I guess I should have expected this...
A couple of weeks ago, someone sent the CelticChristianTunes.com Radio Top 20 (which you can get in every CelticChristianTunes.com Newsletter to K-Love Radio with a request that said something like "why don't you play more stuff like THIS"?. They posted a copy of their e-mail (and K-Love's form-letter reply) to the Iona Yahoo! group.
Instead of the poster getting encouragement from the group, several people expressed outrage (yes, outrage) at the fact that Eden's Bridge (link broken?) beat out Iona. (Eden's Bridge had songs in the 1st, 3rd, and 15th positions; Iona had one song at 10th.) One person actually came close to suggesting that CelticChristianTunes.com Radio might not actually be a "Celtic Christian" radio station. I'm not sure what that means exactly.
The ensuing discussion under the header "Iona vs. Eden's Bridge" went on for several days until the moderator finally put the kibosh on it. It stayed relatively civil compared to a lot of what can be found on the net, but I was frankly amazed at the snobbery of a few people. It basically stemmed from the fact that Iona's music is lyrically more poetic, and the music is more emotive, while Eden's Bridge's music is more straightforward, with simpler, more traditional tunes. Eden's Bridge was reviled by some as brainless fodder for the unsophisticated masses of common folk.
My argument that Eden's Bridge is both more "Celtic" in a trad sense and more "Christian" in a ministerial sense didn't meet with their approval. (Don't get me wrong--I love both bands for their own respective merits.)
Discussions like that make me appreciate ever more the feedback I get from those who listen to CelticChristianTunes.com Radio for the primary purpose of finding new artists they haven't heard before.
It's true that Iona presents listeners with a rich store of artistry to contemplate, but people who consider any one artist to be the "ultimate" are shorting themselves. By concluding that their search for high poetry has ended, these people deprive themselves of a rich diversity of art.
4 Comments:
As a new discoverer of CelticShristianTunes.com, I had to agree with the Eden's Bridge choice. Thanks for the opportunity to respond.
It really is mind-boggling to think about really. No band is really better than another. They each serve their specific purpose for God. Yes, different people will prefer the more traditional vs the contemporary Celtic music styles. But who has the right to judge what is right? I publish a Celtic magazine of my own, but even there I don't feel I have the right to judge a music group because they're not traditional enough for my tastes.
Sounds like you handled it well though. Keep up the great work!
IMHO, Iona is THE BEST. Period. However having said that, I also like Eden's Bridge. I think too many Iona fans think of Eden's Bridge as "Iona light" and this is where at least some of the snobbery comes from. They're not "Iona light", they are Eden's Bridge; they have their own sound, and there's nothing wrong with that. Hardly "brainless fodder", just different. And as much as I like Iona, Cory, you're right on the money with your statement that Eden's Bridge is "both more "Celtic" in a trad sense and more "Christian" in a ministerial sense."
Interestingly, when I made my initial post to the Yahoo! group, I also mentioned that though I liked both Eden's Bridge and Iona, I liked Iona a bit better. I've listened to a lot of Eden's Bridge since then, and now I'm not so sure.
Eden's Bridge is pretty darn good.
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