A few weeks ago while driving, I stumbled on a Christian FM station and have been listening to it in the car (when alone) ever since. It's horribly fascinating. Eric Cartman was right: they basically have a Christian version of every major band, aping the music perfectly but supplying on-message lyrical content.

There's a Christian U2, a Christian Coldplay, a whole bunch of Christian Nickelbacks, and then a special sub-genre of Christian vagina music, with a Christian Avril, a Christian Alanis, a Christian Tori, a Christian Ani etc etc etc - as well as a swag of Christian Kelly Clarkson-style rock-chicks, and the occasional de-sexualised Christian Rhianna.

Of course I already knew the Christian music industry existed and how it worked, but there's something weird and disorienting about actually listening to the stuff, it's like you've stumbled into some sort of parallel universe where everything is cosily familiar and deeply odd at the same time. They occasionally play secular rock, but only the kind that articulates the sort of vague, angsty, soul-searching problem (e.g. yesterday I heard Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is") to which the Lord Jesus could be the solution.

The worst thing is that it's all relentlessly slick, mainstream, big-bucks industry fodder. Christian musicians who do anything left-field or experimental or in any way fail to sound like corporate stadium-fillers (e.g. Sufjan Stevens) are nowhere to be seen. Which makes the whole enterprise unbelievably crass from a musical perspective - in fact, the music really has no importance at all, beyond its suitability as bait and a vehicle for the message they're trying to sell.

Anybody had any inside experience of Christian music world?