Christian Contemporary Music

Contemporary Christian Music (CCM or also known by its religious neutral term "inspirational music") is a genre of popular music which is lyrically focused on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The term is typically used to refer to the Nashville, Tennessee-based pop, rock and worship Christian music industry, currently represented by artists such as Avalon, BarlowGirl, Jeremy Camp, Casting Crowns, Steven Curtis Chapman, David Crowder Band, Amy Grant, Natalie Grant, Jars of Clay, MercyMe, Newsboys, Chris Tomlin, Michael W. Smith, Rebecca St. James, Third Day and a host of others.

It should be noted there is a great deal of popular music which lyrically identifies with Christianity but is not normally considered contemporary Christian music. For example, many punk, hardcore and holy hip-hop groups deal explicitly with issues of faith, but are not a part of the Nashville industry. Also, several mainstream artists such as Bob Dylan, Lifehouse and U2 have dealt with Christian themes in their work but are not considered CCM artists.

Contemporary Christian music first came onto the scene of popular music during the Jesus Movement revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unlike traditional or Southern gospel music, this new "Jesus Music" was birthed out of rock and roll. The pioneers of this movement included 2nd Chapter of Acts, Andrae Crouch and The Disciples, Love Song, Mind Garage, Barry McGuire and Larry Norman. The small Jesus music culture had expanded into a multimillion-dollar industry by the 1980s. By the 1990s, many CCM artists such as Amy Grant, dc Talk and Jars of Clay had found crossover success with Top 40 mainstream radio play.

Currently, Christian music sales exceed those for classical, jazz, Latin, new age and soundtrack music.

This description is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia article "Contemporary Christian music".