Music Day, Part I - The Messiah

I've always liked the lyrical progression of this song; how the title line takes on three different tones.

Also, those of you who are sick of mushy-gushy Christian radio and mega-church worship-band crap will appreciate this one. Bloodgood was one of the lesser-known hair metal bands that rode Stryper's coattails but were much, much better at lyric-writing than their bumblebee-coloured counterparts (admit it -- Stryper could play a mean guitar and they had good harmonies, but as for lyrics... I'll just leave this here). They also had a bit of a theatrical bent -- I remember seeing a video on YouTube of the band performing this song on a full-on theatre set and the band members as characters in the story. It wasn't quite on the level of Alice Cooper's stage show, but the approach seemed similar (not that I'm an expert on Alice Cooper either). I'll see if I can find it again...

Anyway, before this post becomes a who's-who of rockers whose names I know but whose styles I'm rusty on, here's the song:

Title: The Messiah
Artist: Bloodgood
Album: Detonation
Year: 1987
iTunes here, YouTube here.

Also, I totally found the dramatised live version! It's even more awesome than I remembered. Watch it here.

The live video in particular brings out a little more of the political, earth-bound side of Jesus' death. See, at that time in history, the Jews/Israelites/Hebrews were under Roman rule and generally were not thrilled with this state of affairs. Centuries before, the Jewish prophets had told of a messiah, a king, that would come and save them. Now that the Jews had been exiled from Israel (the land promised to them by God), they assumed that this messiah would be a political one -- that he would free the Jews from Roman tyranny and establish himself as king above the Roman rulers.

Jesus, meanwhile, was born and at thirty He began teaching about God and the scriptures and performing miracles. This of course didn't sit very well with the religious leaders, as Jesus fast became more popular than they -- that and Jesus had some harsh criticism for said religious leaders, in addition to claiming to be the son of God. To claim to be the son of God was not only preposterous, it was anti-scriptural and punishable by death. The religious leaders quickly realised He was dangerous to them, but because of His fame among the common people, they didn't dare take action.

As far as the common people were concerned, everything was going great until they realised that this Jesus character didn't appear to be storming down the emperor's gates and liberating the Jews anytime soon. The religious leaders seized on this discontent and stirred the people into an angry frenzy. In a matter of days, Jesus went from widespread public acclaim to being arrested and winding up in front of a mob of angry Jews screaming for His crucifixion.

Here is where the video comes in.

The Jewish authorities didn't have the authority to sentence a person to death, so they sent Jesus to Pilate, of the Roman court (this is the character in the red robe - the singer). The Romans didn't really care about the Jews' religious dispute and Pilate sent Him to Herod -- who was in charge of the area where Jesus was from. Herod mocked Him a bit and then sent Him back to Pilate. Pilate agreed to punish Jesus and release Him, but this didn't satisfy the Jews' bloodlust. After multiple tries to dissuade the Jews from their wish to see Jesus dead, Pilate eventually gave up, washed his hands of the matter (literally) and said the people could do what they wanted with Jesus. So they crucified Him.

The thing was, the messiah was never meant to be a political one. The messiah God sent was supposed to atone for the sins of all the people in the world. This atonement required the blood of a perfectly innocent man, and this is who Jesus was. That crucifixion shed innocent blood, and because Jesus willingly allowed them to crucify Him though He certainly possessed the power to flatten every one of the perpetrators, God saw it as an acceptable sacrifice. And as proof that the sacrifice (that is, Jesus' death) was acceptable and complete, Jesus was raised from the dead and lives even now, at the right hand of God. Now -- even today -- all that is required for this atonement to be yours is to believe that Jesus shed His innocent blood to cover your sins, on your behalf. This is all that is required to save you from the wrath of God against the sinful nature that every human (myself included) is born with.

For a fuller version of the story, read here, here, and here.

Music Day - Walkin' In Faith

Written 10 January 2014, 11.07pm.

Discovered this through the Frontline Records Facebook page last week. I clicked the link they posted and stuck one earbud in, expecting some decent background-music rock. Within the first twenty seconds of the song, I put in the second earbud.

This thing rocks hard, but it's melodic. It's kind of like a heavier version of White Heart, or a less over-the-top version of '80s Stryper. Think White Heart's Dr Jekyll And Mr Christian with a little more muscle (and slightly less stellar vocals, but that's only because nobody can top Rick Florian). Also, turns out these guys are Canadian, which makes them even better.

