Danny ChaiDavid Crowder Band’s latest album, “A Collision” is the best Christian album ever produced. The first truly great Christian album ever. Is that bold? That’s my claim. I’m as shocked as anyone, because until now, I’ve pretty much hated anything I’ve heard from him. But yeah, greatest Christian album ever.
There are tons of things I like about the album. One, it’s a true album, a rarity in music nowadays, where you mostly see collections of singles. But A Collision is really a cohesive whole, with a flow to it. I like that.
Two, there’s sadness to it. I say this all time. But the majority of the Psalms contain complaining and/or sadness. Yet this is completely absent from contemporary worship songs. That’s always bothered me. A Collision has sadness and longing to it, very much in the spirit of the Scriptures. I jive with that.
Three, it reaches, and succeeds more often than not, as opposed to Delirious’ last few albums, which reach and don’t succeed. I’ll tell you when the album got me. The first track is an intro track. Second is just an eh song to me, nothing special. I almost gave up listening to the album after it, but went on. The third is a good song, the most interesting thing being some abbreviated measures midway (I love shifting meters. He does it more later on in the album). The fourth and fifth songs are great, albeit straightforward, songs, which I constantly play on repeat.
But it’s the seventh track (after the interlude track six) that totally got me. First of all, it’s a longing song. But what I loved was how halfway through the song, it takes a completely unexpected radical musical turn. It’s shocking enough that it makes you jerk up your head and go, what the heck? But for some reason, I totally bought it, it worked. Like Sting does something similar on Fill Her Up on A Brand New day, switching from faux country to a gospel type song, and I’ve always hated it. Just doesn’t work. But this does work. And it’s so ballsy, after it, I was totally sold on the album from then on. And from that point, the album just gets amazing. It just reaches and hits. Phenomenal.
So yeah, absolutely no one cares, but I think it’s the greatest contemporary Christian music album ever produced. Because nothing before it has tried to reach as much and succeeded. I think it’s the contemporary Christian Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, just groundbreaking. Can’t say enough about it. From a man who previously hated David Crowder.
I actually highly recommend reading the notes to the lyrics also. It’s actually really interesting and more erudite and thoughtful than I would have expected from someone who looks like a goat.
I also highly recommend Yahoo Music Engine, since I’m a complete corporate shill. But honestly, it’s great, it’s like having an infinite music library. And you can do interesting things like share music over Y! Messenger. But no one has it. Oh well.