S3E8
· 40:59
My name is AJ. I've worked here since 02/2008. And how many of you were born after 02/2008? Oh, yeah. I figured that.
AJ Crocker:Absolutely. Nice. So I worked here most of your whole lives, and I've been involved in youthquake for quite a while. Hey, guys. Feel free to come in.
AJ Crocker:There's actually three chairs on the far side. Just getting started. So in that row, there's two chairs at the front there. And then anyone there's three stools here. Anyone in back can.
AJ Crocker:And just find a spot we can we can crush in. So I've been working with Youthquake for quite a while. I think one of the things that was a hallmark for me as I took over and was directing Youthquake was we ended up expanding our concert concert lineup a fair bit. Some years we'd have five concerts, some years we'd have three. Some years it'd be, you know, it'd be all rock or it'd be a country artist or it'd be hip hop, or it'd be a whole variety of things, worship artists, things like that.
AJ Crocker:And Youthquake kinda ended up with this this reputation of finding new artists. And I realized through those years that there was a great great need in helping people find good Christian music. And I became a bit of a music nerd about pop music nerd. I can't I don't play these things. But I I know how to listen.
AJ Crocker:I have a little bit of an ear for for concert, for pop music. And what I wanted to do when I was talking to Kate about this in the summer, last summer, was I just said, like, yeah, keep getting all these questions about, like, who should other ministries book, and like, where where do I find my music, and and what playlist should youth groups use and things like that. And I thought, well, maybe it would be fun to do a seminar. So you guys are are guinea pigs for me today. I've never we haven't done this seminar before, and there's a lot of great thoughts, but I love your grace as we go through it just in case some of these things don't make sense.
AJ Crocker:So AJ, music nerd, worked here for a long time. That's why he gets me to know. I really do believe this, that Christian music has never been better. And I think it's also, of course, more accessible with Spotify, with Apple Music streaming, of course. You can find new music, you can find Christian music way easier than ever was before.
AJ Crocker:So when I was your age, I would have had to come here, go to the bookstore down there, look to see what CDs they had on the shelf. Right? And then go, oh, which one of these do I wanna spend $20 on? And then I get like nine songs or 15 songs with it from one artist. And that was I spent my allowance for the month.
AJ Crocker:That's all I could do. Right? So way different world now. And I think because of that, you guys can are able if you learn how to find stuff, there is so much good Christian music for you guys to be put in your head. I also think because of TikTok, because of YouTube even, because of of SoundCloud, things like that, independent artists are getting noticed by their own work, by their own effort.
AJ Crocker:And what that just means is that in the in the past, an artist would have to show that they are a legit artist, they've got great ideas, that they've got lots of lots of songs of potential, and then a label would would would sign them. They'd get a big contract, and then the label would market their stuff, but then the label would influence their music. Right? Not always a bad thing, but sometimes it sometimes it really changed the music or really softened it. And I think there's a few great examples.
AJ Crocker:We won't get too far into my opinions on nineties Christian music today. That's a fun after after session conversation. But I do think that right now, what you're seeing is is people popping up fully independent and able to be a bit more authentic with their music. And so I do think Christian music's never been better. I think it's more accessible than it's ever been for you guys.
AJ Crocker:And I think that without the big label influence, we're actually getting to the heart of the artist quicker. And and I think one of the examples I would I would note is well, that Good Day song we're just listening to. You guys know Forrest Frank? Anybody know Forrest Frank? Yeah.
AJ Crocker:So he's like exploded, right, the last little while. So he was he's a part of another group that surfaces, I think, that got a little bit of mainstream kind of radio hit. And then he just started putting out a worship a worship he songs on his on his TikTok, and then started he has, like, two Spotify accounts because I think it was a bit of an accident that his that his worship stuff took off, and he's one of the biggest names of Christian music right now. And I'm not even sure if he signed as an independent artist or was when he was just releasing stuff from his kitchen on his piano. And and the fact that you guys have heard of him is wild because we live a far long ways away from Texas where he's putting up music.
AJ Crocker:And so that's just, I think, is a cool opportunity right now. Three goals in this morning, this session that we're gonna do. I wanna show you, or I wanna talk about why we should be listening to God honoring music. And and there and that's a loaded statement, I'll get there. And number two, I wanna show you how to use Spotify to help you find Christian music.
