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Album Of The Day: Hold The Light by Andrew Osenga

Album Art of Andrew Osenga's Hold The Light album - a grainy color photo of a middle-aged man in a baseball cap playing an acoustic guitar in a small room filled with furniture, lamps and video and audio recording equipment. Above the center of the photo in a bright yellow block text is the words 'Hold The' in small print, and 'Light' below it in much bigger print. At the bottom in a much thinner, lighter yellow print it says ‘An acoustic recording by Andrew Osenga'.

Released today digitally and released last December on vinyl, this is a beautiful session of acoustic versions of songs written by Andrew Osenga (The Normals, Caedmon's Call). This was recorded on his 45th birthday as a present to himself. I'm glad we get to hear this recording as much as it was a treat for him to make it. Andrew's music has always been so honest, so heartfelt, and to explore both the highs and lows of life. One of my favorite songs ever is "After The Last Tear Falls", which was co-written with Andrew Peterson, and it’s fun to hear Mr. Osenga play it here. Other songs featured in this session are from his solo albums released 20+ years ago to even one track from The Normals's final album. Many songs are from his excellent The Painted Desert album and more recent songs are here too. This album acts as a great retrospective of Andrew's career and hopefully a whole new group of fans will check his music out.

Release Year: 2024
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A photo of a smiling man from the shoulders up on the right side holding a vsigned vinyl record to the left. Behind him can be seen CDs and vinyl on shelves. He’s wearing a light blue shirt, has a full beard and mustache and has short, brown hair.

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Album Of The Day: The Art of Translation by GRITS

Album Art of GRITS's The Art of Translation album - With a thick white border, a photo of two black men sitting in blue padded benches of what looks like a very standard American diner. The wall behind them is dark red tile, and the table is white. There is a Nickelodeon, a machine to request songs from the jukebox, on the wall next to the table, and a few condiments as well on the table. The two people are sitting on opposite sides of the table and are not looking towards the camera. On the beige wall era above the tile, the group name is printed in red in a blocky text. And below it in a script font is the album name.

"My life be like, ooh-aah, ooh." Released 23 years ago today, this is the fourth album from this hip-hop duo and it's my favorite album of theirs. They bring the energetic raps right from the start with "Here We Go", and keep it going with "Ooh Ahh", "Tennessee Bwoys", "Believe", and "Make Room". Labelmate Jennifer Knapp provides vocals on one song, and label owner and artist TobyMac makes an appearance as well, among others. It's solid beats with good raps from Bonfide and Coffee, two rappers who perform as GRITS. The lyrical content is at least somewhat spiritual, but also pokes fun at hip-hop culture, how much they love their city of Nashville, Tennessee and that "Gospel rap" is not their preferred way of being labeled as a duo.

Release Year: 2002
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Album Of The Day: Chrysaline by Josh Garrels

Album Art of Josh Garrels's Chrysaline album - With a thin white border around the edge, the black background has an illustration of plants, butterflies, and a pair of hands reaching up towards the flora and fauna. The image is nearly symmetrical, with a purple flower right in the center that has large pollen receptors coming out of the middle of the open flower. There are red flowers open on both sides of the purple one, with green, leafy branches along the edges of the illustration. Above the flowers on both the right and left are two butterflies, for a total of four. In the leaves and branches can be seen a caterpillar and chrysalis as well. In the middle towards the top is the artist's name in large, blue letters, and the album title in much smaller light gray.

Released six years ago this past Saturday, this is the ninth studio album from Josh Garrels, an independent folk-rock singer-songwriter. When it came out, I wasn't a huge fan. It's more mellow than his previous albums, I think, and I'm a bit of a rock fan. As usual, the lyrics have very spiritual content, and the instrumentation is beautiful. Much of Josh's vocals are a bit into his upper range, which works well. Over the years, the album has definitely grown on me, and despite the fact that he doesn't rock as much or break out into a spoken word verse like previous albums, it's still a solid listen.

Release Year: 2019
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Album Of The Day: The Blues Brothers Soundtrack by Various

Album Art of The Blues Brothers Soundtrack album - On a solid blue background, a square photo of two men is in color but also rotated about 10 degrees off center counter-clockwise. The photo shows two white men in black suits and pants with thin black ties and tall black hats, also wearing sunglasses. They are sitting on the hood of a black sedan, and a remote place of the Chicago can be seen somewhat in the background, with a gravel/dirt next to the person on the left on the ground and steel railroad bridges in the background. It's a gray, overcast day. At the top in large letters it says the movie name in yellow, plus in much smaller type it says 'Original Soundtrack Recording' and 'A Universal Picture' in the bottom right.

