The album starts out with “Yours” where the pre-chorus cries out “I need a savior”,  and “Play it Safe” echos the sentiments of Paul the Apostle in Romans 3:11, “No one seeks God, no not one”. “Redemption, Passion, Glory” starts off slowly but builds into a strong cascade of lyrics, praising Christ by saying “This is redemption, that you would die for me, and this is salvation, that you would live in me”. “Different” gives a nod to the new creation we are in Christ.  ”This is a Warning” is a strong admonishment to those who seek to be their own gods. Dizmas does depart from the pattern of most of the album with more pop-centric tunes “Shake it off” and “Dance”, though there isn’t anything offensive about either song. Both are high energy, and I guess “Shake it Off” had some success being used on ESPN for a commercial.

I’m hoping that Dizmas will continue to release some more excellent albums like this one, though they seem to be on a hiatus right now. If you want to find some fast rocking Christian music, you’d be hard pressed to find many better than this one. It’s a steal for only $7.99 on iTunes!

Star Ratings: 5 – Great, 4 – Very Good, 3 – Good, 2 – O.K., 1 – Poor

• Yours ****
• Play it Safe *****
• Save the Day ****
• Redemption, Passion, Glory *****
• Different ****
• Shake it Off ****
• Jealousy Hurts ****
• This is a Warning *****
• Worth Fighting For ****
• Dance ****

Average Score: 4.3 Stars

Quick Links:

• Buy Dizmas from iTunes (Link launches iTunes)
• Buy Dizmas from Amazon.com
• Dizmas’s Myspace Page

As I’ve said before, many bands that are in the Christian music market really don’t put forth a strong Gospel message, but water it down to gain more widespread exposure. Seabird definitely falls into this category. There’s nothing on their MySpace page or even in the CD liner notes to suggest that they are even a Christian band.  While none of the songs contain any objectionable lyrics or content, none of them really glorify God either. Some songs mention prayer in passing; “This Ain’t Home” alludes to eternal life in Heaven after death, and the title track “Rocks into Rivers”  references Exodus 17:1-7 as a menacing metaphor.

The best song on the album is “Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful,” which is pretty up-beat with a catchy chorus. The rest of the songs border between good and just o.k., and the album takes a really slow turn in the middle before becoming more upbeat again with the song “Finally Done Right” which is a more Rock than Pop. I can’t say that “Rocks Into Rivers” is a must-buy for Christian music fans, but a few of the tracks will probably make it into my Christian Rock mix on iTunes, so you might want to check it out for yourself.

Star Ratings: 5 – Great, 4 – Very Good, 3 – Good, 2 – O.K., 1 – Poor

1. Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful ****
2. Believe Me ***
3. Sing to Save My Life ***
4. Trust ***
5. The Good King ***
6. Baby I’m in Love ***
7. This Ain’t Home **
8. The Sound of You and I **
9. Don’t Change a Thing **
10. This Road ***
11. Finally Done Right ***
12. Rocks Into Rivers ***

Average Score: 2.83 Stars

Quick Links

• Buy Rocks Into Rivers on iTunes (Link launches iTunes)
• Buy Rocks Into Rivers from Amazon.com
• Seabird’s MySpace site

I remember one spring day I was speeding down the road jamming out to “TNT” by AC/DC, fist pumping, adrenaline flowing, petal to the metal. The lyrics  “So lock up your daughter, lock up your wife, lock up your back door and run for your life” were playing and I was singing along since I was alone in my car. It sort of hit me right there.  I thought to myself “If I truly want to be close to God, is this the sort of message I should be listening to all the time?” The answer was clear to me at that point. I made a decision then and there to stop buying secular music and start buying and listening to Christian music.

At that point in time, I was buying all of my music on iTunes. There was plenty of Christian music available, but there were a couple of problems I ran into. One was that all the Christian music was lumped together. Gospel music was mixed in with Rock, Pop was mixed in with the Country, etc.  I wasn’t really very interested in music from all genres, I wanted to see if I could find some Christian music that was upbeat and had a lot of guitars. The other problem I had was I decided that I’d only buy music in the iTunes Plus format. I didn’t want to buy songs in the 128kpbs format from iTunes, only to have Apple extract an extra $.30 per song from me when they eventually upgraded the album to iTunes Plus. The other appeal of iTunes plus is that it’s DRM free, so it would cause me the same headaches that the DRM music I’ve bought before gave me. I have music on several computers, and hated having to always authorized them whenever I copied music from one to the other.