AJ Crocker:Because I think that's the biggest hurdle for most people, is like, where do I go? Like, how would I find new Christian music? Like, there might be a radio station near your city, or there might be an artist or a playlist maybe you've listened to. But it's kinda hard to actively always be finding new music. And I think Spotify and Apple Music can help us do that a little bit.
AJ Crocker:And just a disclaimer, like, just use Spotify. All my stuff's about Spotify today. Most of the features are almost identical. These these two, Apple and Spotify, pop each other a ton. And so I'll talk to Spotify.
AJ Crocker:There'll be likely something similar with Apple. And and then I will show you a bunch of my playlist. You can take pictures of them or just go follow them as a starting point. So you'll walk out of here with a little bit of thought thinking about why we should be listening to God Honoring Music, a little bit of knowledge of how this the robots in Spotify are working and how to use them to our advantage, and then as well as just a couple of playlist that might be great for your ride home. Alright.
AJ Crocker:Let's get in. Philippians four eight. You guys know this. It's a great youth youth group passage, a pretty famous passage. Paul was talking to the church in Philippi.
AJ Crocker:He's there's been conflict in the church. He's he's admonishing them of a few things. He tossed them a bunch in the first four or five verses of this of this section of the of the letter. And then he says this near the end. He says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.
AJ Crocker:Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. He's wanting them to fix their minds on things that are good and worthy of praise. In a lot of ways, music can ends up being therapy for us. Right?
AJ Crocker:I don't know if you've noticed that, but this is from a science science newsletter, a science blog talking about music. It says music and mood are closely interrelated. Listening to a sad or happy song on the radio can make you feel more sad or happy. Sometimes it's in verse. Right?
AJ Crocker:Our brains are complex. Each of us are different, we respond differently. But music moves us, it shapes our minds, subliminally, it starts changing some things in our minds. And if we're not careful, it it influences our actions and our attitudes. Right?
AJ Crocker:It's not just that if you listen to to Scream O, you're gonna be an angry person. It's that the things if we if we are have listened to nothing, but dead or dead poets, torture poets for the last, like, two straight weeks, relationships. Right? We're probably a little we found a few that really speak to us and we're just sitting in that emotion that whatever that song has put us in there. And it's the beauty of Taylor Swift, of course.
AJ Crocker:It's beauty of genius of her of her writing that she says she packs drugs in her in her music because they're they're hooky. Right? They get they grab on. The first listen is not necessarily like, woah. That's brand new.
AJ Crocker:It sounds a lot like the last few albums or all the albums mixed in on this one. However, on listen four, five, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, all of a sudden, it is it is part of our life. It's part of who we are. It's reshaping a little bit the way we think. And so however such mood however such mood changes, not only affect how you feel, they also change your perception.
AJ Crocker:What Paul is getting at in that passage is that when we fix our eyes on good things, on scriptural things on him, on the Lord, not Paul, on the Lord, that's gonna change our perception as well. And so there's one thing to go to scripture all the time, right, to be in our bibles a lot. That is the best thing we can be doing, to shape our minds and to be aligned with the Lord and to be more like Jesus and less like the world. But the other thing is that passively through the day, we're listening to a lot of music in our in our AirPods or or in our car or wherever wherever we are. And in those moments, we can also be keeping our minds fixed on good and pure and right things.
AJ Crocker:Don't hear me say, you only have to listen to Christian music. If your youth pastor says that, then I agree with them. But that maybe that's not fair. I was just trying to say. What I'm saying is God honoring music is is different than Christian labeled music.
AJ Crocker:And so there are a lot of Christian albums that'll just be in the Christian section, and and the algorithms will find it because of that. I don't think you have to only have, like, someone who who is who is waving has a cross necklace and waving waving Christian flag on their Spotify, on your playlist. But I think we need to be careful about about music that is clearly not honoring the god or what he cares about, and how much we let that shape our minds and shape our perceptions. And that is like a whole probably a whole seminar on its own, but it's just a little bit a little bit of perspective as we get going here. So god honoring music will shape, will help shape your mind to live a life that honors God.
