If a pop album is going to reach an unsaved generation, it has to convey the gospel in a palatable – no, make that extraordinarily – appealing way that doesn’t bury the truth in generic “love is good” platitudes. It’s a thin line to walk. If the message is too overt, it will be dismissed [...]

In the same way that an avocado refrigerator can make a kitchen feel dated, song arrangements can make an album feel dated, forcing artists to strike a balance between their musical identity and current trends. With eighteen hit singles since the early ’90’s, Phillips, Craig & Dean are best known for mellow songs fortified with [...]

If there is the slightest hope that worship albums can succeed without the flash and glitter necessary in the sharky waters of secular music, then Wash Away, Don Poythress’ debut album with Integrity Music, deserves to be a best-seller. Saddled with a name no one can pronounce (it rhymes with “fortress,”) Poythress belongs to that [...]

Glory Revealed II, the sequel to 2007’s Glory Revealed, is so perfectly crafted, so beautifully conceptualized and conceived, that even the makeshift not-recorded-in-a-studio building pictured on the cover art appears to be part of a wondrous plan. The converted structure, which housed some of contemporary Christian music’s most acclaimed artists during a weeklong, creative retreat [...]

When country music turns inspirational, the gritty, hard luck stories that form its backbone can become practical guides to living by faith. And while Tracy Lawrence’s 18-year run as a successful country-rock artist is undeniable, boiling over in 1993 with four hit singles launched from the platinum springboard Alibis, his personal journey is speckled with [...]

When churches face the difficult prospect of transitioning from traditional pipe organ services to contemporary services led by praise bands, they should look to Dove-award winning worship leader and songwriter Don Moen for inspiration. With 35 years of music ministry under his belt, this one-time president of the Integrity Music label produces wholesome, soothing, safe, [...]

Legendary country singer Ronnie Milsap has been making music for more than five decades. The force of gravity combined with an aging larynx can sometimes yank a star back to earth in their twilight years, but Milsap’s latest release, a 2-CD collection of inspirational songs titled Then Sings My Soul, proves he can still sing [...]

Christian radio is heavy laden with generic, cool-guys-on-guitar that mostly sound the same (Wait! Is that Tenth Avenue North or John Waller or Travis Taylor?) but if the station plays an oldie like “Testify to Love,” the artist is unmistakably Avalon. Although their image is somewhat bruised by glamorous egos and a revolving door of [...]

If image matters in the music industry, then Billy Ray Cyrus has a nest of publicity hornets on his shoulder. There’s the problem of being labeled a “one-hit wonder” after the burdensome success of “Achy Braky Heart.” There’s the problem of trying to be a sexy, beer-drinkin’ outlaw as he nears 50. There’s the imminent [...]

The saturated world of digital music has flooded iTunes and MySpace and reviewers’ desks with some of the most mediocre, undistinguished, gray-scaled carp ever created. The hardest thing to get right on a CD isn’t the vocals or the arrangements or the band, although all these things are important. The fulcrum of an album’s success [...]