Dear James,
Where would the world be without Christian Rock? Probably where it is now, but with a bit less comedy. In fact, being from the barren shores of Indie World, you may not even be aware of the existence of the Christian rock genre (and its sub-genres of Christian metal, Christian thrash, Christian grindcore). This is because outside of certain states of America, Christian Rock only gets a brief mention on late night rock programs such as those savoured in my youth and the odd feature in Kerrang!!! (punctuations Kerrang!!!'s own).
The above video magically summarises the main elements of Christian Rock: a man who looks like your uncle, only wearing red jogging bottoms, trying to throw what we call "rock-shapes" but ending up like a man who looks like your uncle nodding his head; an up-tempo version of a rock standard with an added Christian edge; an over-reliance on keyboards that are not too church organ-like but not too Satanic. Petra add an extra gospel touch to their rock, thanks to the vocal acrobatics of the singer. Don't switch it off before the 2:02 mark, you'll miss the best bit. Although my favourite part is "Another one!". Here's Petra's original recording, with my favourite moment in prog rock, the two-minute build-up.
GGRNRTY was of course originally recorded by Argent, featuring Rod Argent of the Zombies. I'd often wondered how Argent went from all the pretty songs on Oracle and Odyssey to this. It turns out GGRNRTY was written by Russ Ballard, who also wrote Colin Blumstone's I Don't Believe in Miracles.
Although our younger readers may be more familiar with Sinitta's cover.
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