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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 90: CHRISTINA AGUILERA

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It’s been about a couple of years since I’ve seen a reality series in full. In general, the reason I think that is, is because there’s not many reality shows that I can be fully invested in, as in shows that leave me fully satisfied come the seasons end. But I somehow always am sucked in… for more times and many occurrences than I would ever care to admit. For me, I’ve always had this love hate relationship with reality shows, especially singing shows, and it started all the way from Australian Idol back in 2003, stretching all the way to The Voice from a couple of years ago. But I’ve found that I’m easily drawn into reality shows that aren’t just singing shows like Australia’s Got Talent or The Voice. My weaknesses (which I’m not proud of at all!) extends to cooking shows like MasterChef and Iron Chef as well. Thankfully though, I’ve never caught many other variety shows like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, Farmer Wants A Wife, The Block and Beauty & The Geek; although I did watch Lego Masters, Australian Ninja Warrior and The Masked Singer a few times. Yet these shows are extremely popular by society’s standards. For me though, in the most general sense I could ever extrapolate, I just find that people’s fascination with everyday people’s lives is quite disturbing… yet then again I’m a culprit and I am part of the problem for certain shows. I’ve often sometimes sat down on the couch on any given night, turned the TV on and done a bit of channel surfing, and then end up on YouTube on my computer instead, simply because reality TV is dominating the channels. I wonder to myself ‘why are these shows on the air’, and then I forget about said reality show, my puzzlement and confusion at them being on the air, and my frustrations… until the next reality TV show. It’s a never-ending cycle of me being completely disinterested in a show, then being sucked in by some clever advertising midway during the season (for singing and cooking shows), then me coming to my senses and drifting away for a bit, then being sucked in for the final week or two weeks. I always thought that that’s the way it was… and it’s only recently that I’ve realised that maybe there’s a reason for me being drawn in by reality shows, and singing shows in particular. On the surface, the incessant need for us to be filled with entertainment, is mindless. Yet a deeper look reveals that singing shows may not be so mindless after all, and may serve a purpose beyond us wanting to be entertained.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 89: PINK

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I don’t know if you all know this, but mainstream music hasn’t really been my thing. I don’t think that’s it’s been a secret, for those of you who religiously follow this site, but it really, really hasn’t. You see, since as early as 2018, I was still listening to Christian music. Not that there’s anything bad with that. But the fact of the matter was that I was still listening to Delirious? and Carman, and since 2006, other bands and artists like Natalie Grant, Newsboys, Casting Crowns, Third Day, MercyMe, for KING & COUNTRY, Tenth Avenue North, Britt Nicole, Kari Jobe, Meredith Andrews, Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Lincoln Brewster, Phil Wickham, Francesca Battistelli, and Jeremy Camp to name a few. Some of these artists were indeed pop in musical nature, but to me were Christian first and foremost. So I didn’t consider them as pop- I instead considered them all as ‘Christian’ music. Not that ‘Christian’ should be a music genre, but the facts are the facts. CCM (or contemporary Christian music) is in fact a genre, and it is very isolated from the rest of the music industry. And I guess I might have been naïve, but I thought Christian music was so big, and that everything outside of Christian music was bad. Because songs weren’t talking about Jesus. To be fair though, in hindsight and looking back, songs that do not talk about Jesus but do speak about relevant, prevalent and confronting issues such as identity, self-worth, love, death, relationships, God, faith, doubt, other kinds of spirituality, sex, hurt, pain, betrayal, the wonder of the cosmos… songs about all of that without the explicit mention of God; they’re all not all bad songs. If the message of said song doesn’t point you directly to Jesus, but speaks about living a better life and improving upon your previous efforts as a person; do you think God used that song or that artist or that album, to maybe subtly draw listeners back to Him or at least to more focused conversations about religion and spirituality? I know, I know, I might be speaking blasphemy or heresy depending on who you talk to, whether you are a Catholic or a Protestant, or Conservative or a Progressive… but keep in mind that 3 years ago I was of a similar viewpoint. That Christian music is good and everything else is bad. I think I might feel like a broken record by the end of this blog series… but the truth of the matter is this: that it was virtually since Jon and I started this blog series, that I have had an appreciation for music that isn’t decidedly ‘Christian’ in nature. I’ve understood more about how God can move, and I’ve actually liked a few mainstream artists more than their Christian counterparts. I’ve realised that all music can be used to better our society, and to inspire ourselves and to further God’s kingdom; and I’ve also realised that the timeless artists and the iconic artists and the influential artists- predominately aren’t in the Christian music industry.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 88: RICHARD MARX