The iTunes Plus issue turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Because there were so few Christian albums in the iTunes plus format (around 100 or so), I was able to preview a lot of them, and I was pretty excited by what I found. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if all the songs were already in iTunes Plus format, I probably wouldn’t have discovered some of the bands I bought albums from and have really enjoyed. There have only been a couple of disappointments, largely due to the fact that I’ve been able to preview the albums on iTunes before I bought them.

One day while I visiting Sounds of Light (our local Christian book store) they had a CD on the counter for $5. I don’t even remember what it was right now (Barlow Girl or Stellar Cart, maybe?), but I bought it without having listened to it, and it was pretty good. Up until then, I had refrained from buying music from there largely due to their prices. They were really high—similar to an FYE or  Sam Goody store. I had previously supported them by buying greeting cards, gifts, etc. from them, so I didn’t feel like I was not supporting them by getting my music elsewhere. I didn’t want to spend $17 on a CD that I could buy from iTunes for $10. Since that time, there have been a lot of Christian music releases that are in the $5 range. They’re mostly EP’s, having 5 or 6 songs per album, but I haven’t found too many of them to have a lot of filler songs. The ones you get are pretty good. I still buy some of my music from iTunes, but I’m finding now that I can sometimes get better deals from Sounds of Light with coupons & sales they have one weekend in the middle of each month.

Here are a few observations I’ve gleaned from my nearly two-year experiment. First: Christian music is just as varied as most popular music, representing a wide variety of genres, from Country/Folk to Rock, Pop to  Metal,  Emo to “Screamo”. You get the picture. Second: There’s a lack of guitar solos in Christian music, even in the hard rock/metal music. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since guitar solos are often an exercise in self-aggrandizement. Third: A lot of Christian music sounds just like other popular music. This can be good or bad. Some bands that are considered Christian don’t really seem to have much to do with Christianity at all. Some bands’ songs sound secular but have Christian themes, though aren’t explicitly Christian. Others can rock out and still deliver a strong Christian message. It’s the latter ones I tend to like the most. Fourth: a lot Christian music is very milktoast. I don’t mean this in an insulting way, it’s just that for every hard-rocking Christian band out there, there’s 100 light-sounding “contemporary” bands.

My goal here isn’t to impress anyone or brag about how holier-than-thou I am since I no longer intentionally listen to secular music. That is not the case at all. There are times I can’t avoid secular music— like in public places—and sometimes I even like it. Still, when I have a choice, I am going to spend my time & money on Christian music. We have a lot of choices in our life, and this is one I’ve made for myself. I came to the determination that I’m better off on my journey through life with songs by Kutless or Pillar running through my head instead of Eminem or Rage Against the Machine. I don’t think my musical choices make me better than anyone else, but I think they help me to be a better person than I was, by keeping my focus on the things of God instead of the things of man.

I haven’t cut myself completely off from the world either. I’ll still watch secular movies and play popular video games, and the reason is two-fold. First, it’s because there aren’t a whole lot of Christian based alternatives in those mediums. You can find some sort of opportunity for discussing moral dilemmas presented in those movies if you wanted to (there are a number of Bible studies on all sorts of movies), and many games also give you moral choices to make.  Second, music is different. I listen to music a lot. I listen to it all the time when I’m in my car, or when I’m going to the store, mowing the lawn, raking leaves or shoveling the drive, when I’m at work, and when I work out. It probably ranges up to 40 hours a week that I listen.

Music is a passion of mine, and I’d like to start sharing some of my discoveries with the world. There are plenty of web sites devoted to Christian music, but I don’t feel there’s any harm with there being one more out there. Of course, my blog won’t be dedicated to it, but I’d like to make a habit of spreading the word with whoever will listen. I plan to buy a new album every pay day, listen to it over the weekend, and then write a review of it on Mondays using the rating I give them in iTunes. Mondays are “Music Monday” on Twitter, a day when people on Twitter share music they like to listen to. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a positive influence even if it’s some small and insignificant way. On non-payday weekends, I’ll write about an older record in my collection. They are all still pretty new to me, regardless of when they were released.

