I’m reviewing two album/CD’s here.   “Songs For A Revolution Of Hope” by Brian McLaren in collaboration with Tracey Howe and “Shameless Jane” by Teel Montague Cook.  LightHusband and I listened to them both together, and the review that follows is a compilation of our thoughts (he’s a retired professional drummer who has participated in the production of more than one album, I have an amateur background in music and we both enjoy listening to a broad, eclectic spectrum of artists).

I have several pet peeves when it comes to the Christian music industry and, unfortunately, neither of these albums did anything to dispel those.

First – sound engineers tend to be very cautious and the result is that you don’t where to point your ears.  Think of a painting in which the artist uses the same hue of paint all across the canvass in the same amounts and judiciously meted all the colors in the same amounts as well.  You wouldn’t know where to focus your eyes or what the artist wanted you to look at first.  That’s what happens when a sound engineer gets overly cautious.

Second – dynamic range in vocalists … vocalists also tend to be very cautious and want to live in one range.  This makes for songs that have very little aural interest.  That means our attention begins to wander (for those of us with short attention spans) and for those of us with sensitive hearing it can actually be unnerving to listen to these for any length of time.  At the risk of sounding petty, the feminist in me wishes really hard that female Christian vocalists would lose the breathy thing.  This is a personal preference (and I’ll admit it) but I prefer strong female voices, no matter what their range and breathy gets annoying after awhile.  Sing from your diaphragm and belt it out, believe in yourself and what you have to offer.  You have a beautiful gift, share it with glee.

Third – lyrics … please, oh please write some lyrics that help the audience to think about the wonder and mystery of God.   That engage the audience and invite them to the throne room of grace.  Don’t stand behind them and beat them about the head with what you think they need.  That’s all I could hear in the lyrics on these albums … here was the writer’s interpretation and they drew the picture so perfectly that there was no room for me to use their music in my life at all.  I had no use for it; there is no room for my imagination or LightHusband’s or anyone elses’.

My definition of good worship music (and by far the most excellent of these can be seen with U2) is a song which creates enough mystery, yet enough presence that the listener is invited to participate in the portrait the musician is creating of God with his/her song.  Too many songwriters now have their vision; their only requirement of the audience is that they become a mirror.  Listen to Grace by U2 as an example of lyrics which allow the listener to participate in the portrait of God rather than being told what the details are by the singer in so many other worship songs.

Songs For A Revolution of Hope, by Tracey Howe and Brian McLaren, produced by Brian McLaren & Tracey Howe – “…it’s better than the J0n@s Brothers.”  Thus spake LightBoy … and faint praise it was, given his low opinion of the latest teeny bopper idols.

LightHusband’s overall perspective (without any foreknowledge of who he was listening to … as he said later, “I thought this was some tiny little local church putting out an album.  Someone with the resources of Brian McLaren should be putting out a much better product.”)  was that this music deserves a much more aggressive mix; whoever mixed it was much too cautious.  This was obvious with the songs where the instrumentation was simple; those songs were handled beautifully.  When all the musicians were playing, the engineer seemed overwhelmed, leaving the listener with no direction for their ear.  As is typical for many Christian sound engineers, they had no idea what to do with the drums and consistently under mixed them; making them an annoying afterthought rather than an integral part of the music as good percussion should be.  Overall, it sounded as though it were mixed by a vocalist rather than a instrumentalist, because there was no separation of the instrument voices and they became very muddy to the ear.

Here are some specific notes about certain tracks on the album … these four were potentially the best songs on it.

Canticle – no drums and sounded really good.  The mix they were trying to force on the whole album works here.  Good balance … sounds very much like Nickle Creek and we enjoyed this song very much.

In Your Crucifixion – cut back to only acoustic guitar for intro … added in acoustic bass; instrumentation is lovely – once again the mix works and produces a lovely song.  Hint – no drums.   Lyrics needed a lot of work; I didn’t really need the vocabulary lesson … but otherwise well done.

