“Rebirthing” by Skillet, Monday, February 13, 2023
In 2006, Skillet created the album they used as a template for the albums that they would release for the next sixteen years and counting. At the time when Skillet released Comatose, it was their most mature and refined record following ten years of member line up and style changes. Starting as a post-grunge band then transitioning into industrial around the turn of the millennium, Skillet began to switch out synthesizers for strings on their 2003 record, Collide. The lead single, “Rebirthing,” highlighted the new Skillet sound, symphonic hard rock. But what was once novel turned banal after all of the following records sounded the same.
I BREATHE YOU IN. While not a maître of metal or hard music but rather a commercial success story and a brand, Skillet’s rebirth brought them to rock radio and landed them on some of the major tours in the active rock genre. As Skillet became more about refining the brand, they leaned into their role as a band in ministry. They became one of the biggest unapologetically Christian bands. And from their stage production complete with pyrotechnics, they made a lot of money on the road. What a Christian band means for Skillet is a propitiation of the conservative politics common in evangelical Christianity during the George W. Bush years. Lead singer John L. Cooper even delved into theology, writing the book Awake & Alive To Truth. But soon, he began tackling political issues, appearing on Fox News, arguing against Critical Race Theory and the so-called “woke agenda,” arguing that both of which is creating a civil war in the church.
I WANNA LIVE FOR LOVE, I WANNA LIVE FOR YOU AND ME. I’m getting awfully sick of Christian gaslighting, as I believe more and more that I have a right to exist as a gay person. I also believe that we need to look at history through different lenses and that we need to acknowledge that we are a product of wars and inequalities. I think that Skillet’s new music is not to my liking, so it doesn’t make it difficult to give them up. However, after watching a nation display of Christian nationalism on Fox last night, also known as the Super Bowl, I realize that America is composed of the old guard trying to uphold Christian ideals with commercials funded by Hobby Lobby. Patriotism and spirituality on display feels awkward to me. I think it should be in humble heart rather than on full display, sort of like the parable Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14. That being said, after Taylor Swift, Drake or a ton of Nashville acts got the time slot on America’s biggest stage, I can imagine Skillet opening a halftime show with an orchestra playing “Rebirthing,” the band perhaps suspended in the air like Rihanna last night. It will never happen, though, since the country is supposedly going to hell in a hand basket.
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