Religion and the rise of Simon Cowell

I’ve said before that religion has utilitarian value. On further consideration, I think this might be even truer than I previously thought. Here’s a theory which, if even only partially correct, represents an argument for Christianity so strong as to swamp everything else. It’s:

The decline of religion is responsible (in part) for the existence of Simon Cowell.

When we stopped going to church, we lost something valuable – the ability to sing. Going to church every week from an early age gave us regular singing practice. It also gave us a collective body of music which was transmitted from generation to generation, which allowed parents to teach children singing and musicianship. And religion was a major reason why countless families, in the UK and US, had pianos, fiddles and guitars and family sing-songs.

Having lost religion, then, we’ve lost musical skills. As Wikipedia’s remarkable entry on folk music points out, this is evident in Superbowls (and I’d add Cup finals); a few years ago, the crowd would sing the national anthem and Abide With Me. Today, some “star” is hired to do so.

Iris Dement is exceptional in countless ways, but she’s probably typical of millions when she writes in the liner notes to this album of gospel songs:

These songs go way back for me. They are among the first songs I heard and the first I sang….When I was growing up and things would get too much for my mother, she would run, sometimes in tears, to the upright piano crammed between her and dad’s bed and the wall and pound out some old church song…These songs aren’t about religion. At least for me they aren’t. They’re about something bigger than that.

This tradition is what we’ve lost with the decline in religion.

The result of this that music is no longer something we do, but something we consume. Music has become commodified. What’s more, because singing is a skill we’ve lost, we are disproportionately impressed by those who have retained it. So we turn people who would once have been averagely good choir singers into pop stars – a process greatly aided by recording technology.

So, the decline of religion has given us Simon Cowell.

What’s more, once this process began, a vicious circle set in. When we regard music as something we consume rather than produce, it’s hard to rebuild musicianship; listening to a song as a consumer, and listening to it with the intention of playing it yourself are two very different things, as I’ve been discovering recently. And if we are impressed by the “talent” (a pernicious concept, in my view) of professional singers, we’ll feel our own efforts are inadequate and so won’t be motivated to practice. Through these mechanisms, even church singing is in decline. That accelerates the commodification of music.

So, every time you moan about the plastic inauthentic second-rate pop peddled by the likes of Simon Cowell, just remember the role the decline of religion has played in its emergence.

Another thing: these thoughts occurred to me after a night at Sharp’s folk club, where the tradition of unaccompanied singing is kept alive. (And Greene King IPA is £1.50 a pint).

Comments

[Tim Worstall]

Spot on. One of my sisters actually works in this field. Training choirs of people who’ve never sung, sometimes, children who’ve never actually heard a live voice singing. It’s her almost permanent complaint, that teh decline ofreligion has led to exactlythis, people not just not singing but many not even knowing about it at all....in the sense that it’s an activity, something you do rather than something consumed.

[Tom J]

A possibly related phenomenon is the decline in singing in one of its other great bastions - the rugby club. Once upon a time it would be almost unthinkable for there not to be a post-match sing-song during the post-match piss-up, but in this decadent age it appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Partly this may be due to there being more children brought along to clubs and the nature of your typical rugby song being deemed unsuitable for their tender ears, but I fear that the commodification effect you describe is somewhat responsible. Here's hoping the boyos in the new Arms Park this afternoon give a counter-example with a good display of hwyl and inspire the Jocks to respond in kind, whatever happens on the pitch.

[Robert Jubb]

Oh come on. Quite apart from the wierdly nostalgic turn, as a social science claim it clearly falsified by the success of Pop Idol in the States, which, last time I checked, had levels of religious observation comparable to those in Britain - including Ireland - in the mid-nineteenth century. Also, for the decline of religion to have begotten Simon Cowell, religion'd have to be the only source of non-professionalised music. That's just not true: schools, social clubs and the like all offer much the same opportunity. That doesn't mean, of course, that I can offer an explanation for the voyeuristic abomination of Pop Idol, or that I would want to. After all, to explain is to come close to justifying.

[Maynard Handley]

Spot on, Robert.
(1) I was forced to attend church throughout my school years, and while people wailed along when appropriate, the results (to someone not consumed with the spirit or drunk on nostalgia) were pretty damn gruesome. I don't see how the church singing provided anything superior, in quality or training, to singing in the shower, the car or walking down the street listening to one's iPod, all of which still seem fairly popular.
(2) Last time I checked, church, let alone singing there, were not a big part of life in such places as Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan, ie Karaoke nation.

[P. Froward]

Amateur singing is exactly the kind of self-reliant, individualistic, and (dare I say it?) American activity to which the European social model provides such a humane alternative.

Once people start singing for themselves, who knows but what they'll want to raise their own children next!

Just leave it to the professionals. They're certified, you know. You'll be much happier that way.

[Gwerak]

I disagree with this post. In school I had many opportunities to sing, learn instruments, and take part in a chorus. Lots of kids were exposed to music in this way, and enjoyed it. Also, the music experiences I had in school were much richer than in any Catholic service I've attended. Your observations hold true for evangelical, Protestant services perhaps, and I've been to a few of those too, but I really don't think we can blame the decline in religion for Simon Cowell. Weren't there many very popular singing/variety shows that judged talent similarly back in the 50's?

[Dave Trowbridge]

And we Quakers have definitely not been pulling our weight here.

But then, there's rather a silence deficiency out there, too, so perhaps we may be excused.