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I’ve often wondered what constitutes a timeless song. A song that is regarded as being legendary in its own right. Something that can tug at your heart, and can invade your innermost being, bringing forth emotions to the surface that you never knew you had. I’ve often wondered if it’s the artist who makes a great song, or if it’s the songwriter. Because usually, the great songs (like the great songs in the 90’s like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and “When You Believe” by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey), are 9 times out of 10, written by a songwriter, or maybe two or more; and then given to a singer to ‘make famous’. Is a song famous because of the name and reputation of the artist, or because of the reputation or repertoire of the songwriter? Songwriters like Diane Warren, Ashley Gorley, Justin Paul & Benj Pasek, David Garcia, David Foster, Justin Tranter & Julia Michaels, Sia, Ryan Tedder, Toby Gad, Shane McAnally and Ester Dean, are all in high demand; and only some of these are artists. The rest just keep chugging along, ploughing away at their craft, helping to make artists famous by crafting a radio friendly hit song. Many of these songwriters are world renowned and respected by their peers- and so the question needs to be asked as to whether the song lives on in the hearts of all of us because of the artist or the songwriter. I reckon it’s about 50/50 at least, in that the songwriter generally does around about 50% of the work in propelling an artist into stardom. But whether a song lives on in my heart, and then just doesn’t connect in your heart- that’s a different thing altogether. But generally speaking, the big iconic songs that we’ll still be singing in 20-30 years’ time, are because of a symbiotic or sometimes parasitical relationship between the songwriter and the artist. But what happens when an iconic song is written by the artist who has sung it? Does that artist achieve the recognition, the praise, the accolades, before the songwriters who write for other people? If an artist has been going and going and going for a long period of time, writing and singing, and keeping their head down… and they don’t receive any awards because their songs aren’t flashy nor of big production; is that fair? Even if they’ve worked with a wide variety of people and are considered a legend in their field, by their peers?

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 87: CROWDED HOUSE

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The other week, I made a very big assertion with regards to the criteria of this blog series list. And it was that there wasn’t a concrete criteria, that virtually anyone could get in if they were ‘influential’ or ‘popular’ enough– a metric which in some ways is extremely bias. Regardless if an artist debuted in the 80’s or in the 2010’s; regardless if they had a hit in the 90’s or had 5 hits in the 90’s; regardless if they were known just for their music or for their life outside of music too… if you glance through our list, you’d find a vast smorgasbord of different artists, who in my opinion each deserve their place in their own special way. And because you could conceivably argue that each artist deserved to be there, and each artist was vastly different to each other… ergo this meant that there was hardly any criteria for inclusion on such a subjective list as this. But as I pondered this past week as I was ruminating as to who to write about, it struck me that there was indeed a bit of a pattern with the artists whom I was choosing to write about, and with whom Jon was choosing to write about, even if we didn’t know it at the time.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 86: SNOW PATROL

