Talk Elections

Assuming Mitt wins the election, will the Mormon Tabernacle Choir be singing at his inauguration?

Please discuss.

If Romney wins, a choir of angels will descend from the heavens, singing his praises from on high.

No, but JFK will be kissing the Pope's ring.

Why not? They're rather good, and I'm sure the President is allowed that modicum of religious expression.

Hopefully.  They're excellent.

Knowing Romney, probably, not till his second inauguration.

America can only hope there will be a second Romney inauguration.

I fucjing hope not, we mIght as well light the constitution aflame in that case!!!

If not, they should.

Hell, they should even if Obama wins.

I hope Mitt gives all men in this country 2 wives when he's inaugurated!

I don't believe a musical performance ignites the constitution, especially since their recording have included "Born Free."

They are excellent.

I like all of the drunk posting on here tonight! But seriously, let's not give these creatures any more publicity if we can help it.

me too bro, me too

Why aren't there any Mormon hardcore bands?

Because hardcore is sh**t.

Obviously not. Romney is doing his best to avoid the topic of his religion. Unusual for a Republican, but a politician's gotta do what he has to do. I'm more interested to see if he's gonna have to give an speech equivalent to JFK's about seperation of church and state. The whole issue is such a hornet's nest for Romney, and he's wise to avoid it as much as possible. I doubt that many voters even know that he is a Mormon anyway. And it's not like any of his opponents are going to point it out. Better not to give that inconvenient truth any publicity.

So you think Mormons are more likely to have "good" taste in music than atheists or Christians?

I think atheists and Christians are more likely to have 'bad' taste in music than many other religious groups.

Jews probably have the best taste in music, followed by Lutherans and Catholics.

I'm not Jewish, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic.

This:


And this:

The religious groups with the best musical taste are "spiritual but not religious", atheist/agnostic and unaffiliated Christians.

The groups with the worst taste are fundies, Mormons and black churches. Non-purely nominal Catholics are pretty bad too, as are Satanists (jokingly or not), or anything pagan-esque, as these tend to like metal.

This. MoTab isn't affiliated with the LDS church, btw.

Black churches have awesome taste in music. Agreed on white fundamentalists.

I think there's more overlap between 'spiritual but not religious' and neopagan than you're making there out to be, and I don't associate either with particularly liking metal, except for Norse neopagans who in my limited experience appear to be into folk metal, some of which is actually pretty good.

I put in Mormon Tabernacle Choir into YouTube and this is the first video I got: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BWhvIlFVE

Bleh. Ugh.

Anti-Mormon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7NTFMW3NX0) hardcore > Mormon Tabernacle Choir

What are you talking about? That's a very well-done Messiah.

I'm thinking of rap/hip-hop mostly. The first bunch of course is because that's almost all hardcore kids are.

Blacks are awesome at preaching though. We had a guest speaker for the sermon today who is this black guy who periodically gives sermons and as usual he was awesome. Catholic priests and "high church" preachers could learn a lot from black preachers.high church

Can't stand it. If I want to listen to some complex composition like that I listen to post-rock.

On a side note, I had a short little baptism informational meeting with one of my church's associate pastors this morning as well, and he knew exactly what the venue I was at the night before was and had been there before and was familiar with the type of dancing that goes on when I compared to it to the charismatic worship stuff we do. I wonder how many pastors that applies to.

Okay, but the music that's actually in black churches tends to be really, really good.

I have some fairly charismatic (in the personality sense, not the religious style sense) priests at my church by High Church standards, but they could definitely stand to mix it up a bit on occasion.

I also happen to really like Baroque music, so we'll have to amicably disagree on that.

The best sermons given by white people tend to be in the style of a college lecture. A few can pull off the "hardcore frontman" or "late night talk show host" type styles well, but not everyone and I know it won't appeal to everyone. Whenever the guy I mentioned above gives sermons he talks in the same style like he's the frontman of a band talking in between songs while the guitarist is retuning about whatever their pet issue is, and I got a chuckle thinking of how my grandmother would react to going to the church with something like that.

I actually have quite a bit of Mormon Tabernacle Choir renditions of Bach and Handel, though I do think their Messiah is a bit too...busy, and not particularly Handelian.

Also, they have this annoying habit of rewriting religious music that doesn't really fit with Mormonism.  Most stuff about Mary gets its theme changed (outside of Christmas music)

There are religious songs specifically about Mary? I just realized I'm not too familiar with many that go much beyond "Oh yeah God rules, Jesus is awesome!"

I take it you've never heard of "Ave Maria"?

Which the Mormon Tabernacle Choir turns into "Heavenly Father."  :P

Oh yeah I guess I have. But never heard it, it's not like they play it at any church I go to.

*listens* Blech. Especially the opera-like vocals! The only vocal style more intolerable than that is death and black metal.

De gustibus non est disputandum

For the record I think my biggest issue with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rendition I posted earlier and their music in general is you can't dance to it, which makes it really just no fun.

The Mormon Tabernacle choir is quite good...

Catholic liturgical music, too, can be well done, because of the rich musical heritage, especially when it incorporates the European classics.  I always liked the parts of the mass and Haagen, Haas, Hurd.  The seasonal musical variations can also be great--for instance I always enjoyed the sombre, meditative songs and chants during Lent/Holy Week.  I don't like the more hippy dippy hymns, though...and Catholic congregations tend not to sing, so the experience at individual churches vary, but when done well, catholic choirs are awesome.

I would say the worst religious music is the "empty" evangelical stuff which is just too happy-go-lucky and doesn't have any emotional depth.  Mainline protestants like Lutherans, etc., can be a little bleh with their musical selections, too.  The religions are just too feel-good and the believers in those churches are generally well off and don't have enough personal struggles for their music to be as expressive as in other traditions.

But HANDS DOWN, the best spiritual music in the United States is black church music.  Gospel music can be virtuosic, fun, dancable, joyous, raucous, and emotionally wrenching and uplifting...  This is obvious to anyone who knows anything about music history and how much of contemporary music has its roots in southern--and in particular black southern spiritual music traditions...

BRTD mystifies:


BRTD,  this post is so hopelessly ignorant.  You really need to experience the world out of the lilly confines of Minnesota.

You mean, "that sh!t is hardcore".

I can say this of Presbyterian churches -- their austerity even extends to music... at most a piano.

Catholics at the least have the superb repertory of masses, Requiem masses, Vespers, and Te Deums. After all, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, and Verdi were all Catholics. Lutherans have J S Bach and G F Handel, although Catholics seem to have tried to adopt Bach and Handel as theirs. (Grieg, Sibelius, and Nielsen wrote no liturgical music, and they would have been very good at it).