Skillet Collects Two More Dove Awards

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Skillet picks up two more Dove Awards:

  • Rock/Contemporary Song Of The Year:  Legendary
  • Rock/Contemporary Album Of The Year:  Victorious

We have two reactions to this.  The fact that we love the band Skillet and we love its members has us saying: “Congratulations!  We are very happy for you.”

But the sarcastic/jaded side of us says…

Well, of course Skillet continues to win Dove Awards now!

They are accepted within the realm of mainstream Christian music and records.

This is bittersweet for us long-time Skillet fans that are still upset about the fact that they were passed over in favor of much less deserving bands like The W’s back in Skillet’s early heydays.

Polling of The Blast audience indicated that Demon Hunter War should have been the winner in the Rock album of the year category, but we highly doubt any band with the name demon in it, with such heavy music, will fare well in a “Rock/Contemporary” category against a band that has been accepted in the circles of mainstream Christian radio.

Most of the voters probably saw Skillet on the ballot and saw the other 4 contenders and said “Who are these guys?”

We’re not confident that there is a lot of actual knowledge about Christian Rock (and about the other great bands that were nominated for these awards) among the Dove Award voters.

 

 

Fireflight Releases Video For Single “Who We Are”

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Fireflight has released a video for Who We Are, the debut single from the highly anticipated new album The Head And The Heart, out now on Rockfest Records.  Here it is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I0GNx0dL38&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1w0qKGrc661p5FRrqSAM3JNwUKQpWhL7CoNRntCKAQDm7WusKIyS_MVso

Ignescent Teases Video For New Single “Exodus”

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Ignescent’s new single Exodus (featuring Jeremy Valentyne)…will have an accompanying video out to the public on Halloween.   Here is a preview of this video for this song which we’ve been Blasting for a few weeks on TheBlast.FM:

https://www.facebook.com/ignescentmusic/videos/268598621206100/

Disciple To Perform Entire Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Album In Concert

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Horseshoes & Hand Grenades was a big album for TheBlast.FM when it came out  in 2010 and for a couple years after that.  We played Battle Lines, Comedy Tragedy, and Disasterpiece, and we still play all three songs.

So this is very exciting news for us, plagiarized from Disciple’s Facebook page:

Ten years of Horseshoes & Handgrenades. Two Disciple lineups. One once-in-a-lifetime livestream event.
HORSESHOES & HANDGRENADES: ANNIVERSARY X will stream on November 21, featuring the ENTIRE Horseshoes & Handgrenades album played front to back with some help from “Disciple 2.0:” Micah Sannan, Andrew Welch, Israel Beachy, and Trent Reiff! We’ll also be playing Love Letter Kill Shot deluxe tracks “Enemy” and “Darkness Dies” for the first time. Get your ticket now: itickets.com/events/449963
Horseshoes & Handgrenades left a lasting impact on us as a band, and we have so many ways we want to celebrate all of the support you’ve shown this album over the past decade. All seven of the Horseshoes & Handgrenades b-sides will be sent to ticket holders VIP and above, there’s a special event shirt designed by our friend Jarob at

Quiet Strength Design (Blast note:  that’s Jarob from The Protest!)
We’re doing a VIP Q&A hangout with all of the current members as well as the 2.0 guys, we’re offering a very limited run of reprint H&H merch for the Anniversary X ticket package, and there might even be a way that you can be a crucial part of the evening (stay tuned for details).
Like with our other livestream concerts this year, all ticket holders will get access to a full audio and video download of the show afterwards, so you can get a ticket even if you won’t be free to watch live! There are more details on the ticket page.

Demon Hunter Releases Video For Cut To Fit

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Demon Hunter has released a video for the song Cut To Fit, which we’ve been Blasting for a little over a year.  It is found on the War album:  https://youtu.be/CKUN48QWL1U #DemonHunter

Hear Fireflight’s Full New Album: Wednesday 8 PM USA Central Time

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Wednesday it is a listening party for the next album from Fireflight!   It happens at 8 PM USA/Canadian/Mexican Central Time on Fireflight’s Facebook page.  They will also be giving out some prizes.

Update: Blasters Say War! 2020 Dove Award Nominees For “The Rock/Contemporary” Album Of The Year

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These are the four most valid choices for what should be the Dove Awards’ 2020 “Rock” Album Of The Year category:  Demon Hunter War  (definitely the more hard rockin’ of the War and Peace double album release this year); Disciple Love Letter Kill Shot; Red Declaration; and Skillet Victorious.

But this is not a Rock album of the year category…it is a “Rock/Contemporary” Album of the Year.

First of all, what the crap is “Rock/Contemporary”, anyway?  I miss the long-gone “good old days” when the Dove Awards had straight up Rock categories.

But, alas, this is the Duh-v Awards…and this is the “Rock/Contemporary” category.

Longtime Blasters know one of our old pieces of radio imaging said “Contemporary is a 12-letter word that we have no use for at TheBlast.FM”.   So there’s that…to spew forth a ridiculously dumb cliche saying.

The fifth nominee is a cool pop band called Apollo LTD with an album called Out Of Body.  They are in this category because their music is far too cool to be in an adult contemporary category.   There is no category for edgier pop that is too cool and edgy for adult contemporary radio.

The Christian music industry has all but killed the Christian CHR/Top 40 format…the format that is musically in between Rock and Adult Contemporary, because the know-it-all-powers-that-be think all of the “CHR” and AC stations “should all be punching a hole through the wall in the same spot.”  Ah: conformity.

Well, we will have none of that.  This is why we launched Christian Hot CHR station The Blast Blender in 2014.  Formatically, it lies in between Rock and where most Christian “CHR’s” and Hot AC stations are.

Incidentally, we predict that Apollo LTD will win this (mostly) Rock category.  Because that is the result that will be most maddening, and make the least amount of sense.

Snarkily yours,

Colin Cruz…Program Director of TheBlast.FM

Update:  our final Twitter poll results:

According to Blasters, Demon Hunter should win the Dove Award in the “Rock/Contemporary Album Of The Year Category”. Final results:
 
1. Demon Hunter “War” 38.1%
2. Red “Declaration” 28.6%
3. Skillet “Victorious” 23.8%
4. Disciple “Love Letter Kill Shot” 9.5%
5. Apollo LTD “Out Of Body” did not qualify for the poll as: a. they are a pop group; b. we are a rock station; and c. Twitter only allows 4 choices.

 

 

 

 

Collabs And Band Member-Sharing At Kingdom Come Festival

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Amongst The Giants lead singer Brian Boyd

Collaborations and band member-sharing.  There is a whole lot of both happening these days in Christian Rock, and a lot of it happened at the Kingdom Come Festival this month.  Matt Baird showed up on stage to do It’s OK with Death Therapy; Marco Pera (of Amongst The Giants) played bass for Disciple; Chaotic Resemblance’s drummer John Jakway banged the skins in an emergency for Spoken; and any time you have multiple Rockfest Records bands present, the Rockfest fam comes together.  Here is a snippet of  Amongst The Giants in concert, with help from Zahna and The Persuaded:  https://www.facebook.com/TheBlastFM/videos/732599020904851/

 

The Letter Black Is In The Studio!

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The Letter Black in concert

As a radio station that has been playing The Letter Black on the radio since August 2,  2007 when they were called “Breaking The Silence” with the song The Stand…TheBlast.FM is very excited about the fact that they have been in the studio for the last 3 days recording the first phase of the next album, which will be on Rockfest Records.  They go back to the studio for phase 2 in August 2020!