Musings On Eleven Randomly Selected Tracks from iTunes.
Totally stole this idea from my friend pamski, and it's been a long time since I've talked about music (with the exception of my first ever podcast here, which I feel could have been better in hindsight.)
    This song was on the first Skillet album I ever bought--Collide. Very good album. This is the rawest Skillet has ever been with their sound, as before this album they had a lot of electronic influences in their music and after this they had a more polished sound with string instrument touches. "Cycle Down" is the last track on Collide, and it closes the album out on a bang. John Cooper's voice soars--albeit, slightly painfully--through this track.Â
2. "Best of Me"--The Letter Black
   On the opposite end, this is probably the most mellow song The Letter Black has done. This sounds radio single ready. The strings are nice, and it's acoustic driven, even though the electric guitars are here, too. It's a pleasant song about living for God. "Finally I'm worth it, though I'm not perfect, it still feels right/And I keep on giving, trying to make a difference in my life/I don't know another way to show everything I can be for You/You're all that I'll ever need/I'll give You the best of me."Â
3. "You Already Take Me There"--Switchfoot
   An earlier Switchfoot song. This song does not have the same depth as many of their other songs do (i.e. "Dare You to Move"). It's fun, it's San Diego, it's not very special.Â
4. "This is Your Life"--Switchfoot
  Ok, NOW we're talking. This digitally influenced pop rock ballad is a track on The Beautiful Letdown, the first Switchfoot album I bought, and arguably their most popular album. (Probably because of the aforementioned "Dare You to Move," though there are also a lot of other good tracks on this album.) This song asks a very important question, regardless of what you believe--"This is your life--are you who you wanna be? This is your life--Is it everything you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger and you had everything to lose?" They dared to ask. You should answer.Â
5. "Desert Song (Live)"--Hillsong United
  This song is led by (and was written by) Brooke Fraser, who can do no wrong (at least musically lol). I love anything she's written. She also wrote "Hosanna." This is a pretty popular worship song, and it's understandable as to why--it's a song about being in a dry season in your life, but holding onto the fact that God will uphold you. It's a song of proclamation, it's a declaration that "I will bring praise, I will praise/No weapon formed against me shall remain/I will rejoice, I will declare/God is my victory and He is here." And it is worship music, in a pop rock style, I suppose. I hate how when you say "pop rock" people [probably] automatically get this mental image of Fall Out Boy lol. Doesn't sound like that at all.
6. "Believe in Something"--SONS
   SONS is an indie Christian band, but they are more skillful and meaningful than a lot of other Christian bands I've heard. Their entire album Keep Quiet is worth buying. Or at least streaming on Spotify. Whether you're a Christian or not, there is something to appreciate here. In this track, the vocals are haunting, the electric guitars are spare and effective, and the acoustic guitars have a dreamy sound to them. And then they bring in the violins for the bridge. Ah...
7. "The Imperfect Hands"--The Quick and the Dead
   I used this song, in its entirety, as an intro to this video. And it's so epic, I couldn't resist. Another independent band, Christian, and of course, better than some of the mainstream stuff I've heard. The album was called The Perfect Plan in Imperfect Hands, and it was referring to this track.Â
8. "Prodigal"--OneRepublic
  This track has an ambiance to it. It's from their first album, Dreaming Out Loud. It seems to be a reference to the prodigal son parable. It's pop rock. Too much pop rock here. Moving on.Â
  This was on the first Kutless album I bought, Hearts of the Innocent. And it was one of the first Christian albums I ever bought. I was starting to get into harder bands, and so I progressed from BarlowGirl to Kutless. And of course, I thought Kutless was hard, but then someone played "94 Hours" by As I Lay Dying on their iPod for me. There is a spectrum of hardness lol. Anyway, this was the hardest album Kutless put out, in my opinion. This particular song even has a scream/yell thing in the bridge. And it's about how you can change your legacy--thus the title.Â
10. "Ready To Start"--Arcade Fire
  A minor key outing with the sonically diverse Arcade Fire. It has a fun beat, but the message is the thing here. "Businessmen drink my blood/Like the kids in art school said they would." Ah, the struggle of the modern day artist. In today's society, it's hard to pursue a creative career full time. You almost always have to make it a side thing. Until you have a major "breakout" moment, and then you're suddenly famous and your work is recognizable and you move from hipster status to mainstream figure. Surprisingly, this song doesn't go there. In the end, it leaves off with a message of doing what you want to do, even though it's going to be unpredictable and scary.Â
11. "All Around Me"--Flyleaf
  Flyleaf's breakout single into mainstream awareness. I used to listen to K-Rock in the summertime when I was 15, and I remember that station being completely dominated by males--there were hardly any notable female-fronted bands at the time, other than Evanescence. And then the day came when "All Around Me" and Paramore's "Misery Business" would be played sporadically throughout the day, interspersed with the usual stuff. This song has been constantly misinterpreted, but seeing as Lacey--to this day, even after leaving Flyleaf--frequently sings this song as a worship song, I think it's clear what the intent behind the lyrics was.  This song was on Flyleaf's eponymous debut album, which had a more raw sound to it compared with the albums that succeeded it. The guitar work is skillful, as is the bass, and the drums--I don't know, I always thought that everyone in Flyleaf was (is) talented. They wrote their songs as a band--every musician wrote their own parts.Â