Released 45 years ago earlier in the summer, this is the soundtrack of the John Landis-directed comedy/musical/action film. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd often appeared on Saturday Night Live as a blues duo from their beloved Chicago, and along with opening for other bands and some touring, this ridiculously funny film was made. This album includes all the major musical numbers from the film recorded in a studio, and a few bits that are not in the film are included too. Most of it is Jake and Elwood Blues, their characters names, as The Blues Brothers, but they are joined by Ray Charles on one song and Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Cab Calloway get their own tracks from the film. Classic songs like "Jailhouse Rock", "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Gimme Some Lovin'" are just a sample of the classics on this album. The Blues Brothers are great performers even if they are actors first, and they love the music. And the band they assembled for this album and the movie is top-notch as well. If you've not listened to much blues, this is a great place to start. It's even a fun listen if you haven't seen the movie. And if you're a fan of classic blues music, you'll probably find this not bad as well, I think.

Release Year: 1980
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Album Of The Day: Kingdom Of Comfort by delirious?

Album Art of delirious?'s Kingdom Of Comfort album - On a gray background, a photo of a white shopping cart that has been tipped on its side towards the camera and is lying on the ground. Spilling out of it is a whole bunch of random things, all colored white. Still in the cart is a snare drum, cartons of milk or other drink, and other foodstuffs. On the right, mostly out of the cart is a small electronic keyboard that is also mostly white. In front of it are soda and coffee cups, an iPod and earphones, pills, plus paper plates, toilet paper, and much more. A mirror is on the left side and has a white painted pineapple, a book or two, and some sort of tube of product with a small cap. In the top right, it has in white the band's logo with the 'd:' word mark. And below that in a light gray is the album cover.

This is the seventh and final studio album from Christian rock band delirious?. By this time, the band from a small town on the English coast had been all over the world and seen many things, so this album brings a bit more socially conscious lyrical content than their previous albums. The title track, most notably, is a prayer to look beyond ourselves and love our neighbor. Much of the other songs are religiously-themed rock, with the band's veteran musicianship shining through to make many songs an all-out rock fest. Slower anthems like "We Give You Praise", "Love Will Find A Way" and "My Soul Sings" are interspersed with the rock tracks like "Give It What You've Got", "Break The Silence" and "Stare The Monster Down". It's not their best album, but it's still a good album worth a listen. A year later, delirious? announced they were saying farewell to the music scene, though they left a very lasting mark on Christian music worldwide.

Release Year: 2008
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Album Of The Day: Ctrl by Derek Webb

Album Art of Derek Webb's Ctrl album - On a white background, a white box is in the center with the word 'Ctrl' printed in gray and a gray glow coming from behind the white box. The gay glow fades into the whiteness and white lines emanate from the corners of the white box, giving it a sense of depth.

Released 13 years ago yesterday, this is a very unique concept album from Derek Webb. Maybe a bit ahead of its time, this album is a bit of a sci-fi story about someone who is so enamored with his computer and disenchanted with his life, he desires to upload himself to the computer and discontinue his human life. He seems to succeed and finds it's not exactly what he hoped for, and is able to get back to his human life. The music is a very unique and somewhat disconcerting collection of vocals, nylon string guitar, electronic beats and other elements, plus brief bits of discordant shape note choral singing. (If you do some research, you can also find a related side-project where the computer tries to become human along with a short narrative story to go with the album.) This is not an album I listen to often, but it's definitely a unique, ambitious concept album that is an interesting listen, and may even seem a bit more relevant today than ever before.

Release Year: 2012
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Album Of The Day: My Utmost For His Highest by Various Artists

Album Art of the My Utmost For His Highest various artists album - On a beige paper background, four black-and-white images are layered on top of each other. First, a large photo of flowers and a sky are the back photo. On top of that, with a shadow behind it, is the photo of a wrought-iron fence. Above that is a photo of some handwritten musical notation. And the smallest photo in the middle is a photo of two hands on a black background, held open in a prayerful manner. At the top, in a hand-written script is the album title in black.

Released 30 years ago today, I think, is this album celebrating the Christian devotional book by Oswald Chambers of the same name. First published about 100 years ago, the book has 366 one-page reflections and prayers. The album has 11 songs written by artists, each based on one of the pages of Chambers's devotional. About half of the songs are co-written by Michael W. Smith, though he lets other artists perform all but one of those songs. The biggest Christian pop artists of the time are here along with Smith with original, new songs, from Amy Grant to Steven Curtis Chapman to 4Him to Twila Paris. I only picked up this album a few years ago, so it's not one that's well-known to me, but it's got some pretty good songs. One song I heard about 10-15 years ago sung by a choir at church is the final track, "Shine On Us", here performed by Phillips, Craig & Dean. Like many songs on this, it's a very worshipful, adult contemporary hymn. It's not an amazing album by any means, but I think it's a good example of where Christian music was 30 years ago.

