My Top 200 CCM Rock Albums of All-Time

HM magazine recently put up their list of the top 100 CCM rock records of all-time, and quite frankly, I thought it was horrible. And so, in response to that (even though I almost never listen to CCM anymore), I started my own list, in the spirit of the wonderful Rolling Stone Magazine Top-500 Albums of All-Time list put out quite a few years ago. This is currently a rough draft, is VERY subjective, and probably has a lot of holes in it, as well as a few artists that were over-represented. For those of you interested in this sort of thing, let me know what you think, what I left off, all that good stuff. I tried to keep this in the CCM pop/rock/metal arena, and with a very few exceptions, stayed away from the "Christians in the mainstream" artists. The exceptions here (Kansas, U2, King's X, etc.) are artists and/or albums that were exceptionally popular among the CCM rock listening audience at the time. there are also a very few albums that I personally don't care for, but a slice of objectivity made it into my decision and I tried to recognize a few albums that are generally considered classics among fans (ex - Prayer Chain). but I still refuse to put Audio Adrenaline on here! This isn't really in strict order, though the top 50 are probably in the ballpark, and the top 10 are pretty solid for me personally. it gets less prioritized the farther down it goes, till the last 100 are just a sloppy mess of titles that I think should be in there somewhere. and so... my nomination for the Top 200 CCM Pop/Rock/Metal Albums of All-Time:

