A while back, I blogged about the fact that Youtube is setting itself up as a competitor to Spotify by putting out artists’ digital music, including both new releases and back catalogues. Reader and musician Kyle Boreing noted that technically, since these videos are ad-supported, artists are supposed to receive some revenue. Well, if the kind of revenue they get from Spotify is any indication, that’s probably small comfort. And it probably means streaming platforms like Spotify aren’t economically sustainable... Read more
Summer has officially begun for me, and I’m excited! I have many plans, but writing more is certainly among them. I decided to kick it off by answering a request from some readers to review David Phelps’s new solo album, Freedom. I poked some fun at the album cover a couple weeks ago, but people wondered if I was actually going to comment on the music. So, for the first time in a long time, here’s my track by track take... Read more
“Okay, now hold up your phone, and you can just look natural … okay, and maybe you want to soften a little. Okay, a little more. Okay, um, maybe a LOT more…” (Note: One roundabout reference to the prospective First Dude’s misdemeanors. Nothing explicit.) Read more
Recently, ChristianCinema.com released the results of a month-long movie poll pitting various Christian films against each other. Paralleling basketball’s “March Madness,” the tournament entered 64 films that were eliminated or advanced in a knockout format as Christian viewers voted. Naturally, movies with an aggressive social media campaign behind them had an edge, which might explain why the 2014 release God’s Not Dead was ultimately crowned (in Christian Cinema’s words) the “Best. Movie. Ever.” Because nobody’s ever made good films outside the evangelical Christian... Read more
The other day we had friends over to our house to sing hymns together, and someone requested this hymn. Someone else pointed out that we were coming up on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking (April 15), and that the ship’s string quartet played the hymn while they went down. While there are a couple of contradictory accounts, we do know that a number of survivors reported this. From Wikipedia: George Orrell, the bandmaster of the rescue ship, RMS Carpathia, who spoke... Read more
Okay everyone, I’m counting on you. Here is the album cover for Freedom, the latest solo record by Gaither Vocal Band tenor David Phelps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with an awesome caption for this manifestly ridiculous photo. Here’s mine: “Iiiiiiiit’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday!” Read more
Everyone’s favorite hip retro southern gospel quartet is baaaaack with another CD/DVD, coming soon to a Christian bookstore near YOU (pre-order). This is me NOT commenting on the album cover’s color scheme! Spoiler: I couldn’t resist forever, but you’ll have to read the whole review to get to the part where my will breaks. So… what are you waiting for? (more…) Read more
This week, I took my youngest sister to the theater for a screening of a new family adventure movie called Beyond the Mask. It was produced by cousins Chad and Aaron Burns, homeschool alumni who are now working to make Christian films together. Set at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, it boasts some scenery-chewing star power with John Rhys-Davies as the villain (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lord of the Rings) and contains more special effects shots than blockbusters like Inception and Pirates of the Caribbean. (When I showed... Read more
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Anatomy of a Song: “Ireland” by Garth Brooks
Last week, I remarked on the pros and cons of Garth Brooks’s stance on digital music (in short, he’s agin it). However, I scraped together a few favorites from Youtube, which happily included the deep album cut “Ireland.” I’m using it to revive my “Anatomy of a Song” series, which was sorely neglected after only one entry. “Ireland” comes from the 1995 release Fresh Horses, a project that tinkered with a wide palette of sounds. This stirring ode to the Emerald... Read more