“Find a Way”: Amy Grant and Christian Pop’s Mainstream Crossover
Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall

“Find a Way”: Amy Grant and Christian Pop’s Mainstream Crossover

AMS conference presentation (2019). In this paper I argue that Amy Grant’s success was the cumulative result of longer strategies to cross her over from the relatively small Christian market to the massive general mainstream pop market. Archival research reveals business and artistic decisions that prepared Grant for her first attempt at crossover with the 1985 album Unguarded.

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Abandoning Shelters: Christian Popular Music and Crossover Strategies
Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall

Abandoning Shelters: Christian Popular Music and Crossover Strategies

IASPM-US conference presentation (2017). In this paper, I critically analyze the strategies of two crossover cases: Amy Grant, who became the first Christian pop singer with a number-one Billboard Hot 100 single following the 1991 release of “Baby, Baby,” and Tooth and Nail Records, a Christian metal and punk label whose artists straddle multiple margins, crossing over from one to another. In doing so, I build upon the works of Hebdige, Toynbee, Weisbard, and others to theorize crossover as a process through which niche markets change over time.

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From the Margins to the Mainstream: Two Crossover Cases
Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall Conferences, Presentations Andrew Mall

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Two Crossover Cases

Embracing the Margins symposium presentation (2015). In a critical analysis of two crossover songs, I examine the ways in which ethics and aesthetics are implicated in crossover success—what Jason Toynbee and others have described as “mainstreaming,” and what Dick Hebdige has identified as the dominant culture’s integration of subcultural style via the commodity form. This paper thus moves beyond comparative or categorical definitions of margins and mainstreams to theorize the process of one becoming the other.

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Popular Music Margins Becoming Mainstreams: Amy Grant, Elliott Smith, and the Political Economy of Niche Markets
Presentations, Guest lectures Andrew Mall Presentations, Guest lectures Andrew Mall

Popular Music Margins Becoming Mainstreams: Amy Grant, Elliott Smith, and the Political Economy of Niche Markets

Brown Music colloquium presentation (2015). What happens when artists transcend the margins and their markets? I examine the ways in which ethics and aesthetics are implicated in crossover success—what Jason Toynbee (2002) has described as “mainstreaming,” and what Dick Hebdige (1979) has identified as the dominant culture’s integration of subcultural style via the commodity form. This paper thus moves beyond comparative or categorical definitions of margins and mainstreams to theorize the process of popular music in transition from one market to another.

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