MICHELLE SHOCKED - CRUSTY, HIPPY, PUNK GOES GOSPEL

Mon 13 May 2002

much more than a review of Michelle Shocked's new album Deep Natural with thoughts on the Christian music industry and the Church's lack of radical agenda as well as the music...

Michelle shocks! Remember the crusty, hippy, punk who made her mark with an album recorded in a field on a half decent walkman, with real live crickets and lorries (articulated trucks to our American friends!) supplying the loops and samples. Remember the songs of homelessness, arson and being arrested for political campaigning. On a b-side of When I Grow Up she lashed out at a poor evangelical couple Brother Jed and Sister Cindy cynically demeaning their “being saved” and their preaching, describing them as “the lunatic fringe on parade.” Well, here she is 15 years later releasing as good and true a Gospel album as I have heard in many a long year.

There had been rumours. It had been said in her years in the recording wilderness when she fought through the courts to get free of her Mercury recording contract that she had had a Gospel album turned down by the said company. Then of course there was her classy cover of Victoria Williams Holy Spirit on Sweet Relief. But surely it was just a musical pilgrimage from someone who has been known to flirt with every genre from pop to rock to folk to country to swing.

Wrong. It seems from recent interviews that Miss Shocked did indeed find her way to Church for the music but she has been saying that once there she says, “I guess I just went one Sunday too often, and the message got in, and he’s making the altar call and I’m walking up there and saying yes, I accept Jesus Christ. I thank God that I had the courage to make that change in my life without thinking ‘Oh, how’s this going to effect my public image, my persona, my sales.’ No, this is what makes life worth living. Growing and changing.”

As you can see the change is blatantly obvious. The growing stares you just as directly in the face as you listen to her voice on Deep Natural. It sounds so sure, so satisfied, so free; Michelle Shocked becomes a soul singer. And that newfound voice fronts a band that adds to the soul, sweetness (If Not Here), kick (Good News) and groove (House Burning Down) playing with sinister Hendrix menace (Little Billie), sunshine Marley smiles (Can’t Take My Joy) and mystical Van Morrison rapture (That’s So Amazing). A few distorted vocals, presumably intentional, are the only tarnishes to a quite exquisite work and good and edgy at it still is ‘exquisite’ is not a word that was used for that debut The Texas Campfire Tapes. We got rock and folk and country and blues, a width of variety and deep easy sense of unity that is all sown into the most creative of tapestries by Shocked and her convictions on love and life and most particularly faith. There’s also a second CD called Natural Dub with dub versions of the album and a few extras. Real cool. Not all of the songs on Natural Deep are focused on her Christianity but transcendence hovers over the entire piece.

The album begins with a twenty second burst of the ninth track Can’t Take My Joy and that seems to nail the overall theme. It is almost a call to worship:

“Jealousy and anger
Greed and hypocrisy
The seasons of human nature
Cannot take my joy from me”

Later there is the caress of the Gospel in the finding of grace That’s So Amazing:

“That's so amazing
So amazing
Once I was lost
But now I'm found
Now I'm found, now I'm found
I can see clearly
I see beauty
It's amazing, it's amazing, it's amazing
So amazing
So amazing
So amazing
That's so amazing
Talkin' 'bout Amazing Grace”

Of course being so politically aware and socially observant Shocked has not jumped out of the real world into some self indulgent bubble and thus we find that same Gospel collide too with the world around her as on Good News:

“This used to be God's Country
Heaven on Earth
Peace in the Valley Well now they call it Cancer Alley
When Paradise is lost
Yeah and the whole world gained
For when profit is the cost
Of a shame shame shame shame shame

The last track or benediction, Go In Peace adeptly concludes the entire thesis:

“You're lookin' for love
And it looks like you found it
It's right here right now
I think we're surrounded
So lift you're hands high and surrender to it's power and might
Give in to it's grace and it's glory of shinin' beautiful light
Now lay down your armour, your hurt, your anger, your fright Reaching out for peace
Discovering you're in the arms of love, yeah yeah yeah”

As well as the music Shocked is stepping out in change and growth in the marketing of the album too. After her legal battles with Mercury she has set up Mighty Sound and has a longing to say as much in how she says things as by what she says. Here is another woman like Ani Di Franco trying to overcome the commercial insanity of big corporations owning artists and their art and taking artistic freedom and sacrificing it at the altar of the Golden Calf. Why has the so-called “Christian” musical industry not taken up this mission instead of creating its own Golden Calf and becoming a mirror image of all that’s bad about the music business?

Why too, was it the music that drew Shocked to Church where she brought her radical alternative Kingdom agenda? If the Church was in any way following the teachings of Christ instead of worrying about middle class behavioural patterns and theological soundness would Shocked not have found refuge in the rebellious agenda of Jesus a long time ago. Instead there seems to be some surprise that in the packaging, which is original, environmentally friendly if lacking in album information, Shocked spells out what she is campaigning for in a summary of the ten points in the Contract With The Planet on the Lovearth Network - http://www.lovearth.net/contractwiththeplanet.htm. Check it out.

So gorgeously joyous gospel music with a simple message in a real world setting that comes with a radical commitment to bringing heaven to earth. Hallelujah sister, Hallelujah!