Hymns Ancient and Modern: What Makes the Cut?

For several years, it has been not the least bit unusual for CCM artists to include recordings of traditional hymns and gospel songs on their albums, either as a dedicated hymn album or as part of a more general release.  The Hymns recordings by Second Chapter of Acts in the late 1980's and "Our Hymns" back in 1991 are some of the first of these recordings I became aware of.  These songs generally used the tunes that are commonly sung in church music and punched them up, rocked them out, or otherwise contemporized them. At the very least, they sang the song and added some drums. Voila. A CCM hymn.

But these settings, if used in churches, were more likely to be aimed at soloists.  In more recent years, writers of contemporary worship music have been using traditional songs that are made more current and are more suitable for congregational use. Various Passion recordings, most especially Hymns Ancient and Modern, come to mind.

As I've heard more of these, I have sometimes been surprised that one song or another has been reintroduced in an altered form. It's caused me to speculate on what makes a hymn survive more intact with its traditional tune as opposed to getting a new melody to accompany the older poetry of the lyrics. How do the powers that record decide which hymns make the contemporary worship cut?

Good writing is good writing, and writing that spoke very meaningfully about the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and man or about the human condition in 1785 still speaks meaningfully today.  Sometimes some language may need to be brought up a bit to date, but the depth of the poetry allows it to begin to take on at least some degree of timelessness.

But what about the music?  When to preserve and when to rewrite?  I think there are some songs that a pretty good plurality of folks would agree sound dated so that a putting a fresh tune on great poetry creates a great new song.  I'm speculating, but I would suppose that sometimes an artist has written a tune but hasn't come up with lyrics yet, and someone sees the potential for marrying the tune to an existing hymn. I wonder how many times a contemporary artist actually sets out to write a new tune for an existing lyric.  Having no connections in the industry, I suppose I'll just be left to my speculation.

At any rate, I seem to find myself often turning the idea of datedness over in my mind.  I've heard a friend refer to a song as "surprisingly contemporary" when it was one whose tune I found dated indeed.  I wonder whether there are any musical earmarks that make certain tunes seem long in the tooth while others continue to be loved even after centuries.  I have no answer, but I would be interested to know if there's some sort of measure of datedness.

And I would love to know what other people think about this subject?  Have you ever heard a contemporary version of a traditional song that you wished they'd left alone?  Have you heard any that you thought were a marked improvement over the tune you grew up knowing? What's an old favorite that you think would make a great candidate for a contemporary worship makeover?