Let’s Confess – just drums … beat music and beat poetry.  I get that the conservative Christian church is like 50 years behind the curve, but do we really need to go through all the steps?  Or could we just say that, yes … it’s been done and move along.  What was fresh and experimental in the 1960’s repeated now is sort of … um …   That said … drums are interesting and vocals are interesting … however, the mix is horrible and the drums drowned her out.

Chant – don’t do it unless it’s really part of your tradition and daily prayer walk.  It’s pretentious.  The voices in the background could have been used in some really imaginative and wonderful places … the harp was wonderful, beautiful instrumentation.  The final chorus was good and should have been used more frequently.  Those background voices were  annoying until the final chorus, when they became beautiful, but we had to wait too long and in the interim they were a distraction.

Have Love – potentially the best song on the album … ruined by the cautious mix.  We should be able to hear the drums up front, then the brass and the cowbells … instead the instrumentation sounds like mud because the engineer didn’t know what to highlight.  This song could (and should, given the subject matter) be a party in my speakers … it’s awesome, instead I’m sitting frustrated by the mud.

[Begin Rant] I am so fed up with Christians putting out a shoddy product in God’s name thinking that people will flock to it because it’s got the God stamp of approval on it. Just because you do something for God, doesn’t mean you give Him short shrift. The Classical and Renaissance periods are filled with artists who waited for the right moment or starved (hence the term starving artist) rather than produce artwork that was not their best. For heaven’s sake, do it right. Do it well. Do it for His glory rather than on the cheap.[End Rant]

Here’s a quote from the liner notes on “Songs …”: We had only five full days to track the album but were able to track most of it live, again, something that was amazing to witness as some of the songs took on great complexity.

It was interesting to read because as LightHusband and I listened to this album (before I read those notes) that’s exactly what we thought: this album was done too fast and without enough resources behind it. The songs did take on great complexity, but the mixing did not reflect that with the result is that the listener doesn’t have any direction for their ears.

Given the resources that could (and should) have been invested in this album it could (and should) have been so much better than it was.  Clearly these musicians are well trained and know their craft.  There were moments of brilliance here.  It’s a shame it got lost in a rush to put something out without the proper support behind it.

Shameless Jane – by Teel Montague Cook, produced by Earthshaking Music, Atlanta, Georgia.

Here’s the better news about Teel Montague … she’s got tons of potential. She oozes potential. I listened to her and heard overtones of Janis Ian. If you don’t remember Janis, you can hear one of her songs here at this free download. Unfortunately, this album is all about potential … unrealized potential.

Nothing is working, not even this song … this is a line from one of the tracks on this CD and cynically, it seemed appropriate for the title of this review.

The best thing I can say about Shameless Jane is that this album is unoffensive; that should never be the best thing one has to say about a work of music.

The lyrics were pedantic, not thought-provoking; they don’t leave much space, mystery or subtlety to let the listener think, process or breath. It was pretty obvious that Teel has some interesting thoughts she wants to put to music, but that’s part of the problem … she was too obvious. Dress it up a little, use some metaphor, analogy, play with words … have fun with song writing.  Although she had a few tracks where she approached this, namely Bean Dip Bomb and Peter Pan, so once again, her potential is there and I do hope that Teel continues to play and engage her craft.  There’s a lot there to be developed in the future.

The music, melody, etc. seems to be an afterthought. Dynamic range of songs never change. Tempos rarely (if ever) change. After the first song or two, my ears were tired. The acoustic guitar was well done, and the vocals strong, but breathy.  While this would be excellent to have as background music for an evening with friends, I found it difficult to listen to and engage with as a listening event because of the range and tempo issues.

Teel Cook is a mom with two teenagers at home.  This is an obvious first album that shows her roughcut artistic talent.  She’s got a lot of potential.  I hope she gets the support, time and resources that will help her to realize that potential … and I hope to hear more from her in the future.  I really do …