Product Details
Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon Of Christian Rock

Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon Of Christian Rock
By Andrew Beaujon

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Product Description

Body Piercing Saved My Life is the first in-depth journalistic investigation into a subculture so large that it's erroneous to even call it a subculture: Christian rock. Christian rock culture is booming, not only with bands but with extreme teen Bibles, skateboarding ministries, Christian tattoo parlors, paintball parks, coffeehouses, and nightclubs,encouraging kids to form their own communities apart from the mainstream. Profiling such successful Christian rock bands as P.O.D., Switchfoot, Creed, Evanescence, and Sixpence None the Richer, as well as the phenomenally successful Seattle Christian record label Tooth & Nail, enormous Christian rock festivals, and more, Spin journalist Andrew Beaujon lifts the veil on a thriving scene that operates beneath the secular world's radar. Revealing, sympathetic, and groundbreaking, Body Piercing Saved My Life (named for a popular Christian rock T-shirt depicting Christ's wounds) is a fascinating look into the hearts and minds of an enormous, and growing, youth culture.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #366822 in Books
  • Published on: 2006-05-08
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .91 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 304 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
According to Beaujon, contributing writer for Spin, sales of Christian music totaled 47 million albums in 2003— outselling jazz, classical music and New Age combined, with sales climbing 10% each year for the past five years. Beaujon came up with the title of his book from a T-shirt he saw at the Cornerstone Christian music festival depicting Jesus's hands with holes in them. In addition to promoting fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, such messages, Beaujon explains, delivered in either folky ballad lilts or throat-wrenching Steven Tyleresque heavy metal screams, are strongly antiabortion ("stop killing my generation"), staunchly conservative (70% of Christian rockers and their fans are Republicans) and provirginity ("dating is prostitution"). Beaujon developed the book from a series of pieces written for Spin and, consequently, the text reads like pithy, onsite, you-are-there set pieces. In "Black and White in a Gray World," he profiles a day in the life of youthful prolife Christian rockers who tout their anticontraception, antiabortion and anti–stem cell research messages through prolife rock music. Many of Beaujon's musical references may be obscure to those over 25, but his insider view of the ideologically passionate world of Christian rock is compelling. Beaujon—an agnostic—reports well but passes no judgment. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Beaujon's odyssey takes him from the Midwestern and Southern roots of Christian music to its place in and around the fringes of Seattle's independent music industry. His analysis is a blend of the eclectic history of the Christian rock culture (where else would you find out that early star Martha Stevens came out as a lesbian and got written out of the official histories?), the current music scene, and interviews with Christian rock lifers: individuals whose work has fundamentally shaped the movement and industry. His portraits of the rebels, notably David Bazan of Pedro the Lion, and Tooth and Nail's producer Brandon Ebel, are particularly engaging and compelling. Equally interesting are the insights that the author, a self-confessed agnostic, offers about evangelical Christian culture and what it represents about American life.–Sallie Barringer, Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Andrew Beaujon is a senior contributing writer for Spin and has written for the Washington Post, Washington City Paper, the Guardian, and Salon. He lives in Virginia.