Fear Knott: A Forgotten Christian Rock Classic

Michael Knott's struggles with doubt set his career on fire, and that fire lit the way for the rest of us.

SPIN Magazine dropped this “Best Christian Rock Records” of all time list, which is quite a bit better than you might think. I came of age in Contemporary Christian Music’s salad days, when youth pastors foisted the stuff on us like candy. The fact that listening to it became sort of obligatory for a lot of Christian kids neutered whatever coolness it might have had, though I maintain there were some bangers. 

But anyway, the SPIN list ignores CCM’s K-LOVEification era and our current glut of “worship” music (don’t get me started) for a healthy dose of 70s, 80s and early 90s dudes rock-types and a few low-flying later entries. Larry Norman is a given, thanks to his Yoda-like status among Christian rock heads (highly recommend Gregory Thornbury’s excellent biography on Norman’s life.) DeGarmo and Key is one of the few listed acts that penetrated my evangelical childhood. And it was cool to see Daniel Amos mentioned; Terry Taylor is an interesting lyricist, who wears on his sleeve inspirations both rapturous (Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner) and regrettable (Dennis Prager). And of course, the 77s. I do love the 77s. 

We could talk about snubs all day. As I noted on Twitter, I do think that if you include Half-Handed Cloud, you open yourself up to Sufjan Stevens and the bands that family (or Famile, as the case may be). The Innocence Mission, Over the Rhine, Denison Witmer, Rosie Thomas and that whole crew. The Choir and Steven Taylor are odd omissions. And including Cauzin’ Effect brings the vast scope of modern Christian Hip-Hop into consideration too.

But I wanted to focus on Michael Knott, whose 1992 solo album Screaming Brittle Siren made the SPIN cut. You may or may not have heard of him. Knott’s been in a lot of different bands. He experimented with a lot of sounds, from the Livesavers (80s power pop) to LSU (goth-y alt-rock) to Aunt Bettys (REM-style radio rock). Pretty good stuff, across the board.