nibbled...It was an ill-chosen expression, meant to convey personal dismissiveness of the issue and enthusiasm for current indie music. I actually considered editing it after I posted, wondering if it could be taken as personally dismissive, and clearly it was since you were offended, but for whatever reason I let it stand. So it was a mistake on my part....I should have said "I don't care" but I guess that sounded too weak in expressing what I was feeling about the topic. (And no, to answer your question, I'm very shy and polite IRL, online discourse has a way of altering one's perceived tone, and sorry that I came off as blunt)
To elaborate further on what I meant, there have always been mainstream artists who produced religiously Christian, or even evangelistic music. The 90s had Creed, the "Oh-Ohs" (what are we gonna call that dreadful decade just past?) had P.O.D., etc. on major record labels. But they were relatively few; most clearly evangelistic artists were ghettoized onto smaller Christian labels, as the industry took little interest in preachifying. The situation now promotes a proliferation of independent labels with easy internet-based distribution, allowing a far wider range of smaller local music artists to get international attention. So evangelistic artists are less ghettoized as they used to be, serving a niche market (with its own genre of Christian music), but could potentially get noticed on music blogs, on Hype Machine, on Pandora, etc. The niche market still exists. Sometime when I'm in the Central Valley and flipping around the dial trying to find good music and I would hit on a station with a kinda interesting alternative-y indie sounding song I never heard before, and I would be "Cool, this sounds good", but then I would notice "God" this and "Jesus" that, and then I would get turned off and flip the dial to somewhere else. So I think a lot of Christian music will always be a niche thing, because the majority doesn't want to feel preached to. But that doesn't apply to artists who don't wear their faith on their sleeve as much. And then there are many artists who might have a song or two exploring religious themes without "glorifying God" or "preaching about Jesus" being the raison d'etre of the band, and thus should not be pegged as "Christian". Religious language is one tool for talking about deep themes about relationships, social problems, loneliness, etc. And of course lyrics are often vague and can be interpreted a number of ways.
The thing is, there are so many bands around now that I follow. In the old pre-Napster days, I might have actively followed at any given time a dozen favorite groups and then listened to (via radio) maybe two hundred other acts. Now with the indie internet-distribution model, I actively follow several hundred acts and listen to thousands of other artists, many of whom are new to me at first listen. I listen to Boy and His Kite and City and Colour; I also listen to M83, Cat Power, CSS, Grimes, Allen Stone, The Neighborhood, fun., Foals, Atlas Genius, Santigold, Tegan and Sara, Chad VanGaalen, Dum Dum Girls, Ra Ra Riot, Menomena, Le Tigre, Eyelid Movies, Beach House, Phantogram, Glowbug, Maps and Atlases, Minus the Bear, the Heavy, Atmosphere, Sea Pony, Brown Recluse, Alabama Shakes, The War on Drugs, The Cloud Nothings, Death in the Afternoon, Bright Eyes, Cut Copy, Mayer Hawthorne, Memory Tapes, Oh Land, Real Estate, Theophilus London, Yuna, White Denim, Glass Vaults, Warm Weather, tUnE-yArDs, Portugal the Man, Giraffage, Gotye, SeaWolf, Feist, Imaginary Cities, Gold Fields, Crystal Castles, Of Monsters and Men, RATATAT, Astronautalis, Chairlift, Miike Snow, My Morning Jacket, TV on the Radio, The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Jeff the Brotherhood, Friendly Fires, Broken Bells, Dan Black, DIIV, David Dallas, WATERS, Howler, The Black Keys, St. Vincent, Grouplove, Neon Indian/Vega, Geographer, Keepaway, Yeasayer, Zola Jesus, Kasabian, Handsome Furs, Sleigh Bells, The Hours, Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Walk the Moon, Big Pink, Those Darlins, the XX, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Deer Tick, New Ivory, The Wombats, Robert Delong, McKenzie Eddy, Explosions in the Sky, Kosha Dillz, Best Coast, The Horrors, Fucked Up, Chain Gang of 1974, Birdy, SBTRKT, St. Lucia, Kimbra, Motive, Childish Gambino, Morning Parade, Niki and the Dove, Memoryhouse, Metronomy, Regina Spektor, Wild Flag, The Whigs, The Drums, Voodoo Farm, Fanfarlo, Lights On, London Souls, The Morning Benders, Black Mountain, Delta Spirit, Fitz and the Tantrums, Two Door Cinema Club, The Expendables, The Go! Team, Tim William, Lykke Li, Freelace Whales, No Age, CREEP, Junip, Joy Formidable, Deerhoof, Warpaint, Home Video, Cults, Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, The National, Girls, Weekend, Blueprint, Shad, Mogwai, Heavy Heathens, The Chemical Brothers, The Kissaway Trail, Amusement Parks on Fire, The Young Veins, Surfer Blood, Street Sweeper Social Club, The Dirty Heads, Wavves, Chief, Blonde Redhead, Glasser, Beach Fossils, Bombay Bicycle Club, Cassettes Won't Listen, Matt and Kim, Bat for Lashes, Royksopp, Grizzly Bear, White Denim, and that's just what I pulled off my current playlist. There is just so much out there for any person to be exposed to, I never noticed any particular tendency toward Christian themes, but then again I don't always pay close attention to the lyrics. I just kind of wonder if there might be a selection bias at play here....you perhaps might not have noticed anything if you had looked into different artists....I don't really see much that is really new, other than that there is a much wider selection of artists to choose from. I could be wrong though. In 1998, "My Own Prison" was a big hit, and that was about as Christian as a popular alternative song could get. And it was in fact one of my favorite songs from that year, though I could care less about its religious themes.
