About a year ago Craig Groeschel preached a message centered on what your "One Thing" was going to be for the upcoming year. This was an oppurtunity for many people to pick new year's resolution spirutual type things and I'm sure a lot of people did. My "one thing" was to start listening to more Christian music. I used to only listen to nothing but christian music back in the 90s and the early part of this decade. I think having my cds stolen really set me in a downward spiral. I amassed more cds but then lost them on a road trip somewhere. I listened to christian music in college because I was surrounded by it but after I got married and started working full time I just kind of started listening to whatever was on the radio. The last Christian cd I bought was a By the Tree album (which is funny because I've worked with Chuck Dennie the lead singer of that group for over a year now). I had a few starts and stops in the middle part of this decade but nothing ever took hold. So this year I tried listening to a lot more Christian music, pandora helped a lot and so did my work friends but I'm still not quite where I want to be. I wish there was some music blogs that have similiar taste in music to me that could tip me off to new Christian music since I don't listen to the radio anymore...
15. Dead Man (Carry Me) by Jars of Clay
All that build up was to introduce this song. The first honest to goodness "Christian" song on my top 25. Sufjan Stevens is very open about his Christian faith but a lot of people (Sufjan included) don't consider his music Christian. I heard this tune while listening to a Delrious? playlist and instantly fell in love with it. This song really reminds me of the mid-90s glory years of Christian Alternative when you had the holy trinity of DC Talk, The Newsboys and Jars of Clay pumping out radio single after radio single of catchy uplifting rock.
14. Ali In The Jungle by The Hours
This isn't what you would call a Christian song but it's got a better message than some of the stuff I've heard lately. This song was apparently in a Nike ad a year or two ago but I skip commercials on the TiVo so I missed it. This is a little controversial because in one version of the song the f-bomb is used when referring to Ludvig Van Beethoven's perseverance and how he went deaf and didn't give an "F". The embeded version replaced the f-bomb with the much friendlier but still slightly abrasive "Damn".
13. No Action by Elvis Costello
Wow, I listened to a ton of Pandora this year... This is another Pandora hit. I went through a phase where I was listening to a lot of Clash this year and Elvis Costello kept popping up on my playlist. Initially I would hit thumbs down or skip song but after hearing this song a few times I really came around. This opens up his classic album This Year's Model and is one of about 8 good songs on it. I guess I always hated his voice until recently which is probably attributed to his appearance in an Austin Powers movie.
12. All I Do Is Win by DJ Khaled ft. Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, &
T-Pain
This has got to be one of the most fun songs of the year. I have so many memories of blasting this in the Kia on the way to lunch with all my work friends and all of us raising our hands and "letting them stay there". I hadn't watched the video until just now and I thought about not including it since it has your typical booty shaking that is often found in similar videos but it's got some genuinely entertaining moments. T-pain singing into his phone which is displaying the "I am T-Pain" app is just gold. One line that always stuck out to me was when Snoop Dogg would say "We're like the YOUTH in the 80s" which never made sense to me until now. He's actually saying "We're like the U in the 80s" which is referring to Miami University which makes sense as he's holding a U jersey in the video during that line.
11. Here I Am Send Me by Delirious?
Best lyrics ever. I love the thought of wanting to experience God in the same way that people in the bible did. I also absolutely desire to be "sent" by God to wherever he needs me. This is just a great song about submitting to God's will for your life and experiencing God in a very real way. And guess where I found the song... that's right, the Delirious? playlist on pandora.
What a cool dichotomy of secular and Christian today was. I desire for next year's list to be 75% Christian but I have no problem sharing the non-Christian songs I love with you. My opinion is that some songs are just there for fun, some are there to exhort the people listening and the rest are there to glorify God. And if a song is good enough it can't help but glorify the Creator of all music, God.
Tomorow(ish) I'll be counting down songs 10 through 6. 3 of the songs came out before I was born, 1 of them is from a band named after a desert and only one was a probably played in an honest to goodnees club this year.
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