Release Year: 1995
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Album Of The Day: One Moment More by Mindy Smith

Album Art of Mindy Smith's One Moment More album - It looks like it's a photo of a young woman with shoulder-length hair mostly lit from behind. The background is out of focus, but it looks like just a field with open sky and maybe some trees off to the right. Around the photo is what looks like an illustration that looks like a photo frame, with a decorative brown border around the photo and then green leaf details in the middle and corners of the edges on a wider beige border.

For many years, I said I hated country music. I didn't want to go to a bar with line dancing, and the songs about trucks and girls weren't my thing. But I've learned that I don't hate country music as much as I think. I found the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music to be fascinating. And one album that got me into country about 20 years ago is this debut album by Mindy Smith. She mixes the singer/songwriter, adult contemporary style with just a bit more country than I am used to, and I love it. She talks about the struggles of life, going to God for help, and well, then there's a cover of "Jolene" with an appearance from Dolly Parton just to make sure it is really a country album. Most of the songs are great for a chill, quiet evening, though a few like "Hard To Know" and "Come To Jesus" get a bit more rowdy. The title track is one of my favorite songs from Mindy Smith and is a great closing song. Unfortunately, I never felt that her later albums grabbed me like this album does, for some reason. But I regularly give this album a listen like I am right now.

Release Year: 2004
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Album Of The Day: The Suburbs by Arcade Fire

Album Art of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs album - In the foreground of this color photo, a grey/brown sedan is pictured from the back of the car, just above the license plate. The car is empty, and in front of the car and above it we can see a house with brick walls, windows, and a sided area under a sloped roof. There's a palm tree in front of the house on the left and a bush on the right, and the bush area has a red tint for some reason. There's a bit of grass on the ground, but also patches of dirt. In the top right, the band's name is written in white in all caps, with the 'F' of the second word behind the 'E' of the first word.

"Now our lives are changing fast / Hope that something pure can last." Released 15 years ago yesterday, this is the third album from indie rock band Arcade Fire and probably their most popular album to this day. It won the GRAMMY Award for Album Of The Year. At 64 minutes long and 16 tracks, it's a long, sprawling album like the suburbs that seem to just go on and on in most American metros. It seems like the subject matter is the two brothers in the band growing up in the suburbs of Houston in the '80s and '90s, and musically inspired by the music of the '70s and '80s, from Depeche Mode to Neil Young. So it's a fun mix of rock and dance to lyrics about the sameness of the suburbs and how the world has changed since we were kids. It's very well-crafted and definitely worth a listen, though it's only my second-favorite album about the suburbs released on that day in 2010. (That's sure a weird coincidence!)

Release Year: 2010
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Album Of The Day: Suburba by House Of Heroes

Album Art of House Of Heroes's Suburba album - The background is red and has stripes on the top and bottom and a stamp in the top right like it's some sort of very worn, red air mail package. In a dark red, written across the upper middle is the band name in bold text. Below that, the word 'Suburba' is bigger on the left and curves up to the right like some classic postcard or something. The word is cut out of the red background, and underneath seems to be mostly a map of some part of the country, with some extra graphics layered on top of it, maybe another map or something else.

"God save us, the foolish kings." Released 15 years ago today, this is the fourth album from alternative rock band House of Heroes, one of my all-time favorite bands. This album is an excellent rock album with a bit more of a pop edge than their earlier albums. These guys always have great harmonies too. Lyrically, it tells the stories of kids exploring the suburbs they live in as they grow up, get into trouble, and fall in love. It goes from full-on guitar-based rock to some heartfelt, slower songs and back, but this album amps me up so much. In the end, the kids grow up and finds a way forward and the truth in life. Sadly, this tremendous album was overshadowed by a much more popular indie rock band releasing an album about the suburbs on the exact same day. House Of Heroes sadly never gained the popularity I thought they should have for all their musical and lyrical expertise.

Also, I'm happy to say it's been one year that I've been posting an Album Of The Day most days. 287 of 365 days is a pretty consistent track record. I hope you have enjoyed it and continue to enjoy it as I continue to highlight more albums I am listening to. Thanks for reading these posts, and I hope you found something you decided to listen or re-listen to over the year. I have many more albums, EPs and singles I will highlight over the coming years, so stay tuned.

Release Year: 2010
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