1. Kansas – Drastic Measures
2. Sweet Comfort Band – Perfect Timing
3. The Daniel Band – Straight Ahead
4. Undercover – Balance of Power
5. Sixpence None the Richer – This Beautiful Mess
6. Petra – Not of This World
7. Amy Grant – Lead Me On
8. Rez – Between Heaven N Hell
9. Margaret Becker – Immigrant’s Daughter
10. Undercover – Branded
11. LifeSavers Underground – Shaded Pain
12. Resurrection Band – Colours
13. Stryper – Soldiers Under Command
14. The Violet Burning – Chosen
15. Altar Boys – Gut Level Music
16. Michael W. Smith – Eye 2 I
17. Jerusalem – Live In His Majesty’s Service
18. Larry Norman –Only Visiting This Planet
19. Daniel Amos – Doppelganger
20. Idle Cure – Tough Love
21. Jennifer Knapp – The Way I Am
22. Sarah Masen – The Dreamlife of Angels
23. Mylon & Broken Heart – Face the Music
24. Amy Grant – Straight Ahead
25. Whiteheart – Freedom
26. Stryper – To Hell With The Devil
27. King’s X – Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
28. Adam Again – Dig
29. U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
30. The 77’s – Pray Naked
31. Bride – Snakes in the Playground
32. Daniel Amos – Horrendous Disc
33. Michael W. Smith – The Big Picture
34. Amy Grant – Age to Age
35. Degarmo & Key – D&K
36. Whitecross – (1987)
37. Shout – In Your Face
38. Barren Cross – Rock for the King
39. Kim Hill – Brave Heart
40. Out of the Grey – (debut)
41. Charlie Peacock – The Secret of Time
42. Mad at the World – Flowers in the Rain
43. Sacred Warrior – Rebellion
44. The Choir – Chase the Kangaroo
45. Bloodgood – Rock in a Hard Place
46. Mylon & Broken Heart – Sheep in Wolve’s Clothing
47. Daniel Amos – Alarma!
48. The 77’s – All Fall Down
49. Undercover – God Rules
50. Stryper – The Yellow and Black Attack
51. Holy Soldier – Holy Soldier
52. Resurrection Band – Mommy Don’t Love Daddy Anymore
53. Guardian – Fire and Love
54. Mastedon – It’s a Jungle Out There
55. Adam Again – Ten Songs
56. The Daniel Band – Run from the Darkness
57. Steven Curtis Chapman – More to this Life
58. Petra – Beat the System
59. Mad at the World – Seasons of Love
60. Saviour Machine – 1
61. Altar Boys – Against the Grain
62. Steve Taylor – Meltdown
63. Mortal – Lusis
64. Darrell Mansfield – Revelation
65. Bloodgood – All Stand Together
66. Margaret Becker – The Reckoning
67. The Choir – Circle Slide
68. One Bad Pig – Smash
69. Mad at the World – Boomerang
70. Resurrection Band – D.M.Z.
71. Mike Stand – Do I Stand Alone?
72. Bryan Duncan – Holy Rollin’
73. Whitecross – Hammer and Nail
74. Messiah Prophet – Master of the Metal
75. Rez – Silence Screams
76. Barren Cross – Atomic Arena
77. Greg X. Volz – The River is Rising
78. Matthew Ward – Toward Eternety
79. Larry Norman – In Another Land
80. Amy Grant – Unguarded
81. The 77’s – The Seventy Sevens (Exit)
82. Russ Taff – Russ Taff
83. Vector – Mannequin Virtue
84. Barnabas – Little Foxes
85. Rez – Innocent Blood
86. Dead Artist Syndrome – Prints of Darkness
87. Stryper – Against the Law
88. Kerry Livgren / A.D. – Timeline
89. Randy Stonehill – Equator
90. Daniel Amos – Mr. Buechner’s Dream
91. Vengeance Rising – Human Sacrifice
92. Steve Taylor – I Predict 1990
93. Mylon & Broken Heart – Crack the Sky
94. Geoff Moore & The Distance – A Place to Stand
95. Petra – More Power to Ya
96. Holy Soldier – Last Train
97. Whiteheart – Tales of Wonder
98. Margaret Becker – Simple House
99. Terry Taylor – Knowledge and Innocence
100. Rich Mullins – A Liturgy, A Legacy, and A Ragamuffin Band
101. Out of the Grey – The Shape of Grace
102. Charlie Peacock – Love Life
103. Keith Green – For Him Who Has Ears to Hear
104. Mortal – Wake
105. The 77’s – Sticks and Stones
106. Prodigal – Electric Eye
107. Barren Cross – State of Control
108. The Crucified – The Crucified
109. Resurrection Band – Awaiting Your Reply
110. Pray for Rain – PFR
111. Kim Hill
112. In 3-D – No Glasses Needed
113. Liason – Liason
114. Jacob’s Trouble – Knock, Breathe, Shine
115. The Prayer Chain – Shawl
116. 4.4.1. – Mourning into Dancing
117. Servant – Light Maneuvers
118. Rez Band – Bootleg Live
119. Circle of Dust – Circle of Dust
120. Barnabas – Approaching Light Speed
121. L.S.U. – Wakin’ Up The Dead
122. Altar Boys – When You’re a Rebel
123. Daniel Amos – Vox Humana
124. Tourniquet – Stop the Bleeding
125. Bloodgood – Detonation
126. Hoi Polloi – Happy Ever After
127. Deliverance
128. Edin Adahl – X-Factor
129. Imperials – This Year’s Model
130. Saint – Too Late for Living
131. Bride – Silence is Madness
132. The Choir – Wide Eyed Wonder
133. Russ Taff – Medals
134. Jerusalem – Warrior
135. Sacred Warrior – Wicked Generation
136. Barnabas – Feel the Fire
137. The Front – The Front
138. Newsboys – Hell is for Wimps
139. Steven Curtis Chapman – Real Life Conversations
140. David Zaffiro – The Other Side
141. Mad at the World – Mad at the World
142. Leslie "Sam" Phillips - The Turning
143. One Bad Pig – Swine Flew
144. Michael W. Smith – Project
145. Idle Cure – 2nd Avenue
146. Degarmo & Key – The Pledge
147. Lifesavers – Kiss of Life
148. Sacred Warrior – Master’s Command
149. Ken Tamplin – An Axe to Grind
150. Believer – Extraction from Mortality
151. L.S.U. – The Grape Prophet
152. Daniel Amos – Motorcycle
153. Mad at the World – Through the Forest
154. Crumbacher – Thunder Beach
155. The Lead – Burn this Record
156. Deliverance – Weapons of Our Warfare
157. Jerusalem – Prophet
158. Mortal – Fathom
159. The Violet Burning – (1996)
160. X-Sinner – Get It
161. Angelica
162. Scattered Few – Sin Disease
163. Michael Knott – Screaming Brittle Siren
164. The Choir – Kissers and Killers
165. Kansas – Vinyl Confessions
166. Sweet Comfort Band – Hearts of Fire
167. Altar Boys – Forever Mercy
168. Randy Stonehill – Welcome to Paradise
169. Larry Norman – Stranded in Babylon
170. Whitecross – Triumphant Return
171. Margaret Becker – Falling Forward
172. Idle Cure – Idle Cure
173. Sacred Warrior – Wicked Generation
174. Undercover – Boys and Girls Renounce the World
175. Mike Stand – Simple Expression
176. Pray for Rain – Goldie’s Last Day
177. Uthanda – Groove
178. Rage of Angels – Rage of Angels
179. L.S.U. – Cash in Chaos: World Tour
180. Brow Beat: Unplugged Alternative (various)
181. Deliverance – Stay of Execution
182. Tourniquet – Vanishing Lessons
183. Steve Taylor – On the Fritz
184. Ojo – Relative
185. Terry Taylor – A Briefing for the Ascent
186. A.D. – Art of the State
187. Steve Camp – One on One
188. Margaret Becker – Never for Nothing
189. Starflyer 59 – (silver)
190. Bride – Kinetic Faith
191. Michael Gleason – Children of Choices
192. D.A. – Darn Floor, Big Bite
193. The Choir – Diamonds and Rain
194. Rick Cua – Wear Your Colours
195. Whiteheart – Emergency Broadcast
196. Petra – Beyond Belief
197. Kansas – Leftoverture
198. The 77’s – More Miserable Than You’ll Ever Be
199. Mylon & Broken Heart – Big World
200. Phil Keaggy – Sunday’s Child

