11 Days: Music of My Heart

Excuse the throwaway NSYNC/Gloria Estefan reference. I had to keep my streak of “song titles as blog titles” alive. And it seems appropriate enough. So I’ll be reflecting the 11 songs that had the most impact on me this year in no particular order.

1. Playback – Collie Buddz The romantic in me instantly connected to this song. when he says “Your love is like a soundtrack,” that just conjures so many memories for me. I want someone to be able to say that about me. I want to be able to say that about someone. But I guess I’ll just have to keep waiting…

2. Last to Speak – Allen Stone I love, Love, LOVE this song. It just really hits home for me. As many gripes as I have about the Church, politics, and society, I’m not even in a position to offer a truly constructive criticism. So next year I’ll be working on removing the plank in my eye. Fun times.

3. For Once in My Life – B.Reith & PJ Morton This track came along at a perfect time in my life. It really confirmed that I need to stop letting my fears control me and start making some major moves in my life.

4. #CougarSwag – Heath McNease & Playdough I love this song if for no other reason that I can make a terrible spinoff called #PumaSwag and thoroughly disgust Playdough. This song is hilarious and it’s just fun.

5. Beautiful Things – Gungor This song just gives me so much hope. god really does make beautiful things out of us, and I’ll never understand why. But I’ll always be appreciative.

6. Where I Belong – Switchfoot This song slays me. Plain and simple. It sums up my view on mortality and living a life of consequence.

7. Give Me – Kirk Franklin f./ Mali Music How can you not love this song? Like, seriously.

8. Song of Intercession – William McDowell “The change I wanna see must first begin in me. I surrender so Your world can be changed.” Those lyrics get me so hard every time. I really do have to be the change I want to see in the world, and I’m slowly but surely making the right steps towards that.

9. Hang With Me – Robyn I know this is an older song, but I really discovered Body Talk this year. And those lyrics provide a great disclaimer for me to guard my heart the next time I enter a relationship. “Just don’t fall recklessly headlessly in love with me, because it’s gonna be a heartbreak…”

10. Dry Bones – Gungor I think they’re albums were my favorite of the year (more on that tomorrow.) The emotion is so potent in this song, you can’t help but be held captive by it.

11. Love is Here – Royal Tailor This is a fantastic song that very recently became a favorite of mine. It’s very Michael Jackson-lite, but I enjoy the complete work of the song. Royal Tailor is this generation’s Plus One, hands down. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing since I loved Plus One (especially Exodus…that album was just great), but I do see RT eventually being more successful.

Tomorrow I’ll break down my top 10 albums of the year. Until then, what songs really impacted you this year?

 

[Album Review] Playdough & Heath McNease – Wed, White, & Wu

Click here to download the mixtape for FREE!

It’s finally here! I got an advance copy of it yesterday and I had to sit on it for awhile and talk about it to a friend. I came away with a lot of thoughts:

First: I hipped my friend to Playdough & Heath literally like last week. I made a mixtape for her with a lot of different tracks that were mostly upbeat. So when she heard this she wasn’t as prepared for it. Mostly because she doesn’t usually listen to Wu Tang Clan or any gritty hip hop like that. But the mixtape served to provide several juxtapositions. Whenever I hip her to music, it’s either purely Christian/Gospel or purely secular. To have something that mixes the two was interesting to her. And it provided great discussion that shall lead me to the following soapbox:

You can’t really win for losing being a Christian. It’s as if when you’re a Christian you fall into one of these categories: completely isolated from the world and judgmental or so hypocritical that no one really knows you’re a Christian except for when you say it. I already know that I can’t share this mixtape with some of my friends because they’re going to be like “Wu Tang? That’s not holy.” or “That can’t edify your spirit” or whatever holy speak we like to use when sounding super spiritual. While I appreciate that view and certainly don’t knock it, it feels like we as super deep Christians can miss the point, or worse yet miss the opportunity to really learn something. I truly subscribe to the concept that you can’t just watch/listen to/participate in just anything. We can’t try to get so close to the world that we lose our Christian identity, but at the same time we can’t be so isolated that we become out of touch. It is ENTIRELY possible to be Christian and NOT BE A LAME!! You can speak about love and faith and hope, and still be cool. You can talk about video games and relationships, and other unimportant things and still have a heart for Christ. How do you find that balance? That’s entirely subjective, but it can be found.