AJ Crocker:If you're a note taker, this is the main point of this entire thing. We're gonna be fine at the end, we'll listen to some songs. But this is the point, that God honoring music can help you shape your mind so that you live a God honoring life. And just like Chris is talking about about a renewal of all things, this is one of those ways in which we can maintain step in step with the Lord, And that we can ensure that we are doing what we can to take two steps forward and one step back, instead of one step forward and two step back, which is what life feels like so often. So if we can find, learn how to find God on our own music, have a new slate of God on our own music coming into our lives, and be and be desiring of it because we found stuff we enjoy, well, that's gonna actually help us keep our lives on the straight and narrow.
AJ Crocker:It's gonna help keep our minds on things that are right and pure and lovely and noble and God honor. So how do we then use Spotify to our advantage then? This is this is gonna get a little technical for a few minutes, and then we'll get into what I listen to, how I do this, some tips and tricks. Here's here's a few things. Spotify is all about AI.
AJ Crocker:Right? I'm gonna I'm gonna reference the Spotify robots for a while because I think it's funny and you'll remember it better if I call it the Spotify robots. But it really is this incredible machine learning technique, like, technical ability that Spotify has to understand what you're listening to, what you like, and then serve you up more stuff that you like because you've told that that's what you like. And when they have so some people, I think, have always seen the genius of Spotify being how much music there is. Right?
AJ Crocker:Almost anything under the sun that's been made is available on Spotify. And it that's great. That's that is why we we go there. That's maybe why we we pay for a pro account if you do that. However, the genius of Spotify is that huge discography, that huge library, as well as this machine learning that for every listener that goes on there and is listening over and over to things, it's going to be finding more and more things, gonna be learning what you like so that it can show offer you up things that you wanna listen to.
AJ Crocker:It makes a map of all the songs it has. It's showing itself, k, this is what AJ likes, this song and this song. And then he played this song after it, and this song after it, and this song after it. Then he went back and listened to those three same three songs again and again and again. And then all of a sudden, at my bottom of my playlist, it's showing me a bunch of songs just like those three songs because it knows in the morning, I like listening to that stuff.
AJ Crocker:Like, gets it's it's a tad creepy if you get too far into it. However, my point today is that we can use that to our advantage to let the robots find us great Christian music. So that's we'll get there. So what it does then, it clumps those songs together and it finds other songs like it to show you. So if you're only listening to whatever rock stuff or hip hop, whatever.
AJ Crocker:If you're only listening to Drake, it's gonna keep showing you stuff that's like Drake. Right? You're only listening to to hits one top 40, it's just gonna keep showing you Olivia Rodrigo over and over and over and over again. So if you actually wanna change that a bit, we have to be listening to stuff to to teach Spotify to show us other things that we wanna watch. And the Spotify recommendation system, well, it excels, let's read this, at recognizing patterns, I've missed an n, in your behavior, connecting the dots between time and location and weather and listening history.
AJ Crocker:So the the the robots are so smart that they know if you're listening to Taylor Swift when it's raining in the evening, then the next evening that it's raining, it's going to then be showing you a bunch of stuff like Taylor Swift. Right? Like, it's it's so advanced that it's best maybe for us not to know how advanced it is. However, I think as you grow, more knowledge is helpful. As you interact with the suggestions, the algorithm learns from you, fine tuning its insights into individual preferences.
AJ Crocker:Now before you become wildly skeptical of Spotify and these robots, they do have a fair bit of of well articulated ethical recommendation, ethical AI machine learning policies. So I don't think that they're inappropriately pushing stuff on you that you don't wanna hear. They genuinely I believe anyway. They genuinely are trying to find stuff you've told them that you like. And my point here is if you're only listening to stuff that isn't God honoring, it's going to keep showing you more stuff that's not God honoring.
AJ Crocker:And then when you say, I can't find any Christian music. All Christian music is boring. Well, that might be because it's not showing you any of the good Christian music. So a few playlists hitting like, we'll get into the technicalities. Act actively telling the robots in Spotify what you like.
