Today's Southern Gospel
Although still primarily "old-timey quartet singing," Southern Gospel was evolving by the 1990s to include more soloists and duos. It was most popular in the Southeast and Southwest, but it had a nationwide audience. The music remained "more country than city, more down-home than pretentious".
In 2005, The Radio Book, a broadcast yearbook published by M Street Publications, reported 285 radio stations in the USA with a primary format designation as "Southern Gospel," including 175 AM stations and 110 FM stations. In fact, "Southern Gospel" was the 9th most popular format for AM stations and the 21st most popular for FM. Southern Gospel radio promoters routinely service more than a thousand radio stations which play at least some Southern Gospel music each week. Recent years have also seen the advent of a number of internet-only Southern Gospel "radio" stations.
Two popular satellite stations that feature Southern Gospel are channel 34 on XM Satellite Radio and Channel 67 On Sirius Satellite Radio. Both play the same feed entitled, "Enlighten on SiriusXm". Enlighten plays Southern Gospel and has several featured programs which air weekly including Paul Heil's Gospel Greats and Bill Gaither's Homecoming Radio.
Over the last decade, a newer version of Southern Gospel has grown in popularity. This style is called Progressive Southern Gospel and is characterized by a blend of traditional Southern Gospel, Bluegrass, modern country, contemporary Christian and pop music elements. Progressive Southern Gospel generally features artists who push their voices to produce a sound with an edge to it. The traditional style Southern Gospel singers employ a more classical singing style.
Lyrically, most Progressive Southern Gospel songs are patterned after traditional Southern Gospel in that they maintain a clear evangelistic and/or testimonial slant. Southern Gospel purists view lyrical content and the underlying musical style as the key determining factors for applying the Southern Gospel label to a song.
Although there are some exceptions, most Southern Gospel songs would not be classified as Praise and Worship. Few Southern Gospel songs are sung "to" God as opposed to "about" God. On the other hand, Southern Gospel lyrics are typically overt in their Christian message unlike Contemporary Christian music (CCM) which sometimes has "double entendre" lyrics which could be interpreted as being about a devout love for God or an earthly love for a man or woman. Southern Gospel fans have been among the most vocal critics of such CCM songs particularly if they "cross over" and receive recognition through airplay on mainstream radio.
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