For convenience sake, I’ll be linking to the albums I review on iTunes. I encourage people to support their local Christian music store as much as possible, but I also realize that’s not always feasible, especially if you don’t have one nearby.

Note: For the sake of full disclosure, I get a 5% commission on on everything somebody buys through iTunes if they click on one of the links on my site. That works out to $.05 per song, or $.50 for a normal $10 album. My web site costs me about $13 per month to maintain. I don’t expect that sales from music or other stuff will exceed that, but merely supplement it and help me to keep my site up and running.

In my opinion, Christians should buy Christian music and not buy stuff from secular bands. If more people reject secular artists that make music that is often times openly hostile to Christianity, and start spending more on Christian artists, the popular culture will follow. Just imagine if two or even just one of the top ten albums on the Billboard charts or iTunes charts were Christian musicians. That would send a strong message to record execs that Christians are rejecting a lot of the trash they’re putting out these days.

If I’ve piqued your interest, check out “Now Here This! Winter 2010 Sampler” (Note: link launches iTunes) a collection of 14 singles from new Christian bands for only $2.49—that’s only $.18 per song! What have you got to lose? By the way, I got the “Now Here This” sampler from my local Christian book store free with my purchase this weekend, and it came with 3 more songs, so you might want to look into that instead.

As a nascent iPhone developer, I’m glad to see that Apple is expanding my potential customer base, but then there’s always the possibility that they may be cannibalizing it. We’ve already seen that classic iPod sales dropped 8% this year, will people buying an iPad do it at the expense of an iPod Touch? Apple probably hopes so, since that would be a pretty good increase in money, though I don’t know what the profit margin on iPads vs. iPod touches will be. Since it doesn’t have phone features, the iPhone isn’t in danger.

This brings up another issue. How many contraptions do you want to lug around? Chances are, you aren’t going to use it to listen to music on the go, so at the very least, you’ll have to have either an iPhone for your music, or like those of us who don’t have an iPhone, you’ll need an iPod or another music player. My guess is many iPad users without iPhones will opt for an iPod Shuffle for music. If you’re in that situation, now you have a phone, an iPod & a tablet you’re carrying around. One of the big appeals to me about the iPhone is the fact that it’s an all-purpose device.

The new apps for the iPad are very slick. The iWork suite, Calendar and Photos are very nicely It will be good as an eBook reader, so that’s one thing it has over the iPhone & iPod touch. It will also be much nicer for web browsing than the iPhone & iPod touch, plus inexpensive 3G will make it easier to connect in more places than you could with an iPod touch, so it has those advantages over its smaller sibiling.

You could always use it as a second computer at home, but that is a whole other issue. The keyboard cradle is a nice feature, but I’m not overly crazy about the idea of having to reach out & touch the screen to make selections. It just doesn’t seem very ergonomic. One odd decision in the design is the lack of a video camera. I could see people using this for doing video conferencing. It would be perfect for grandma to chat with the grand-kids over the internet. The iPhone OS on a larger device would be very user-friendly for computer neophytes.

As a Mac user of almost 20 years now, I’m usually very supportive of Apple’s efforts, but I’m just not feeling it with the iPad. Its neat, but it has limited appeal to me.

Pros

• Light Weight
• Bigger screen than iPhone/iPod Touch
• Can run all iPhone apps
• Pre-paid 3G available, no subscription
• Has keyboard dock accessory available

Cons

• Bigger screen than iPhone/iPod Touch
• $130 more for 3G version & 3G service available only through AT & T in US
• No camera
• No Flash support

Michigan needed a win even more, since the season’s getting shorter. Their chances to make it to be big dance are dwindling, it looks like their only chance now is to win the Big Ten tournament, since winning out the regular season will be near impossible. Tsk, tsk, Michigan fans. At least you’ve got a good football team. Oh, I forgot… :-D Anyway, enough ragging on the Wolverines. They’ll get their shot at revenge at the Breslin Center on March 6th. Next up for MSU is Northwestern, which isn’t a gimme game. Enough speculating on the future, I’m just going to bask in the glory of another Spartan win over the Wolverines. Go Green, Go White! Victory for MSU!