AJ Crocker:Lot of nutrition music is going gonna show you more. Make those robots work for you. So here are four tips how that you can take a you can write down or take a picture of these. Here's what I would suggest, and then we'll get into a bunch of my playlist and songs and options and artists that I think you guys should listen to. One is, if you don't already make playlists for yourself, you absolutely should.
AJ Crocker:That might be silly of me to say. Maybe that's the only way you you've ever learned how to listen to music. But make a Christian playlist for yourself that you listen through at certain points so that Spotify can or Apple can figure out that, oh, you like that kind of stuff. I'll find more stuff for you. Then and I'll show you where these things line up.
AJ Crocker:On that playlist, at the bottom, it's always going to recommend a bunch of songs that you have not listened to, that you have not seen, that you haven't liked, that it knows isn't in your library. And that is one of the best places to discover new Christian music. Is fill up your your playlist, keep adding to playlist. What I do is I listen to a lot of new music, like I said, bit of new music nerd. And so I have an April 24 playlist.
AJ Crocker:I have one a new playlist every month. At the end of the year, I go through them all, and I grab the ones I still like at the end of the year, and I make a a best of '24 02/2024 playlist. And that is kinda how I track back my favorites in my library through the I've been doing this for doing this for years. So every year every month, there's a new playlist, and you can see how my moods moods go, where my fixations go, where the genres, I jump genres a fair bit. What I've learned though is I've tried to keep my worship playlist pretty active for Sundays, for when I'm when I'm prepping sermons, for when I just need to focus on the Lord.
AJ Crocker:And then I've been trying to keep a a a solid Christian hype playlist going for the people that ask me about, hey. What do you have a good playlist I can play before my basketball game or at my camp or at youth group? And then I have one that is called AJ's Christian Faves, and that one is a bit more just like what I love to listen through. It's not like kickoff session type of OJ to DJ type, although some of it's pretty high energy. And what I can do then, because those are like, whatever, fifty, sixty songs long now, is I jump on the bottom and it says recommended.
AJ Crocker:About of all of these songs that the robot see on the playlist, they now are giving me eight or nine more that would fit that same playlist. And I listen through and I grab a couple. And then I hit refresh and it does it again. I'll show you how it works in a minute. Then, if you love a particular song, there's a feature called song radio.
AJ Crocker:And I'll show you where that comes to. But it finds other songs just like that one song. So if you're like, I don't have 20 songs in a playlist to get this recommending going, then I would just hit song radio, listen through that. And any song that you like, hit the plus button so it adds it to your library, and the robots learn to serve you up more songs like that. And then I'll show you how this niche this niche Christian mix type stuff works.
AJ Crocker:So let me jump over here. And now here we can have some some fun. So here's here's my playlist. You can see it's warm now. Some of it is from is from a while ago.
AJ Crocker:But there's lots of good stuff on there. We'll we'll we can play a few. But the feature I was talking about is sorry for the whiplash. At the top, here's my playlist. Go all the to the bottom.
AJ Crocker:Recommended. And at the bottom, it's recommended. It's showing me this Tadashi song. Great dude. He played here my first youth quick.
AJ Crocker:And I'm like, alright. I don't necessarily want the horns, but let's let's go to Tripoli and we'll hold a oh, Miles. Who was here for last year for Miles Minute? Mhmm. Good, dude.
AJ Crocker:K. This is a fun one. That's Miles' flow in melting. I feel like every Miles Minute song has a part that sounds like this. It's pretty fun.
AJ Crocker:So all I do here then is I go add, and now it's up here in this. And I if I were to go through all of it, all of these songs, oh, Don Ready. That's a dude that's a dude you should be listening to. It's fun stuff. I when when I've gone through these, I'm like, I only like I only like that one.
AJ Crocker:I hit refresh, bam, it serves me up a bunch more that sound a lot. You can see some of the same same albums. But if I hit refresh a few times, it's gonna it's just gonna keep giving me more and more different songs that fit this playlist. And so if you're like, only have two or three songs that I like in this kind of style, you make that playlist, Keep adding to it. Hit refresh a few times, and away you go.
AJ Crocker:Now if we go up here, let's say, King Jesus. You guys like this one? You guys know that? KB's been here a few times. No big deal.
