Beaujon, Andrew

PERSONAL:

Hobbies and other interests: Spanish wine, lawn care, hammocks.

ADDRESSES:

Home—VA.

CAREER:

Washington City Paper, Washington, DC, managing editor; former musician with rock band Eggs.

WRITINGS:

Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock, Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Spin, Guardian, and the Washington Post, and to the Web site Salon.com.

SIDELIGHTS:

A newspaper editor and journalist who often writes for music magazines, Andrew Beaujon once played for a rock band known as the Eggs. A friend of his sparked his interest in Christian rock one day, leading him to discover a kind of music he had not explored before. As he explained to Laura Barcella on Nerve.com, his interest "started with a conversation with a friend who had just graduated with a Masters of Divinity from a seminary in Richmond, Virginia (where I was living at the time). He grew up listening to Christian rock; I didn't know anything about it. I pitched it as a story to the Washington Post. When I was preparing for the Post article, I had trouble finding anything about Christian rock that wasn't written by someone who loved Christian rock—or magazine writers who were just sneering about it." Seeing a definite gap to fill, Beaujon wrote a series of articles that he later turned into his first book, Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock.

During his research, the journalist discovered that Christian rock music sells more compact discs (CDs) in America than many other genres, including jazz and classical music, and has a huge fan base, although the songs have not penetrated the Top Forty market. Conducting interviews and attending concerts, Beaujon approaches his subject objectively, refusing to make judgments about the Christian audiences. He also discounts some stereotypes about Christian fundamentalists and distinguishes between those who consider themselves evangelists and those who say they are born-again Christians. The latter accounts for fifty-one percent of the American population, he reveals. Also discussing the various bands in the field, the author "explores the difference between Christian rockers and rockers who are Christians, and finds million-sellers such as Switchfoot and P.O.D. particularly adept at walking the line between the two," according to Matt Fink in a BustedHalo.com article. Fink continued: "All this he does with humor and insight, delivering what is likely the fairest and most even-handed account of the culture surrounding the Christian music industry…. In short, it's just good journalism." Many other critics complimented the book as well. For example, in Library Journal James E. Perone declared Body Piercing Saved My Life to be an "important, well-written study," while a Publishers Weekly contributor felt that this "insider view of the ideologically passionate world of Christian rock is compelling."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

California Bookwatch, September, 2006, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2006, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life, p. 444.

Library Journal, April 15, 2006, James E. Perone, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life, p. 78.

Mother Jones, July-August, 2006, Rina Palta, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life, p. 79.

Publishers Weekly, April 17, 2006, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life, p. 183.

School Library Journal, August, 2006, Sallie Barringer, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life, p. 145.

ONLINE

Andrew Beaujon Web log,http://beaujon.org (January 7, 2007).

Body Piercing Saved My Life Web site,http://bodypiercingsavedmylife.com (January 7, 2007).

BustedHalo.com,http://www.bustedhalo.com/ (January 7, 2007), Matt Fink, "Busted: Andrew Beaujon," interview with Andrew Beaujon and review of Body Piercing Saved My Life.

Infuzemag.com,http://www.infuzemag.com/ (January 7, 2007), interview with Andrew Beaujon.

Nerve.com,http://www.nerve.com/ (June 13, 2006), Laura Barcella, "The Diviners: Andrew Beaujon Sees the Future of Rock, and It Is Christian," interview with Andrew Beaujon.

Popmatters.com,http://www.popmatters.com/ (May 1, 2006), Whitney Strub, review of Body Piercing Saved My Life.