Under disguise

Let me clarify first where I get most of my music these days: LAUNCHcast. And for some reason, I have reason to both rely on and question their genre classification system.

First, some artists are not where they're supposed to be. Example: the band Slick Shoes, a punk rock band, is also classified by LAUNCHcast as one also affiliated with contemporary Christian music, or CCM. Same with MxPx, although the common perception as far as I'm concerned is that I would shun the CCM label, especially with the latter.

Second, as much as they love classifying many genres, they do not specify which genre the song or artist primarily belongs to, to the point where some of the genres overlap. Take another example: Simple Plan. According to LAUNCHcast, they belong in the following genres: pop, mainstream pop, modern rock, punk and punk pop.

If I ever find a need to specify a dominant genre, I would go with the fifth one at best, or come up with this genre: pop rock (so reminiscent of Tower Records/Music One classification). And people know that almost (or even virtually) all pop is mainstream. That's why it's pop in the first place!

However, that's not why I'm here writing today. I would love to delve into the wonderful world of Christian rock.

Christian rock almost always belongs to the CCM label, and as such I would expect something inspirational. True, there are songs of inspiration, but I would love to question the labels of bands labeled such by LAUNCHcast, namely Anberlin, Falling Up and Sky Harbor.

There is one thing in common with these bands: they sing good punk rock by my standards. However, the CCM label is somewhat questionable: Christian songs in my opinion (being in a country where gospel is the main Christian musical norm makes this opinion quite subjective) should have some mention about God, or even have religious undertones, which I find notoriously absent in much of all three bands' material, although there is some semblance of religious undertone. At least the bands are recognized as CCM bands by the community (for example, I saw the music video to "Escalates" by Falling Up on JCTV last summer).

Unfortunately, the way I see the material makes me believe that they lean more towards the punk rock classification, but that's just me. The lyrics give some strong suggestion, but the religious undertones are somewhat visible.

Then again, Christian rock is a very mysterious world, ranging from the light (Anberlin, Sky Harbor, Stellar Kart) to the medium (Dakona) to the heavy (Underoath, Devil Hunter).

Oh well. Tomorrow, I'm up with Philippine political campaign jingles. Enjoy.