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Album Of The Day: Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens

Album Art of Sufjan Stevens's Seven Swans album - On a marble brown background, a black-and-white pencil drawing of a swan takes up most of the space, with the head of the swan nearly touching the top and the wingspan of the swan just off the edges. The swan looks like it's either walking with its wings spread out or flying, but it's hard to tell since there's no background or ground to place it on. On each side of the swan's long neck, the artist name and the album title is printed in black in a hand-printed script.

Along with the Album Of The Day highlighting albums I love, it's also a chance to listen to albums I don't listen to much, like today's album. I really enjoyed Sufjan Stevens's Illinois album, but didn't give his earlier works too much of a chance. Released yesterday 11 years ago, this is Sufjan's 4th album and the album between Michigan and Illinois, his two albums about different states. I've only listened to this a few times and found I didn't like it as much as some of his other albums; I found it very mandolin-heavy and a bit slow. But upon today's listening, I found I liked it a bit more than I remember. There's lots of Biblical references here, from reflections on Jesus's life and death to some interpretations on the Book of Revelation. And it's not as slow as I remember. In fact, "Sister" in the middle of the album has an extended rock portion. Sometimes I'm not a fan of Sufjan's somewhat melancholic style, but his songwriting is excellent and I probably should listen to his catalog more.

Release Year: 2004
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Album Of The Day: Bright City by Bright City

Album Art of Bright City's self-titled album - On a marble gray background, a thick neon green line cuts from bottom left to top right. Above that, the band name is printed in thick white letters with a dark drop shadow and a light gray inner shadow as well. The empty space inside the uppercase 'BR' are also just white and not cut out like normal.

Released on this day 10 years ago, this is the first album from Bright City, the worship team at St. Peter's Brighton in England. More than most modern worship teams today, this album has a pop/dance feel, though the lyrics certainly are worshipful praise and conversation with God. "Force Field" and "Forever Yours" are definitely dance praise and are really fun. As the songs get a bit slower deeper into the album, it feels a bit more like a normal modern worship album, though there's a very high level of musicianship. This team has many songwriters and worship leaders, so they switch off on lead vocals, which also keeps the songs from sounding the same throughout this album. It's a solid debut from a quality new band, and I hope they are able to continue to make great new music.

Release Year: 2015
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Album Of The Day: Paper Horses by Paper Horses

Taylor Leonhardt, Leslie Jordan, Jess Ray, Sandra McCracken. The middle is mostly a photo of the the four white women's faces, lit from a window to the left of them so that the ride side of their faces are in shadow. Just above the photo is the band name in large print with two circles over it. This name overlaps with the photo, and it's orange on top of the photo, but black on top of the orange.

This isn't an album, but a debut EP from folk music collective Paper Horses. Four accomplished songwriters (Taylor Leonhardt, Leslie Jordan of All Sons & Daughters, Jess Ray and Sandra McCracken) recorded this EP of songs together and released it early last year. The instrumentation is simple but beautiful, with acoustic guitars, strings and other beautiful instruments. But the highlight of this is the vocals of the women, with different persons taking lead on different songs, and very deeply felt, tight harmonies making each song something really special. Lyrically, these songs speaking of Jesus's saving love and calling on Christians to love their neighbor better, among other things. But even if you're not looking for a spiritual reflection, you probably still will enjoy the musicianship and heartfelt vocals.

Release Year: 2024
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Album Of The Day: Shimmer by Luna Halo

Album Art of Luna Halo's Shimmer album - It's really hard to tell what is pictured here. It's a blue-colored photo of what looks to be a series of doors or windows, but warped and flipped via a series of mirriors or something. Also, some parts that don't look like that just look like random lines and shapes. Above this photo or illustration is layered in the top left some semi-transparent Chinese characters. In the middle, in a yellow sans-serif font is the band name in all caps without the horizontal line on the 'A' letters. In smaller text next to it is the album title in brackets. Both have a large motion blur above them, such that it looks like maybe the letters are falling from above.

