Neither Positive nor Encouraging

I’m going to get letters on this one.

Today is National College Radio Day. When I lived in Virginia, I loved listening to 91.9 WNRN. Now that I live in Texas, I listen to Amarillo College’s Cutting Edge, 89.9. If you are unfamiliar with college radio, they play a wide variety of music, stuff you wouldn’t ever hear anywhere else. And, they play new music often months before you hear it on traditional radio.

While the college radio station is #1 in my car, a quick press of #2 reveals KLOVE, the nationally syndicated Christian Radio station. I try to listen to it, really I do, but I have this little problem. You see, their slogan is “positive and encouraging” but I find neither to be true.

There are essentially three kinds of songs that get played on KLOVE on a constant repeat all day long. The first are worship songs, which are good and can be encouraging, but when I’m in my car I want to jam with the music up and the windows down. What I do NOT want to do is sing “heart of worship” while I’m waiting at a stoplight. The second are 90s throwbacks, which can be fun every once in a while, but how many times do they have to play “Shine” by the Newsboys before somebody realizes that it was never that good to begin with. A throwback only works if it happens once in a blue moon, but when you make “El Shaddai” by Amy Grant part of your heavy rotation, you’ve got a problem. The last kind of song is what I call the “KLOVE Special.” This song works the same way every time. The first verse is the most depressing thing you’ve ever heard, the sadder the better. It’s usually about an out-of-work single mom with a drug habit and the flu or something. Then the chorus talks about how great God is and how He’s there in our problems. But you know what this kind of song makes me think about, not God but all the problems that I have. It’s depressing, and by the time it get’s to the bridge I want to drive my car off one.

But I don’t ever make it to the bridge, because by that time I’ve already changed the station back to College Radio.

Sure, the college radio station is secular, and sure sometimes there are lyrics that I don’t want to listen to. Those are the times when I change it to KLOVE. But I can’t stay there for long because of all the negative and discouraging music they play. All the songs are the same, and it’s the kind of junk that sells in the Christian music industry.

On college radio they can play just about any band at just about any time. You hear real originality, an actual artist who is producing art rather than another cookie cutter Christian band trying to sound like Casting Crowns. I remember one of my mentors in college saying “if it’s Christian, it ought to be better.” I believe that. I believe the Creator God is worth true creativity, true originality, and true worship through song. So let’s step it up, believers in the King of Kings, and give Him the kind of radio station He deserves.