Brooke Fraser

The assignment that we did on Bono before spring break reminded me off one of my favorite artists who I think approaches culture very similarly to Bono - Brooke Fraser. She is very popular in New Zealand (her home country) and becoming more popular in the U.S. Many of you who don't recognize her name may recognize her voice because she helps lead worship at Hillsong Church in Australia and has written some of the songs that have ended up on their worship albums (None but Jesus, Lead me to the Cross, Hosanna, Desert Song, etc.). However, she is an artist in her own right apart from Hillsong. Her non-worship music albums are not blatantly religious and she does not like to be called a  "Christian artist." But she strives to make music that contains truth and points people to the source of truth. I had the privilege of hearing her speak in person once when I went to a Hillsong conference in Florida. She talked alot about her ideas about Christianity and culture and the relationship between them. She mentioned she gets a lot of flack from the Christian community for not wanting to be called a "Christian artist" or not wanting to sign with a "Christian" label. Yet, the reason she feels this way is not because she wants to be a closet Christian, rather its because she thinks the labels of "Christian" and "secular" artist are both unhelpful and meaningless. She wants to be an artist who makes good art and is simultaneously a Christian, but not a Christian artist in the sense of being something antithetical to a secular artist. I really appreciate this idea and I really like Brooke Fraser's music. She is also really being on humanitarian efforts, which is cool.

Below I posted one of Fraser's newer singles "Something in the Water" and an older song called "Hosea's Wife." (Sorry the video is really dark on the second one) "Something in the Water" doesn't really have a whole lot of theological depth to it, but I think it showcases that Fraser is comfortable with doing music that isn't blatantly Christian. "Hosea's Wife" is a cool song because it alludes to biblical ideas and talks about a deep biblical truth without being overly religious. The basic idea is that we are all like Hosea's wife (unfaithful), but God still wants us back. At the workshop I went to Fraser mentioned a lot of non-Christian's have asked her what "Hosea's Wife" is about and she has been able to witness to them.

Handel's "Messiah"

Last Sunday I went to see a performance of Handel's Messiah at Willammette. The performance was really incredible and it made me think about some of the things we have been learning about in the Romanowski book about high and popular art.

In one of the last chapters Romanowski said that all high art was once popular art. I didn't realize the "Messiah" fit this description perfectly until I learned a little more about it. The program posed the question of why Handel's Messiah had become so popular when other composer's religious pieces had sunk into obscurity (...like have any of you even heard of "St. Matthew's Passion" by Bach??...didn't think so). The answer it gave was that Handel wrote "Messiah" in the style of the popular theater of the day rather than the sacred style. The program said., "it was created to provide pleasure and entertainment, and if it managed to tuck a bit of spiritual renewal into the mix, so much the better. The theatricality that caused much clerical consternation in the early 1700's has proven to be Messiah's greatest strength in the long run." I thought this was a really amazing insight. When we hear the Hallelujah chorus now days it sounds about as holy as music can get, but in Handel's day what he was doing was actually quite scandalous. His use of percussion and dramatic vocalization was much more akin to opera (which was as scandalous to some Christians then as movie theaters were to many Christians 70 years ago) than Church music.

Just some food for thought.....