Now with that being said, there really is something for everyone in this mixtape. The rhymes are as deft and discerning as ever. You can really sense how hard everyone worked on this mixtape. Every time you listen, you’ll get a different understanding of a lyric, or you’ll just hear something so outlandish that you can’t help but laugh out loud. While this mixtape won’t be for everyone, it is still pretty stellar. I couldn’t recommend this mixtape enough. So click on the link, download it, and donate. We need to support good music whenever we can so do it!

Throwaway note: I never realized what a wrestling fan Heath McNease was until this mixtape. I heard at least 2 Lex Luger mentions and a shout out to Randy Orton. As a big wrestling fan, that just made my heart happy.

Rating: 4.4/5

Tracks to Repeat: “#CougarSwag”, “C.R.E.A.M.”, “Sweet Love”, “Gravel Spit”, “27 Club”

Tracks to Skip: “You Know My Steez”, “Half Ghetto”

 

[Album Review] B. Reith – How the Story Ends

I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive this album in the mail yesterday. The immediate thing I noticed when I started listening was that something was indeed different. It still has the same polish and crafty wordplay, but there was a new sense of urgency and hunger to it. With his last full length album, there was a certain sense of accomplishment to it, and I’m sure being signed to Gotee Records was the reason. But leaving the label and having a career in limbo forced B. Reith to stretch and be uncomfortable and wrestle with God for a period of time. That struggle is interwoven into the album and we’re all the better for it.

But how are the actual tracks? I’m pleased to say fantastic! The guest spots with Lecrae, Lisa Gungor, PJ Morton, and Dave Barnes are all well placed. It’s refreshing to see guest spots actually enhance and not draw attention away from an album. He continues to bounce back and forth between many genres and many topics that there’s something for everyone, maybe even Becky.

Becky is a CCM radio term for their target audience: a white woman in her 40s with kids who she probably shuttles to soccer practice often. Hearing this demographic described highlights the reasons why all urban Christian music continually struggles to be mainstream even in the Christian community. This is primarily why I don’t listen to Christian radio, and why should I when the only “urban” song they play is Mary Mary’s “Shackles”. Thanks but no thanks. Think that fires some shots? B. Reith fires a lot more and rightfully so. I tweeted him last night and said we should start an #ImNotBecky movement, and I’m deadly serious. With CCM radio focusing exclusively on “Becky” they are standing it the way of so many artists having an impact on millions of people. They are doing all of us a disservice and something needs to be done.

This is supposed to be album review, not a chance for me to stand on a soapbox right?

I feel so personally attached to this album because it comes at a perfect time in my life. I’ve been struggling with a big decision for months now, and I’ve finally decided to step out in faith and trust God. While I’ve felt a tremendous release about the decision and I am now excited about it, this album came and it serves as a confirmation that I’m doing the right thing. Being able to watch B. Reith’s semi-public struggles with his career and seeing how God used all of this struggle and sacrifice to craft something beautiful and heartfelt is inspiring. It fuels me to keep working at what’s important. I’m positive that God will use my struggles and sacrifice to craft something beautiful and heartfelt too. He will do that for all of us! To paraphrase a song, everything may be wrong right now, but one day everything will be right.

Rating: 5/5
Tracks to Repeat “2 Steps Forward”, “Made for More”, “For Once in My Life”, “I’ll Get By”
Tracks to Skip: none!

 

[Album Preview] Playdough & Heath McNease – Wed, White, and Wu

Two of my favorite artists have come together to drop a free mixtape next month! Wed, White, and Wu will contain a slew of dope tracks that feature Wu Tang Can samples. I’m already giddy at the thought of the music production and how it’s all gonna sound. We already know that the lyrics are gonna be on point, for Playdough and Heath never disappoint to be witty and engaging with their words.

So get familiar and check out the video below. The album will drop here November 8th, so be sure to download it. And be sure to donate however much you can. There’s so much wack music everywhere and we really need to support great music whenever we can.

 

[Album Review] ‘Da T.R.U.T.H. – The Whole Truth

Click here to purchase "The Whole Truth" from iTunes

 

I couldn’t tell you how excited I was when I heard that ‘Da T.R.U.T.H. was releasing a new album. Friends of mine called him the best Christian rapper alive, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I still loved his music tons. So I anxiously waited until the album dropped today to check it out.