AJ Crocker:Should be here, man. That guy is on fire. If I go over here to the three dots, you guys know the three dots. This is where you add the playlist. This where you add the cue.
AJ Crocker:You guys use a cue a lot. My wife just learned my wife just learned about the cue. That's one of her students. Right? Just learned about the cue.
AJ Crocker:She did not know what her students meant by anyway, I help her with her music too. If I go to here, the song radio, I don't know if you guys use this, it just gives me a full playlist of that song, like that song. Public playlist, made for me, with KB Tadashi, a bunch of people. And then I'm going through Indie Tribe, John's part of Indie Tribe, you guys should know that. And I'm seeing a bunch of stuff that's gonna fit the vibe of that King Jesus song.
AJ Crocker:So that's not actually like, oh, all these all the AJ's playlist, he likes this kind of stuff. That's just like, oh, he just likes King Jesus song, and so he I'm gonna Spotify robots are gonna give me 50 songs that might be like that song to listen through. So it's a bit of research. Right? It's it's it's making it very easy to gather songs that are like that, and it gives you the ability to then be in control a little bit of and teach the robots what you like so that those recommendations keep getting better and better.
AJ Crocker:And then the last tip I had for you was the niche search. So if you go into search and you just type Christian hype and you then you put mix on the end, it's going to look at that hype Christian rock mix. And this is a playlist made for me, 50 songs, and it just found a bunch of stuff that it thinks I'll like with that. So this niche mix feature of their search bar will serve you up a bunch of playlists that will again open your open up your listening to all kinds of stuff that maybe you haven't haven't heard before. Just today, this morning as I was prepping oh, let's get out of here.
AJ Crocker:I found these guys. I've never heard of these guys before. I was, like, practicing this to show you guys, and then found this track. These guys are a little bit like oh, I s l y. Who's here tonight?
AJ Crocker:So killer worship concert, like, really cool chill vibe with these guys. And I hit an ISLY mix or or playlist song radio, I think. These guys show up. And like I don't know about you. This is like bull's eye for me.
AJ Crocker:I went straight on my April 24 playlist, went to the album, added the album. Like, that's a good vibe. Right? God honoring, like, good stuff. Does not sound like what a local Christian radio plays.
AJ Crocker:It doesn't sound like what you make here at church. And you can start to cater your own your own listening preferences that way. If I go Christian chill mix, because not everyone is, like, hyperactive like I know my music. Let's say we want something a little bit better. Christian chill Christian lo fi mix.
AJ Crocker:Look at that. You learn all kinds of new words too when you search start searching this stuff. Jervis Cabo, one of my favorite dudes. I don't have this song added though. Rivers and Robots, that's a fun one.
AJ Crocker:Spotify probably. Oh, here. Here's ISOI. These guys are here tonight. Skip ahead.
AJ Crocker:Like, there's no way I would have found this on my own. Right? So if I'm typing in just the vibe, the mood I'm in, and then I go through and skip ahead a little bit, there's some dope songs that I've just found because I type in mix at the end of my search bar. And then at the end of the day, again, every time that that's happened, so we like I also have Majesty, we hit plus to add it to my like songs. I hit this oh, it's eight minute song.
AJ Crocker:Well, I might remove it, but I I like that enough for eight minutes there. And then I go to, you know, April 24, and I toss it in there. And now Spotify knows, k, I've it's on a playlist. I like that. Jet Trouble is a dude I just have been listening last month.
AJ Crocker:Obviously, this song. Like, this is a guy that's, like, not signed to big label, dozed up, unique vocal, and all of his stuff is super God honored. Right? So it's a way to unearth these these bands. One weird thing about my music sort of fixation and how we have been able to pull up emerging artists like Jude.
AJ Crocker:John's a little bit further down the road, but like, don't know how many of you would have heard of Jude Barclay before we we booked a couple people. That's awesome. Not many. And Jude himself said, how did you find me? Like, I don't do a lot of shows.
AJ Crocker:Like, people don't call very often. Like, like, why did you call me? Like, that was one of his questions. And we were like, your stuff's dope, man. Like, we found it.
