Documentary Review: 'The Jesus Music'

The Jesus Music is an entirely unnecessary documentary on the history of Christian Music. It features a series of well known artists delivering talking head monologues about their career with very dry anecdotes of little interest outside of the niche of people who follow Contemporary Christian Music and likely already know these stories. Directed by John and Andy Erwin, The Jesus Music does little to justify its own existence.

The history of Contemporary Christian Music dates back to the late 1960s when disillusioned hippies began to seek out religion. A church in Los Angeles, headed up by a hippie priest, let the hippies come in with their long hair, dirty clothes and no shoes. Many of these people were musicians, as was the priest himself and jam sessions became part of the proceedings. The only difference between this and a typical jam session was that the lyrics were about Jesus Christ.

The Jesus Music then takes us on a historic journey through the biggest moments in Christian music. In 1972, the Reverend Billy Graham embraced the counter-culture Christian rock scene and brought to a mass Christian audience what some call the Woodstock of Christian music. Graham’s acceptance of and advocating for Contemporary Christian Music invigorated the new genre and created a mainstream path for Christian artists.

The boom period was also aided by Johnny Cash, arguably the biggest name among the converted whose icon status provided an anchor for the burgeoning genre in terms of sales numbers and exposure. But it would not be until the late 1980s when Contemporary Christian Music would find its peak. That’s when a woman named Amy Grant burst onto the scene. With her clean cut, girl next door look and appealing pop hooks, Grant crossed over from the Christian charts to the mainstream but never left the Jesus Music behind.

If you’re looking for juicy gossip or insights into the lives of the biggest artists in the Contemporary Christian genre, you’re not going to find it here. The most controversial thing covered in The Jesus Music is the fact that Amy Grant got a divorce. In 1990 Grant met and fell in love with country artist Vince Gill. Both were married, both ended their marriages to be together and some Christian fans reacted negatively to Grant despite her remaining one of the biggest sellers in Contemporary Christian Music.

The other notable story in The Jesus Music is one that gets short-shrift in the documentary. The Christian Rock band Stryper broke through to the mainstream in the late 80s with Christian hair metal, big hair, yellow and black leather outfits, and pop-rock music with love of Jesus as a prominent aspect of the lyrics. At one time, I can recall as a fan of Stryper, they had two songs battling for the top of MTV’s call in Countdown show Dial MTV the precursor to TRL.

I was only vaguely aware of the fact that Stryper was a Christian Rock band but even after finding out, I was still a fan. Michael Sweet, lead singer of Stryper is featured very briefly in The Jesus Music, despite Stryper’s massive success and his story about the Christian music establishment shunning Stryper, despite their success, seems like quite an interesting story, especially after Sweet developed an addiction and decided to walk away from fame for a time.

I wanted more of that story, more about how faith shaped their music even as the establishment had rejected them. But, apparently, that story is too unflattering for The Jesus Music so it gets mentioned and dropped very quickly in favor of more of a travelogue style of and then this artist hit big and then this artist and then this one. The Jesus Music plays more like a chronological history lesson than a compelling documentary.

For converts only, The Jesus Music is a lackluster documentary more appropriate as a fawning tribute on a Christian television channel than as a mainstream documentary. The Jesus Music arrives in theaters from Lionsgate on October 1st.