Aside: I can’t tell you how much Spotify has enriched my life. Just the fact that I could stream the whole album (legally!) and then make a decision on whether or not to buy it is tremendous. I love that I can just randomly think “Hey, I haven’t listened to Third Eye Blind in awhile…” and then not only listen to them, but spend 2 solid hours making a 90′s Rock/Alternative playlist and be immersed in nostalgia. Spotify is about to get $10 from me every month just for offline service. It’s just amazing. End aside.

So I started listening to the album, and I just felt perplexed. I loved the honesty and emotion behind the lyrics to the album (best lyrics of the album: “These ain’t just lyrics; this is a contrite heart.”), but the music and production just felt lacking. Subpar even. It didn’t help that the first half of the album was all mid-tempo tracks save 1. The last half of the CD really picked up and it was really good. The lyrics were hard hitting and timely but the music just left me underwhelmed for the most part. Long time T.R.U.T.H. fans will enjoy this album, but it may be hit or miss for his newer fans or those who’ve never heard him before.

Rating: 3/5

Tracks to Repeat: “Alive”, “Alive Remix”, “Brainwashed”

Tracks to Skip: “Impossible”, “Can’t Believe”

 

 

The Best Day Ever

So call me SpongeBob because I just had the best day ever.

God’s love for me is quite unnerving. I do not and will not ever understand it. The past couple of weeks I’ve been wandering from God. I’ve been dealing with a lot of insecurity and it overtook my relationship with Him. I didn’t talk to Him, not because I didn’t want to. On the contrary, I did want to talk to God, and often. But I questioned why God would want to talk to me, and so the conversation never took place. I remember several days last week where God woke me up at 4:00, 4:30, 5:00 AM and I could feel Him pressing me as if saying, “Hey, I do want to talk to you! Let’s talk!” But I felt too ashamed, too lowly. So I would read the Bible, feel even lower, and go back to sleep. If I could make money on my ability to keep God at a distance, I would be set for life.

But yesterday, everything shifted so subtly, I feel like the trajectory of my life has been permanently changed.

Sometimes we can hear so much about the character of God that it renders us numb. How often do we hear and talk about God’s mercy, His lovingkindness, His grace? It is easy for us to hear it so much that it loses its impact. And when something loses its impact, we often miss the chance to experience it fully. This whole time I’ve been experiencing God’s grace, mercy, and unfailing love, but I’ve missed it because I’ve been more impacted by my insecurity than God’s security.  Even as I type this I am crying because I’m so overwhelmed by God’s love for me. Yesterday He sent confirmation after confirmation that He’s looking out for me. If God talked to me as candidly as I think He would, He would say to me very sardonically, “Hey Alexis, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m pretty brilliant. I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin. I see what you’re going through and I got you. So just relax.”

The Katinas confirmed this exact thought when during the middle of their set, they threw out this nugget:

“God didn’t call you to understand, He called you to trust.”

And with that perfect segue in place, let me describe the awesomeness of the concert last night. From start to finish, the concert was fantastic. Quimi started off the show and as she went into her set, I looked at my friend Kasey and said, “Am I listening to a Lauryn Hill song at church?” I knew from then that this show would not disappoint. Quimi’s Spanish breakdown brought back memories of Selena. She was just adorable. If I were not a broke college student, I would’ve bought her album on iTunes right on the spot. (Aside: Every church should have free wi-fi so that I may live tweet everything. The world would be a better place)

After Quimi was B. Reith and I was delirously giddy. Listening to Kasey harmonize to everything was fantastic. Another aside: In my row were my friends Liz, Rasheda, Kasey and Jamika. Out of the 5 of us, I am hands down the worst singer. What most don’t know is I could be a halfway decent alto if I actually tried. Listening to our row sing during the night was fantastic. We would simultaneously sing unison and then break down into 3 and 4-part harmonies. It made my heart happy. But I digress.

If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you know how I feel about B. Reith. I’ve followed him since way back when and I’ve always admired him. The fact that he lived so close to me and I hadn’t met him until last night proves God’s love for me. Had we met sooner I would’ve been a total spaz, and God would’ve looked down upon me, raised an eyebrow and shook His head. But B. Reith couldn’t have been any more charming (and disarming for that matter), and after a few seconds, I felt like I was catching up with an old friend. That Kasey got to put her PR/Agent hat on and plant a seed for a future work was an extra bonus.

