Showing posts with label religious music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious music. Show all posts

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Hosanna, Heysanna, or: Sufjan, why?

Beautiful music on the radio today: a group called The Welcome Wagon warbling heart-warmingly wonderful tunes -- amongst them a truly charming cover version of The Smith's "Half a Person" -- that involve chanting and clapping, clever rhythmic shifts and breaks and a highly effective use of the Sousaphone (or some such wind instrument). The whole caboodle comes dressed in Sufjan Stevens' own special wall of sound (but then again, he produced the album -- which might mean that the Sousaphone is actually a French Horn) and therefore just.sounds.nice.

So where's the problem, you ask. Just go buy the album!

The problem is: The Welcome Wagon is a Christian folk band staffed by the Presbyterian Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique, and when they're not pilfering depressive ditties from Morrissey they sing about Jesus and fountains full of blood.

Please check for yourselves and tell me whether this is music a discerning atheist may listen to without fear of losing her or his mind (or credentials).