You should be generally safe with pop country, Christian rock, and post-00’s butt rock.
I have a counterpoint to Christian rock. The first album I bought at the Christian bookstore in the mid 90s, back when they had those “if you like [secular band], listen to [Christian band]” charts, was the Christian ska band Five Iron Frenzy’s Upbeats and Beatdowns. The first chorus on the first song destroyed my sheltered church kid brain:
West we must, in God we trust, lets rape lets kill lets steal
We can almost justify, anything we feel
As the Bush years set in and the fight for gay marriage and abortion caused increasing political reactions from the church, many of these lyrics I attribute to starting my journey to the margins of church culture, discovering Christian socialism, New Monasticism, and an eventual leadership role. I later left the church and religion for other reasons.
A lot of Christian rock is purely marketing though, bands that could be signed to major labels but found a Christian label willing to pay them. It’s a huge industry. Contemporary Christian Music/CCM swallowed up a lot of the industry back when I was more engaged with it. Newsboys going worship represents this for anyone in the know here, basically a pretty quirky and idiosyncratic band turning in to the most bland and boring Christian music possible. Could maybe argue the same for early Reliant K who turned in to pretty mainstream post punk.
I have a counterpoint to Christian rock. The first album I bought at the Christian bookstore in the mid 90s, back when they had those “if you like [secular band], listen to [Christian band]” charts, was the Christian ska band Five Iron Frenzy’s Upbeats and Beatdowns. The first chorus on the first song destroyed my sheltered church kid brain:
As the Bush years set in and the fight for gay marriage and abortion caused increasing political reactions from the church, many of these lyrics I attribute to starting my journey to the margins of church culture, discovering Christian socialism, New Monasticism, and an eventual leadership role. I later left the church and religion for other reasons.
A lot of Christian rock is purely marketing though, bands that could be signed to major labels but found a Christian label willing to pay them. It’s a huge industry. Contemporary Christian Music/CCM swallowed up a lot of the industry back when I was more engaged with it. Newsboys going worship represents this for anyone in the know here, basically a pretty quirky and idiosyncratic band turning in to the most bland and boring Christian music possible. Could maybe argue the same for early Reliant K who turned in to pretty mainstream post punk.