Author Meets Critics: Andrew Mall’s God rock, Inc.

American Academy of Religion

AAR, San Antonio, Texas, November 18, 2023.

Abstract

Andrew Mall’s groundbreaking God Rock, Inc.: The Business of Niche Music illuminates the relationship among music, markets, and religion. Mall’s work shows what the niche market of “Christian music,” (also known as Contemporary Christian Music, or CCM) teaches students of commercial popular music, including how music industry executives, fans, and musicians define their markets' boundaries. Christian music had (and has) enormous influence in evangelical Christian communities, and this panel explores how Mall’s analysis of the business of Christian music informs sociological, historical, and religious studies conversations about how music and the music industry form religious communities. Panelists will consider how Christian music as a niche business shapes religious communities in the United States (and beyond), as well as how its many genres and subgenres—pop, rock, metal, rap, hip hop, praise and worship, etc.—reflect and shape evangelical Christian politics, practice, and theology.

Panelists:

• Leah Payne, George Fox University

• Jonathan Calvillo, Candler School of Theology

• Monique Ingalls, Baylor University

• David Stowe, Michigan State University

• Andrew Mall, Northeastern University (responding)

• Grace Babayon, Baylor University (chair)

Celebrating three years of God Rock, Inc.! Published Dec. 1, 2020.