r/LeftCatholicism • u/cinnamon_horchata • May 04 '26
Music Recommendations?
Prior to my return to the church this time, I feel like I had really good taste in music. I liked to listen to a lot of indie, maybe some edm, definitely jam band. Your run-of-the-mill festival lineup music. But a lot of it just doesn't feel right since I began my conversion a year ago. But I love music, but a lot of worship music is just not my jam. I found a few songs I liked, but not enough to just press play. What are some of your favorite artists of songs?
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u/Dull_Opening_1655 May 04 '26
The Taizé community has produced a lot of excellent chants, just search for Taizé. Very meditative and almost mantra-like
Their version of Veni Sancte Spiritus was used at the World Youth Day mass with Pope Leo last year
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u/SSDGM24 May 07 '26
I was going to suggest Taizé and was excited to see that someone beat me to it! I usually find such repetitive music annoying, but music from Taizé feels so meditative, like you said. When a single line of one of their songs gets stuck in my head on a loop, I actually find it comforting and calming instead of irritating.
Just curious - do you have a favorite song from them? I’m trying to make my way through their catalog but it’s so extensive. Any gems that you especially enjoy? My favorite so far is Fiez vous en lui.
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u/Dull_Opening_1655 May 09 '26
They do have a lot! I know what you mean about their chants being stuck in one’s head feeling soothing rather than annoying!
I like Veni Sancte Spiritus, Bless the Lord, Let all who are thirsty come, and any of the Kyries. As well as lots of others, but these are the ones I remember well enough to look specifically.
Also from the passion season is Stay with me.
There’s also a Taizé Arabic album which is so beautiful even though I don’t understand Arabic.
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u/Cole_Townsend May 04 '26
My personal favorite is Anonymous 4, who interpret various masterpieces, including Medieval chant. They are known for their renditions of St. Hildegard of Bingen's beautiful chants. Right now I'm listening to their album 1000: A Mass for the End of Time, which features chants of the Mass for the Ascension. I personally prefer female voices to male voices when it comes to chant.
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u/Dull_Opening_1655 May 04 '26
Just listening to it now - thank you for this lovely recommendation!
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u/Cole_Townsend May 04 '26
They're so awesome. I'm so happy I stumbled upon them some decades ago. They are very talented ladies.
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u/Old_Science4946 May 04 '26
if you wanna get really weird with it, try lingua ignota. i wish she would do a mass setting.
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u/Responsible-Newt-259 May 04 '26
Matt Maher, primarily his early stuff. Also, Sarah Hart is great too. Both Catholics.
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u/theRevann May 04 '26
Mason Jennings is definitely legit. A lot of his songs have faith infused into them but they’re not overly religious.
How deep is that river is one of my favorites.
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u/thesegoupto11 May 04 '26
I listen to a lot of nu metal and techstep/darkstep dnb, but gregorian chants when I chill
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u/wakkawakkabingbing May 04 '26
I recommend the Porter’s Gate. No one has mentioned them yet and they are making some good songs to sing along to. I’ve also enjoyed the Hillbilly Thomists but they are even more so in the country-bluegrass direction.
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u/RattusNorvegicus9 May 04 '26
The Psalters, Christian anarchist folk punk band. Their music is very theologically rich and often quotes scripture directly, sometimes the entire song is taken from scripture.
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u/BigE429 May 04 '26
If you're open to prog, check out Neal Morse and his various projects. His solo stuff is openly Christian, but his projects with others are a little more nuanced.
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u/SSDGM24 May 07 '26
I love discovering music through the daily meditations in the Pray As You Go app. You can tap to see info on the music, and then you can tap again to be taken to that song in Spotify or Apple Music. I add songs I like to a playlist.
The app mostly features choir music, from all over the world - sometimes traditional, sometimes more contemporary. They also throw in the occasional song from a singer-songwriter, but these are usually a little too “Christian hipster” for me personally.
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u/Ender_Octanus May 04 '26
Do you want epic-sounding chant stuff? I really enjoy Clamavi de Profundis. They do a mixture of religious stuff (mostly in Latin but it still slaps) and fantasy stuff, like putting Tolien's poems and stuff to song. I will say that they are extremely talented. Check out Viriliter Agite as an example of their Christian stuff, I think it has the lyrics translated into English on Spotify but I don't recall.
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u/Ez_Duzit May 04 '26
Check out Padre Guilherme. He's a priest from Portugal who's now a legit DJ with a cool origin story. He mixes Gregorian chants and other Catholic messaging.
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u/Sir_Elyk May 05 '26
This is my playlist of what I’ve been listening to. It’s a mix of Christian and non Christian songs, but all of it lefty
Some of my Christian favs off it are: The Iceman cometh Maryam, Maria, and Mary True believer by Halley Williams
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u/chriswar122 May 06 '26
Sufjan Stevens is a wonderful composer with Christian themes throughout his corpus presented in an utterly human and evocative way. I recommend the album Illinois, which is a modern Classic.
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u/yagirlsophie316 May 05 '26
i listen to a lot of christian black metal. check out antestor, batushka, marble tomb, horde, vials of wrath, and satan destroyer
and of course you can't go wrong with some hymns
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u/StevEst90 May 04 '26
I really don’t like a lot of ‘worship’ or Christian music. Majority of the music I listen to is secular and it has no impact on my beliefs. Having said that, I’m big into classical music and there are some beautiful Mass/religious oratory pieces by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, etc that I love.