. I think the problem is that the CCM-folk won't realize that until they get some idea of what rock music is supposed to sound like. They hail Jars' self-titled as one of "THE Christian rock" albums (along with Jesus Freak, which also questionable as a rock album), because they don't know what else to call it.

[murlough23]

Think about it though - if someone says, "I love Christian music, liek Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, and Kutless", it doesn't mean the same thing to you as it someone saying "I love Christian music, like Sufjan Stevens, U2, and Jars of Clay".

Nice little intentional misspelling in that first quotation.

The fact is that Jars is liked by both camps, so there are fans who will help their reputation by saying they like them, and fans who will hurt their reputation. Jars fans are pretty diverse, judging from the people I encounter at Jarchvies - some of 'em are the narrow-minded first-album-is-best types, but honestly I have to give most of 'em more credit than that. That may mostly account for a younger subset of fans, but then, the Internet's where you're most likely to have any influence on people you don't know personally.

And even for the person who likes Jars of Clay and also Switchfoot and Kutless - 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Most people who have a bad stigma about Christian music probably don't even know who Kutless is (as well as most of the other flash-in-the-pan CCM acts that suck) anyway. Maybe there are some like MercyMe or Bob Carlisle who have had their 15 minutes in the outside world and might leave a bad taste in the mouth of a potential new Jars fan, but honestly, I don't think that's as likely.

In any event, as much as I lampoon the "typical brainless CCM crowd", I don't want all of them to suddenly stop liking Jars. Even though they may expect the first album all over again, and continually be disappointed when they don't get it, at least they're buying albums and going to concerts and supporting the band. At this point, I don't actually think the fairweather fans account for a majority of the Jars fandom, given that every album seems to lose a chunk of 'em. If they were a majority, that'd be more of a problem. I think the biggest problem is the label's perception of the majority of Jars fans, or perhaps the unconvinced who have yet to pick up a Jars album (or who have wavered since the first one). If the label and whoever's in charge of PR would get their heads out there and see what's actually going on among the Jars fandom, they might stop placing such ridiculous restraints on the band in terms of what they have to play at their concerts, etc.

It's either that, or the band themselves have that impression, that they have to always play the early hits to keep the crowd happy. I'm not sure which, but I'm more inclined to believe it's the label. We'll probably find out for sure when they leave the label.

There's a certain credibility issue. People who've been sthingy-fed "Christian rock" for all this time don't understand that, and have destroyed Jars' reputation because of it. The actual quality of music isn't contingent on the fans of it, but the way people perceive music - and decide whether or not to try something - is.

Are we talking about Jars' reputation in the mainstream, or within CCM? In the mainstream, they're probably still seen as a one-hit wonder. Folks probably know they're a Christian band, but I don't know if that many of 'em have heard enough Christian music either way for that to be a good or bad thing. If they're inclined to avoid Christian music just because of a difference in religious ideals, then even if the whole CCM industry put out nothing but artistically solid, critically respectable music, that still wouldn't change their minds.

I'm not really all "whatever" about U2. I abhor that word, and actually, I rather like most of U2's first 15 years or so of output.

Sorry, you were so down on their last few albums that I mistook that for your views on U2 in general.

The only major missteps they've made, in my mind, were ATYCLB and HTDAAB. It's as if they heard that Delirious has less "cred" than they used to, and then Bono said, "you know, I think the world really needs a Christian knock-off of U2"...

YOUCH. Double zing!

Though I don't think their lyrics are any more or less "Christian" than they've been since about 1983. The difference lies in the way things are being said. We got used to them being more cynical and "mature" in the 90's; it's weird to hear a band in that mode turn back to a sort of youthful optimism. If you want a Christian knock-off album, go listen to October. The newer albums may have moments like that (most notably "Yahweh"), but I think they cover a wider scope than just trying to imitate the ways that Christian music has imitated them.

The Christian label is easy to escape if you can get the right people paying attention to you. I'm thinking of Sufjan and Danielson here. Jars, however, has gotten stuck with the indie-cred-less youth groups. Part of the issue is that Jars simply doesn't land on many people's radar outside of the CCM world these days. The CCM people are allowed to label them, and the CCM people are expected to understand the labels.

