Blog Archive for March 2026

Album Of The Day: Here For You by Passion

Album Art of Passion's Here For You album - On a black background, in aqua blue and black are a collage of various pictures, mostly pictures of large crowds and people raising hands in worship to God. Much of it is very dark and hard to make out, but the word 'Here For You' is printed in large non-serif text in blue taking up most of the whole cover size, and those parts of the collage are much more visible. Behind that text is a red heart in the middle. In the top left it has 'passion' in lowercase in a handwritten-style font or maybe in pen. There's also in the bottom left faintly the 'p' in a circle that is the word mark of Passion.

Released 15 years ago today, this is the 13th album from worship collective Passion, which mostly records live albums at Passion Conferences. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Passion introduced me and many others to modern worship music, stadium pop/rock songs that might also work at church services for prayer and praise. As the 2000s wore on, Passion albums seemed to be more rote and less mind-blowing for me, so I really stopped listening to their newer albums. It also seemed like it was just a place for Chris Tomlin and a few others in the collective to release live versions of their top hits, which was a bit too self-serving for my tastes. However, I took a look at this album for a few highlights. David Crowder Band released a new song "Sometimes" on this album, and his version of "Shadows" here included a bridge with a rap from Lecrae which is fun. And a few years after this album released, one of my favorite artists, Martin Smith of the band delirious?, released his first solo album and it had his version of "Waiting Here For You", which is sung beautifully on this Passion album by Watermark's Christy Nockels and that caused me to give this album another look. "Lord, I Need You" is a great anthem as well, co-written by Matt Maher, a songwriter/artist I also respect. I don't listen to most of this album too often as it's too much Chris Tomlin for my tastes, but I do like the tracks mentioned above and listen to them regularly. The rest of the album isn't actually too bad either, now that I'm listening to it.

Release Year: 2011
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Album Of The Day: Paper Tapes by The Lonely Hearts

Album Art of The Lonely Hearts's Paper Tapes album - A photo of a white piece of paper, and attached to the paper in the middle ia an embossed white paper American flag, with small roses and other flowers covering parts of the flag. Actually, maybe it's not all made of paper, but is made of something else and just all painted that same off-white color as the paper. Over the top of this is printed in red the band name in very large, decorative red text. And at the bottom, embossed into the paper is the album title.

"All you need is love / To resurrect the little things / Your weary eyes have lost" Released 20 years ago today, this is only album by The Lonely Hearts, a rock band with a classic, blues rock sound and maybe a hint of country. Comprised of a few members of the short-lived Christian rock band Holland, it's a pretty good ten tracks of mostly mid-tempo rock. It's not an album I listen to often, but every time I do come back to it, I like it and wonder why I don't listen to it more often. Lyrically, these songs are mostly about love and life, and doesn't really contain that much religious ideas despite being mostly marketed to Christian music audiences. If you want to give a listen to some rock you've probably not heard before, give this a listen.

Release Year: 2006
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Album Of The Day: Katy Hudson by Katy Hudson

Album Art of Katy Hudson's self-titled album - A close-up photo of the right side of a white girl's face, cut off at the nose and just above the eye and below the mouth. She has blue eyes and pink lips and brown-blonde hair. The picture is pretty blown out so her skin looks mostly white. In the middle, on top of her cheek, there's a box where the colors seem to be inverted and it shows a black background with the brown hair looking blue off to the right. On the black is printed the artist's name in lowercase with a period after it. There's a small white border around the edges.

Released 25 years ago today, this is the debut album from Katy Perry, although at this moment she was going by her given name, Katy Hudson. This first album of Christian rock/pop songs was released on a small Christian record label, and somehow despite not being a great debut, Katy proceeded to climb to the top of the pop music world within a decade. What's clear from this album is that, at even 16 years old, Katy had some decent songs and was a capable, precocious young performer. Though I didn't really listen to this album until a few years later, it's a fun mix of lyrics about teenage insecurity, grappling with religious themes, and asking God for guidance. The record label went bankrupt shortly afterwards and Katy Perry probably has no interest in their fans hearing this early work, so it's not on streaming. But it's an album that's an interesting beginning for an international pop star and celebrity and an interesting look at the Christian music industry 25 years ago.

Release Year: 2001

A middle-aged white man photographed in a brightly-colored office room with black CD racks in the background full of CDs, a black lamp on the lower shelf on the left, and a black water tumbler on the left as well. The man is wearing a red T-shirt that says 'I Like Switchfoot' and is holding the Katy Hudson CD in his right hand and smiling.

