My Own Little World

From my first listen of "Shake It Off," I could tell that Taylor Swift's newest album 1989 was going to be a must listen. This was a huge turn musically for her, going from a country-pop vibe to a slightly more experimental mainstream pop sound. As I heard more new tracks, I realized that this was a bigger turn than I thought it would be, intriguing me even more into Swift's new album. It was going to be either great or very bad, with not much room in between. Thankfully, 1989 's musical turn is a fantastic genre change for Swift. Diving into the deep end instead of wading into new territory was a little bit of a gamble, but it pays off. The overall vibe is very 1980's synthpop, which I personally loved. Not many artists could pull off this style and keep it relevant and listenable all at the same time, so Swift doing this is quite an accomplishment. Songs like "Style," "Out of the Woods," and "All You Had to Do Was Stay" exe...

First of all, before I start this review, I want to commend Chris and his team for continuing to make great Sunday morning worship music for the masses. Truly, I do. It is hard to write this many songs and keep them worshipful without being entirely flippant in a church service. So, Mr. Tomlin, I thank you, as a fellow worship leader, for giving all this music to be at the church's disposal. However, I'm not reviewing a collection of songs for a worship service. I'm reviewing an album. That is the unfortunate consequence of being an avid music fan: as much as you want to like something, you sometimes just can't. Chris has a tendency to write music that doesn't always work in a studio recording, and that trend sadly continues on Love Ran Red . As a whole, the album fails to ever truly capture my full attention for very long. There are many good moments, but they fail to make a good album on the whole. Thankfully, these good moments aren't hard to come by ...

Lecrae is the undisputed pioneer of Christian rap. His albums have sold more units and garnered more acclaim than any other modern Christian rapper. His Church Clothes mixtapes are some of the best albums I've ever listened to. However, recently Lecrae has received some accusations of selling out to the mainstream, losing the punch in his lyrics and being a carbon-copy of mainstream rappers in his beats, even bringing some of them in for guest features. Does his new release  Anomaly  support these accusations? In a word, no. Lyrically, Anomaly  returns to some of the themes present in his most challenging work, Church Clothes . In particular, "Welcome to America" speaks to the approval we seek as Christians in United States. It's as humbling as "Church Clothes" in its exposure of the American church. "Nuthin" is pointing out that talking about the same-old, same-old is just as good as talking about nothing. It is a clever jab at the prosperity ...

Sometimes, I see a movie that is not like anything else I have ever seen. A list of these films for me would include Gravity , Inception , (believe it or not) Les Miserables , and Flight . I guess I'll be adding Boyhood  to that list as well. However, unlike the other films on this list, what makes Boyhood  unique is not its story, its characters, or its themes: it's the production.  As some of you may know, Boyhood was shot in less than fifty days over twelve years with the same cast and crew. Talk about a gamble. There was no telling what would happen if one of the principal actors just suddenly died or if the director's own daughter, playing Mason's sister, decided not to be in her dad's movie anymore. Thankfully, the entire cast and crew stayed together for all twelve years of production, making one of the most unique films of all time. Without this method of production, we wouldn't have the unique story, deep characters, or the rich themes present i...

I'm so elated to finally be writing this review. U2 is one of my favorite bands in the history of music. They are perhaps one of the most spiritual non-Christian bands in the industry and a very prolific live act as well. However, they've been very inactive with releasing new material since 2009's masterpiece (in this reviewer's opinion) No Line on the Horizon . It was last year that we heard "Ordinary Love," the first new material from the band in almost four and a half years. That song was for a film about the life of Nelson Mandela and won a Golden Globe. Their second single came as a promotion on the Super Bowl this year. "Invisible" was a free download on iTunes for two days during which Bank of America would donate $1 for every download. It was well-received as a promotional single; however, I really didn't want a whole album of that sound. It was a little too "radio-friendly," shall we say, for my tastes. And then today, ...

I recently fell in love with House of Heroes after listening to their 2010 album Suburba  (which is the most fun I've had listening to music all summer). Their alternative rock sensibilities absolutely refreshed me, while their musical complexity reminded me of the Beatles in its simplistic nature. Their new EP Smoke  doesn't come out until August 19, but because I supported their IndieGoGo project I got it a little early, so I felt it was only right to share my thoughts on it with you. Lyrically, Smoke  carries a theme of overcoming intrusion into our lives from good and bad influences by the knowledge of our salvation in Christ. This begins with "Bottle Rocket," as it conveys the invasion of a catastophe intending to consume our souls. "Wake Up Screaming" is about searching for a lost purpose in our lives, while "The Worst Kind of gods" discusses false belief and hypocrisy and adds some spoken word about not seeking our own devices to hamme...

Some of you may not believe me, but I actually have a schedule for reviewing music. I look at upcoming releases and preorder what I can on iTunes so I can stay on track. However, this time I deviated from the norm. I had no intentions of reviewing Swoope's new album Sinema , but several sites had it rated so consistently high I just had to take a look. I can tell you right now that I am extremely glad I did so. What Swoope has done with Sinema  is create an incredibly appetizing concept album that only gets better with more listens. The central story deals with themes of temptation, consequences, and the struggle between our flesh and our Godly nature. I find this notable and quite risky, as most Christian rappers deal with rejecting the status quo of Christianity instead of more relevant topics such as this. It revolves around Swoope and his relationship with a fictional character, Mya Desirae. The story is kept running by phone calls between the various tracks...