Last week a coworker and I went out for some sushi. Since she got out before me (and I don’t drive) she came back to pick me up. But once she arrived and I got in the car, she remembered she had to tell someone inside something. Thus she left me in the car to wait for her.
It was then that I faced a true nightmare; Third Day.
There are a few things you’ve got to take into consideration. First I’m a huge critic of Christianity, provided you consider saying “#$%& that” criticism. Secondly, my friend is way cool people. She’s probably the only person I’ll actually keep in contact with when I actually leave Sin City.
So knowing that she was probably really feeling Third Day, the way I’d feel Mos Def, I didn’t want to completely crap on her experience. For as a guy who digs music, their stuff is soul crushing.
I mean, they sound so “Christian Rock” that they probably give other Christian acts a bad name. They make Creed sound earnest. It was really, really bad. It was up there with 9/11 and the election of George Bush, twice, as proof positive that organized religion in the wrong hands is a very bad thing.
And it wasn’t bad like I feel about Gospel music, because at least with that you can appreciate the feeling and emotion that they put into it. But Third Day is bloody bland. They really made an adult contemporary playlist sound like uncensored hip-hop.
Once she got back in the car I really had to bite my tongue and suck it up. I could really feel my soul dying bit by bit, the longer the disc played. Meanwhile she was thoroughly caught up in the moment.
At that point she turned to me and said; “Mathan, don’t you love this? His voice is so full of soul.” And at that point I saw, clearly, the two paths I could take. I could either politely, noncommittally reply “yup” or I could be blisteringly honest.
Since I valued her friendship, I chose the latter and unleashed a diatribe that included such gems as “soulful”¦for a white guy”, “this is why they hate us” and “Jesus is probably rolling in his grave right now.”
But we’re still cool now.
