Released 15 years ago today, this is Derek Webb's sixth solo, studio album and his only instrumental album. This recording is 37 minutes of instrumental, electronic music built as a reflection on The Lord's Prayer from The Bible. It's sometimes slow and sometimes fast, sometimes lots of electronic elements at once, and sometimes just quiet piano or acoustic guitar. The physical CD package also includes with it modern art prints for each track by painter Scott Erickson and photographer Jeremy Cowart to make the whole album presentation much more than just an audio recording. When I'm looking for some instrumental music, I do enjoy this album and listen to it regularly.

Release Year: 2010
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Released 25 years ago today, this is the first album by Lifehouse, a moderately successful rock band from the 2000s. "Hanging By A Moment" and "Sick Cycle Carousel" from this album were often played on various radio formats around the album's release. Singer Jason Wade had a bit of an Eddie Vedder/Scott Stapp gravelly tone to his voice, which fits well with the post-grunge, alternative rock sound of the band's music. Lyrically, the songs are generally about the struggles of life with some love songs and some religious language. And well, the closing track "Everything" is a good and long closing track, but I'm not sure how I feel about churches using it for various dramatizations over the years. Lifehouse has never really been a favorite band of mine, but it's not a bad album. The band definitely had staying power, though, with singles getting Adult Contemporary or other radio play throughout the decade following this release.

Release Year: 2000
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Released 25 years ago this past Friday, this is an album of four songwriters performing their own versions of the songs they wrote, many of which were popular songs by other artists. Most well-known by a wide audience is the album closer, "Change The World", which Gordon Kennedy wrote with Wayne Kirkpatrick and Tommy Sims and was a big hit for both Wynonna and Eric Clapton. Wayne Kirkpatrick gets to perform his own version of "Place In This World" which was a hit single by Michael W. Smith. Phil Madeira is a songwriter who wrote "Everywhere I Look" made popular by Phil Keaggy and "Hunger And Thirst" recorded by Susan Ashton. And Billy Sprague and Wayne Kirkpatrick wrote "Man After You Own Heart" which was recorded by Gary Chapman, and Sprague also co-wrote "Via Dolorosa" for Sandi Patty. They also recorded one new, original song, "Coming From Somewhere Else", written by all four together. While most of these were '80s and '90s Christian pop radio singles, here they find much more of a Nashville folk-country, somewhat jazz-y vibe with more acoustic guitars and the vocals of the songwriters themselves, which is cool to hear. Recording their own versions of these hits is not always something these songwriters get to do, and it's fun to give it a listen especially if you are familiar with the original recordings of some of these songs. The album cover says "Rocketown Writers Series" on it, but unfortunately, I don't believe that Rocketown Records ever released another album in this so-called series, though I certainly would have given it a listen had they done so.

Release Year: 2000
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Released 25 years ago this past Friday, this is the first album released in the USA by Tree63, a South African rock band with Christian lyrics. In the late '90s, the band was known as "Tree" and released two albums, Overflow and 63, and this album is a compilation of the best songs from those first two albums and the first album to use their new name, Tree63. If you didn't get the imported albums on CD like I did 25 years ago, you didn't hear the other songs, though all those old songs are currently available on streaming if you want to now access the classic songs you never heard. But the band took "Joy", "Look What You've Done" and "Worldwide" from the Overflow album and re-recorded them to sound more like the production style of their 63 album. And then half of the tracks from 63 were joined with those three new recordings to make this 10-song best of early Tree63 self-titled album that introduced the band to the North American market. John Ellis and his bandmates created great rock music with honest and sometimes worshipful lyrics. Songs like "1*0*1", "Treasure" and "Can I See Your Face?" are excellent rock music with quality Christian lyrics. If you're a fan of Tree63, I recommend you check out the original two albums and their 26 tracks, but this 10-track compilation is a great look at the band's early songs and works well together as an album.

Release Year: 2000
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