Originally Posted by: Tinpan

Interested if 'worship' music is really about the guitar and melody or it's simply lyrics that differentiate. How can you tell difference from any modern music unless lyrics about bible? I've listened to a bit and without the lyrics to know it's about god, sounds like something by any modern mediocre band.

Serve somebody by Dylan (great song..great album) could equally have been singing about his woman steeling his spoon in June by the light of a lemon moon and you wouldn't know...the tune surely doesn't necessarily define the message of the song?

You're not wrong about this. It is specifically lyrical content that does differentiate. Further, I agree with you on the rather milque-toasty aspect of the music. From my post, it's why I think that four songs in, it's still the same song. However, that 'sound' does largely define the modern worship music genre. All the songs seems to have the 'uplifty' vibe that works in big church settings.

It just does nothing for me. I grew up on 70's rock and on in to 80's metal. The worship much genre would probably never speak to me. I cut my guitar playing teeth on BB King, Led Zep, Iron Maiden and George Lynch.

Things in my old church I liked doing were a somewhat bluesy version of Amazing Grace and stuff like that.

But to your core thought, it is lyrical content and some of the newer worship music tends to skip over what is true to biblical interpretation to make the listener 'feel good' about themselves even though not biblically sound in some lyrical contexts. There's a thing out there called the 'prosperity doctrine' that you see guys like Joel Osteen pushing and it's not sound doctrine. I mean, if you're gonna preach the bible, you gotta stick to what it says otherwise, why are you doing it?

Same goes for some of the modern worship genre.