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Sometimes I wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It’s been about a couple of months since I had a crazy idea to swap blog series with Jon (as in I write about influential artists of all time, and he write about artists who are virtually certain to be influential in the near future!); and it’s been a bit more taxing that I thought it was going to be. Not that I’m complaining… which I’m not, because I’ve been musically stretched beyond anything that I even thought I would be, and more than I ever was when I was writing my portion of the blog series all that time ago. It’s just that at this stage of the blog series, from entries #81-#100, you’d think that the 20 artists would be self-explanatory and would reveal themselves like the drop of a hat. And you’d be right… somewhat. Artists like Tim McGraw, Jennifer Lopez and Spice Girls were in the list for as long as I could remember- so there were no surprises there. But Gwen Stefani and Leona Lewis surprised me in a good way- they weren’t in the list for very long, and the fact that I was so compelled to write about these artists meant that there was no room for Blake Shelton and Norah Jones (at the moment). I’ve noticed that even at this stage, I can be enamoured and fascinated by the discography and life of an artist so much that I could include them on a whim at the expense of another; and that’s ok. At no point during this process of writing did I feel as if Gwen and Leona weren’t worthy of being included in a subjective list such as this. But it did give me pause and reason for reflection for the remainder 15 names.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 85: JENNIFER LOPEZ (AKA J.LO)

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What makes an artist influential, or even popular? That is the million dollar question, is it not? I know that we’ve posed this question many times throughout the past few years, and that we’ve added and subtracted artists to our ever-evolving influential artist list; based on the conclusions that we’ve drawn over the years. And so, I ask this question yet again, because… one more time can’t hurt, right? Is it the impact of the song that determines an artist’s longevity and legacy and standing in their career, or is it their songwriting ability? Is it the fact that an artist has blown up on social media and is using their platform for good away from the spotlight, or is it simply because their songs are connecting with listeners on a deep, personal, emotional and spiritual level even if their personal life is in ruins? Is an artist influential because they are so for their particular genre or time period, or is an artist influential because they are so across so many decades and for so many listeners across the board? Or are artists influential because they are not popular but rather unknown, but resonating to a specific group of people just because of one song or one album? What if I said that the answer to all of these questions is yes? Yes for all of them? Yes, an artist is influential for all of these reasons… that’s a lot of criteria, am I right? Confused with where I’m going? Don’t worry, all will make sense soon-ish…

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 84: SPICE GIRLS

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I don’t know if what I’m about to share with you is something that is really profound for all of you, or if it’s something that has really just resonated with me over the last few weeks. But here goes. Since the effects of COVID-19 being very apparent and on display all that time ago back in March 2020; we’ve been isolated, in various states of lockdown, social distancing, wearing masks, being responsible and staying at home, having the ‘right’ number of people in your home at any one time, undertaking testing and later on vaccinations where possible, and just following the rules set for us as dictated by the government and the health advice of the state and/or country that we live in. As there are still deaths every day all over the world, and as COVID-19 has mutated over the past year to grow into a deadlier virus (the Delta strain); it seems that lockdowns and masks and social distancing are becoming to be part of the ‘new normal’, if I could be so blunt to say. Sure, we’d want to eradicate the virus to the point of it never coming back ever again in any shape or form; but if this is the best we can do as a people, as a human race at this point in time, then as long as we are all generally healthy and as long as people are recovering and aren’t dying at an alarming rate like before… then I consider everything happening now a win in relation to everything that has happened last year. Will we have to learn to live with COVID-19? I hope not, but we better not be alarmed or concerned if that is the case in the future. Yet for all of the alterations we’ve all had to make as we redefine what life looks like and what our lifestyle looks like; there’s one aspect of our life that has suffered greatly all throughout the virus’s inception until now. And it is this- that while we are all connected via social media and zoom, we’ve never felt more alone than ever before, and that we’re becoming more and more hermit-ish, losing some friends because of our inability to converse with them, and shunning the friends we do have for whatever reason. Our friendships have suffered because of COVID-19. And if I were to stop there, you’d all think that this is the profound thing that came to me the other week. But… it is not. The mind-blowing thing that I found to be pretty wild… is that I believe that friendships that died during COVID-19, were already broken to begin with. Friendships that drifted away during COVID-19, were fractured and tense to begin with. Friendships that faded away weren’t cultivated enough, and friendships that started to be uncomfortable and weird, were so because we all weren’t addressing big important issues. And it also just dawned on me this past week, that we all need to find the root of the issue otherwise we risk being alone forever and disconnected from society. And how’s that for something philosophical to rack your brain over?

