Until I attended the GMA awards as a member of the press for the first time three years ago, I did not pay much attention to the awards. I do remember listening to the awards on the radio for a portion of the evening while I was driving around. It has been several years since that sort of live broadcast has been made available. And by the time the event is shown on television months later, in May and June, I have lost interest.
This year, we skipped the GMA awards. Yet last Wednesday night I was thinking about all of my colleagues and friends who were sitting all together in the press room while the winners, presenters, and performers paraded through the room. So I went online to see if I could find any news or results of the awards. This was about 10:30 in my time zone, which was 9:30 Nashville time. I knew that the awards were not done, and the final results would not be posted on the GMA website until later.
My first stop was the Third Day message boards. Knowing that there is a Gomer representation each year, I was certain that some GMA award news was already posted. Sure enough, I found out that Third Day won an award for their Christmas album.
Next after Googling, I found something about Casting Crowns and Chris Tomlin winning awards. No surprise there, I suppose.
It was not until after midnight that all of the winners were posted. I found myself posting on various message boards and chatting with people online in order to stay awake for the news. I hit refresh on the GMA website and finally the list was up. And I exclaimed, "I waited up for this??"
I was disappointed.
I listen to RadioU online at work throughout the day. Their motto is "Where Music is Going." I hope someday this rings true. They play a lot of good music that I do not hear on my local "Christian" or "Positive Hit" radio stations. Some of the same music played on RadioU has also made big inroads in the General Market. If my youth group kids could get daily exposure to this type of music, I am sure they would listen. Yet Adult Contemporary music continues to reign as was proven by this years award recipients.
Why is that?
I am wondering what would happen if we could separate Praise and Worship music (and all music with the obvious JPM - Jesus per Minute content) from other music into two different awards events. There are so many bands out there with great in depth music and lyrics that for some reason don't fit the GMA mold. What about Anberlin? The Myriad? The Listening? Emery? Mae? Jonezetta? Leigh Nash?
The list goes on. But I hope you get the point.