Steven Curtis Chapman

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My own interest in the CCM genre comes down to the set of issues neatly encapsulated by the eighteenth-century English cleric Rowland Hill, who asked why the devil should have all the good tunes. How do you take a musical language that evolved to express notions of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, and turn it into music of Christian worship?

Plenty of Christians say it can't be done (evangelicals aren't the monolithic group they are sometimes made out to be), and CCM has its critics. Nevertheless, it's hard to imagine Steven Curtis Chapman offending too many Christians, for the language of his music is unmistakably religious. A Nashville-based vocalist and guitarist, he writes nearly all his own material — and his songwriting solutions to CCM's challenges make for sharp pop music in anybody's book. In Chapman's hands, the folkish sounds of 1980s soft rock are effectively transformed into devotional hymns, and the big, metallic, electronic beats of producer-driven contemporary pop become underpinnings for large pronouncements of personal conversion that do not lose reflectiveness. During Chapman's fifteen years as one of the top performers in Christian music, his music has displayed a sequence of styles that follow just a few steps behind the pop language of the moment. He has said that he's guided stylistically by the music his kids listen to.