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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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Album Of The Day: Welcome To The Bloodline by Elle Limebear

Album Art of Elle Limebear's Welcome To The Bloodline album - A brightly colored photo of a woman sitting at a large picnic table outdoors. The table looks to be in a yard with a tree on the right and an old shed of some sort on the left, plus a fence running between those, and in the far background, past a field, is a line of forest with blue sky above. The woman is sitting on the far side of the table with a red shirt and long brown hair, with a bit of a quizzical look towards the camera. On her side of the table, she has silverware on a napkin and a comically large cooked egg, bigger than a plate would be. On the side of the table close to the camera, there's an egg still in a shell on an egg cup and plate, with some sort of biscuit on the plate and silverware on a napkin to the right.

Released brand new today, this is the second pop album from English artist Elle Limebear. This album is mostly chill pop with a bit of a dance influence, though it's never an intense club track. I love her lyrics here about personal insecurities and struggles with songs like "Vulnerable" and "Bye Fear". Then there are other songs that are more spiritual in nature, like "What A Friend" and "Simple Song". This album definitely points heavily to Jesus and Elle's passion and heart shines through the music. I've been looking forward to a new album from Elle Limebear, and this is definitely meeting my expectations.

Release Year: 2025
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Album Of The Day: The Eleventh Hour by Jars Of Clay

Album Art of Jars of Clay's The Eleventh Hour album - A photo the sun setting down at the end of a long street lined with tall buildings, maybe in a place like New York City. It's taken from high up and far away so it's not too easy to make out details, but cars can be seen on the street, though from how small they are, it's hard to tell what time period the photo was taken in. Both sides of the photo are black, and the buildings make a bit of a cavern for the sun to shine through. There is a bunch of lens flares across the photo. In the bottom left, the band's name is in smaller, orange letters with faded edges, and the album title is below that with negative spacing between the letters, the letters actually overlap. Each word is in progressively whiter color and a large, sans-serif font.

Released on this day 23 years ago, this is the fourth studio album from rock/pop/Americana band Jars of Clay. It's not my favorite of their albums, but they also don't have a bad album either. The band stays squarely in the pop/rock territory on this album, with songs like "I Need You" and "Something Beautiful" being more pop and songs like "Disappear" and "Revolution" being more rock. In the song's lyrics, they definitely have lots of spiritual imagery, but also focus on relationships among people and getting to know, understand and love each other. It's a great album to listen through and showcases the band's excellent musicianship.

Release Year: 2002
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Album Of The Day: Borderland by John Mark McMillan

Album Art of John Mark McMillan's Borderland album - A photo of a black panther ceramic statue on a white background, with only a very soft shadow below it and to the left of it. At the top, centered in small golden letters is the artist's name, and on the bottom in gold letters rotated 180 degrees is the album name in the same lettering.

Released on this day 11 years ago, this is the fourth studio album by John Mark McMillan and one of my favorite albums of the 2010s. To me, this album rocks, but maybe it's more of a soft rock. There's no walls of guitars here, but there is pounding drums that sound amazing. Piano, strings, guitars and more mix with the drums, bass and John Mark's vocals, sometimes a deep baritone and sometimes a soaring falsetto. John Mark McMillan is mostly known in Christian music circles, though most of his music is not meant for singing at church services. Lyrically, there's lots of spiritual language, but the songs are exploring spiritual concepts and the nature of life, not just putting scriptures to music. I really love every song and the whole vibe of this album, and it continues to be an album I listen to often. I was really excited to help the making of this album by supporting his crowd-funding campaign as it was being made and I couldn't be happier with the result!

Release Year: 2014
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Album Of The Day: Army Of Bones by Army Of Bones

Album Art of Army Of Bones's self-titled album - A painting of a naked person's back from the waist up, and the person is hunched over and holding their chest. Brown hair can be seen at the top of the spine, leaning away from the photo and the person's left hand is reaching around to the back of the neck. The hand has bright red coloring on it; for some reason their fingers are bloody at the ends. The right hand's fingers can be seen clutching the right shoulder. The background is brush strokes of brown with little golden threads mixed in. At the top, above the person's head, the band name is printed in white in all caps, with the 'of' being smaller and the 'o' in 'Bones' has a line through it.

Released on this day 8 years ago, Army Of Bones is the first and only album so far from this English rock group. In 2009, the rock/worship band delirious? played their last gig, and front man Martin Smith of course continued to write music, though with other individuals and groups. With a new group of musicians, Martin and company recorded this album and rocked a few clubs in the UK on limited dates in the late 2010s while Smith also released solo pop/worship albums. This is a quality rock album, with soaring guitars and the occasional keys, an ever-present bass end, and excellent drums, plus Martin's vocals in the mix, sometimes a whisper, and sometimes a yell. Lyrically, it's a lot of love songs, probably most written to God, though in some cases you might not be able to tell if it's that or to a lover. The first two songs that were released before the album came out were "Batteries" and "River", and I think they're the most rockin' part of the album. And I'm a sucker for a six-minute, epic closing track like "The Day The Fire Went Out". I hope this isn't the only Army Of Bones album that we get, but I don't hear much in the rumor mill about another one.

Release Year: 2017
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