Released 25 years ago this past Friday, this is the thirteenth album by Christian pop singer Michael W. Smith and a bit of a turning point in his career. In the few years before this album, many churches had started recording their modern worship and praise songs, and they were starting to sell pretty well, and the record labels were clamoring for their biggest stars to record albums like this. Michael W. Smith, one of the leaders in Christian pop throughout the '80s and '90s, brought many artists together to a church in Florida for this live recording of worship songs performed by Smith though written and already made fairly popular by others. Michael W. Smith and the people on his team are excellent musicians, so this recording is musically a step or two above most other worship recordings, including a full choir and a large group of string players. Smith does a solid job of leading worship, singing each song passionately and all the musicians follow his lead. Artists such as Wes King, Amy Grant and Mark Schultz and many more are in the backing choir throughout this album without even a solo or major credit. The album includes many popular worship songs of the '90s such as "Above All", "Open The Eyes Of My Heart" and "Draw Me Close". A few songs were only a year or two old, such as "Breathe", "The Heart Of Worship" and "Forever". Others were older, such as the Smith-penned "Agnus Dei", Rich Mullins's "Awesome God" chorus, and "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus". At the end of the album, a few studio tracks are included, including an original worship song and a another recording of "Above All". In the years after this, Worship outsold all his other albums and Michael W. Smith became known as worship leader along with a pop performer, releasing 5 more worship albums of mostly other people's songs including a re-recording of this album with more tracks on its 20th anniversary. In the 25 years since this album, most Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) has become this type of modern worship recordings, as opposed to the pop/rock made for Christian audiences it was primarily before. So this album may be a turning point for CCM, although this change could also be partially attributed to changes in the music industry as well as the tastes of audiences. Though recorded earlier in 2001, it is of note that this album was released in stores on September 11, 2001, the same day as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which was a turning point for America.

Release Year: 2001
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