I'm trying to remember how I got into this artist. It was maybe mp3 dot com free downloads back in the day or a recommendation from a dance music fan on an e-mail list or something, but I can't remember. Faith Massive is an electronic, drum and bass artist. It's mostly all instrumental sounds mixed electronically with the occasional lyric, as much sampled as sung. It's an interesting vibe, sometimes pounding and sometimes more chill. It's not the pop dance hits you might hear at a club, I imagine, but more distilled beats for those that are really in the dance genre. It's definitely not what I listen to too often, but I enjoy mixing it up and listening to something different from time to time, as you've probably noticed.

Release Year: 2002
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Released on this day 14 years ago, this album won "Best Folk Album" at that year's Grammy Awards. Joy Williams and John Paul White, both accomplished musicians, joined forces as folk/country/Americana duo The Civil Wars. This album is defined by the duo's powerful vocals, plus very sparse but effective, simple instrumentation. Lyrically, this album is mostly love songs, even though both in the duo are married to other people. It's a beautiful album and is top-notch music throughout, though definitely a bit darker in tone and less energizing than most other albums I listen to. For a moment The Civil Wars were thought to be the next big thing in music, but a year or two later they stopped performing together due to creative differences. They have individually released solo music since then, but have not reunited.

Release Year: 2011
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The Elms is still one of my favorite bands of all time. This rock band created great rock records championing hard-working, blue-collar Americans and celebrating both the highs and lows of life. This was their fourth and final album, released independently before deciding to call it quits a year later. Thom Daugherty's guitar work is iconic and Thom playing guitar at their reunion show in 2015 is still my phone's lock screen. This album is maybe best known in the band's home state of Indiana for the song "Back To Indiana", where lead singer Owen Thomas pines to return to his loved one as soon as possible. It's an excellent song for a road trip, and I've definitely played it on the way to Indiana a few times. "Thunderhead" and "A Place In the Sun", while not as rockin' as some other tracks, ends the album in a quieter note and are a fitting end to the band's epic 10-year, four-album run. (On some streaming services, the "Complete Edition" is available which has acoustic versions of every song on the album, but the first 12 tracks is the original album.)

Release Year: 2009
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Released on this day 21 years ago, some of the biggest artists in Christian music at the time honored Irish rock band U2, who was at the top of the world back then. In The Name Of Love: Artist United For Africa gave proceeds to Bono's charity and 13 artists got to cover a U2 song. It's a wide variety of artists featured, from pop/contemporary artists like Nichole Nordeman and Todd Agnew to rock bands like Pillar and Sanctus Real. My favorites are Sixpence None The Richer doing "Love Is Blindness" and Jars of Clay covering "All I Want Is You" because they're less the same as the U2 original and more of their own style. Sorry, but I don't really like that they tried to get some hip-hop/rap from TobyMac and GRiTS on here because it doesn't really work, but I guess that's the nature of a label-made compilation—trying to get a wide variety of label talent involved. It's not as good as most U2 albums, but if you're a fan of these artists, it's kinda a fun listen.

Release Year: 2004
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