R.I.P. Mark Linkous

Mark Linkous took his own life on Saturday (March 6), at the age of 47. He and his music will be dearly missed...

Röyksopp: Only This Moment

only just discovered this group recently (via a guest vocalist appearance by The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson on the video below this), but after watching it a few dozen times I'm going to go ahead and call this one of my favourite videos of all-time.

Only This Moment from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

and the other amazing video by which I first discovered this group last year:

What Else Is There? from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Tom Waits for Beginners

(my response from a discussion back in September of 2006 as to where to begin with Tom Waits)

Bone Machine - this was my very first TW CD, picked it up because of the "sighting" in the Over the Rhine video Serpents and Gloves, and thereafter I was hooked. On first listen you will hear what sounds like an OtR piano playing, and you can see the influence Tom has had on Linford in this. Took a few listens to truly get into it, but even upon first listen, I knew I was hearing something special. There's gold in them there hills, you just gotta do a little digging to get past the rough harsh ground you first encounter there and the mean looking dogs barking at the entrance. oh, and this is the one that won a grammy for best alternative album of the year back in whatever year that was (needless to say, Tom was not pleased)...


Rain Dogs - One of his "most popular" albums (whatever that means when talking about Tom Waits) among longtime fans. Pirates have taken over the carnival and they're making a mess of what you think you know about "music appreciation". Probably the worst thing about this one is the fact that Rod Stewart desecrated one of the songs on here (Downtown Train), killed it with radio play to the point that when you hear it here you can't help but think of Rod Stewart (who should be tarred and feathered for doing such a thing to Waits' music - although it probably made Tom a very rich man).


Closing Time - if you wanna get all wussie about it and "ease into" Tom Waits, this is definitely where to begin. His easiest on the ears, a dark and smokey jazz bar somewhere in the shady part of town, a lone piano player in the corner, just you and a few other patrons having a drink or two at the bar, trying to put your problems on the back burner for a little while... but loneliness and heartbreak are not so easily forgotten. Includes the ever-popular "Ol' 55".


Mule Variations - His best selling to date I think, definitely a great and varied taste of his style, this one has just about everything you could hope for from Tom, including a heartbreaking ballad or three that are right up there with (if not better than) anything he's ever done in his early piano days, as well as his trademark "ghost story" type talkies, and a few monsters-banging-on-things-and-scaring-the kids kinds of songs. Some would argue with the Rain Dogs crowd and say that this is his best.

I suggest starting with these 4, and once you can't get him out of your head and he has permanantly infected your soul, just start collecting the rest. Blood Money and Swordfish Trombones are my suggestions for your next stop. and if you just really want to freak yourself out right off the bat, get Real Gone, turn off all the lights at midnight, have a few drinks, turn it up, and spin around until you're completely disoriented, and then sit there in the dark listening to the possessed voice filling your head until you cry.

"Back where we started, here we go round again..."

Welcome to my blogging side project, "Circular Zen" - a blog dedicated solely to music-related matters. not sure what shape this is going to take, but I imagine it will be mostly informal reviews of albums and concerts, some news and up-coming concerts listing, along with the occasional "rant" or philosophical meandering. I'm hoping to keep it lite and fun, and in doing so perhaps I will post more.

First, the name, and then a little of my musical history (so you know where I'm coming from). Back in the old days, before the download revolution took over the music world, music was always recorded onto some sort of circular device - from the first recordings on wax cylinders, to the classic vinyl record (78's, LPs, and 45 singles), right up to the now-dying CD. even tapes of all sorts were "in the round" - a square casing holding 2 reels of tape. 8-tracks were rectangular, but you had to listen to the whole thing to get back to the beginning, and so even that was "circular" in nature. I'm a big fan of music being held on some sort of physical, collectible object, and so I usually only listen to "circular" music...

