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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 27: Peter Hollens

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I think I’ve said this many times throughout the time that this site has been online. But now I’ll say it again. All throughout my life, I’ve been sheltered. Jon too. Mainly because we were born 3 months premature and hence our parents wanted to keep us at home and make sure we were super healthy and not exposed to anything that could and would hinder our development in any way possible. We never went to pre-school, and Mum never worked at all for the 5 years that both Jon and I were at home before kindergarten. I know, it may seem like a pretty intense and drastic measure- but hey, that’s what Mum and Dad were feeling at the time, and I absolutely cannot fault them for raising me and Jon the way they did. I have so much thanks and gratitude towards them, and there’s so many things in my life that are great, all because Mum and Dad were present during the formative years of my life. I think that I’ve actually had a pretty great childhood- but then again I’m not comparing my childhood to anything, so perhaps I’m biased? Anyway, as I was saying- both Jon and I were sheltered, through no fault of our own… but this meant that Mum and Dad were a bit hesitant in letting us try new things. From my own recollection from what Mum and Dad have told me, Jon had to be ‘forced’ every type of food for the first time, otherwise all he’s be eating would be chicken drumsticks; while Mum and Dad have told me countless times that I mostly copied my brother because, well I don’t know, isn’t that what brothers do when they’re young? When Jon decided not to talk and just point and use non-verbal cues to grab our parents’ attention, I followed suit. When Jon chucked a tantrum, I followed suit. When Jon decided that he was scared while watching Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs for the 7th billionth time, well naturally I’d hid behind the couch with him at the sight of the witch giving Snow White the apple. Life indeed was simpler back then, yet I’m sure others could say that we missed out on a lot during that time. And yeah, on some level you all may be right. But I believe that in a roundabout way, missing on quite a few things while we were younger- namely music and movies- is actually a blessing in disguise. Because it may have led to this blog series being written… and this series is one of the most humbling, enjoyable, enriching, inspiring and compelling activities I’ve embarked on in recent memory.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 59: VANESSA AMOROSI

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Think about life for a moment in all it’s ebbs and flows. It’s ups and downs, ins and outs, valleys and peaks. It’s not that hard to do now, when we see what’s happening with the world, with COVID-19 wreaking havoc around the world. We look at our lives and think and wonder. What are the constants in our lives when everything around us seems be less certain? And then hopefully we start to think, and we can then write them all down. Our friends and family. Check. Our relationship with God. Check. Our endless supply of DVD’s and movies, the streaming services of Stan, Foxtel, Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV and Disney +. Check. Well…then again, maybe streaming services isn’t as constant in our lives as we ourselves initially think. But you get the picture. And then last but not least, something in our lives that has been constant for forever, in ways that maybe we ourselves don’t even know it, is in fact music. Music, just like film and TV, has the power to delve deep into our souls, and minister to our very core of our humanity, hopefully bringing to light, issues that maybe we ourselves need to work on, while also highlighting our very relationships with our friends, family and God Himself, in the whole process of us enjoying a song and reflecting on its meaningful lyrics. For me, music has always been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember- I started listening to children’s music like The Donut Man and Psalty the Singing Songbook when I was younger, and as time went on, my musical tastes continued to expand. Artists like Delirious?, Carman, Steven Curtis Chapman, Chris Tomlin, Newsboys, Tim Hughes and Rebecca St. James were all artists I thoroughly listened to throughout my primary and high school years, while my university days were impacted by a lot of CCM- artists like the ones aforementioned, alongside others- Third Day, Casting Crowns, MercyMe, Nichole Nordeman, Natalie Grant, Bebo Norman, Kerrie Roberts, Paul Baloche, Phil Wickham, Matthew West, Kari Jobe, Britt Nicole, BarlowGirl, Hawk Nelson, Sanctus Real, Building 429, David Crowder*Band, and Jason Gray (to name a few of the many, many artists we- my twin brother and I, branched out into). Now here I am in 2020, one year and a half into my blog series, and my musical tastes have continued to grow and expand even further. Yes, this blog series (which you can read more about here) has been daunting and at times, uncertain, but on a holistic level, has also been rewarding, as I felt the Lord’s presence and Him speaking to me through a lot of music that one wouldn’t necessarily call ‘Christian’. And that was my own conundrum that I was working through- and am still working through. I’ve concluded that mainstream music isn’t ‘bad’, as a lot of fundamentalist Christians believe. And maybe I believed that statement too, even though I didn’t grow up in such a fundamentalist environment.

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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 26: Thomas Rhett

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The other day I was reflecting. As you do when the world has gone to pieces because of COVID-19 and other things, and you have extra time on your hands. I think I was sitting. Or maybe I was standing? Anyhoo, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that as I was reflecting on the year that was and is- and boy haven’t we all have had it rough, and don’t we all wish that 2020 would be ‘over’! – it slowly dawned on me that I’ve actually written 25 blogs out of 50, for artists who I deem as just coming to be influential now (for their respective genres and for their vastly different audiences), or maybe about other artists who may not be influential yet but will be within 5-10 years. I know that that is a mouthful to remember, because one’s definition of influence differs from person to person, and who you reckon is influential is who I reckon is not, and vice versa; yet nevertheless I have reached the half way point on my musical journey that I never thought that I would ever embark on in my wildest dreams. And the results so far… well they’re interesting. I stepped into this journey not knowing which artists would speak to me and what wisdom would be imparted to me- a similar thought process to Jon when he embarked on his much grander musical journey; yet at this half way point, much like Jon at his half way point, the questions I asked myself remained, and the answers to them not so clear cut… which in some ways is a good thing as it means that God is still speaking. I mean, have I learned anything about the music industry at large at this point, or about specific genres that I hadn’t known about before, or was God speaking to me in a profound way through an artist who I previously thought was superficial or shallow? Or was I even underwhelmed by a certain artist for whatever reason? And most of all, did I feel good about my choices of artists to include on this list at the end of the day, considering there’s other talented and up and coming artists who missed the cut on this arbitrary list?

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 58: JOHN MAYER

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There are sometimes during the weeks where I sit and ponder and wonder. What really, really constitutes a great song or artist? Is it the message of the melody, the lyrics, what is being said, that would make the song stand the test of time in the end? Is it the musical composition, and the various layers of guitars, drums, keyboards and the like, that evoke different emotions, considering who is listening to it? Is it the general perception of the artist that determines whether a song or even an album by that artist, is successful, impactful or even decade-defying or not? Does an artist make a song, or can a song make an artist? These are the questions that have been haunting fans of music, and critics of it, for quite some time, and as we sit and think about all this, in 2020; I don’t think we’ve ever come to a clear conclusion sooner, if at all. For artists, songs, and albums are people’s preferences, and what one person can deem in their own lives as influential, the other can avoid with a ten-foot-pole. That’s just life, and there’s millions of genres available for people to listen to, to their hearts content. Music is very, very subjective, and so for me to tackle this year-long (and then some), project, about the top 100 Influential Artists (in my very own subjective opinion)- and then to top it off, 40 artists that are deemed the ‘classics’…you see what I mean right? People can call this ‘music experiment’ mere folly. And yet for me upon reflection- since I started embarking on this vastly daunting (yet equally exciting and rewarding) venture, I’ve been realising that such an exercise as this, as led me to appreciate music in all its facets all the more.

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