Life Changing - Smokie Norful

(Click here to buy on Amazon.com, or click on the album for iTunes)

I'm going to share about one of my favorite artists, Smokie Norful. I love his music, of course, but I especially love his lyrics and his heart to glorify God. He's a pastor in Bolingbrook, IL, which is a suburb of Chicago. He's come out with lots of albums, but my favorite is Life Changing.

In "Run to You," he sings about his dependence on God and I feel like this is a picture of our relationship with God - that we can trust Him to hold us at all times and give us the strength to keep going.



"Um Good" is a really encouraging song for our broken dreams, because even if we haven't been able to fulfill all of those dreams, we can still say that God's been good to us.



Finally, and one of the most powerful songs on the album, is "Where Would I Be?"

This is one of his verses:

What kind of God can take my fragile and wounded heart, fill it with unconditional love
What kind of God can take away my guilt and shame, and give me grace to rise above
It’s no wonder how he can do, every little thing he does for me
If it hadn’t been for you, where would I be?

I hope you are as blessed by this album as I am!

Church Music - David Crowder Band

(Click here to buy from Amazon, or click on the album for iTunes)

It's finally here! David Crowder's newest album, "Church Music." I think they called it that because it's exactly NOT what you would expect to hear at church, and David Crowder's funny like that.

What's kind of cool about this album is that they have songs from other artists, "How He Loves," which is John Mark McMillan's, and "All Around Us," which is by Flyleaf. Yeah, Flyleaf! Who ever thought they would partner up? David Crowder's version is more contemplative and actually, really pretty.

David Crowder is going lots of directions, musically, with this album. It's like visiting a new city - you can't really enjoy it all at once because it would be overwhelming. There's techno, there's hip hop, there's acoustic worship, there's heavy metal... but it all works together. There's a beautiful theme that emerges from all this variety - that our faith is not dependent on one style of music or worship or culture, because God is bigger than all of that.

Even though I love David Crowder and everything he's ever released, it's taking me a while to acquire a taste for this album. It's a lot darker than his other stuff. They're not exactly songs you would take and play for a worship set. There's a lot of techno and electronic stuff, which he's been using for a long time, but it is featured on this album. So here's my somewhat mixed review... he's coming to Chicago Oct. 23rd, join me if you can make it!

I'll leave you with this very fun and joyful song:

Newest from Hillsong United and Hillsong (2009)

I'm putting these two albums together because they're basically like one very long album. There are many of the same artists and writers on both, including Joel Houston, Brooke Ligertwood, and Reuben Morgan.

Let's talk about the United album first. They have a really catchy sound with this CD. A lot of the songs are fun to get into and jump around with. They're branching out musically, and my favorite is "More than Anything" because it's different and has unexpected rhythms!

Also, "Tear Down the Walls" is a really intense song written by Joel Houston as Hillsong made their way across the world, and they realize that it's all about love. Heh.... how do I know this? I went to a Hillsong worship leaders conference, and that's what he said.

And on the "big Hillsong" CD, as we like to call them, Darlene leads on 2 of the songs. To compare this CD with Hillsong United's, it's more calm, but also very powerful lyrically. My favorite on this is "Glow" because it has a nostalgic feel and it's in 3/4 time (triplet feel), which is fun.

I am a big fan of Hillsong/Hillsong United because they're servants of the cross and I respect them for using their musical talent for God's glory and giving youth groups fun songs to worship to!

Jimmy Needham - Not Without Love

(Click Here to buy on Amazon.com, or click on the album for iTunes)

I had been searching for months and months for a Christian equivalent of a pop/acoustic/soul sound like Jason Mraz, and my friend told me about Jimmy Needham a few weeks ago!

Nothing against Jason Mraz. It's just I wanted to listen to someone who's making music about spiritual matters.

The often-heard complaint about contemporary Christian music is that it's only country or ...... country. There weren't many genres even a few years ago. Now there's tons of genres that have branched out in the last few years, including heavy metal, acoustic, as well as new great artists in the gospel/soul genres.

What I love about Jimmy Needham is that his lyrics are VERY Christ-centered. Well, except the one song he's singing to his wife, haha.

My favorite songs off this album are "Firefly," which has a really fun groove, and "Forgiven and Loved," which has a great message as well as an interesting beat. If you were wondering which song he sings to his wife, it's "Unfailing Love."

I've been playing this album non-stop and I'm not sick of it yet. I hope you like it, too!

Pandora.com

So the first thing I'm recommending is not a specific album or artist, it's an online radio staion that remembers what kind of music you like and tries to stay within that style of music. I like it because it cuts way down on commercials (there's only one every half hour or so), and the music is played at a better quality, hopefully, because it's coming out of your speakers and not the radio.

How to use it?

First, go to www.pandora.com, and create a log-in name. Don't worry, they don't spam you at all. Then you can create a personalized station or select a category to start listening.

To create a personalized station, go to "Create a new station" at the top left, and type in your favorite artist, or your favorite song, and they'll do the rest for you.

A fun feature of Pandora is the Quickmix, which lets you play several stations at a time, so you're not only listening to one genre of music. The Quickmix link is on the bottom of the list of your stations.

I discover lots of artists on Pandora that I wouldn't have known otherwise.

Have fun with it!