That's a fair analysis. They made it out once, and through no concentrated attempt of their own. I don't expect that they'll ever do that again in terms of having a big mainstream radio hit, but I think they'll do just fine in terms of continuing to cultivate a reasonable fanbase. Yes, that fanbase will mostly be people who are already converted. While I think the way they craft their songs could be respectable even to none-Christians, I don't know how easily someone who's not a Christian will be able to relate to most of what they write. It permeates their music more than it does for, say, Sufjan. So I'm not so sure that establishing some sort of "cred" with non-Christians is the biggest priority. Open-minded ones will be able to meet them where they're at, but for the most part, I think their ideal audience is thinking Christians.

If their first album hadn't done so well with youth groups and CCM radio programmers, they'd be a bit more respected, even if they were less well-known.

Perhaps. But that was the album that honestly came out of them at the time. We all talk about that album like it's straightforward and blatantly evangelistic and a typical prototype of CCM for its era. It's not. Honestly, it was one of the most artistic albums that CCM radio was willing to play at the time - it was a risk and everybody could have decided it was too different for them. It's only really straightforward in terms of how instantly catchy most of it is, due to the beats and the strings and the "Jars of Clay strum". And nothing was wrong with doing any of that; they've improved since then, but it's not like they were pandering to youth groups at the time. So a lot of youth groups liked it and had trouble keeping up with the band's maturation process. That doesn't make their first album a youth-groupy one.

I agree that guilt by association is how a lot of people's minds work, but what would you say if a bunch of youth groups, for some unforeseen reason, suddenly started liking Sufjan? Would that damage his reputation?

I'm perfectly happy trying to get people who aren't into CCM to try WWAI, IILTZ and MA instead, and just let the self-titled remain the CCM classic we all agree it is.

I don't even know which album I'd choose as a starting point. Depends on the person. I'd probably just end up making a mix. But I wouldn't feel the need to hide the self-titled from them.

At any rate, I think things like that cokemachineglow review of Much Afraid are a far better sign for Jars than any CCM press release that's trying to sell things to the church folk is. The church folk have been pretty clear that they liked that first one and are a bit stubborn about it - and what are we going to do about that?

When I see supposed "fans" of Jars talking like that about the first album vs. the other albums, I usually jump in and plead the case for listening more carefully to those other albums. For me, albums like Much Afraid were a gateway to more types of music and songwriting that had to "grow" on the listener because they generally weren't as immediate in terms of their catchiness. It's not that I'm on some crusade to prove to everyone that they're wrong, but I do what I can to get people who bought those albums and didn't really give 'em a chance to go back and actually listen.

I have a feeling that both Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney agree with you. Bono, too, maybe. What happened to your complaints about ignoring an artist's career when commenting on new albums? I think that we should compare to stuff earlier in the artist's career when we can, and if we have to stick to well-known comparisons to connect to readers, sure, we might. It's wrong to say "it rocks like this album that doesn't rock at all", but at least it gives a nod to what people expect from them and says "this one's good too".

Sure. Any new U2 album is going to be compared to The Joshua Tree and maybe Achtung Baby; people probably won't bring up Pop that much unless the music lends itself to such comparisons. I get that. But in Jars' case, I highly doubt that Good Monsters or any future album of theirs will sound like their first, so I just don't see the need for that much emphasis on that album, and only that album.

I honestly wish I could sit down and talk to the band sometimes, and ask if they really know how many people like their "in-between" albums. Show 'em there's some real support behind their entire discography, and it's not just a tiny handful of obsessive, must-own-everything-just-for-completion types of fans. I wish they could publicly say, and even have the freedom to have it printed in their press release, "We're moving forward, not backward. We will change noticeably on nearly every album because we are always being influenced by new ideas We love our first album and it was great for the time in which we made it, but we're not going to spend our time on trying to recreate it." I know, such statements don't lend themselves well to everybody and their brother feeling like they won't be complete without a copy of your album, but I guess I'm still naive enough to think that Christians should shoot for truth in advertising, instead of fasely making everything sound like it will appeal to the lowest common denominator.

They hail Jars' self-titled as one of "THE Christian rock" albums (along with Jesus Freak, which also questionable as a rock album), because they don't know what else to call it.