The Katinas came out and headlined the show. It was just incredible. I was an only child for 13 years, and my little brother is himself growing up as an only child in Jacksonville. Seeing the brothers on stage and watching the videos about their family, I felt such a yearning, like I had been missing out on something. It made me realize why I clutch onto so many relationships at my church and why I have a ton of Godbrothers and Godsisters. There is just something about family that is so fulfilling. And when Jesus Christ is in the middle of that family, it is infinitely better. Overall, it made me that much more grateful for my family in Christ. There are so many people searching for love, for acceptance, for safety, and I get to experience these things EVERY DAY through Christ and through His people. It’s indescribable.

Leaving that concert, it made me want to cherish my relationships with those close to me even more, and it challenged me to create new relationships, to provide love, provide acceptance, and provide safety for people who don’t know Jesus, and who are searching for Him in their own way.

So now today begins a new day, and a new outlook.  My One Word for 2011 has been progress, and I know that I’m achieving progress, slowly but ever so surely. I feel like I’ve finally turned a corner, and I’m no longer anxious about what’s around the corner. I hate feeling so weak in not knowing what’s ahead, but it’s when I’m weak that He’s brilliant. And I couldn’t be anymore grateful.

 

So yeah…

…this TOTALLY happened.

This capped off an incredible day where God simultaneously checked me and showed me how much He loves me. Did you know that God is like, crazy brilliant? I knew that too, but sometimes we just need to be reminded.

I’m so overcome with all these crazy emotions that I can’t sit still. But trust that tomorrow I will unveil the full story and process how God is doing crazy things in my life.

Just a thought to leave with you with for a bit: Isn’t it crazy how God can put Himself in impossible situations to prove how brilliant He is? Even crazier is how He allows us to be put into impossible situations just so we have no choice to sit back and watch Him work.

 

[Album Review] Emily King – The Seven EP

Click to Lsten

You just do not know how much I geeked when I discovered this EP.

I still rotate East Side Story often. There is just something about Emily’s voice, that wonderfully breezy soprano, that just draws you in. After that, the lyrics and her musical arrangement keeps you locked in.

I am still completely baffled how J Records let her slip through the cracks.

Luckily for us, she has been steadily crafting more tunes, and with The Seven EP Emily King proves that good things truly come to those who wait. Though there’s only 7 tracks on the EP, the songs blend together seamlessly as it bounces from a variety of topics. Emily hits every emotion succinctly but passionately. The album ends a little weakly, but overall The Seven EP is a great work that enhances her work, and gives us a bright future to look forward to.

Hopefully she doesn’t keep us waiting so long next time.

Rating: 4.2/5

Tracks to Repeat: “No More Room”, “Ever After”

Tracks to Skip: “Every Part”

 

Get Familiar: Heath McNease

A month without a new blog post? Tragic I know. That’s what Grad school will do to ya… but I’m back now!

He’s been flying under the radar for so long, I don’t understand it. Y’all know my weakness for white boys who play guitar, rap, and love Jesus. (I’m sure it is God’s work that I haven’t met B.Reith yet, despite the fact we live an hour away from each other, but I digress… #notastalker) I never knew Heath McNasty existed until I saw a video that Playdough tweeted awhile back. And if something or someone has Playdough’s stamp of approval, chances are more than likely that I’m gonna love it.

This was no exception. He sings, he raps, he plays guitar, and he has hair longer than mine. These are 4 important factors that will have me head over heels for a musician. And he is the BOMB freestyle rapper! He’s just dope, no matter how you look at it.

So watch this amazing video of Heath, Playdough, and Manchild freestyling and get familiar. After that, cop his new album “The House Always Wins” post haste. You can find his website here and you can follow him on twitter @theheathmcnasty

 

30 Day Challenge: Day 5

Look at me on a roll y’all! I’m really trying to be consistent, but it’s hard… I will never forgive Billy Ray Cyrus. But I digress…

Day 5: a song that reminds you of someone

Should this be a good reminder, or a bad reminder?  Oy vey…I’ve got it!!

I played this song for my cousin when I went to Denver and the look on her face was priceless. It’s a perfectly sensual song about stalking. I think it’s hilarious. So every time I hear this song, I think of my cousin, and I think of her face. And then I wish Se7en would stalk me. I need help, I know.