CCM
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Contemporary Christian Music—the Nashville-centered industry and format of pop, rock and adult-contemporary songs with explicitly Christian lyrics, built for Christian radio, retail and the church market. The sound tracks mainstream pop production a half-step behind, spanning bright pop, guitar rock, power ballads and inspirational AC, with polished, radio-clean mixes and hook-driven songwriting. Vocals are professional and pop-idiomatic; lyrics range from worship and testimony to encouragement and evangelism. The through-line is commercial pop craft in service of a faith message.
History
CCM was born from the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s—'Jesus music' pioneers like Larry Norman and the Maranatha! scene—and organized into an industry through the 1970s–80s around labels (Word, Sparrow, Benson), Christian bookstores, CCM Magazine and the Dove Awards. Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith crossed into the pop mainstream in the late 1980s–90s, Steven Curtis Chapman and dc Talk dominated the Dove era, and by the 2000s MercyMe, Casting Crowns and TobyMac defined radio CCM. Anchored in Nashville, the format birthed the worship, Christian rock and Christian hip-hop lanes while remaining evangelicalism's mainstream pop machine.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Mark Allan Powell, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (2002)
- Don Cusic, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music (2002)
- Barry Alfonso, The Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music (2002)