Jesus Freak is legitimate as a rock album in my mind. It's a vocal rock album, with the group members not actually performing as a band, but I only get nit-picky about that when people call dc Talk a band. It has its mellow songs that don't "rawk", but most rock albums do; that's a legimiate ingredient. The majority of the album does have a very guitar-oriented sound to it, so I think that categorization is fair. There's no succinct way to accurately describe dc Talk's style on that album or Supernatural, but "pop/rock" is decent enough to cover the basis, with the added footnote that Jesus Freak has rap breaks/spoken parts and Supernatural generally does not.

If it were simply one of THE Christian music albums, I wouldn't have as much of an issue with it. I can see why Jars' self-titled is a landmark and none of their other albums are - going from not having Jars at all to having that first album was probably far more significant for the CCM industry than having future Jars albums come out, even though those albums were generally higher in quality than the first one. After the first time you do something that makes an impact, most impacts after that aren't going to register as strongly, even if they are stronger efforts.

[danny316]

In any event, as much as I lampoon the "typical brainless CCM crowd", I don't want all of them to suddenly stop liking Jars. Even though they may expect the first album all over again, and continually be disappointed when they don't get it, at least they're buying albums and going to concerts and supporting the band. At this point, I don't actually think the fairweather fans account for a majority of the Jars fandom, given that every album seems to lose a chunk of 'em. If they were a majority, that'd be more of a problem. I think the biggest problem is the label's perception of the majority of Jars fans, or perhaps the unconvinced who have yet to pick up a Jars album (or who have wavered since the first one). If the label and whoever's in charge of PR would get their heads out there and see what's actually going on among the Jars fandom, they might stop placing such ridiculous restraints on the band in terms of what they have to play at their concerts, etc.

Wait - are we talking about fair weather fans or the CCM crowd? I think the CCM crowd at large does a good deal of CD purchasing, even for bands they wouldn't call themselves "fans" of. They're not at risk of being the majority of Jars fans because they're not fans - just people who liked a few songs and have a fairly positive impression of the band. They're too large of a market segment to ignore, so the label caters to them - even if the non-press-release and non-radio-single stuff doesn't really speak to that crowd.

It's either that, or the band themselves have that impression, that they have to always play the early hits to keep the crowd happy. I'm not sure which, but I'm more inclined to believe it's the label. We'll probably find out for sure when they leave the label.

Sadly, some comments I've read by the band have led me to believe that they don't much like Much Afraid or If I Left the Zoo. I'd actually like to bug them about bringing the songs back anyway - if it's the producers of those albums that they didn't like, why don't they try producing new versions themselves, and playing the new versions on tour?

Are we talking about Jars' reputation in the mainstream, or within CCM? In the mainstream, they're probably still seen as a one-hit wonder. Folks probably know they're a Christian band, but I don't know if that many of 'em have heard enough Christian music either way for that to be a good or bad thing. If they're inclined to avoid Christian music just because of a difference in religious ideals, then even if the whole CCM industry put out nothing but artistically solid, critically respectable music, that still wouldn't change their minds.

I'm pretty sure I'm misreading this paragraph, because it doesn't look like something you'd say. You know that there's a stigma to Christian music - that most people think all the bands are just cheap knock-offs of established bands. You also know that some music is pushed aside as youth group fodder (if I follow recent threads here, apparently Carman and Geoff Moore specialized in that), and that stuff like Jars shouldn't be thrown into that catagory. I also thought (but now that I think of it, I'm not sure...) that you didn't go along with the idea that some people just hate Christianity and shy away from Christian musici because of that.

Anyway...I was thinking of their reputation in general and not just their reputation within CCM there.

YOUCH. Double zing!

Sorry...I had forgotten that Delirious was still around and liked by some around here. I didn't mean to knock on them...truth be told, I haven't heard much of anything they've done recently.

Though I don't think their lyrics are any more or less "Christian" than they've been since about 1983. The difference lies in the way things are being said. We got used to them being more cynical and "mature" in the 90's; it's weird to hear a band in that mode turn back to a sort of youthful optimism. If you want a Christian knock-off album, go listen to October. The newer albums may have moments like that (most notably "Yahweh"), but I think they cover a wider scope than just trying to imitate the ways that Christian music has imitated them.

I still haven't heard October (or The Unforgettable Fire), but I'll probably get around to it one of these months. I don't think they've really been much more or less Christian at any point (even their so-called "heathen" period was still fairly Christian in the lyrics department), but I think that their newer material is done (musically) much the same way that some of the "Christian knock-off" stuff is.

