Why You Should Listen to Cabin Pressure

I feel a little bereft today. It's like the moments after a huge party and the guests have left and the house seems all echoey. That word - echoey - makes me even sadder, because it sounds just like something Arthur Shappey would say, and Arthur Shappey is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. He is an ex-Arthur.

Sort of.

Am I being melodramatic, considering Arthur Shappey is a character from a comedy radio show that I just finished yesterday? Well, probably. While he's not literally expired and gone to meet his maker (he and brilliant show writer John Finnemore are, in fact, one and the same), his absence in my daily listening leaves a huge hole. And it's not just him. Over the course of four seasons, all the cast have grown so familiar they feel like old friends. As for the show itself, I permanently keep all 26 episodes on my iPod, ready at hand should I desire to evangelize some prospective new fan or simply need a laugh to keep me going, because Cabin Pressure is invariably clever, funny, and intelligent, and definitely my favorite radio program of all-time.

Christian Contemporary Music - My Campaign

Music's only purpose should be the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.
~J.S. Bach

Many of the Christians I know (and certainly all the atheists) hold the genre of Christian Contemporary Music in contempt. I don't mean that they actively hate it (though some do), but they certainly label it as lame, amateur, or feel-good clap-trap. Unfortunately, the majority of the stuff you'll hear on CCM radio stations is just that: Fluff. Mass-produced and very popular Fluff, but still Fluff. Only a few artists rise from the masses to actually deliver a profound and good song. Even then, it probably only made it to the radio for the sake of its catchy tune. Don't get me wrong - there can be good songs on the radio, but it has to be in a certain format. And it's a format that doesn't allow for much wiggling space. At most, you'll get that one good song.

But there's a big However. There are scads and scads of Christian musicians that never make it to CCM radio stations. Among the group I call the Fringe Artists lies a reservoir of rich talent seldom credited to the Christian musician. There's truly a little of something for everyone: pop, acoustic and electric rock, folksy-artistic-groovy, instrumental, plumb-good stuff, laments, rap (both lighter and heavier), heavy metal, southern rock, country, punk, rock in home-made spaceships, songs about Dutch artists, Peter Pan (with C.S. Lewis references), bio-ethics, living rooms, Aslan, and The Grey Havens. There are more music genres than I've even heard of. Let's contrast some Fluff with some Fringe.