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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Heart In Motion by Amy Grant

Album Art of Amy Grant's Heart In Motion album - In front a blue backdrop, a young white woman in a red dress is shown in profile and looking down and to the left. She's got a gold chain around her neck and her hands are clasping the item on the chain just in front of her chest. She's got long, brown curly hair. Printed above the photo on the right side is the artist's name down the right side vertically. And printed just to the left of that is the album title in smaller yellow text, with the first letter printed vertically, and the rest of the letters printed horizontally.

Released 35 years ago today, this is the ninth studio album from pop singer Amy Grant. It is one of the best Christian pop albums of the '90s and has some of the best pop anthems from the early '90s, in my opinion. "Every Heartbeat" was a favorite of mine and I like it even more these days as co-writer Charlie Peacock does his slightly slower, bluesy version. "Baby Baby" was one of Amy Grant's biggest hits ever and made her known even outside of Christian music. Songs like "I Will Remember You", "Good For Me" and "That's What Love Is For" are ones I definitely remember fondly as well from being a kid. I didn't really own or listen to a copy of this album as a kid, but my sisters definitely had a cassette tape of it and listened to it often, and I heard it a lot because of them. It's fun to listen to this over 30 years later and reminisce, but also it's just a really good pop album too.

Release Year: 1991
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Album Of The Day: Free Flying Soul by The Choir

Album Art of The Choir's Free Flying Soul album - On a golden yellow background on the edges which fades to white in the center, what looks like some sort of stone or wood carving of a winged man flying towards the camera from above. His hands are stretched out above the camera and he's looking ahead, above the camera. He's got a big chin and large eyes that seem to be painted on. In the top left, the band name is printed in a hairline box, and in the bottom right, the album title is printed in smaller text on a hairline baseline.

"I am the ocean / Purified by all the tears of time." Released 30 years ago this past Sunday, this is the eighth studio album by alternative rock band The Choir, a band which has been active for over 40 years now and still puts out new music. I wasn't listening to much music back when this came out, but thanks to their regular habit recently of re-releasing their albums on CD and vinyl, I have been learning about this band I missed in my younger years. This is 45 minutes of quality rock with a bit of that grunge sound that was so popular during that era. Sometimes I don't know what their songs are talking about, like "Salamander", "Polar Boy" and "Yellow-Haired Monkeys". Though I guess there does seem to be some connection between the animals of nature and the album title, Free Flying Soul. This was just re-released in the last year or two, so it's pretty new to me and not my favorite album from The Choir, but it's definitely a good listen.

Release Year: 1996
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Album Of The Day: Worship & Believe by Steven Curtis Chapman

Album Art of Steven Curtis Chapman's Worship And Believe album - A somewhat grainy black-and-white photo of a middle-aged man standing holding a guitar and holding his right hand up in praise while looking upwards with his mouth open and eyes closed, maybe in the middle of singing. The man is lit but the background is mostly dark and is probably a hazy stage. Above where his guitar is, it says in large letters the album title in a gradient that is gold in the top right and a darker golden brown in the bottom left. Also, a thick border around the edge is also that golden to brown gradient. At the very bottom in smaller, white letters is printed the artist's name.

Released 10 years ago this coming Wednesday, this is the 18th studio album by Steven Curtis Chapman and his third album released through Provident Music. Steven Curtis Chapman has been primarily known as a Christian pop singer/songwriter from the 1980s to today, although he has taken detours into other genres such as country/bluegrass. In this release, he takes a detour into worship-focused music, music that could be used for prayer and praise at modern church services. Instead of his normal stories of life and love that point to God as the savior and creator, these are songs praising God and drawing the singer and listener closer to God. Unlike many others who jumped into the worship genre, Chapman does not cover other worship songs by others; he delivers 11 new studio tracks of worship written by himself with only a few co-writers. As far as I'm aware, none of them have been hits at churches, but I remember giving this album a first listen almost 10 years ago on a train ride and finding connection with these songs. There are a few guest singers with SCC on this album on songs they co-wrote, Matt Maher on "Hallelujah, You Are Good" and Chris Tomlin on "One True God". This album is honestly a lot better than I would expect from someone who was not known as a worship artist, though it's not his best work. Like many modern worship albums, for whatever reason there needs to be both studio and live recordings of these songs, so the CD version has 4 live recordings of the same songs as well as the studio versions, and the streaming deluxe version includes live versions of 6 songs. (I don't understand why to have both, since both the live and studio versions sound very similar.) If you want to get an introduction to Steven Curtis Chapman's music, look for his greatest hits or an older album, but this worship project is surprisingly good though I don't listen to it very often.

Release Year: 2016
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