While I think the way they craft their songs could be respectable even to none-Christians, I don't know how easily someone who's not a Christian will be able to relate to most of what they write. It permeates their music more than it does for, say, Sufjan. So I'm not so sure that establishing some sort of "cred" with non-Christians is the biggest priority. Open-minded ones will be able to meet them where they're at, but for the most part, I think their ideal audience is thinking Christians.

This goes back to my comment on the Jars boards about how really, WWAI was all about the CCM industry. The "big themes" they tend to go for seem to be most simply applied to the Christian life most of the time, but I think most of 'em work just as well in other contexts. I suppose there are some songs that'd be hard for someone completely unfamiliar with Christianity to understand, but for the most part, I don't think they have to worry about their music being sold to those people. As for cred - yeah, I get the idea that they don't care. They seem to accept their position as CCM hitmakers a bit too readily if you ask me - as long as they have one or two fairly catchy and accessible songs per album, they make more than enough dough to get by. After that, they seem to follow their own muse, regardless of how much respect they'll get from any particular crowd.

Perhaps. But that was the album that honestly came out of them at the time. We all talk about that album like it's straightforward and blatantly evangelistic and a typical prototype of CCM for its era. It's not. Honestly, it was one of the most artistic albums that CCM radio was willing to play at the time - it was a risk and everybody could have decided it was too different for them. It's only really straightforward in terms of how instantly catchy most of it is, due to the beats and the strings and the "Jars of Clay strum". And nothing was wrong with doing any of that; they've improved since then, but it's not like they were pandering to youth groups at the time. So a lot of youth groups liked it and had trouble keeping up with the band's maturation process. That doesn't make their first album a youth-groupy one.

I'd imagine that your perspective here comes from listening to CCM before that album came out. It doesn't stand out much at all compared to the stuff the came out afterwards.

I agree that guilt by association is how a lot of people's minds work, but what would you say if a bunch of youth groups, for some unforeseen reason, suddenly started liking Sufjan? Would that damage his reputation?

Yeah, that would damage his reputation. Let's say you're Joe Pitchfork-Reader and you're thinking about going to see Sufjan in concert. If you can see him with a bunch of other people who respect his music the same way you do, you're probably going to go excitedly, thinking that the crowd will be great for that kind of event. You might not go, though, if you expect to be surrounded by youth group kids who will be trying to start a mosh pit.

That's probably an extreme example - more likely it'd just be that people would lump him in with the "cheese". People would probably take recommendations for him with a grain of salt, thinking "gosh, I bet these dumb kids like all kinds of generic Christian rock bands like Jars of Clay" (gosh, that was painful to type).

I don't even know which album I'd choose as a starting point. Depends on the person. I'd probably just end up making a mix. But I wouldn't feel the need to hide the self-titled from them.

I'm in the mix camp, although I'm very unhappy with the last mix I used to try to introduce someone to the band (I had done it in preparation of dragging someone to a concert, so it was self-titled heavy and skipped MA except for "Crazy Times"). I wouldn't hide the self-titled, but I wouldn't exactly extol it as one of the greatest albums either. I might say it's one of Jars' better ones, and I'd probably say "this is the one that Christian pop fans hail as their landmark", if I even was discussing older Jars albums with someone who wasn't familiar with them (honestly, I think most people would be bored by hearing too much about a band they don't care about).

When I see supposed "fans" of Jars talking like that about the first album vs. the other albums, I usually jump in and plead the case for listening more carefully to those other albums.

Fair enough. That might not be too difficult if the person already has some of the others on hand. Generally, I'd see how much time it'd take me to convince someone to try something in particular, and weigh that against my own cynicism - and probably decide not to bother. But yeah, I suppose I could plead the case if I wanted to do something about it.

I honestly wish I could sit down and talk to the band sometimes, and ask if they really know how many people like their "in-between" albums. Show 'em there's some real support behind their entire discography, and it's not just a tiny handful of obsessive, must-own-everything-just-for-completion types of fans. I wish they could publicly say, and even have the freedom to have it printed in their press release, "We're moving forward, not backward. We will change noticeably on nearly every album because we are always being influenced by new ideas We love our first album and it was great for the time in which we made it, but we're not going to spend our time on trying to recreate it." I know, such statements don't lend themselves well to everybody and their brother feeling like they won't be complete without a copy of your album, but I guess I'm still naive enough to think that Christians should shoot for truth in advertising, instead of fasely making everything sound like it will appeal to the lowest common denominator.

