“The Big Beat” Within

“The Big Beat – A Rock Blast” by Dr. Frank Garlock has, like the rock music it condemns, become out-of-date, antiquated and ineffective. Just as Jefferson Airplane persuades no one to drop acid anymore, Frank Garlock’s tirades against Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly or Alice Cooper have no effect. His album and book belong in a time capsule devoted to Religious Fundamentalism of the late-20th Century.

It could be said that Dr. Garlock’s preaching and demonstrating did absolutely nothing to slow down the progression of rock music or country music in the 1970’s. In fact, the industry seemed to blossom and expand from hard/acid rock and soft rock to country rock, disco, hip-hop, rap, dance, electronica, fusion, smooth jazz, new age and more during the era of the ‘70’s. It’s as if Dr. Garlock’s condemnation of pop music accelerated its growth and expansion. Garlock’s outrageousness only served to marginalize him and his ideas, making him popular only among the Independent Fundamentalists who tend to be conservative anyway.

The energy Dr. Garlock spent making outrageous “bold statements” while creating a market for he and his son-in-law’s “Majesty Music” business by condemning the likes of Grace Slick and Barry Manilow, should’ve been spent on warning churches not to allow church music to be influenced by current and future popular culture. Rock music and its many variants, is nothing more than a reflection of the current state and attitude of the world in which the music was created. The music has a life-span – it’s created, serves its purpose and then is forgotten. That’s what pop music is – it’s temporary, it’s fleeting, it’s shifting – and that’s why popular music shouldn’t influence or be a part of what Christians consider eternal and immutable.

[To be fair to Dr. Garlock, here in the early part of the 21st Century, Garlock currently does instruct churches on keeping their music straight - much akin to closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. This lack of "musical foresight" only makes me even more suspicious about Dr. Garlock's motives during the "Big Beat" era. ("Majesty Music" does sell a lot of church music, written and approved by Dr. Garlock & Co.)]

Like parallel lines that appear to meet at a vanishing point on the horizon line, Dr. Garlock and I appear to have a point of agreement – popular music, even music composed based on popular music models has no place in a church where the point of the gathering is to worship an unchanging and eternal God and direct human thought toward Him and about Him.

Popular Culture / Popular Music can be characterized as:

1. Novelty…
- focuses on the new
- relies on spectacle (and tending toward violence & prurience)
- emphasizes the trivia of life

2. Simplistic Predictability…
- gives us what we want, tells us what we already know
- formulas are the substance
- governed by the Mass Market (commercialism)

3. Popular Aesthetics…
- appeals to sentimentality
- celebrates fame (you are nothing unless you are famous)
- life & art are continuous

4. Distraction…
- casual pursuit, used to “kill time”
- relies on instant gratification, impatience
- thwarts deep or sustained attention

Popular Culture / Popular Music entertains and then leaves us where it found us – unchanged and empty. Popular Music is bought and sold as a commodity – a commodity that is used, worn out then tossed aside in favor of what is new.

The faces of 21st Century Christian Music.

One common denominator among so-called “spirit-driven” or Charismatic / Pentecostal churches is their use of the beat-driven, pop-derived Contemporary Christian Music or CCM. It’s no coincidence that these tongue-speaking religious sects rely on the spectacle and physical involvement that CCM demands. CCM and the charismatic tongue-speaking sects go together, hand-in-hand, guided by the same spirit – the human spirit.

CCM and Popular Music are indistinguishable – in sound, in structure and in the way the music is marketed and sold. The only difference is the inane lyrics which rely heavily on repetition and sound, not doctrine and Scripture. Again, the physical spirit is the one who is being praised and entertained.

If churches were ever in danger from “The Big Beat” it is now.

Only now, “The Big Beat” is coming from within.