Their guitarist is awesome. His playing makes me think of Oz Fox (Stryper). It's some seriously good stuff. Usually I kind of zone out a song's guitar work (Daniel Amos and Prodigal being the only exceptions), but not with what I've heard of this band so far. This is really compelling. I can't put my finger on it, but it's darn good.

Title: Walkin' In Faith
Artist: Angelica
Album: Walkin' In Faith
Year: 1991
Label: Frontline Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Record Collector Problems

So for my birthday, my grandmother took me shopping. Most females my age would probably buy clothes and shoes in such a situation, but to me, 'shopping' means 'music.' So on the Monday (freaking holiday Monday -- me and the August long weekend have a hate-hate relationship. Actually, me and long weekends in general have a hate-hate relationship), I hit the vinyl shops (all two of them) and came away with a pretty good haul if I do say so myself.

Some points I would like to make about the excursion:

Do you have any idea how much willpower it takes to leave the second copy of DA's ¡Alarma! at the store? I was seriously tempted to get both copies. Even though they were exactly the same. And I had already bought the first one. And I have the deluxe CD reissue they put out last year (buy it here. It is just as awesome as they say it is).

Found an After The Fire album that I only bought because I vaguely remembered reading about it on the 500 Greatest Albums blog. In fact, I found three copies of this album. Of course I bought the one with the skip in the middle of the best song.

Bought the 1977 Pantano/Salsbury album (entitled Hit The Switch) purely because of the ravings of those over at the Jesus Music forum on Facebook. Completely worth the money. Imagine mixing the songwriting of Prodigal with the playing of early DeGarmo and Key. And a talking guitar that puts the then-future Bon Jovi to shame.

Found the one Margaret Becker album we don't have... for $24.95. This at the shop where I snagged a pristine copy of DA's Horrendous Disc (which is, to my understanding, the most sought-after and hard-to-find DA record) a month ago for ten bucks.

Also saw Stryper's To Hell With The Devil not once, not twice, but three times... in the same store. In three different places.

Was hoping to find some Randy Stonehill -- nothing.

Why do they make the crate units at the shops so darn high? I had to stand on my very tiptoes and lean forward onto the tableau to flip through the records at the very back of each crate. I'm not very heavy, but those things were wobbling.

I realised today, while importing the ATF record and trying to classify the genre of it, that I really only need two genre tags for my iTunes library: Rock and Not Rock.



Also, two big pieces of music news!

1. White Heart is touring... and we have cities! Columbus, Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago -- go buy your tickets now and bring these guys out of retirement! If these shows go well, we may just get another tour in 2015... and maybe they'll venture up to Canada for that one. Also, they've been dropping hints on a new album. They haven't actually come out and said, 'we're making a new album,' but they keep talking about new music coming soon, which is basically (hopefully) the same thing.

2. One of my favourite albums of all time, Daniel Amos' Doppelgänger, is being reissued in a deluxe CD package. This is cause for extreme excitement. No timeline on that yet, but I assume it'll be by the end of the year.

Music Day - Sympathy

Definitely my favourite Stryper song.

Title: Sympathy
Artist: Stryper
Album: No More Hell To Pay
Year: 2013
Label: Frontiers Records
iTunes here; official video on YouTube here.

I adore the harmony in the chorus. Michael Sweet is totally on form here -- I think I like his singing better now than his singing back in the eighties. It's still just as sweeping and powerful, but it doesn't sound as forced as it did then.

This is just a great straight-up rock song. It's still the Stryper sound, but it also sounds perfectly suited to today's sound. Sympathy would not be out of place on today's rock radio stations.

Your Obscure Music Digest

Well, since there's a lull in DA and White Heart stuff, I am now featuring stuff from The Choir. Observe.

From the list linked above, I've only heard four songs -- Beautiful Scandalous Night (and that was only in part), Between Bare Trees, Midnight Sun, and That Melancholy Ghost. They're all lovely; however, those of you who know me as a rocker will be surprised -- these tracks (at least those four) are slow and the instrumentation is sparse. If it wasn't for the writing, I probably wouldn't listen to them at all.

The link is included on the page linked above, but if you're too lazy to read through it, here's the link directly to their Kickstarter campaign to make a new studio album and a live album. They've already met their funding goal, but you have until the end of the month to join in.


Metalheads, take note: Bloodgood and Stryper have both got new albums going out in a few weeks (November first and fifth, respectively). Word on the street (that is, Facebook and random album reviews) says the Stryper one is worthy of the Stryper banner... haven't heard too much about the Bloodgood one yet.

Watch the official video for Stryper's No Hell To Pay here. Watch the official video for Bloodgood's Lamb Of God here.


Also, after announcing a Kickstarter campaign that was supposed to launch last week, PFR is unexpectedly calling it quits. For good? Who knows -- this is PFR. They've quit and reappeared at least twice. But it's safe to say they're out of commission for a few more years at least. They have asked for prayer for the guys -- no more information has been given.


Lecrae's dropping a mixtape, Church Clothes 2, on 7 November. The last one was released on Datpiff, so I assume CC2 will be the same. (For those of you keeping score, that's three new albums in the first week of NaNoWriMo. Can you say 'jackpot?')


Also, this. This is awesome on so many levels. I love the DA/Choir/TST/etc. fanbase so, so much, and this is a great example of why. Name me another fanbase that will even think of something like this, never mind actually give it a shot.

Music Day

Found this one through a YouTube link. I'd seen the album on iTunes and I previewed a couple of songs from it once, but that was quite a while ago and I didn't really remember it. So I watched the video, to see if I liked it.

It's pretty good. I want to say it reminds me of Bon Jovi, but I don't feel entirely qualified to say that since the only two Bon Jovi songs I've ever heard are Livin' On A Prayer and You Give Love A Bad Name. However, the only other band I could really compare it to is perhaps a slightly harder rocking version of Shout, but I'm guessing if you don't know Barren Cross, you probably don't know Shout. Stryper could be another comparison.

Everyone who knows more than I do about the music scene in the late eighties says this is metal, so there you go. As for me, the only actual metal I'm really familiar with is Barnabas. I've still got plenty to learn.

Title: Imaginary Music
Artist: Barren Cross
Album: Atomic Arena
Year: 1987
Label: Enigma Records
iTunes here; non-pixelated but out of sync music video on YouTube here; lip-synched but pixelated music video on YouTube here (both links are the same video, just different visual quality).


A few Twitter thoughts about the music video:
-- His voice reminds me of John Schlitt (Petra), only less gravelly. And perhaps a touch lower... I'm not sure.
-- Dude's got hair to put Rick Florian to shame (circa 1990). Holy smokes. I don't think I've ever had hair that long in my life, and I'm a girl.
-- The pants they're wearing. Just -- wow. (It's the eighties, so where's our zebra pants? It's the eighties, where's our leopard pants? (You now have that song in your head. You're welcome.))
-- Yes. Awesomely eighties.

Attention Music Nerds!

If your taste in music is anything like mine (look through the 'Music Day' tab above if you're not sure), you need to check this out:

classicchristian247.com

They have PFR, and David Meece, and DeGarmo & Key, and old Michael W Smith, and Michael Card, and Newsboys, and Petra, and Kim Boyce, and Amy Grant, and Silverwind, and Stryper, and White Heart, and...

This is my noveling music for the rest of the month. (Big thanks to the Petra fan page on Facebook for posting the link to this.)

The problem now is that I'm too excited to write and I have an hour to write 2,000 more words...

Yes, I Do Need To Get A Life

The other night I was getting ready for bed and noticed this song playing in my head. It sounded familiar so I didn't really think about it too much right away... but then once I got in bed and was waiting to fall asleep I suddenly consciously realised that it wasn't Petra or White Heart.
Well then, where had I picked it up?
At first I couldn't name the band -- usually that solves everything. But then it got to this part in the pre-chorus where there's this held note and suddenly I recognised the voice.
That's Michael Sweet -- This is Stryper.
I didn't even own any Stryper -- yet. And they're one of the few acts neither of my parents were fans of. In fact, my only exposure to Stryper was from previewing their albums on the iTunes Store.

So if you're ever wondering if you like a song enough (based on a preview) to justify paying a whole entire dollar for it, here's a little test: If you can all of the sudden randomly start humming the song without any external cue, it's probably safe to fork over the dollar.
(Unless, of course, you need that dollar to keep your lights on or buy your groceries for the week. Then no, keep the dollar and stick to previewing the song while you eat a good hot meal.)