If my memory serves me well, they tried that while promoting MA, without much luck. In any event, I wish that they'd recognize the need to compare and contrast and not just compare. Comparing to something familiar to get people excited is one thing, but it'd be nice if the press releases didn't imply that the new stuff isn't as "essential" as their debut. There's a place for both - I'll defend their use of comparison here (that was where this argument started, right?), but they need to explain what's new too.

Jesus Freak is legitimate as a rock album in my mind. It's a vocal rock album, with the group members not actually performing as a band, but I only get nit-picky about that when people call dc Talk a band. It has its mellow songs that don't "rawk", but most rock albums do; that's a legimiate ingredient. The majority of the album does have a very guitar-oriented sound to it, so I think that categorization is fair. There's no succinct way to accurately describe dc Talk's style on that album or Supernatural, but "pop/rock" is decent enough to cover the basis, with the added footnote that Jesus Freak has rap breaks/spoken parts and Supernatural generally does not.

Yeah, the not-playing-the-instruments is my main complaint here. Actually, I'd say that much of the album's strengths lie in the way that much of the album falls into other genres - there's a "rock opera" cover, a praise-and-worship-meets-slight-reggae-touches version of an older Christian pop song, the folksy "What If I Stumble", some tasty bits of pop, a dash of hip-hop...

When I think of "rock", I think of things more like the Elms. dc Talk is more of a hybrid group, and fell more into "pop/rock" than "rock" during their prime. In any event, it'd be more accurate to refer to it as an unusual album for the genre than a genre-defining one. It was a solid album, and a very popular one, but not a purely "Christian rock" one. I suppose I'd be happier if people thought of it as merely a highlight of the genre and not one of THE defining moments for the genre.

If it were simply one of THE Christian music albums, I wouldn't have as much of an issue with it. I can see why Jars' self-titled is a landmark and none of their other albums are - going from not having Jars at all to having that first album was probably far more significant for the CCM industry than having future Jars albums come out, even though those albums were generally higher in quality than the first one. After the first time you do something that makes an impact, most impacts after that aren't going to register as strongly, even if they are stronger efforts.

Well, they haven't been quite as accessible since then either. I'm sure that's not helping.

[murlough23]

[dgp11776]

And here's the album cover:

[starhawk]

Is there a link to hearing "Dead Man (Carry Me)"?  Or is it a single released to radio already?  I checked Jars' site and their myspace, but no clip of the song anywhere.

[Brenden]

I uploaded it to the Pub.

[danny316]

[danny316]

Jars' musical influence came mostly from the outside (most notably Toad the Wet Sprocket, from what I've been told).

If you haven't heard Toad's Fear already, you should try to change that.

I guess it would depend on how he cultivated that audience. If he did it by coming up with some freak low-brow Christian rock radio hit that wasn't really characteristic of his usual style, and people came out in droves due to the success of that song, I'd be wary of the type of crowd he might draw. If people started liking him as he is, on his own terms, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal. A lot of this depends on whether the artis bends to meet the desires of the crowd, or whether the crowd can be flexible to go along with the artist, wherever their muse takes them.

In other words, it depends on whether or not he's truly a "total sell-out". Which goes back to what I said about having credibility as an artist.

What about kids like me (OK, I'm not a kid, but still) who like Sufjan and also like a lot of CCM? Does my recommendation of Sufjan (and let's assume just for the sake of argument there were many whose tastes were like mine in that regard) damage his reputation?

Hmm. It's tough to say, overall. If I were Joe Pitchfork-reader and I saw that, it might make me shy away from him. Other people, though, might see that as a sign that Sufjan's appeal goes beyond the "indie" crap.

"Cred" is often silly and hard to figure out. Note how most kids today think it's cool to be "indie" and hate U2. U2's new stuff is liked by CCMers, aging U2 fans, and pop radio, so those "indie" kids hate it. The previous generation of the same group of kids fell in love with "Boy" and was happy to say "I knew them when..." when they hit it big - and most people from the generation respect at least the big singles from the band. So in a bizarre way, they have both an "old fogey crap" reputation and a "greatest band in the world" reputation at the same time, just depending on who you ask.

