There's some interesting stuff in the comment boxes below related to the Top 100 Hymns. Fr. Tharp has a simple solution for pastors: give the music director a list of hymns that don't make the theological cut and request they be removed from the parish repertiore.
It strikes me that the faithful need to wait for pastors who are willing and able to do something that the US Bishops have not done for forty years: get specific about hymn and song texts. I'm in my 10th year as a choir director and the silence sometimes makes me wonder where music is in the hierarchy of liturgical importance. Somewhere between flowers for the altar and cushions for the pews? Or somwhere between the placement of the tabernacle and the use of unleavened bread?
The flip-side is the heavy-handed pastor who has his list of favorites that includes the Top 40 hits from 1960-present, and can't stand latin, "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" or even "By Thou My Vision." I've heard the stories that make the average, faithful organist run screaming into the night.
It's great more guidance is coming even if you'll hear the cries of oppression from the folks who think it's perfectly acceptable to sing whatever makes them feel good.
Just remember who didn't cry "Oppression!" on Good Friday.
I've been wondering lately if the fact that the GIRM requires that hymns during Mass come from a collection approved by the National Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop doesn't mean that in effect there are no hymns approved for Mass in the U.S.A., because there is no approved list.
Which means that the only licit option is to use the Gradual or Simple Gradual, which have been published.
Over the past three years or so, I've been exposed to the knowledge that the Church used to know about modes, rhythmns, how they affect people, and which sorts are suitable for which lyrics, and where in the liturgy. Boethius and Augustine both wrote on this, though I do not have access to either in English.
The LCMS appears to be beginning to become awware of this, at least in some quarters.
At my parish, I , the new music director, had to inform the pastor, who hadn't noticed, that the liturgist, who used to program the hymns, had favorites like the one that says the Church's mission is NOT to preach our creed, and that I would neither play nor sing such a thing, or antyhing else I consider heretical..
(I also, through sheer cantankerousness, won't play a couple of Gather hymns because they are such LOUSY music; and I won't play Halle halle Halle for the Gosple acclamation becasue it is innappropriately lacking in solemnity and dignity for that part of the Mass, but that is another problem altogether.)