Songs come from a diverse range of  singers, crossing most genres of music. Alicia Keys sings “Send me an Angel”, followed by Cold Play’s “A Message 2010″, then Bruce Springsteen stammers through ”We Shall Overcome”. Stevie Wonder performs his rendition of “Time to Love/Bridge over Troubled Water” which is awesome. Shakira covers “I’ll Stand By You”. It’s o.k., but I prefer Chrissie Hyndes’s version. John Legend plays “Motherless Child”. Mary J. Blige sings “Hard Times Come No More,” which sounds like a southern spiritual song. I like that a lot. Taylor Smith sings “Breathless” followed by Christina Aguilera singing “Lift Me Up.” Both of them have beautiful voices, I can see why Taylor Smith’s star is rising. Sting’s “Driven to Tears” sounds more frustrated than mournful.

Beyonce sings “Halo” with modified lyrics to give a special recognition to Haiti. Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock and Keith Urban croon out a nice acoustic version of “Lean on Me”, and Madonna contributes her “Like a Prayer” with a backup choir. Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris sing a sad duet of the song “Hallelujah” and Jennifer Hudson sings a soulful rendition of “Let it Be”. Emiline Mitchel sings another southern spiritual sounding song called “Many Rivers to Cross,” and then Jay Z, Bono, The Edge & Rihanna collaborate on a song called “Stranded (Haiti mon Amor).”  Dave Matthews and Neil Young team up for a heart-bruising duet on “Alone and Forsaken.” Haiti native Wyclef Jean follows up with “Rivers of Babylon/Yele” and ends on a positive note, encouraging the people of Haiti, letting us know that this tragedy is not going to keep them down for long. As a bonus, there’s another version of “Stranded” by the same performers.

At a price of $7.99 for 20 tracks by big name artists, this would be a steal, but the fact that all of the proceeds go to helping the Haiti earthquake victims almost makes it a must buy. Here’s a direct link to the album on iTunes (link launches iTunes): Hope for Haiti Now

While many Christians might be turned off by the elements of this movie, it probably isn’t too far off the mark of what a Godless, post-apocalyptic future would be like. In that sense, “The Book of Eli” merely portrays what a world without God would be like, but it doesn’t endorse it. The movie brought to mind a few verses of Scripture. One was Exodus 20:13, another was Matthew 5:38-39. Some will ask “What about ‘Thou shall not kill?” It should be pointed out that Eli never initiated violence, he only used violence to protect himself or others being attacked. Others will claim that Eli is just another hypocritical Christian, because he didn’t “turn the other cheek,” but instead used violence to respond to violence.

The other scripture that came to mind was Matthew 11:12. Eli was clearly using violence against men who were assaulting the Word of God. Near the end of the movie, Eli expresses regret that he didn’t follow the Bible’s message more closely while trying to fulfill his mission, but I believe that has more to do with the people he failed to help than those he killed out of self-defense.

I was a little disappointed in the end of the movie, where the Bible is placed between the Tanach and the Koran. It definitely sends a mixed-message about the importance of the Bible, essentially saying that while the Bible is an important historical book, in the end, it is just another book.

I liked the movie over all, and feel it is a good one to see on the big screen, since it helps to deepen the sense of desolation the world has fallen into. I also believe it would send a strong message to Hollywood that there is a market for movies that have Christian themes, which are in short supply these days.

I think the big thing for MSU this game was we were forced to go outside because Minnesota was defending the paint so well. Luckily, the 3-ball was starting to fall for us just when we needed it. Also, Minn. started looking pretty tired at the end of the second half, so MSU’s conditioning must be serving them well. I’m looking forward to this Tuesday’s away game at the Evil University of Michigan. I’m not counting on anything, but I feel pretty good about our chances against Michigan on the road. Go Green, Go White! Victory for MSU!