February 23, 2008
My mother has always said that copying is the best type of flattery.
I wonder though whether though the whole business and i use that word on purpose, of christian ‘worship artists’ copying others songs to use on their latest ‘worship’ albums has just gone a little bit too far.
Lets take for example Hosanna written by New Zealand’s own Brooke Fraser for Hillsong and featured on their two most recent albums Saviour King and All of the Above.
This song has now been released by Passion (a group of artists who perform for the passion conference) by Christy Nockels on their album God of this city and has just been released in NZ by Starfield , as the lead single for their new album ‘I will go’ - less than a year after Fraser released the song for Hillsong.
This phenomena is not nearly as widespread in the ’mainstream’ media so why do we see it in the christian media? Anyone have any ideas?
February 23, 2008 at 4:06 pm
It does happen to a lesser degree with bands doing covers of other bands? It’s not so visible, because the popular bands usually stick to original material. But it does happen - e.g. U2 / Greenday’s ‘Saints are coming’ was originally written by The Skids, a random band I hadn’t heard of until that song was done.
But Christians tend to do it more, but I imagine it’s because Christians aren’t so scared of copying because they see the music as something for God, rather than something owned by anyone in particular? Maybe?
February 23, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Christian artists and need the royalties?
We are lazy?
Hillsong is a multinational organization with loads of subsidery organizations. Since it is a mnc it is evil and is attempting to take over the world. It must be stopped!
I don’t know!
February 25, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I’d like to believe Nato’s guess that Christians don’t feel the need to assert ownership over particular expressions of worship, but I have no idea whether it’s right or not.
February 25, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I was just doing research on christian music - its basically a monopoly from what it seems - most christian music goes through the EMIMCG publishing house - so its no surprise there would be “sharing” going on. Its a way for EMIMCG to make more profits I guess. I will do some further research on this.
February 25, 2008 at 8:11 pm
It does happen in the mainstream but not to this degree I mean Hosanna was only released last year and already we have 2 copies of it. The example you give is not that close. Also take NZ’s own ‘fill me’ originally by Maginify and now recently released on the ‘new’ parachute band’s new album ‘roadmaps and revelations’
Also I dare someone to go on to their Itunes store and look up ‘How Great is our God’ you should get hits from Hillsong , Bethany Dillion to name just a couple.
These people are talented musicians in their own right so I see no reason why they need to copy/borrow/steal other peoples songs.
Tim: If we worship a creative God why do we see the need to make cheap rip off’s of each others work - which is less than creative - and then sell it , and in the case of some artists , release these songs (written by others) on our albums, for profit, and in the case of Starfield as the lead single, as if we came up with the idea? Exactly what image does this portray about christians?
February 27, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Lisa: I agree; what you’ve described is less than ideal. I do think that creativity often builds on what already exists, but I’m not claiming that this is what usually happens when songs are re-recorded by someone else. And if an artist or group appears to implicitly claim credit for original work that isn’t theirs, then that’s really not good.
There’s probably some money changing hands when songs are re-recorded, but I have no idea what proportion goes to the artists, and what proportion goes to the record companies. I suspect that the copyrights are owned by the record companies, so the original artists might have very little say in who gets to re-record their songs.