Album #61: 3 (Melt) by Peter Gabriel

1.

Sound: Prog rock with various highlights

Mood: Mad to dancing to mourning

Important Songs: Intruder; Biko

Song You Must Hear: No Self Control

Quote: “I like you lying awake your bated breath charging the air”

      “I shoot into the light”

Notes: I love Peter Gabriel, but there is something special about this album.  The different portraits of insanity, and the results of insanity, and dance songs filling the middle.  There is so much to think about, so much to examine and so much to feel, no matter how uncomfortable it all is. 

Album #62: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb by U2

1

Sound: Mid-80s U2

Mood: Preachy

Important Songs: Vertigo, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own

Song You Must Hear: Love and Peace or Else

Quote: “Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.”

Notes: Bono had done a solo tour, but not to sing, rather to speak of the needs of Africa.  He had always been a bit religious and bleeding heart, but this was the ultimate.  So U2’s latest album is the most bleeding heart, and the most psychedelic of them all.  Just my style. 

Album #63: 12 Songs by Neil Diamond

1.     

Sound: Singer/Songwriter

Mood: Reflective, occasionally upbeat

Important Song: Delirious Love (with Brian Wilson)

Song You Must Hear: Hell Yeah

Quote: “Running in circles gunna get you nowhere.  Why you wanna go there?  Where’s it gunna lead?”

Notes: I’m a Neil Diamond fan for as long as I can remember.  But he drifted from his excellent songwriting of the 60s and 70s to be a campy figure for a while.  This album brings the old Neil Diamond back.  It is said that producer Rick Rubin (of Johnny Cash’s American Recordings fame) asked Neil to write songs for the album.  After about a month, Neil came back and said he’d written the songs.  Rubin asked, “How many?”  Neil said, “About a hundred.” Rubin replied, “Come back when you’ve written more.”  From that large selection of songs, they picked 12 that were the best.  It really sounds like it. 

Album # 64: Amadeus Soundtrack by Academy of St. Martins In the Field

1.       

Sound: Mozartish

Mood: Dramatic

Important Songs: Symphony 25; Serenade for Winds K.361, 3^rd movement

Song You Must Hear: Deis Irae

Notes: Although I had been introduced to classical music earlier, this is the album that made me love it.  I had the movie to give context to the music, but the music itself is so powerful, so moving.

Album #65: Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

1.    

Sound: Folk rock

Mood: Jaunty

Important Songs: Like a Rolling Stone; Ballad of a Thin Man

Song You Must Hear: Highway 61 Revisited

Quotes: "The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken.”

“Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders.”

Notes: This is a highly praised album, and I need not heap more upon it.  It is enough to say that it changed the music world and all the rest of the worlds around it. 

Album #66: Sabbath Offerings by Rockharbor Worship

1.     

Sound: Church Worship Band

Mood: Worship

Important Songs: Beauty of Your Peace, Be Near

Song You Must Hear: Reverence

Quote: “I’m falling on my knees, offering you all of me.”

Notes: Most worship groups don’t know what worship is.   They think their purpose is to entertain, or to make music that is easy to sing to. However, the purpose of worship music is to create a space where one’s spirit can meet God.  You don’t want it too fast or with too much intellect.  The Rockharbor worship band on this album knows what they are about. This is a powerful album for worship—simple, paced, spiritual, but they don’t force one into worship.  They just provide the opportunity. 

Album #67: No Compromise by Keith Green

1.      

Sound: Pounding piano

Mood: Heart-wrenching and joyful

Important Songs: Asleep In The Light, You!

Song You Must Hear: Make My Life A Prayer To You

Quote:  “After all the things that you have shown me I’d be a fool to let them slip away.”

Notes: This album, more than any other, changed my life.  It was my liturgy and the goal of my soul.  The driving piano pushed the message further into my heart.  This is not a worship album, but an album intended to restore a fallen heart back to Jesus.