Music

WOW Worship: Today's 30 most powerful worship songs

Compilation

Best Cuts"Mighty Is Our God," "Ancient of Days"

QuestionIs worship "powerful" to the extent that it cuts itself off from previous Christian musical and liturgical traditions-monastic chant, classical chorale, Negro spirituals, black gospel, and Protestant hymnody included?

Worth NotingThis style, which began in the early '70s as a means of appealing to youth, has now become the norm for adult-oriented worship.

Compilation

Best CutsTri-City Singers, "Never Seen the Righteous"; Dottie Peoples, "God Can"

QuestionWhen the best of these songs have to be prematurely faded out simply to fit, should WOW reconsider its attachment to the number "30"?

Worth NotingThe volatility of rap and other "urban" genres has had little effect on the musicians of the black church, who remain more sensitive to tradition than to trends.

Steven Curtis Chapman

Best Cuts"Great Expectations," "The Invitation"

MessageThat walking the walk means more than wearing WWJD bracelets and sticking "little Bible magnets on [one's] refrigerator" (cf. "Change")

Worth NotingThe humility and decency with which Mr. Chapman comports himself both on record and off suggests that a plethora of Dove Awards needn't be corrupting.

Compilation

Best CutsNewsboys, "Love Liberty Disco"; Sixpence None the Richer, "Breathe"

QuestionIs contemporary Christianity set to market-tested musical styles the way to reach the lost in a post-literate age?

Worth NotingThe Pauline standard of being "made all things to all men" in order to "save some" now means being made tattooed, body-pierced, and ridiculously coiffed as well.

Michael W. Smith

Best Cuts"Rince Dé," "I'm Gone"

MessageWhat the world needs now is friendship sweet friendship-i.e., the same agape-lite that Mr. Smith has been distilling for teens since he recorded "Friends" 17 years ago. The title cut, which pays tribute to the Columbine martyr Cassie Bernall, is not lite at all.

Worth NotingThe faithfully married, offspring-enriched Mr. Smith remains a symbol of promise-keeping Christian manhood.

As some musicians attempt to pour eternal truths into contemporary wineskins but lose the effects of both, the "classical-crossover" duo Oberon has shown a way out of the cul-de-sac. Oberon's Sonnet (Koch), an album featuring recitations of 12 of Shakespeare's sonnets by genuine Shakespearean actors and actresses, gives listeners the rare opportunity of hearing the Bard's lines pronounced trippingly on the tongue. It also solves the challenge of blending dissimilar form and content by foregoing it altogether. Instead of fitting their compositions to Shakespeare or requiring the thespians to measure their inflections against the music, Trammell Starks (Oberon's composer-arranger) and Felicia Sorensen (Oberon's vocalist-lyricist) use their compositions as between-sonnet segues. As befits "classical-crossover," the music is an airy distillation of classical, jazz, and New Age motifs; with the exception of the 14th-century "Heaven Queen" (a.k.a., "Edi Be Thu"), the music feels too diaphanous for the greatest poet ever to write in English. Nevertheless, the incongruity is never extreme, and Contemporary Christian musicians in search of models could do worse than to follow in Oberon's footsteps. Psalm, anyone?