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Southern California, always the first with the new, is the biggest market for evangelical pop. Orange County's radio station KYMS started playing nothing but contemporary Christian a year ago, and is now the top-rated station in the area. "Our station offers an alternative to Prince and Madonna," says Program Director Greg Fast. "We don't play trashy lyrics or tell dirty jokes. We give you fun and good clean songs without hitting you over the head with the Bible." So successful has the 24-hour, all-Christian format been that Owner Paul Toberty is currently converting his stations in Denver and Phoenix. The South, where old-fashioned gospel music still prevails on the religous stations, has been the most resistant to evangelical pop, but the movement is beginning to catch on there too.
Its brightest star is Grant, 24, whose Age to Age was the first contemporary Christian album to ring up sales of 500,000. At 17 she was touring, accompanying herself on an acoustic guitar; today she and her ten-piece band move around the country in two tractor-trailers, two buses and one truck. She sold out Radio City Music Hall for a concert last year and plans before long to fly as high as those angels she sings about. "I want to play hardball in this business," she says. "I want to be on the same level professionally with performers in all areas of music. I love to hear Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins and the Doobie Brothers. Why not? I aim to bridge the gap between Christian and pop."
Though the movement is growing fast, few of the new contemporary Christians yet make as much money as their secular look-alikes. One of their albums is considered a hit if it sells 100,000 copies, a paltry figure in the record world. But most are making ends meet. Some, including stars like Steve Taylor and Debby Boone, tithe 10% of their income to the church. As Taylor sings in the title song of his album Meltdown:
Celebrity status only got in the way.
Had my hands in my pockets on the Judgment Day.
You can't take it with you--there's fire in the hole.
Had the world by the tail, but I lost my soul.