Culture & Youth

Christian Band Named MSN Artist of the Year

Alternative worship artist David Crowder and his band were named Artist of the Year at the MSN Music portal, beating Prince, Christina Aguilera, INXS, and Kenny Chesney.

by Anne Thomas

Posted: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 9:38 (GMT)

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Alternative worship artist David Crowder and his band were named Artist of the Year at the MSN Music portal, beating out Prince, Christina Aguilera, INXS, and Kenny Chesney.

The band received an overwhelming number of votes from fans, which was decided solely through online voting.

David Crowder Band recently performed at the mega collegiate Passion07 conference, alongside worship leaders Matt Redman, Charlie Hall, and Chris Tomlin.

Known to capture the attention of mainstream media, such as the New York Times, CNN, and FOX News, the band is known for pushing musical boundaries.

In addition, David Crowder Band was the first Christian artist to foster a partnership with M-Audio/Propellerhead's Reason software and 'Crowder' is the namesake behind premiere guitar maker Tom Anderson Guitarworks' Crowdster Acoustic and the DCB-inspired guitar, The Atom.

An engaging headline band, Crowder has also toured with Michael W. Smith, MercyMe and Third Day, and continues to be a featured band at collegiate Passion gatherings.

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Added: Sunday, January 21, 2007, 0:20 (GMT)

It is incredibly sad that fans of a band that espouses Christian values, lowered themselves to cheat in order to win an online poll. I really don't blame the band, unless they encouraged their fans to participate in the rigged voting.

I wonder what the band actually thinks about their 'win' and how meaningful it is to them? I know that I wouldn't thank anyone who had so little faith in me, that they felt the only way I could win was to for my fans to rig the voting. This is pathetic.

Gina, Hunter, USA

Added: Friday, January 19, 2007, 18:46 (GMT)

DCB is amazing, they did not cheat in their votes. People are just accusing because they've nothing else to complain about and its about time a Christian won a award!

Jon Smith, Loveland, Colorado

Added: Tuesday, January 16, 2007, 21:34 (GMT)

It's shocking to hear that DCB fans cheated to win a meaningless poll. However after reviewing the bands my space & website. There are comments that also show a glimmer of the good side of the DCB fans. At least one fan contacted MSN about at least 5 bots that INXS fans had set up jacking up the vote count in their favor. The note states that MSN responded that they could do nothing about the bots being used. Unfortunately the fan chose to join the INXS fans in cheating! Not an acceptable response for a follower of Jesus Christ! However I can see how certain people would lack perspecitve and find it difficult to not stoop to the level of the INXS fans. It can be frustrating as a Christian to always feel disenfranchised and that what matters to you is never recognized by the majority. The % varies a little but born-again Christians are at least 10% of this country's population and we along with our issues get so much less air time, recognition than groups that are only about 2-3% of this country.Groups such as Muslims which are about 10,000,000 of the 300,000,000 in this nation. Same goes for the homosexual community which is again about 2-3% of this nation. Some homosexual groups state they represent as much as 10% of his nation. Even if that was true born again Christians in America are at least as many and get a sliver of the attention in media as the aforementioned group. I know this is long winded. I'm not supporting cheating, just stating that sometimes it can get to be a bit much to live with as a devoted follower of Jesus Christ in this country. Bottom line don't cheat even if everyone else is doing it.

Jeff Bridell, Mound, U.S.A.

Added: Wednesday, January 10, 2007, 1:05 (GMT)

I don't consider the David Crowder Band the MSN Artists Of The Year because their fans cheated, they even bragged about cheating on the fan site....enjoy your hollow victory.

Kim, Canada

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 22:51 (GMT)

I hope it has been brought to your attention that the fans of the David Crowder Band used "vote bots" in order to get the "overwhelming" number of votes that you refer to. If you look at the bands Myspace site just prior to the years end you will see supposed Christian "fans" encouraging people to use the vote bots - very shameful!!

Kimberley Gray, Redmond, WA

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 19:24 (GMT)

You may wish to find out how they received such an overwhelming vote...look at the David Crowder MySpace site on the days leading up to the end of the voting (ie Dec 30 and 31) and you will see posts from fans encouraging other fans to use voting bots that could outvote any human no matter how hard they tried!!!

Shirley Furesz, Dundas, Canada

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 18:11 (GMT)

DCB won because they used a cheat program. Its all documented on the DCB page on myspace (quotes available if you need them). They accused INXS fans of doing all the cheating, however, from certain INXS fans point of view (me being one) it was just a last gasp way to try to even up the rigged voting after MSN representatives said they could not stop the cheating that had been taking place since early on.

In the very early stages INXS was winning fairly. DCB fans wrote the cheat program and had been cheating for days, logging 100s of 1000s of votes every hour. This would not have been possible purely by voting manually.

If cheating is only way that this band feels they can win a poll then it doesn't appear to give a positive view of their Christianity.

Michele, London, England

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 15:34 (GMT)

How very christian of you guys to cheat your way to victory with a voting bot....nicely done

Wendy, London, England

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 14:49 (GMT)

It's sad that fans of a "Christian" band decided to show their true colors by cheating to win this. Believe me, a lot of people saw what happened and also saw that a band member decided that was ok.

Lynn, USA

Added: Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 14:28 (GMT)

I can tell you how they received their overwhelming number of votes - the Christian band and their fans were using voting bots to automatically cast upwards of 100 votes every five seconds (per fan). A member of the band even posted on his blog how proud he was that their "bots" were successful.

Sad that a "Christian" band would resort to cheating - especially for something as unimportant as a non-scientific poll that didn't even mean anything.

KrisK, New York USA