Most music picked for mainstream Christian radio fits the light or soft rock, dance, or MOR genres. Lots of artists have a few numbers that fit there, while most of their stuff is different. Of the five examples in this article, three are ill-represented, one is very accurately represented, and the other gets fair coverage, if you hear several of their numbers. (As you read, bear in mind that I'm writing this in mid-June.)
A fair amount of air-time is being given to Audio Adrenaline's "Ocean Floor." "Ocean Floor" comes from the CD Lift. Lift is rather a let-down after Bloom, Some Kind of Zombie and Underdog. "Ocean Floor" is one of the more lethargic cuts from the CD. Don't base your opinion of Audio Adrenaline on this adrenaline-deprived tune, unless, of course, Lift shows the direction the group is taking.
Surprisingly, the heavier-than-Audio-Adrenaline Skillet is making Christian pop radio. As with "Ocean Floor," the music-pickers chose the love-ballad-style "You Are My Hope." Granted, "You Are My Hope" is one of the harder tunes my Christian pop radio plays, but Skillet is NOT a ballad group. Skillet normally features hard, loud, pounding electronic distortions and a great chugging bass. What the radio plays really isn't Skillet.
I'd heard some of D.C. Talk's early stuff. When Carman was belting out "Satan, Bite the Dust" and "Our Turn Now," and I was starting to sample Stryper and Petra, D.C. Talk was making hits with rap and hip-hop. I developed my D.C. Talk avoidance then. I thought I'd give 'em a chance again, since their "Jesus Freak" was one of the songs which convinced me to make my switch to Christian. I bought their Intermission CD, which is a greatest hits sort of album. I rated each song with my 1-5 scale and gave this so-called greatest hits CD an overall 2.66, which doesn't even make my "3" standard. A "3" means I'd pick the song to play on a radio station, if I was in such a position, but not for my own collection. That's my lowest "good" rating.
FFH (Far From Home) is a different sort of group. Some of their songs, in my opinion, are real yawners, and some are great. The radio plays 'em all. You'd have to hear several tunes to get a good impression, but it's there to be got. I bought two of their CDs just for the rocking-side of their repertoire. I found that I liked more than the song for which I bought the CD. It's typical of my old (pre-internet)selection method where a couple songs on the album are great, but the rest are unimpressive.
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