It’s pretty easy to find foreign films and even easier to find foreign bands, but when it comes to TV, the same does not hold true. It seems rather odd that most other countries, especially the English-speaking ones, regularly air American shows, but not with American broadcasting.  Most American TV studios insist on retooling good/successful shows from abroad instead of simply airing them here. Sometimes the U.S. version comes out OK (as in Sanford and Son, All In The Family, The Office, Three’s Company) but most of time, they end up being atrocious (Kath & Kim, Viva Laughlin, Coupling). Those [...]

Earlier today I watched the Good Friday movie from Mars Hill during it’s live stream for Sydney (you can catch it throughout the day here), and a few things occurred to me.  One of those ideas was to put together a playlist of my favorite Easter songs. Some of these are blatant, some are oblique, some are great songs all-around, some are not, and some might not even reflect the writer’s original intent.  But they do portray different emotions, aspects, and perspectives, and stages of the Easter story.  Enjoy. Cool Hand Luke – “This Is Love” Dana Key – “The [...]

I’ve been working on this post on and off for almost 2 months now. Well, mainly off, but here’s to a great year in music, I hope. 2009 came and went and we saw some tremendous albums releases. We’re just a few weeks into a new month, a new year, and [possibly] a new decade. The isn’t a ranked list, most of this is in the order in which I wrote it. Pretty much all these bands have some new material or teaser material one or more of their sites. ¶Standing Small – unknown (first half of 2010?) The as-yet-to-be-titled [...]

I wanted to take a few moments and list my favorite songs from last year. Most of these songs found a niche in my Walkman and never left.  These are songs that mean something to me. These are songs that are so infectious that I can’t get them out of my head. These are songs that rock my face off. These are songs that pull on my heart like a marionette. These are songs I want to sing from the bottom of my lungs. These are songs I want to share with you. In addition to running down the top [...]

Happy New Year!  Now that the niceties are over, let’s get on to to the background info. This week, I will reflect on the past year and look forward to what 2010 has to offer. When I first decided to write this post a few weeks ago, I hadn’t read anyone else’s lists and I wasn’t planning on doing so either.  But through posts on twitter, I was exposed to several.  Looks like my favorite album is a lot of people’s favorite as well.  My initial response was to re-calibrate my picks and re-evaluate my rankings since I rarely ever [...]

Merry Christmas! A friend of mine recently texted that a video I sent him had very little to do with Christmas. I responded with: “christmas has very little to with Christmas.” Well, these post and these songs have everything to do with Christmas, the real Christmas. It takes a lot of talent, skill, and hard work to make a good song. It takes even more to make a good Christmas song. So much so, very few people have done this. But look no further, these are some of the best worship songs I’ve ever heard. Most are performed by their [...]

Following up on two previous posts about the best albums of the year and the best versions of “O Holy Night,” today I will focus on the best renditions of the other Christmas Carols I enjoy. A carol is traditionally a song of praise and that’s what these songs are. I’ve listened to over 1000 Christmas songs (proof) over the past few weeks and have been keeping notes, both mentally and using Sticky Notes, which is just on of the great new features in Windows 7.  When I envisioned this idea, I thought it was going to be just one [...]

I’ll cut right to the chase on this post: music up front; explanation in the back,or after the non-existent jump, if you will.  Listen to the 7 best version of “O Holy Night” below with the Grooveshark widget. I signed up for this site a long time along when it was invite only and never did much with it. Now it’s public and better than ever and thanks to this Zepfanman post, I became aware of it again. Stream and read away. “O Holy Night” is probably my favorite Christmas hymn. I’ve always liked the song. The simple arpeggio open [...]

Much like the Best of 2009 post I am also writing , this  reflects the best media I have been exposed to during the year.  A few of these came out a year or two ago, but I first heard them this holiday season. Some will be renditions of the traditional carols we all grew up with and some will be more modern originals. The challenge with a lot of Christmas music is there is a plethora (in the correct sense of the word) of it and most of it is old and sounds like it. A lot of these [...]