Gospel tunes from unexpected voices

In 1979 and 1980, the sudden appearance of what were, to one extent or another, gospel albums by Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Van Morrison, Maria Muldaur, and T-Bone Burnett led some listeners to proclaim a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit. Alas, without that era’s monoculture, it’s hard to imagine something similar causing a stir today.

Still, something similar there is. And because it’s coming from the “Godmother of German Punk” Nina Hagen, the hip-hopper M.I.A., and the singer-­songwriter Joseph Arthur, it’s weirder and sometimes wilder than what came before.

When it comes to “weird and wild,” Nina Hagen has few competitors. And on that score, her latest album, Highway to Heaven (Grönland), doesn’t disappoint: It’s a collection of hymns and Southern-gospel standards sung as only a theatrical septuagenarian—backed by a combo adept at folk, reggae, blues, and rock ’n’ roll—can sing them.

It is not, however, totally unexpected. Hagen has released gospel music before (Personal Jesus, portions of Volksbeat). And, the brief half-life of celebrity conversions notwithstanding, she still stands behind her public 2009 profession of Christian faith. So the playful, borderline-goofy zeal with which she and her occasional duet partners put the material across feels authentic.

M.I.7 (Ohmni) and You’re Not a Ghost Anymore: Faith (Lonely Astronaut), the new albums by M.I.A. and Joseph Arthur respectively, feel authentic too. But, unlike Hagen, who’s singing the time-tested words of others, M.I.A. and Arthur are delivering their own faith-based songs while burdened by uniquely 21st-century baggage.

To wit: Both have been labeled conspiracy theorists—Arthur for expressing and doubling down on COVID-vaccine skepticism and M.I.A. for the same plus cozying up to Alex Jones and launching a 5G-blocking clothing line. Various degrees of cancellation have ensued.

M.I.7 finds M.I.A., who traces her conversion to a 2017 vision of Christ, mingling apocalyptic messaging straight out of Revelation with unadorned gospel sentiment (e.g., the Sunday Service Choir–enhanced “Jesus”). What might be called a theological loose end, the mysterious “God thanked it,” occurs in all seven of the tracks titled “Trumpet,” but it’s not half as flummoxing as the concluding track, “30 Minutes of Silence.” Pretty much what its title says, it simultaneously provides stark contrast to the rest of the album’s rat-a-tat beats and should make fans of John Cage’s 4’33” positively giddy.

You’re Not a Ghost Anymore has a theological loose end or two as well, but it’s mainly Joseph Arthur’s 12-song attempt to impress on listeners the radical difference that believing in Jesus and immersion in Scripture is making in his life. To that end, Arthur swathes his singing in the layered, electronically distorted sounds that he’s become known for, effectively rendering palpable the ineffability of what he’s trying to convey.