...that we mentioned just one post ago. There's something very interesting about this list: It's based on a
pretty loose definition of "faith-inspired". Like very loose. Like,
enough so that bands like Delta Spirit, Bodies of Water, The Mae Shi, Cloud Cult and Cold War Kids make the Top 50 list's cut, too.
Also? A boatload of Dallas-related acts too: PlayRadioPlay!'s Texas (No. 21), My Brightest Diamond's A Thousand Shark's Teeth (No. 25), The New Frontiers' Mending (No. 41) and The Jonas Brothers' A Little Bit Longer (No. 42). Granted, the Jonas and MBD connections are loose at best--one just moved here, the other hasn't lived here in quite some time--but, whatever, if you include them, DFWd makes up 10 percent of that list.
I have no idea what that means, but it's worth pointing out, I think.
Also, obviously, I caught the faith stuff on Burr's album, but I was clueless on the others. I'm guessing "faith-inspired" has a pretty broad definition?
Update: Jordan Kurtz, the music editor for Patrol, lets us know the guidelines behind the list. His answer's after the jump. --Pete Freedman
"We wanted to make a list that reflects the quality and creativity we see in so much of the art and music made by Christians today," Kurtz writes in an e-mail. "Especially since so many of these artists get so little exposure (often on either side of the faith fence), but especially on the 'sacred' side.
"We realized that it would likely have some holes, and short of actually asking the artists about their faith worldview, there would be a fair amount of connecting the dots. Using what we knew from interviews, affiliations with certain record labels, associations with certain Christian artists, past statements of faith, and more often than anything else, lyrics exploring life, love, and faith, with an awareness of God, we feel that we made a list more artistically credible and spiritually searching than any Christian publication has done before."
So there you have it, I guess.
