Thursday, September 28, 2006

to buy or not to buy

...this is the question:


Should I buy the new Chris Tomlin album or not?

On one hand, I truly appreciate what he has done for the Church. I really do. His gift for writing accessible melodies is undeniable. And he has used that gift to bless the Church time and again with great congregational choruses. Taking a page out of songwriter Andy Gullahorn's playbook, here is my hiaku about Chris Tomlin:

No one has done more
For the Lord
with four chords

And I know that within six months, I am going to have to be familiar with every song on this record because every worship leader at every church in the country is going to be introducing them to their congregations. So I feel like I should probably buy it.

But here is my dilemma:

1). I am too poor to buy every worship CD that the posters inside of Christian Bookstores tell me I should buy. I have to be picky.

2). My worship leading quiver is already over-stocked with gigantic, over-the-top choruses written by Tomlin. Do I really need any more?

3). One word: "Paaar-tay". Seriously, that song put me in a bad mood that took weeks to overcome. I almost gave up leading worship because of it.

4). I figure soon enough Michael W. Smith and Third Day will be on the radio covering the best songs off of this CD and by that time I'll know them by heart...for free.

So...there it is. It's not a big dilemma...but a dilemma it is nonetheless.

Should I buy the new Tomlin CD? I don't know.

(note: by the way, no disunity or denominationalism was intended in the writing of this post...just wanted to make that clear upfront.)

2 comments:

The Adkins Family said...

Well I bought it and you're so wrong about it. This CD is full of surprising melodies, innovative chord structures, captivating storytelling, and believe it or not, the last three songs are a mini rock/worship opera complete with a chorus sung by "villagers", a full symphony orchestra, and a 200 voice greek choir.

Um, just kidding. It's 10 songs in G that all sound like "Your Grace is Enough" knocked up "Forever" who couldn't raise the child so it went to live with "Be Glorified" and "More than Enough". And then at the end of the CD, he decided it would be a good idea to ADD A NEW CHORUS TO AMAZING GRACE! Yeah, just what that song needed Chris... nobody liked it the way it was.

And yes, I really did just use that analogy. It's early and I'm grumpy.

Anonymous said...

hahaha, that was very funny. thanks for the laugh!