AJ Crocker:You're featured on a bunch of stuff, Indie Chive and John and things like that. We followed that. We like your your we like your vibe. We think it'll be a good a good mix with John. And he was like, cool.
AJ Crocker:And John even was like, we've never been to Canada before. Like, how did you find us? Like, we're in from the Bay Area. Right? That's all he said.
AJ Crocker:Bay Area. That's all he said. And I and we were like, the robots show us. Right? The robots lead us to to to people like you.
AJ Crocker:And then we're like, this fits us really well. Let's bring them up. And then everyone's like, woah. Like, I've gotten a ton of compliments over the years on Youthquake Finding Dance. We had NF here for 2,000 or $3,000 Canadian when he had four songs up.
AJ Crocker:Right? And I asked, like, three years later, it was it was 6 figures to book him for a concert because he was, like, the biggest the biggest artist in Christian umbrella that that was going at the time. Right? And that's just because his his All I Have song on his first EB popped up on on my Spotify back then, way back, and we were like, oh, this is good. And and then he agreed to come.
AJ Crocker:And so it's not there's no there's no, like, magical secret to this other than using the tools that are at our disposal, keeping our our minds on god honoring things, god honoring music, and then disciplining yourself to put it into a playlist and use these use these tools. And so as we I'm gonna show you a few of these playlists that I think would be helpful for you as a really practical listen to this on the way home, and maybe that'll give you a head start in finding a bunch of artists. And then but then we will hit get to some questions that you guys can ask because we just have plenty plenty of time. So let me walk you through these playlists here. Let's see.
AJ Crocker:Can I make this bigger? Does that matter? Not really. Oh, the other thing is this. What I I live off this release radar often enough.
AJ Crocker:You can see I've been listening to a fair bit of country lately. And 79 songs, it's all brand new songs that have just been released, but it's lit it's it's watching all my preferences, knowing what I like, and it just serves up a bunch of new songs that it thinks I'll like. And you can see here it's not all it's not all gonna be oh, today. It was just yesterday. Here, New Forest Frank song with no big deal.
AJ Crocker:So a little too little too chill, I think. That's good photo. That's Yeah. That's nice. That's good stuff.
AJ Crocker:Oh, well, let's go add it now. Alright. So but, anyway, it's it's showing me a whole lot already as well. K, guys. We should have looked at this before I started speaking.
AJ Crocker:There's some there's some good this dude's lots of fun. Is this a fun song? Oh, yeah. That'll be good. That chorus will hit.
AJ Crocker:Chorus will hit hard. Anyway, Henrik is good too. A new another new tell her stop it. She's smothering everyone. I should I should tell Spotify, stop showing me this.
AJ Crocker:We know it's out there. The release radar though will show you stuff that's that's being released right now. If you care about, like, having the newest stuff, that's a playlist that you can start doing that. And I if I go here, I don't want I don't care about her beef with Kim. So let's go ahead and hide that.
AJ Crocker:Right? Hidden and released radar means it's gonna stop showing me stuff like that. So let's say you're coming out of a season where you've been in a lot of stuff that's not God honoring. And Spotify is showing you a lot of stuff that's not God honoring, and you're like, after you click, I'd really like to change this. I'd like to to to shape my mind differently so it's more God honoring, then we use that minus button.
AJ Crocker:Let's see. What else do I Vince and Lima's decent. Swan Brothers, I haven't liked them for a long time. I'm not even gonna listen to it. We'll hide that too.
AJ Crocker:Oh, cool. New cool work, kids. Nice. He's not Christian, though. Don't write that down.
AJ Crocker:Rest of it, I kinda like. Actually, you know what? I like Naismith, but Lee Lee Bryce a bit much. And Drinking Buddies? I you I'll I'll hide that.
AJ Crocker:I'll hide that there. But Henrik, this dude's good. We tried to get him last year. He's got a distinct, like, folksy, little gone vibe. That's a good one.
AJ Crocker:That will be a good one too. So the release radar, that's one of them. But let's go in here. So this one is the one I think you should you could search and find, and and you could just search me. Search AJ Proctor on Spotify, and then go find this.