In any event, I'd like to see credibility be less of a cultural thing. It's easy to see someone mention that they like the same stuff you do, and for you to say that their tastes are credible to you, but it's a bit harder to establish credibility for a recommendation from someone outside of your normal listening. It'd be nice if there was an easier way to introduce someone to the best era of a band first instead of just letting the latest stuff be the only stuff that gets heard. Someone who's never heard CCM before could easily be misled by some people into thinking that Kutless is a great band and that Jars was a one-album wonder, for example...but that would be wrong.

Shoot, I'd say it's not one of their best albums, and I still think it's a darn good album.

Define "best". I'd say that Jars has 4 great albums out, 2 shoddy ones, and one mediocre box set. Essentially, I only like half of their major CD releases, and their lesser releases (EPs, rarities and such) are hit and miss. I'd say that self-titled, MA, IILTZ, and WWAI are among their best material, and maybe give a nod to individual songs like "God Will Lift Up Your Head", "Drummer Boy", "Overjoyed (acoustic)", "Silence", etc in reference to the hit-and-miss rest of their career.

I'd probably just explain that it was their first and they hadn't figured out what to do about percussion and bass and all that yet, hence the cheaper production, but a lot of fans connected with the songwriting because it was very unique for Christian music at the time (and also that mainstream radio picked up a track from it without necessarily knowing these guys were a Christian band).

See, I think that the programmed percussion was part of their charm back then. It's part of what makes parts of Frail and Much Afraid stand out, and it's a huge part of why the self-titled stands out. Many of the songs just wouldn't do as much for me without the loops and samples ("Like A Child", "Liquid", "Fade to Grey", "Frail"...). I think that the album's sound is more important than the songwriting (on all songs but "Worlds Apart" - which still isn't bad musically at all).

Besides, the "cheaper production" was cleaned up at that point. Adrian Belew did what needed to be done for a few songs (trust me, the early version of "Flood" was terrible), but the rest the band was able to self-produce rather well - since they'd already self-produced them once and "gigged" a bit.

In any event, both lyrically and musically, it stands as a CCM landmark - even if it only comes across as a more electronic Toad the Wet Sprocket in a larger sense.

You gotta promote a product for what it is. If it can't outsell its predecessor that went platinum on a lark, then well, you tried. I think it beats misleading people into buying something that they may not want.

Sure. Why stop at doing that for Jars albums though - they could put stickers on Kutless CDs that say "You should buy this because it's utter crap".

But let's step back for a second here - what influences more people to buy Jars of Clay albums? Press releases? Reviews? Or radio singles? Probably the latter, combined with sales to existing fans that are already (mostly) guaranteed.

OK, let's go with the thought that singles are more important - was "Crazy Times" really the song to push MA? "Flood" the s/t? "I Need You" wasn't too far off for T11H, but it wasn't exactly representative of the high points there either. I'd hate to think that some people decided whether or not to bother with WWAI based on "Show You Love". And RS? Pssh - "God Will Lift Up Your Head" made it sound more rocking and just plain better than it was.

I don't know which of those factors is the greatest influence on sales. I'm sure there's somebody with a nice chart on that...and for the sake of argument, let's dream that they also take p2p recommendations and illegal downloading into account.

That's fair.

...this would be the part where we kick ourselves for not being clear in the first place - thus bringing back the "behometh Dan and Murlough thread". Oh well...it was kind of fun. A few people here might even be happy that I'm "back", even if it is just to follow a few threads I've already posted in at this point.

Agreed. The Elms' first album only marginally qualifies as a rock album, just due to how overproduced it is. They've come a long way. (And I'm an Elms fan largely because of a solid opening set for Jars four years ago.)

I'm not familiar with their first, outside of "Hey Hey". Which, really, I wish I wasn't familiar with.

BTW, I saw their latest on an endcap of Best Buy the other day. I thought you'd be happy about that.

It was part of a turning point for the industry, though. Maybe you could argue that this was simply the year that CCM finally learned how to be more "alternative" in a more credible way.  It was part of a paradigm shift within the industry - gee, unordthodox combinations of instruments and genres of music, and more oblique lyrics, can work really well within Christian music! Jars of Clay is not solely responsible for that realization, but they were definitely on the crest of that wave.

If my memory does not fail me now, RSJ released a certain album that year. I've listened to that album a few times since my infamous last comment on it here, and I really don't think it was all that good (Yes, I saw that Schil mentioned that in some other thread recently - I still lurk on occasion). So I wouldn't exactly saw CCM came out as "alternative" and "credible" then.