Released on this day 25 years ago, this is the debut album by rock band Luna Halo. Nathan Barlowe's ethereal vocals mix really well with Jonny MacIntosh's spaced-out guitars, and the two wrote great lyrics that touch on the divine as well as personal, down-to-earth relationships. All 12 tracks are solid songs, in my opinion. This was an album I loved immediately and listened to often for years after it came out, and I still listen to it somewhat regularly. Nathan Barlowe continues to create music with a band called Luna Halo, but none of the other band members from this album remain and their sound has changed a bit over the years.

Release Year: 2000
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Album Of The Day: The Road To OneDay by Passion

Album Art of Passion's The Road To OneDay album - At the bottom, a photo of a large crowd of young people, mosdtly with their eyes closed, heads looking up, and some with hands raised in the air. In the middle, semi-transparent, is a few more people with hands clasped together prayerfully or with hands raised, and they look like they're singing. The picture at the bottom continues to be the background, with a woods and the blue sky stretching across the album cover. In the middle, an orange circle with 3 scoop edges has a red, italic 'p' inside it, and on top of it is written the album title, with 'oneday' being bigger than the rest, and 'one' is much more bolder than 'day'. At the top, 'passion' is written in lowercase in a very soft white transparent of the rest of the sky and the orange circle.

For nearly 30 years now, pastor Louie Giglio has put on Passion Conferences that gathered young, mostly college-aged Christians from across America and the world. In the spring of 2000, they had a very big event planned called OneDay 2000. Released 25 years ago tomorrow, this is the first studio album from Passion, the modern worship collective that usually records live at the conference events. This was released in preparation for their OneDay event as a way to get those attending some new music to prepare with. Like on many of their live albums, it contained a mix of original, new songs by the Passion worship leaders, plus covers of other worship songs written by people like Martin Smith (delirious?) and Paul Oakley and performed by the Passion team. It is fun to hear the Passion crew in a studio setting, and Producer Nathan Nockels does a good job adding some of those touches you don't usually get from a live recording like strings and programming. I love the instrumental interlude before Christy Nockels sings "Holy Roar", and it's kinda fun to hear Matt Redman sing "Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?" If you want to hear some of the best of the early days before modern worship took over Christian music, this is a good snapshot of it.

Release Year: 2000
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Album Of The Day: Discovery by Daft Punk

Album Art of Daft Punk's Discovery album - On a black background, what looks like drops of silvery-chrome material are suspended above the black in the shape of the words 'daft punk', with a few drops of it not making up the letters. The silvery-chrome stuff has a shadow of rainbow colors that glows, kinda like the bottom of the letters is emitting light and that's showing on the black.

Released on this day 24 years ago, this is the second album by French electronic music duo Daft Punk. Notoriously private, the two men in this group almost always wear robot helmets at any public appearances and prefer to let the music speak for itself instead of do interviews. This is one of their best albums, with hits like "One More Time" and "Harder Better Faster Stronger". Unlike their later hit album Random Access Memories, this doesn't feature many collaborations with pop/R&B industry music makers, though they do definitely collaborate with their peers in the electronic music scene. Daft Punk came up with very unique sounds for this album, using instruments in ways that no one tried before and using instruments like guitars that you don't usually expect to hear in electronic/dance music. This album is a modern classic, and is on many lists of top albums, although it's not something I listen to that often. Still, it's a fun listen full of a lot of energy and style.

Release Year: 2001
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Album Of The Day: New Way To Be Human by Switchfoot

Album Art of Switchfoot's New Way To Be Human album - The top quarter of the artwork is black background, with the band name in Orange all caps text taking up the full area. The bottom tenth is also black and has the album title in much smaller orange text. The middle portion between them is a bright red background with a black thumb print line art in the middle.

