Stake Dances, Revisited

Several years ago, I was on an LDS message board/forum, and someone posted a question asking about a mythical list of "approved songs" that BYU had supposedly compiled for church dances.  At the time, I mentioned that I was bummed that we, as a culture, couldn't produce our own music for our own dances.  Not necessarily to the exclusion of the music of the world, but mixed in with it.
I was shocked at the response I got.  It was not overwhelming in terms of numbers, but it was all negative.  The overall sense was that it was evil to put "church themes" to a danceable beat.  So, somehow, it was better to dredge through the muck that the world puts out to find a few innocuous tunes that are at least inoffensive rather than write our own positive songs.

I'm not saying we should necessarily set sacred themes to bouncy beats.  But we could write our own pop tunes about living the gospel in our lives.

Well, years later, we've got someone taking up this challenge.  Rachelle Call and Janine Laskey have written and recorded a great start.  Five tunes, available for listening at mystakedance.com. 

The two writers/producers are also featured in interview at yourldsradio.com, in the new music segment, hosted by Cherie Call.

I'm very excited by the project.  They're also looking for submissions from other artists as well, so if you make LDS music, please drop in and submit!





Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.



Mark's Other Blog Posts: 2010 IDOS Convention, Making LDS Music