I don't really see much of an industry-wide turning point here. I can connect a few dots here and there that make '95 look like a banner year (JF, JoC, TMTYL, TBM), but they're not really enough to qualify as that big of a milestone in my mind. Maybe I'm just missing something, since, afterall, I wasn't there...but I'm not convinced.

Much Afraid, while definitely showing growth for the band, didn't provoke growth for the industry as a whole. It didn't have its own revolution to be part of - the revolution had already started. So of course it's not going to be seen as a cultural landmark the way the self-titled is.

It's part of a quieter revolution, if you ask me. Somewhere along the way, Jars started encouraging people to look into darker themes, and to really look at what Christianity was supposed to be about. They seemed to slow down on that for a bit, but picked it back up with WWAI and RS. Derek Webb seems to be a big part of that movement too, and a number of other Nashville names seem to be too. I don't really keep up with all the "hymns" and "reformed theology" stuff over there, but I really respect the way that that handful of artists tried to stick up for a seemingly more genuine Christianity. I kind of see some of the stuff from '97 - songs like "Overjoyed" and "Weighed Down", along with albums like Kansas and Caedmon's Call as starting that.

I'm actually kind of glad that they're going back to "rocking" now, as compared to that though, because I kind of missed being able to enjoy Jars. They'd shown their involvement with that as an influence very well on WWAI, and on a few songs here and there, but I thought it went a bit too far on RS (which was largely covers of hymns they learned through their "Indelible Grace" circle, IIRC).

It's kind of like how most people are not going to remember the guy who invented the camera phone or the cell phone or the touch-tone phone, but they'll remember that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. An exaggeration, but I think that illustrates the concept well.

Uh, yeah, I don't think we'd have things like ringtones today if someone hadn't first invented the bell.

(kidding - I get your point)

I know. Here's where I just have to accept that most listeners have no patience. But I learned patience, in large part due to Much Afraid. I'm confident that Jars can have that effect on other people as well.

NP: "One Thousand Years", The Violet Burning

It goes back to the whole consumer-mentality of the whole thing. People need patience for art, they don't need patience to engage pop culture. Bands like Jars, who seem to enjoy being part of both, tend to get stuck having to balance that stuff.

A good comparison might be the VCR. Most people don't have the patience to learn how to program one. They'd rather have a DVR (which, because they're good brand-loving sheep, they call a "TiVo"). It takes less time to enjoy.

Phew, that took a while.

[bebop]

[Josh]

Infuze chats with Charlie Lowell about the new album.

[Tom]

thanks for the link to the interview Josh. i don't get around to all the e-zines like i used to.

i'm going to withold any sort of judgement call based on the 30sec clips. i'll have to consider their whole vision & package of G.M. before i can say anything about it.

if there is any 'feeling' i get from the samples, it is that it feels similar to Eleventh Hour. only hearing the entire thing will prove or disprove that feeling though.

[starhawk]

From those clips, I think it does sound like The Eleventh Hour, with some of the bluesy/folk sound of thier last two albums as well.  I enjoy what I've heard so far personally.

[murlough23]

Infuze chats with Charlie Lowell about the new album.

Care to repost for those of us who are annoyed by websites that make you sign up just to read stuff?

NP: "Taking the Long Way", Dixie Chicks

[danny316]

bugmenot.com is handy for that kind of thing.

[KnightOfDayJC12]

www.good-monsters.com
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=cd82024&event=1002PRE

[bloop]

Album leaked on one of the private trackers I check.  It doesn't take long to reach the public ones, so most of you will probably have it downloaded before I get half of it done.

[Josh Powell]

Yeah, I've listened to it 4 or 5 times already today... it's really good. I wouldn't say it blows away any of their other stuff, but it's a solid album overall.  A couple standout tracks at first or second glance are Oh My God (reminds me some of Sufjan's quieter stuff with the melancholy and somber mood.. really nice song.), Dead Man (Carry Me), and Light Gives Heat (the African's Children Choir is really moving here).. but I don't think there is a song on the album I don't like. It's an interesting blend of upbeat pop-rock songs, and then the softer, emotional songs. They do both really well IMO.

NP: Jars of Clay - Oh My God "Good Monsters"