Released 28 years ago today, this is the first special event album by Michael W. Smith's record label Rocketown Records, and it was a massive hit in Christian music. Around this time, modern worship music was becoming more and more well-known, and Exodus paired that trend with some of the most popular Christian music artists of the day. Jars of Clay, Sixpence None The Richer, and dc Talk contributed original songs with a more worshipful tone than most of their other music of that time. Michael W. Smith co-writes a song with Cindy Morgan, who sings it here. The Katinas and Crystal Lewis cover modern worship favorites and make them their own. Third Day covers Michael W. Smith's "Agnus Dei", which was a chorus on Michael W. Smith's 1990 album and was already becoming a worship staple by this release, and I love their guitar-heavy reinvention of it. Michael W. Smith opens the album with an instrumental track to add a very cinematic but also worshipful feel to it, and a reprise closes out the album briefly. But before that, Michael W. Smith closes out the album with a beautiful cover of Rich Mullins's "I See You" only 9 months after Rich died in a car accident. Exodus is a beautiful collection of songs that fit well together despite the disparate artists and styles, and it proved the top CCM artists could make big waves if they get into worship music. Like many special event/compilation albums of the time, this does not exist on streaming, and you might have to find it on CD. And I love the CD packaging, too, as Jimmy Abegg has beautiful artwork including illustrations of each of the artists along with the lyrics and credits in the booklet.

Release Year: 1998
Listen (partial album) on Apple Music