Released on this day 26 years ago, this is the second album from rock band Switchfoot. This was the first album of theirs I heard and purchased, thanks to the "New Way To Be Human" music video, and I got to see them play live for the first time later that fall. At this time, the band was still a lean three-piece band and the simple production of guitars, bass and drums lets the simple but brilliant songs shine through. Folks might be drawn to this album for the pop/rock jams like the title track, "Company Car", or "Something More (Augustine's Confession)", but it's the slower songs like "Let That Be Enough" and "Only Hope" that bring a very personal touch to Jon Foreman's songwriting and vocals and keep me coming back to this album. This album cemented Switchfoot as a band to watch in the 2000s, and a few decades later, they're still putting out music just as good or even better. Fun fact: The album artwork is designed by Shepard Fairey, years after his "Obey" giant sticker but years before his Barack Obama "Hope" posters.

Release Year: 1999
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Album Of The Day: Love & Thunder by Andrew Peterson

Album Art of Andrew Peterson's Love And Thunder album - A beautiful but simple painting of a barren, brown landscape of rolling hills of brown with larger, darker hills in the background. The sky is a dark blue, almost gray or black, except for a bit more light in the top left. In the middle of the sky, a faded white square is on top of the painting and has the artist name printed in a dark blue and the album title below it in a slightly smaller, dark red.

This is the first album I ever heard from Andrew Peterson, and the first few times, I wasn't really too enthralled with it. But over time, it made me a huge fan of the artist and his many works. Andrew Peterson does a great job of writing slightly sad songs that point to God as the solution to our problems and encourage me in my daily life. The album is a beautiful bit of Americana, with the lap steel, fiddle and mandolin in all the right spots. The album ends with one of my favorite songs of all time, "After The Last Tear Falls", a declaration that after all of life's struggles and tears, God will be there with his never-ending love. This is a great album and still one of my favorites in Andrew Peterson's nearly 30-year career as a singer-songwriter.

Release Year: 2003
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Album Of The Day: The Joshua Tree by U2

Album Art of U2's The Joshua Tree album - The majority is a black background on the top and bottom. At the very top, the album title and band name are printed in small, gold letters. In the middle third, surrounded by a gold line at the top and bottom, is a black and white photo of four men. The left 3 are looking a the camera, and the fourth is looking of to the left. They're all wearing dark jackets, and the third one has a dark bowler hat. To the right of the band, a rocky terrain is shown and stretches off to mountains in the distance.

Someone recently asked what my favorite album is, and I answered with this album, though that may be an oversimplification of my tastes in music. Released on this day 38 years ago, this is the fifth studio album by Irish rock band U2. The band incorporated sounds of American music into this release, celebrating the American landscape and the American people as they had been touring the United States in support of their earlier albums. The first four songs, "Where The Streets Have No Name", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", "With Or Without You", and "Bullet The Blue Sky" are some of the band's most well-known songs and are still often played at their concerts today. But even beyond those songs, the later seven tracks of the album are also really good. Bono's harmonica playing on a few songs brings that American country influence a bit, and The Edge's guitar and Bono's vocals play off each other really well. It was so amazing to see them play the whole album at Soldier Field in Chicago in 2017! Seriously, if you haven't listened to this album ever or for a while, give it a listen sometime soon.

Release Year: 1987
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Album Of The Day: Rick Elias & The Confessions by Rick Elias & The Confessions

Album Art of Rick Elias And The Confessions's self-titled album - A mostly desaturated photo of a man standing next to a busy city street, shown from the waist up in a leather jacked and with long, dark curly bangs and long hair in the back. Behind him, we can see the blur of a car moving past. In the top right, printed on top of the photo's sky portion is a black rectangle with a dark blue, slighly-purple hairline inside the square. The artist name 'Rick Elias' is printed in the majority of the same blue, and 'And The Confessions' is in much smaller, aqua blue print at the bottom of the rectangle.

I believe this album was released this month 35 years ago. Rick Elias & The Confessions is a really good rock album I only recently started listening to. I had known of Rick Elias as a member of Rich Mullins's band and Rick's powerful vocals on the Mullins record released posthumously, The Jesus Record. But you might be more familiar with his songs he wrote for the soundtrack of the 1996 film "That Thing You Do!" and the movie's fictional band "The Wonders". Rick's first rock album definitely has some spiritual language, but it's mostly about Elias's personal experiences so I think it's an album that even a non-believer who likes some late '80s/early '90s rock will enjoy.

Release Year: 1990
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