Talk:List of contemporary worship songs

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[edit] Improvements

OK, so I've renamed this article to "List of notable contemporary worship songs". I think that is a better title and is more consistent with other articles on wikipedia.

As I said yesterday, I feel there is a real need for a list of notable songs. It would be of great value to people with an interest in this genre.

As a first pass, here's some suggested notability criteria.

• A song will be regarded as notable if it is at least five years old and has appeared in the CCLI Top 25 (issued every 6 months) at least 10 times in a single territory. The appearances do not have to be consecutive. (Reason - it is difficult to establish notability for recent songs, which may be popular for a few years and then fall into disuse, meaning they are probably not notable, and a song needs to have been popular for a prolonged period in the same region before it could be considered notable).

• A song will be regarded as notable if it has been published in at least five songbooks (each containing at least 100 songs) over a minimum period of ten years (Reason - inclusion in multiple substantial books over a prolonged period suggests notability and will eliminate most ephemeral material)

• A song will be regarded as notable if it is has been described as such (or as a "classic" or similar) by an authoritative independent verifiable source no less than five years after the songs inital release. (Reason - we should accept the views of experts but disallow premature claims to notability.)

• A song may be regarded as notable if exceptional circumstances exist that are not covered by the above criteria.

Comments welcome...

Sidefall (talk) 09:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Update. (a) I should have pointed out that apart from deleting some entries in the list that seemed completely non-notable, I haven't done any real work on the actual list yet. (b) I'm now not sure whether the word "notable" should be included in the title. It seems that other lists don't contain this word. However, IMO an article called "List of contemporary worship songs" suggests something completely different to "List of notable contemporary worship songs". Sidefall (talk) 09:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, I doubt the necessity of establishing our own notability claims for songs - when notability criteria for songs already exist on WP. Also, this article does not cite any sources; for the average reader who happens across this article, we would need to explain the criteria used in selecting these songs. A short lead is required. Simply writing up a list - is not really necessary, cos if the song was notable, then we could create the individual article for it, then tag it with the category Category:Contemporary worship song or something like that. That's my opinion. 17:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The song notability criteria (from WP:MUSIC) are:

Most songs do not merit an article and should redirect to another relevant article, such as for a prominent album or for the artist who wrote or prominently performed the song. Songs that have been ranked on national or significant music charts, that have won significant awards or honors or that have been performed independently by several notable artists, bands or groups are probably notable. A separate article is only appropriate when there is enough verifiable material to warrant a reasonably detailed article; articles unlikely ever to grow beyond stubs should be merged to articles about an artist or album.

That is primarily based around pop music and isn't directly relevant to worship songs - so we do need some criteria. I think inclusion in the CCLI top 25 for a prolonged period is comparable to "ranked on national...charts". Likewise most notable worship songs have been "performed independently by several notable artists". However, I'm not sure that multiple recordings of a worship song make it notable - it could be recorded by several artists whilst it is popular, but then fall into disuse. That's why I went for the songbook criteria. So I'd suggest my criteria are broadly equivalent to the existing song ones but are refocussed to the worship genre. Likewise there is normally a story behind many notable worship songs which may be enough to create a "reasonably detailed article". I do agree with your point about the category, but until articles can be written about all notable worship songs, a list might be the best choice. I did delete a number of songs from the list which were not notable IMO and will do some more. I think I'll discuss the criteria on Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(music). Sidefall (talk) 18:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Necessity of this list

Is this list really necessary? If the P&W songs are really notable, they can be categorised under an appropriate category. This list would raise a lot of other issues, such as, what would classify a praise and worship song as "notable". I mean, there are so many songs/hymns which are very popular with the masses, but you wouldn't find them topping any radio charts. How do we identify their notability? aJCfreak yAk 14:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree that the list seems unnecessary (or at least lacking focus or purpose). There is already a Category:Christian songs (and various subcategories) into which songs in Wikipedia can be placed.

But I don't understand the "radio charts" comment. P&W songs are presumably songs (mainly) for congregational singing, corporately, in an act of public worship, whereas radio is a medium (mainly) for private home entertainment. Sure, there may be overlap. But entertainment songs (however worshipful) don't always work as corporate worship; likewise worship songs don't necessarily work for the business of running a radio station.

Does the whole CCM/P&W area of Wikipedia need to be clearer about the differing concepts of P&W songs (primarily corporate act of public worship) versus CCM (primarily home-listening CD/radio)?

Perhaps a notability criterion for P&W (i.e. for corporate public worship) could be "Has it been in the top 20 (or 40 or 100 ...) of CCLI during the last 5 (or 10 or 15 ...) years?". And also include those in the top n (in similar m years) in the parallel Calamus (Roman Catholic, Taize, etc.) licensing scheme. Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if I was a lil bit confusing regarding the radio charts. My point was exactly this - P&W songs would not be found on radio charts. So, how do we establish notability for these songs? aJCfreak yAk 16:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this page is unnecessary - it should either be deleted or redirected to an appropriate section of Category:Christian songs. PollyWaffler (talk) 06:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I feel that this article should stay. There are thousands of songs written, but only a small number become notable. Hence a list is very useful. Whilst establishing notability may be difficult, it shouldn't dissuade us from trying! Sidefall (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] this article should be deleted

im sorry, but there are thousands of great worship songs, sung all over the world, featured on TV and radio that arent listed here. this article isnt comprehensive enough, doesnt cite its sources and for that it should go —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.235.165 (talk) 13:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)