Zen is a concept, or quality, that can't really be talked about without speaking of it wrongly (it doesn't fit well with labels or categorization). but it is something I think we all experience when we are listening to our favourite music. it is that quality of "getting lost" in the music, of resonating or connecting with the art. It is the thing that draws one person to one kind of music and another to their own kind of music. Zen is that thing that leads each person on their own path, inexplicably. It's that thing that, conversely, draws people together. We can talk about the music, about what we think we like and dislike about it, but at the end of the day it is each person's Zen nature that draws them to whatever it is they are drawn to, and why one person can love a certain piece of music or album, and another person can hate that same music, and why they are both right. You could call it opinion, but when it comes to music and the way it resonates so deeply with so many of us, I believe it's something more...

so much for "lite and fun"...
(to be honest, I came up with that name because every single other possible logical name for a music blog seems to be taken!)

If you're looking to locate me on a music-listening map, you'll find my starting point rooted pretty strongly in pop radio. My musical tastes were developed, for good or bad, growing up in the 80's. Debbie Gibson, George Michael, Whitesnake, Heart... And to make matters worse, these were the years I was also attending a Christian school, and so I was immersed in the christian subculture, including that horrid animal called CCM (Contemporary Christian Music). Christian Rock. Both embarrassing and wonderful. Didactic, yet deeply moving and often profound in the midst of much banality and propaganda. It's a hard sell if you weren't there. Stryper throwing bibles while wearing too-tight junk-revealing spandex, to name an obvious example. and yet in the midst of the garbage, there's all this great rock and roll, music that still deeply moves and influences my life decades later. Undercover coming to grips with the pain of living this life in the midst of disappointments and disillusions, reminding their listeners that "all our days on earth are like a vapor". I don't regret any of my time spent immersed in CCMland, and yet I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand...

In college I discovered alternative music, perhaps a little late to the game in the late-80's (I grew to love The Smiths long after they were gone), and yet perhaps right on time. The 90's had more to offer than I cared to admit at the time (I was a little sore at that new decade for killing my beloved pop-metal). I grew sick of (and away from) the confining realm of CCM and radio pop music in general, and discovered some of my favourite groups of all-time. Over the Rhine, Vigilantes of Love, Innocence Mission, Sixpence, Sarah Masen, just to name a few. life-changing musical experiences for me. music that helped me move away from the christian subculture without abandoning my faith altogether. And music that refined my musical tastes, taught me what musical integrity was all about, set me on the right road away from the easily-digestible pop music of the previous decade without abandoning its pop sensibilities. the music was running deeper, wider, more challenging, yet somehow more appealing because of it.

as I entered my 30's, I developed a love for a couple genres that were totally foreign to me before - Classical and Jazz. I think most people of my generation don't develop the hormone that allows one to appreciate these styles until after 25 at least. Music that once was noise (or just boring) to me before was now rich and deeply rewarding, music I couldn't even wrap my head around on first listen. Pop music is easy to get. you listen to a pop song a couple times, and you've pretty much heard most of what you're ever going to hear in that song. it's catchy and fun, and even addicting at times, but like a sugar rush, it grows old fast. repeated listens will soon enough garner the exclamation "I'm SO SICK of this song!". You probably won't ever hear that from a classical music lover listening to Bach or Mozart. Coltrane's "Ascension" may give you a headache after repeated listens, but you won't even have begun to scratch the surface of what that song has to offer at that point.

At some point in my early 30's, I watched the movie "Almost Famous" about a hundred times on my friend's hi-fi system, and subsequently developed an OCD love and appreciation of classic rock beyond what I had already known. and somewhere in there, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan entered the picture. My 80's trained ears had a rough time acclimating themselves to those sounds, but once they did, my music-listening life was never the same...

so there's just a brief and incomplete glimpse into where I've been, where I am, and perhaps a clue as to where I'm going. From radio pop, classic rock, hard rock and metal (I went through a brief thrash phase that I never recovered from), to classic and modern alternative, literate coffeehouse folk-rock, all the way to classical and jazz...

A few friends have suggested I do a music blog, and I'm looking forward to trying this. Watching "Almost Famous" again a couple weeks ago for the zillionth time gave me the itch to do some more music writing, and reading Nino's blog was kind of the final push that made me want to do one of my own. and so here it is. Just to get things rolling I think I'll import some of my music writings from my other blog, and maybe throw in a few "essential top 10" sorts of lists. I hope, if you're reading this, you feel free to jump in on the discussion. tell me what you think, what music you like or don't like, what you agree or disagree with here. it's all good, and all in fun.