Faith in the music and market

President Bush isn’t the only one talking about faith-based initiatives.

One is about to be launched in the pop music world, designed to get the band Jars of Clay back onto “mainstream” radio stations.

The Nashville-based quartet, which has never hidden its Christian orientation, had radio success a decade ago with its first single, the uplifting folk-rock record “Flood.” But while it’s remained one of the top acts in Christian music (its “Show Your Love” is the No. 1 song on Christian stations), secular radio programmers have not embraced anything it has released since “Flood.”

“A lot has happened in the last two years for Jars,” says Dan Haseltine, the band’s singer and primary songwriter. “We’ve changed management, we turned 10 as a band. We knew what we wanted to do in making our new album, and we did it. We want people to hear it. We felt it’s a record that can translate, not simply things that only Christians can relate to.”

A lot has also changed in the pop landscape in recent years. Creed, P.O.D., Evanescence and Stacie Orrico (up for a best new artist Grammy tonight) have all straddled the Christian and mainstream markets to varying degrees. Haseltine is encouraged, not so much that a Christian message can be accepted in the pop world, but that music with any message at all can break through.

“Evanescence, P.O.D. -- these groups are saying you have to define your terms,” he says. “You can’t just say, ‘Yes, I’m a Christian artist,’ because that means so many things. Growing up, I listened to Sting and Peter Gabriel and a lot of bands that had a passion for what they were talking about, whether about a philosophy or a protest. They believed in something, but music lost that and a sense of ironic detachment took over.”

The drive for mainstream play is being spearheaded by the band’s new management, Nettwerk (home of Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne), together with the Provident Music Group, BMG Entertainment’s Christian music division, which releases Jars music. The single and the album “Who We Are Instead,” both released in the Christian market in December, will now get a big push to adult contemporary and adult alternative (Triple A) radio formats.

“We have a great band and a great song, and we’re taking it to radio like every other record company does,” says Provident president and CEO Terry Hemmings. “Forty percent of Jars’ sales take place in non-Christian retail stores as it is. There’s a foundation that exists for the band.”

Hoping downloads don’t let him down

Elvis left the building, but he left the door wide open for Junkie XL, the electronica producer whose 2002 dance remix of the Presley obscurity “A Little Less Conversation” was one of the biggest international hits of recent years.

Now Junkie XL (a.k.a. Tom Holkenborg) is going on without the King, though he has enlisted some other rock royalty to help on an ambitious new project, “Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin.” Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, the Cure’s Robert Smith, the Specials’ Terry Hall, Gary Numan and R&B; great Solomon Burke are among the 16 vocalists on the double album, which will be released by KOCH Records this month.

But that’s only half the project. Holkenborg is launching an Internet venture at his website, www.radiojxl.com, where fans can download an entire extra album, “7 A.M.,” containing an additional 140 minutes of music, for $6.99. The site also features a library of samples fans can download for their own musical projects as well as a place for budding producers to post compositions and a series of instructional courses about electronic music production.

“I’m trying to approach the Internet user from the other side, not from the accusing point of view, not pointing fingers,” says Holkenborg, 36, a native of Holland now based in Los Angeles. “I understand where they’re coming from, 12 to 25 years old. Life is expensive. If you don’t come up with a lot of content and a good reason why they should invest in you, people go online and download it themselves. But we’re saying, ‘Hey, if you want to support this, go out and buy the album.’ ”

Conspiracy theory also revealed

A lot has been said this past week about Justin Timberlake’s, uh, revelation of Janet Jackson. But there’s one theory that has not been floated, and we think it bears consideration.

Let’s call it “The Manchurian Mouseketeer.” Timberlake, of course, got his start on the Disney Channel’s ‘90s revival of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Now, suppose that while there, Timberlake was hypnotized and turned into a “sleeper” who could be later used in a strike against a Disney rival. Suppose Disney orchestrated his rise to pop stardom, biding its time for the right opportunity.

And there it came, the Super Bowl halftime show, which Disney used to produce but this year was done by MTV, a division of Viacom, which also owns the game’s broadcaster, CBS, and is one of the Walt Disney Co.’s chief competitors. Acting on a command programmed into him back when he was wearing mouse ears (maybe the code was “Rhythm Nation”), Timberlake sprang into action, and bam, MTV is now networka non grata with the NFL.

Farfetched? Perhaps. But if Disney winds up producing the 2005 halftime show . . . well, you read it here first.