In the latest installment of “they’ll call anything ‘country’ these days…”

Earlier today, after spinning some old Ray Price, just for shits and grins, I figured I’d browse the “country” section on Spotify. In the New Releases section I saw an album titled Chris Tomlin and Friends. Again, just for shits and grins, I clicked on it…

…and suffice it to say, the list of guest vocalists is just as jam-packed with suck and fail as I thought it would be, to say nothing of the songwriters. On one hand, you’d have thought a Texas boy like Tomlin would have known better — but then, I guess, on the other hand, if he did know better he wouldn’t have been doing contemporary Christian in the first place.

On the gripping hand…ponder, if you will, the rich, oh-so-flavorful irony of an allegedly Christian artist partnering up with people who sing songs with lyrics such as:

And all I wanna do is lace my J’s and lace some Jack in my Coke…I sit you up on a kitchen sink, and stick the pink umbrella in your drink…

and

You’re shakin’ that money maker, like a heart breaker, like your college major was twistin’ and tearin’ up Friday nights, love the way you’re wearin’ those jeans so tight…

Now, granted, I’m no prude, but it just makes Tomlin look a bit, shall we say, hollow and fake as an artist given the genre in which he made his name. (And given the reputation of that genre with so many people, you could say he’s already behind the eight-ball to begin with.) No doubt the sound is scarcely better. A musician friend of mine had this to say about Tomlin:

Tomlin’s music is pretty terrible, repetitive & unimaginative. Played a few of his songs in the church band many years ago, and even my guitar playin’ couldn’t get all the “suck” out of it.

To which my reply was:

It’s pretty impressive that someone could suck for that long and still have a career these many years later. Although I guess “going country” would be the perfect move for him with as low as Nashville’s standards have sunk in the last decade or so.

“I hear down there it’s changed, you see. Well, they’re not as backward as they used to be.”

Tags: music