Presentations

Publications

Featured In

Performances

Andrew Mall 9/16/22 Andrew Mall 9/16/22

Open Decks DJ Set, Sept. 2022

I DJ’ed a 30-min set on vinyl at Open Decks on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. Click through to the full post for my setlist.

Jenna Reed 9/9/22 Jenna Reed 9/9/22

Critical Foundations of Creative Practice Leadership

Creative industries and creative economies are wide-ranging, requiring a diverse array of skills and practices for individuals and organizations to make an impact. While you may not be able to control factors like audience tastes, business trends, entrenched power hierarchies, and the social logic of groups and collectives, you can control your preparedness for these factors and enhance your ability to analyze and respond to historical, contemporary, and upcoming trajectories and changes. In this class we will explore, analyze, and criticize a wide variety of theoretical and empirical frameworks that have been deployed to explain the structures, trends, and disruptions in creative industries.

Andrew Mall 8/18/22 Andrew Mall 8/18/22

(Post-)Christian Hardcore, Community, and Nostalgia at Furnace Fest

Conference presentation (2022). At Furnace Fest 2021 (Birmingham, Alabama), attendees traveled from across the U.S. and Canada for three days of emo, hardcore, and metal performances. Based on ongoing, collaborative fieldwork in the Furnace Fest community, in this paper I build upon prior work that posits festivals as physical places for imagined communities (Mall 2015; cf. Anderson 1991 [1983]) and scenes (Mall 2020) to consider how music festivals, as sensational forms (Meyer 2009), substantiate musical community itself (see, e.g., Shelemay 2011).

Andrew Mall 5/3/22 Andrew Mall 5/3/22

ARSC Journal Reviews God Rock, Inc.

Robert M. Marovich reviewed God Rock, Inc. for the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal (ARSC).

Andrew Mall 4/25/22 Andrew Mall 4/25/22

God Rock, Inc. Shortlisted for Award

God Rock, Inc. has been shortlisted for the 2022 Ralph J. Gleason Award in pop music writing.

Andrew Mall 3/29/22 Andrew Mall 3/29/22

Gamelan Laras Tentrem Concert

Gamelan Laras Tentrem concert, May 7, 2022

Andrew Mall 3/4/22 Andrew Mall 3/4/22

Ethnographic Research and the Study of Christian Music

SCSM conference roundtable panelist (2022). The recent turn to ethnography in various disciplines has prompted renewed reflection on the basis of knowledge for scholars of religious music. Join us for a rousing conversation on the role of ethnomusicology and both its contributions and limitations in the study of religious musicking.

Andrew Mall 1/25/22 Andrew Mall 1/25/22

New Award for God Rock, Inc.

Andrew Mall 11/12/21 Andrew Mall 11/12/21

Musicking the Right Way: Performing Ethics and/as Aesthetics at Christian Music Festivals

AMS conference presentation (2021). Cornerstone Festival performed its organizers’ ethics into being, witnessed in its do-it-yourself scrappiness, its (at times) overwhelming sonic chaos, its sanctioned attendee-operated “generator stages,” and its willingness to engage difficult theological questions. From one perspective, this reflects a tautological relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy grounded in theology; another perspective reveals the co-constitutiveness of ethics and aesthetics grounded in practice. To recast Jeffers Engelhardt’s “right singing,” at Cornerstone, if the performing was right, then the ethics expressed in that performing were right, and if the ethics were right, then the musical practices grounded in those ethics were right. In this paper, I draw on theories of music and ethics rooted in Christian musicking to generate a theoretical framework that situates these practices not within a shared faith but rather within a shared ethical framework irrespective of religious belief.

Andrew Mall 10/6/21 Andrew Mall 10/6/21

Jesus on the Charts, 1957–1970

Pop songs with religious themes were not uncommon on the (secular) airwaves in the 1950s and 1960s. In this post I consider why that was the case, and provide a list of many such songs, some by very famous artists.

Andrew Mall 10/4/21 Andrew Mall 10/4/21

‘The Jesus Music’ Is a Love Letter to Fans

Christianity Today (2021). Author Kelsey Kramer McGinnis quotes from God Rock, Inc. in her review of the just release feature-length documentary about CCM, The Jesus Music.

Andrew Mall 10/1/21 Andrew Mall 10/1/21

Vinyl Revival

Journal of Popular Music Studies (2021). At the turn of the twenty-first century, vinyl records had remained a steady if unsubstantial component of recorded music revenue in the United States. But sales of physical media started declining steadily in 2001 in a seemingly unstoppable slide the RIAA attributed to digital piracy. Then a funny thing happened: although CD sales continued to shrink, by the end of the decade vinyl record sales had started growing, reaching $88.9 million in 2010—a revenue level not seen in two decades. In this article I trace these trajectories in more detail, considering how the trajectory of vinyl record sales in the twenty-first century both confirm and frustrate concepts of revival.

Andrew Mall 9/20/21 Andrew Mall 9/20/21

Keith Green Vs. the Music Industry

Keith Green was a Christian artist whose ethics came to contradict the commercial necessities of the Christian music industry. I glossed over this contradiction and its conflict in my earlier primer to Green’s career and discography, but here I go more detail and provide some primary sources that I have found to be very enlightening.

Andrew Mall 9/15/21 Andrew Mall 9/15/21

Oral History Interviews as Primary Sources

While conducting the research for God Rock, Inc., I was fortunate to interview many current and former Christian music industry executives and musicians. I also used the archives at MTSU’s Center for Popular Music, and I was thrilled to find several relevant interview transcripts available through Baylor’s Institute for Oral History. In this post I discuss these components of my research methodology and approach to oral history interviews.

Andrew Mall 9/13/21 Andrew Mall 9/13/21

Larry Norman Primer and Discography (1968–1981)

Larry Norman, the “father of Christian rock,” released several albums in the 1970s after contributing to two records by the Bay-area psych-rock band People! in the late 1960s.

Andrew Mall 8/11/21 Andrew Mall 8/11/21

An Origin Story

When I was growing up, my family attended a Southern Baptist church in New Jersey. I was first introduced to Christian rock in the 1990s but didn’t start researching it until 2009. In this piece — a longer version of the origin story to God Rock, Inc. found in the book’s introduction — I describe discovering and abandoning Christian music during my adolescence, ultimately rediscovering it (with more than a little help from my youngest sister).

Andrew Mall 8/10/21 Andrew Mall 8/10/21

Keith Green Primer and Discography (1965–1982)

Keith Green released several general (secular) market singles as a pre-teen artist in the 1960s, followed by 4 Christian albums between 1977 and 1982.

Andrew Mall 7/16/21 Andrew Mall 7/16/21

Reading Religion Reviews God Rock, Inc.

Shannan Katherine Baker reviewed God Rock, Inc. for Reading Religion, the open book review website published by the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Andrew Mall 7/15/21 Andrew Mall 7/15/21

Recent Books on Christian Music

Popular Music Books in Process roundtable presentation (2021). Nathan Myrick, Marcell Silva Steuernagel, and myself discussed our recent books in conversation with each other as part of the PMBiP series of author talks, co-sponsored by IASPM-US, JPMS, and the Popcon.

Andrew Mall 7/9/21 Andrew Mall 7/9/21

Amy Grant Primer and Discography (1977–2013)

Amy Grant released 15 studio albums between 1977 and 2013, plus several Christmas albums, live recordings, and greatest hits packages. She has recorded for Myrrh and Word, and has been signed to Sparrow since 2007.