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 83: LEONA LEWIS

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You know how you hear a song and then instantly you know that this artist, even if you don’t know them, is destined for greatness? That this artist will blow everyone out of the water, this artist will have a long career, and this artist will inspire many, and be influential to many? The other year I think, I heard a song on the radio, that was somehow buried deep in my psyche that was unearthed this year. But when I heard it, I immediately thought that this person was blessed, that they were going to change a generation, and impact the world at large. Any guesses as to who this artist is? Is the artist I’m going to be writing about today Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, Kylie Minogue or Robbie Williams? After all, they each have distinctive voices, am I right? Well, no, no, no, no, no, no and no again. This artist rather is rather underrated, has flown under the radar for a while, and is only really successful in their home country of Britain. Their most successful album remains their debut album back in 2007- and they’re an artist where at first glance may not fit into this blog series. But you know how God has surprised me over and over and shaken up my definition of who is influential and who isn’t? He’s done so again for this next artist. That’s right, it’s time to dive deep into the discography of British pop/gospel singer Leona Lewis. And yes, it was the song “Footprints In The Sand” that hit at my heart and emotions all those years ago in 2007.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 82: GWEN STEFANI

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Fear. F. E. A. R. Fear. It’s a concept that many of us think we understand… But in reality, I reckon there’s a lot to unpack about this simple yet profound emotion that exists within us all. Fear is something that can cripple the best of us, can show us our deepest and darkest worries and concerns; and can be as rational as the sky being blue, or as irrational as the earth being flat. Fear can paralyse us and persuade us to stay still, or it can even motivate us to keep on keeping on with our journeys along this terrain called life. Whatever and however fear brings forth the best or worst in us, providing us impetus to actively change or a reason to be more shut in from the world; this pesky emotion has buried its way into our psyche and has lived there for years and years and years. Dare I say it- I reckon it’s the most important yet the most harrowing emotion that we could have?

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 81: TIM MCGRAW

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Influence is a funny thing. It’s a topic that, by all accounts, is very, very subjective. Something or someone that you may believe to be influential, for either your own life or for the wider world, either at a national level or at a global level; may in fact be regarded by myself or by someone else as not influential at all, and perhaps superfluous. When we’re speaking about influence, we’re usually speaking about people and the mark they’ve made on human history, for either good or bad, and the impression that they’re destined to leave us all when they die. Sure, you can measure popularity by the numbers- if it’s a music artist, then by number of albums sold or songs streamed, or even twitter followers or hit radio singles; or if its an actor then number of movies starred in or number of Golden Globe or Academy Awards won. Influence, on the other hand…. Well that’s measured by…that’s measured by… well what is it measured by? Number of lives impacted after watching a movie or listening to a song? How would you determine the magnitude of the impact and whether the direct impact of a song or an album on a person is life changing or not though? Did the song save them from death or give them a sense of direction or purpose? Or is a measure the number of people directly inspired by that artist, so much so that a person considers said artist a role model and someone they look up to? How about during an unforeseen tragic circumstance, a song from left field, by an artist one would never imagine or think they’d ever listen to, inspires and comforts and heals, and brings them back from the brink, from depression and from hurt and pain unimaginable. Is this artist influential to that person? If the artist has had little sales and hardly any radio hits, but has changed lives for the better, and has released maybe the ‘theme song’ for someone’s marriage or graduation or something like that- are they influential? Maybe… maybe not. But regardless, don’t you reckon influence is now a bit grey and dependent on a variety of factors that can change as they days, months, years progress?

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