AJ Crocker:And maybe I'll get Kate to send out these lists and email to youth workers as well. But this one, you can see John right at the top. Can you play this one last time? Oh, it's you haven't played it is pretty chill, actually. This Josh Katong guy is real good.
AJ Crocker:If you're, like, a more if people say you're older for your than your age shows, this you're pretty like like this stuff. Maverick City Force friend? You guys know that one? Yeah. That one that one's everywhere.
AJ Crocker:Anyway, slide in. That's good. Now I'm just playing songs I like for you. You can see, you know, the selection of the NF album I liked last summer. Oh, this one.
AJ Crocker:This will be tonight. Oh, not that one. This one. It starts slow, but Have you guys listened to I also want? Getting ready for tonight?
AJ Crocker:It'll be it'll be great. And this song is this song is real. Anyway, so this one is about 67. I keep adding to see that song right there. I just added it.
AJ Crocker:And then Jude Sondra, did he did he sing laundry last night? Yeah. He's Yeah. He's a great one. And all you get, you just released that one last week, I think.
AJ Crocker:So that one is a good one. This is the hype playlist that I that I would recommend. Like, if you need, like, the workout, the the the get yourself, like, the youth group, the fire up, everyone's arriving. One Peabody is a recent obsession of mine. This dude knows what he's doing.
AJ Crocker:Like, listen to this hit. Yes. It's coming. If you're not happy, if this doesn't make you happy in the morning, I don't know what would. I I would be I'd be worried for you if that didn't if that didn't move you a bit.
AJ Crocker:And this one, like, you may not be in the hip hop, but this is, the best Christian hip hop song released in years. The entire thing. Anyway, John's on that in in in the chat. DJ McHaleFee, his stuff, he's been dropping, like, he doesn't miss here on on this stuff, the Peter Bans, Bottega. But also the Cascade one clear, these are Indy tribe ones.
AJ Crocker:Anyway, that's a he's a DJ that's producing this stuff. Yeah. So he's on there. But as you can see, there's a bunch of stuff. These guys are are really good.
AJ Crocker:Little pop rock for you. Forrest Frank stuff, you know. Oh, Josiah Queen. You guys know Josiah Queen? Really good.
AJ Crocker:It's like, again, a little a little folksy folksy vibe. Right? But the vocals are huge. Like, let me skip ahead a bit. And his stuff is very biblical, like, very very a lot of the stuff is, like, good, trustworthy Christian people putting out dope music, and some of them are very Christian lyrics, and and they're gonna be quite quite biblically focused in their language.
AJ Crocker:This one was my favorite last year. This is a dope stop. A bit more soul, a little bit more flow to it. But I'm not gonna lie. There is a lot of hip hop on here.
AJ Crocker:Cast though is good. Female hip a little hip hop female. You guys listen to Social Club? Misfits? This is my white whale.
AJ Crocker:The other day, I I tried, like, six straight years to get a music like. They are, like, the most fun show in Christian music. And the one year they almost could, the one dude the one dude couldn't make it. They were ready to come, and I still am sad in my heart that we didn't get that done. K.
AJ Crocker:Anybody anybody in the hardcore and a little bit of screaming? You guys know Bulls of the Gate? Were you here? Are you a youth worker? We had them here, like, five years ago.
AJ Crocker:It was, like, the greatest night. I mean, was anyone here for that one? Well, I wasn't here. Guess so. Yeah.
AJ Crocker:Yeah. K. My kids love this one. I I'll just turn down a bit for those of you that don't listen to it. Yeah.
AJ Crocker:Yeah. So my kids are like, they listen like, the minivan, I control that music. Look, we're not listening to Baby Shark in my minivan. So they they have their favorites on this, and this is this is one of them. But this is, two years old, but this is, one of the best Christian rock songs in so long.
AJ Crocker:That's a that's an f f f. You get it, though. You get it. If you if you like that stuff, you that whole album, though, if you're into that that whole Wolves of the Gate album, top to bottom, should've won a bunch of awards that year. In my in my just my very passive opinion.
AJ Crocker:This dude is this dude's a guy that I've just been listening to the last few weeks. I love have a fun pretty fun production. Like like early Kanye sounding flow, but Christopher's sincere. I don't know. So, anyway, so that's, that hype plan playlist.
