Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘music’

the whole earth sings: Hillsong Music Australia, You Are My World

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , , on November 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Nobody does high-energy, emotionally exuberant musical praise like Australia’s Hillsong. This reviewer is happy to leave the debate about whether Hillsong is a church or a production company to those closer to the ground. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the music. (more…)

Read Full Post »

love has a hold: Amy Grant, House of Love

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It took many listenings-through of this fine 1994 recording before it dawned on me what Amy Grant was getting up to here. She has produces a whimsical but ultimately very serious ode to enduring love between a man and a woman. I had somehow missed the thread that joins these tracks together into a coherent statement, touching upon love’s beginning, love’s apparent end, and love’s stubborn rebirth.

Now it seems obvious. (more…)

Read Full Post »

easy: Early Baroque (Sunday Times Music Collection)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

There’s a reason why all those drug store compilations with the breathless titles (‘Most Relaxing Classical Music Ever!) sell year after year. The pre-Classical baroque style really is relaxing. (more…)

Read Full Post »

strong that way: Reflections, Carly Simon’s Greatest Hits

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on November 6, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Every once in a while an anthology covering the high points of an artist’s career simply dazzles with the accumulated weight of one memorable musical statement following upon another. The danger of beginning a review of Carly Simon’s Reflections with such an observation is that it may understate her achievement. (more…)

Read Full Post »

the strongest man cries: Dan Fogelberg, Souvenirs

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on November 4, 2007| 2 Comments »

Back in the 70s, Dan Fogelberg’s lyrics were written into the pages of college yearbooks and his emotive sound pencilled onto the hearts of the students who read them. Today he is regarded with a kind of what-were-we-thinking (?) morning-after cringe.

No reason to worry. His music is as good now as it was back then. Don’t follow the herd. Just listen up. (more…)

Read Full Post »

the writing on the wall: Bob Seger, Face the Promise

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on November 4, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Don’t judge a book by its cover, nuestros abuelos taught us in a spasm of earthy wisdom.

If you did, you might think Bob Seger was about to declare himself washed up and done for in the blues-rock entree to this 2006 album. Where the younger Seger could claim that things were gettin’ better and better’, the grizzled graybeard of Face the Promise finds things decidedly on the down swing, and toys with the idea that he might just ‘wreck this heart’. (more…)

Read Full Post »

someday, baby: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Against the Wind

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

If you had to choose a single voice to represent blue-collar American rock & roll, you might well settle on Bob Seger’s as that iconic sound. Against the Wind could be Exhibit A as you face down the Springsteens and the Pettys and the Mellencamps to make your case. (more…)

Read Full Post »

pura alegría: Juan Luís Guerra & 4.40: Ni es lo mismo ni es igual

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 3, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Somewhere along the musical pathway that leads up to a splendid, blue-skied Autumn day in America’s midwest, I may have stumbled upon an album that contained more pure joy than Juan Luís Guerra’s Ni es lo mismo ni es igual.

But I can’t for the life of me think what that might have been. (more…)

Read Full Post »

on a clear day you can see heaven: Zipporah Bennett, Kuma Adonai

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , , on November 3, 2007| 16 Comments »

My friend Tim Laniak, who knows the sound and smell of battle, sends me Messianic music to accompany me in mine. Zipporah Bennett’s Kuma Adonai (‘Arise, O Lord’) helps Hebrew language students at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Charlotte, North Carolina, campus refine their aural comprehension.

Here in Indianapolis, on a clear Autumn day, it opens an angle of sight by which a man can just about glimpse heaven. (more…)

Read Full Post »

when you speak to me: Twila Paris, True North

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on October 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Twila Paris did not develop one of the most loyal fan bases in Christian music by blowing their ears off. If smoke is found on any stage on which Paris performs, it’s evidence of a short circuit rather than choreographed dry ice.

Ms. Paris is not spectacular. She is merely very, very good, song after song, one well-considered, hope-mongering tune after another. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »