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Showing posts with the label Amy Grant

DeGarmo & Key - This Ain't Hollywood

Back in the early '80s Christian music was a bit of a mixed bag of Licorice Allsorts. It was pretty rare to get a good one, and if there were any of the good ones someone else usually got there first leaving me with the weird orange blobs of sugary shitness. DeGarmo & Key were among the early pioneers who had chops and made records that sounded like honest to goodness records. Of course back then my budget was pretty thin and the only exposure I had to new stuff was through some of the older kids in my youth group. I wasn't exactly a kid but I was still in high school. I'd heard some of the songs from the band's first two albums and they were solid and when they dropped their third album it took me a bit but I would pick it up in '81 and really really tried to like this it. It was the band's third album and they had moved decidedly into the adult contemporary lane and while there was still plenty of guitar the songs were more like extensions of Christopher C...

Michael W. Smith - The Michael W. Smith Project

Released early in 1983 I picked it up shortly after it came out. It was a weird looking album with a nerdy sweater wearing guy who was grinning like he'd taken the last Oreo off the plate of cookies in Sunday school. Whoever designed the cover was going for "current" because the cover had a computer generated looking background that seemed to be inspired by Tron, and that was current. The album opens with a cheesy synthesizer arrangement of "Sonata in D Major" before launching into "You Need a Savior" a song that pretty much stopped me in my tracks. "What was this strange music coming from the stereo? This is good - not just "Christian music good" but, good - good. I was buying a lot of really questionable Christian music in the early '80s that got a pass because it was Christian, and therefore inspired by God and therefore good for you. After all, like Larry said, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music" but in reali...