AJ Crocker:So those are ones that I I tend to, that I've that I've been working on. Spotify made this one though for me. They say made it for me, but it's just because I searched Christian dance party, and obviously 200,000 other people have searched Christian dance party. They didn't make it for me, but that many other people searched that. And so then this playlist, the algorithm, the robots have been have been putting this this one together.
AJ Crocker:And so then you've got stuff that's a little less little less straight hip hop, a bit more just like good production. Good good beat, etcetera. So I what I would do is I would just for you, I would just search Christian dance party. That one's not mine. Just go on your Spotify, search that one.
AJ Crocker:That and it and as you can see, it's a hundred songs. It's five hours. Then any other ones that you really like, you like that switch one, hit plus so that Spotify learns what you're listening to. Or if you're like, that one's good, the rest of the stuff's weird, go to the song radio and it's going to show you invited radio from that song, and it's gonna show you all these other songs that are much like it, if it's if they weren't on there. What did I see?
AJ Crocker:Oh, I had Jet Trouble to see. I like this one. I already liked it. That's great. The chorus gets really big.
AJ Crocker:It's really nice. Okay. This hasn't been tended to in a while. But, like, two years ago, this is where we found almost all of our new emerging artists. It was this good Christian music blog, and then they turned into Amen Worldwide, whatever that is, bought them, and then it turned into a bunch of playlists.
AJ Crocker:This is good. There's not a ton of, like, brand new stuff on it. But, I mean, if you like if you if you if you like Keith Green for whatever reason, this is a this is a dope a dope remix. I'm there to redeem. And then you've got a bunch of other stuff here from bands.
AJ Crocker:But I mean, they've got fifteen hours worth of stuff in here. And it's it's not like crazy. I don't find a lot of my hype music off this playlist, but I do find a lot of stuff that I put into Christian faves. That is like stuff that I just I just really enjoy, and I suspect that the diversity, you'd you'd appreciate that one too. So Good Christian Music, the the the account's name on Spotify and on Apple Music is called Amen Worldwide, and and they have a bunch of other ones.
AJ Crocker:So they're what else do they got here? Like, Rap Heaven is one of theirs. It's a little it's not quite up to date, but it's it's great. That's a Spotify one. Oh, Christian Indie Pop, that was theirs too.
AJ Crocker:So if you search their their username, they've got, like, 15 or 20 playlists. That would get you a bunch of different genres. Let's see here. And then we'll get to questions in in just a minute. What's up, Gio?
AJ Crocker:So Gio is an artist that you'll see on a lot of my playlists, and he's got us he's got this playlist called holy hits. And it's a it's a lot of hip hop again, but but there's a there'd be a fair bit of stuff there that I don't have on mine. And then if you just really need, like, the most energy possible, this is a Spotify one. It's they put it together, obviously, for for more for workout kinda drive your drive your energy. There's two over 200,000 people liking this one too.
AJ Crocker:So there's a lot of a lot of diverse stuff on here that that you could find. So I think you get the idea. Like, we wanna be God honoring in our lives. We wanna shape our minds to be God honoring in that in that way. And we can do that.
AJ Crocker:We do that by going in the bible. We can do that by going I'm in a small group and being in mentorship with our youth workers. We do that being in Christian friends. But on our own, when we're not reading the bible and engaging intensely like that, we can be passively shaping our minds to be God honoring by finding music that we love that is also God honoring. And with these some of these tips and and tricks, I think that there's plenty of reason for you guys to also maybe agree or at least at least consider the fact that Christian music has never been better.
AJ Crocker:It's wildly accessible to you. And almost everyone I've shown you, if not independent, is typically on an independent label where they have a ton of say in what they're writing and how they are writing it. And so if I can jump back to this slide here, again, this was the main point, that God honoring music can teach the robots to serve that up, find a healthy dose of new stuff, not get bored of our Christian music, will help shape your mind to live a life that honors God. And at the end of the day, that's all I think we're trying to do. Two steps forward towards Jesus, one step back, two steps forward, being more like Jesus, less like the world.
AJ Crocker:And I think this is a these are some tools and some habits that could really help you do that.
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