Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker is one of my favorite records. My friend Grant gave me a copy years ago when we worked together at a record label and management company.

For those of you familiar with Adams, you may not be familiar with the woman singing with him, Laura Marling. In a piece on NME, Adams said this about Marling’s newest album, “Made me feel rather insignificant at songwriting…now that is songwriting!”

You can check out Adam’s album Ashes & Fire here and Marling’s album, I Speak Because I Can here.

This guy was a beast.

Eva does something similar in her high chair when she wants more sweet potatoes.

I’m late to the game on Reformed hip hop but the more I hear of Lecrae and read his lyrics, the more I love his work. Really, he’s a preacher that uses beats…just like every other hip hop artist. I guess it comes down to what you’re preaching.

Love the last verse.

I was created by God but I ain’t wanna be like Him,
I wanna be Him
The Jack Sparrow of my Caribbean
I remember the first created being,
And how he shifted the blame of this thing
For fruit he shouldn’t have eaten
And now look at us all that are eating,
Wearing designer fig leaves by Louis Vuitton
Make believe it
But God sees through my foolish pride,
And I’m weak life Adam another victim of Lucifer’s lies
But then in steps Jesus,
All men were created to lead but we need somebody to lead us
More than a teacher,
But somebody who buy us back from the darkness,
Say He redeemed us,
Taught us that real leaders follow God,
Finish the work ‘cuz we on our job
Taught us not to rob
but give life love a wife like He loved the Church
without seeing how many hearts we can break first
I wanna be like you in every way,
So if I gotta die everyday
Unworthy sacrifice
But the least I can do is give the most to me
Because being just like you is what I’m ‘spose to be
They say you came for the lame,
I’m the lamest
I made a mess you say you’ll erase it,
I’ll take it
You said you came for the lame,
I’m the lamest
I broke my life, but you say you’ll replace it,
I’ll take it.

This is one of the better music videos I’ve seen in a long time. It was so good in fact, Kim burned the granola she was making while watching it.

I need to listen to it and watch it a couple more times but from what I understand, the singer was raised in a Christian home but has since struggled with the existence of God, truth, and meaning. This song seems loaded with that sentiment. The singer, Andy Hull, asks a series of questions throughout the song but they don’t seem to be leading him to any answers. In the California volume of the Religion by Region series, Wade Clark Roof points out a characteristic of American religion that I think is on display here. He says that many people have a ‘remembered religion’; that they can tell you more about the religion of their upbringing or of what their parents believe than what they actually believe. 

many people in the region can talk about their familiy’s religious history or even their own religious past better than they can affirm what they themselves actually believe in the present moment. This does not mean they have no beliefs but instead that their beliefs and doubts, convictions and curiosities are all coupled together. Living faith and spirituality in a fluid encironment is very much like that - at times confusing and complicated, yet at other times quite centered and convincing.

I will agree with Andy on two of his statements though. The truth cannot be fractioned and the truth cannot be fashion.

HT: Jesse Bryan

My friend and co-worker, Andy Maier, recommended This Will Destroy You to me a few weeks ago. They remind me of a more melodic version of Explosions in the Sky - think EITS’ Friday Night Lights soundtrack as opposed to First Breathe After Coma.

If you like what you hear you can grab their self-titled album, This Will Destroy You, for cheap here.

What Lady Gaga Reveals About Our Generation

Camille Paglia had a potent article in the UK’s Sunday Times last week not only critiquing Lady Gaga, arguably the largest pop star at the moment, but making the connections between the hollow icon and the generation she is reflecting and feeding her product to.

Gaga is in way over her head with her avant-garde pretensions… She wants to have it both ways – to be hip and avant-garde and yet popular and universal, a practitioner of gung-ho “show biz”. Most of her worshippers seem to have had little or no contact with such powerful performers as Tina Turner or Janis Joplin, with their huge personalities and deep wells of passion.

Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages. Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply just to Gaga and her “little monsters”. It far more prevalent than that.

It’s easy to read this and be cynical. The other way to see this kind of article is as helpful, palpable evidence that while an entire generation of people might be ever-connected but increasingly isolated and focused on the external; they are hungry, if not starving, for substance - for transcendent, ultimate, enduring, heart-changing truth.

I grew up listening to Peter Gabriel’s So in my parent’s car - actually if I had to create a playlist from what I remember from my childhood it would feature Peter Gabriel, the Beatles, Paul Simon, and Joe Cocker.

Even though I grew up soaking in great vocalists and music it took me awhile to really appreciate Tom Waits. Whereas all of the artists I mentioned were great songwriters, Tom Waits takes the song and turns it into its own person, entity, and experience. That can often make it hard to get down to the actual melodies and story, but if you’re patient, you can see what a great storyteller and image-painter he is.

Here is a video from The Voice Project where artists cover eachother’s songs to raise awareness for war-torn portions of Africa. Great cause, great project, great video.