Happy St. Stephen’s Day, and Day 3 of our 12 Essential Tracks of Christmas! Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without this next group. Today we are climbing into our Delorean and going back to the 1984 debut of (drum roll) Mannheim Steamroller! Although they gradually ran out of, er, steam and became essentially a parody of themselves, Mannheim Steamroller Christmas remains a classic. Truth be told, I could have put half of that album into the essentials kit, but I didn’t... Read more
On this Christmas day, let the American Boys Choir’s original cut of this contemporary classic bring rest to your soul. Michael W. Smith and Wayne Kirkpatrick’s “All is Well” All is well, all is well Angels and men rejoice For tonight darkness fell Into the dawn of love’s light Sing A-le, sing A-le Sing Alleluia Read more
Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas! As my gift to you readers, I’m trying something a little different this year. Instead of taking Christmas off, I’m preparing a little series of twelve posts in a row (okay, maybe we’ll take a little Duck Dynasty break in the middle for next Monday’s funnies), but, essentially, twelve posts in a row. I’m calling it “The 12 Essential Tracks of Christmas.” To avoid confusion, let me explain what this series is not. It is not the twelve essential... Read more
Because I have a special treat planned for each of the twelve days of Christmas (!) to come, I wanted to make sure this review went up before the Christmas season was wearing off for everyone. So I’ve decided to bump Monday Morning Humor for the day and give you a look at this worshipful Christmas offering from Davy, Kelly and Odie Boggs. Their live album Havin’ Church received critical praise from both me and Musicscribe. He Came is their first Christmas... Read more
Some people seem to dislike this particular carol with the passion of a thousand Christmas light bulbs, but I’ve always loved it. (No comment on how much of that attachment is due to sentimental childhood memories of that Rankin Bass special!) No matter how many times I hear it, somehow it always strikes me fresh. Of course, it helps if it’s performed well. Read on to find out who we are featuring today… (more…) Read more
I recently caught the Jubilee gang on their Christmas tour and wanted to share some highlights of the concert with you all. I did bring a camera, though the lighting wasn’t optimal. I put some snapshots, a few with clever captions, in the slideshow below. Click on for a full review. This is the first of several juicy posts I have in the can for you this week while I recuperate from a quadruple tooth extraction. (Christmas break, don’t you know?) Comment... Read more
This will kick off a new Christmas series here at the blog. I choose a Christmas carol and share my personal top five renditions of it. The fun part is where you come in and tell me why your favorite version is better than all of them! I’d love to hear a version of a carol I’ve never heard before. Hopefully I’ll introduce someone else to a new version of one of their favorites as well. So, let’s start with... Read more
This post really should be longer, and indeed there will likely be further installments on this topic to come. However, since I don’t have time for a longer installment at the moment, and since I’ve learned from wise advice and experience that the shorter posts tend to generate more comments anyway, this will be a short post. (But you have to provide the comments to prove my rule of thumb correct!) [Edit: Ummmm, assuming comments haven’t mysteriously been turned off, that... Read more
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Of Christian Metal and Holy Hip-Hop
So, I’m a little late to this particular party, but I wanted to address a little brouhaha that flared up a few weeks ago in the evangelical community over so-called “holy hip-hop.” It seemed like a good opportunity to enlarge upon my own philosophy of music when it comes to some of the more, well, un-musical genres. Consider this post a continuation of my earlier, hastily penned offering on the perennial question “What is Christian music?” In a nutshell, a... Read more