I was a professional musician before God saved me. I played in bars & pubs, & concerts. After I got saved, I dedicated my music to God. I became a mysic teacher, taught band, choir and elementary music, including Orff & Kodaly, recorders, ukelele, recorder as well as singing on pitch and in harmony. I also used to do recording of songs. So I do know about what I speak!
I also have played in various worship teams in church for 42 years. The second year I was a Christian, my husband & I moved up north for his work. In those days, we used overhead projectors for music, and the bulb burned out. It took 1 1/2 years to get it replaced. This was a Pentecostal Church, but we also had hymnals, we had to use them when the projector was broken.
The result was I learned a lot of old hymns, and came to really like theology, and the complex music of many hymns. The year before, we had been in a charismatic church, which mostly sang choruses in KJV English, over and over, it was very shallow!
When I started going to Baptist churches, there was a variety. Some hymns, modern Christian songs, and long verses/chorus songs. I realized the hymns were more meaningful, to say nothing of all the Biblicsl errors and bad doctrine being taught the modern songs. One was Robin Mark's "Days of Elijah." The second verse said something about David building the temple of praise. David did write a lot of Psalms, but David was not allowed to build the temple, because of his sin. Instead, Solomon built it. Yes, it is a small thing! Not even deep theology, but a simple historical fact found in the Bible which was wrong in the song. I like Robin Mark! I've seen him in concert. But why did he leave a major error in his song?
It seems like the old hymns don't make mistakes like that. Contemporary Christian songs tend to be simplistic. Music wise. They follow a format, & every song comes out sounding the same. Plus, there are some churches with really bad theology, which comes out in their music. Bad music, terrible lyrics! I used to listen to a lot of Christian music. In the 80's & 90's. But I went back to secular music because CCM is so awful! I also like classical, jazz, folk & other music.
It's too bad the choice is between hymns or dead, badly written Christian music!