A New Talent

Myspace.com has become a great resource for me. I've found a lot of new music there recently. Basically, what I do is go to the site of a band I like. Say, myspace.com/thirdday. Every band has four or five full songs on its page, so I can listen to bands I already know or find new music. On Third Day's site, I'll take a look at who they have listed as their top friends. Usually it's bands that are on the same recording label or that they are on tour with. From there, I can listen to that band, and then go to listen to their friends and on and on.

Modern radio drives me nuts because DJ's are basically non-existent. The reasoning behind this is that all radio stations are owned by basically one company. And it's a whole lot easier to hire one or two DJ's to work on a national scale and then play the recorded material on all the stations. Very few local stations actually have full-time DJ staffs unfortunately. Sure, it stinks that DJ jobs are going away, but it also drives me nuts because no one EVER announces what band sings the song I just heard. That's why I use myspace.com now. Through this type of networking I've come to really like Leeland, Story Side B, Decemberadio and Needtobreathe.

I'm very aware that these bands have been popular in the Christian music genre for a while, but I'm only just now getting back into listening to the genre. I stopped listening for a while because EVERY band started putting out "praise and worship" records. Hey, I'm all for praise and worship songs, but the market was totally flooded with a thousand records like Third Day's "Offerings" or any Chris Tomlin CD. It was too much. But it seems like we are finally getting away from it and there seems to be some actual originality and ability in the songwriting.

I maintain that David Crowder is one of the best and most innovative song writers we have in music. But someone that might be gaining on him is this Leeland kid. He's only 17 years old I believe and boy can he write a song and boy can he sing. His style is distinct and I have a feeling that he's going to be around for a long, long time. I'm a little thrown off by his look, though. He kind of looks like Raggedy Andy. But still, quite the talent. Michael W. Smith actually called him a little Keith Green. Which is a "wow" compliment if you are a Christian artist.

Here's a live version of "Tears for the Saints" below. I encourage you to check out their myspace page and also take a listen to "Carried to the Table." The second video is a song he wrote called "Be Lifted High." This song is so good that Michael W. Smith ripped him off.