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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 51: ALICIA KEYS

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As I reflect upon the 50 blogs I have written so far in my journey of exploring a myriad of musical genres and understanding that regardless of genre, God Himself can use whatever, whomever, and whichever, to show people things about themselves that maybe need to be addressed, or even show people things about Himself that people indeed need to address as well; I’ve come to realise a few things. One things for certain, I don’t know much about music that I initially thought I did coming into this experimental project. I was humbled, in a good way. I delved into the genres of country, exploring the likes of Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood and Shania Twain, to name a few, who have made a tremendous impact on today’s society and music in general, while I also dived deep down into the unknown with the realisation that rap/hip-hop wasn’t as scary as I initially thought, with the exploration of Christian hip-hop (CHH) crossover icon Lecrae. I immersed myself into the pioneers of CCM in artists like DC Talk, Steven Curtis Chapman, Carman and Michael W. Smith; while also taking to the artists that themselves have had quite a big of success in both CCM and mainstream- Switchfoot, Skillet and needtobreathe. Now here I am about to move into my 51st post (wow, already more than ½ way in my journey through this list- then it’s off to the timeless ones!), and I realise this- that the more you don’t know about a certain particular genre, or a certain artist, or the more you realise you don’t know about the things that you don’t know, you start to develop a bit of a hunger to know, to understand, to travel deep within the crevices and cracks of whatever genre you are discovering next, and realise that every musical genre out there, no matter how foreign it may be to you, will still impact someone in the world on their journey in life.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 50: SHERYL CROW

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‘…sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I listened to great bands and songs, and the great albums from said bands, when they actually released, rather than all these years later. How would my music tastes have changed- or would they have stayed the same? How would my outlook on life be, would I be more of an extrovert or an introvert, would my values change or would I still be in the same profession that I am currently in? I know, weird questions, but I truly believe that music and the song that can impact and encourage, influence and challenge; can really change a trajectory of someone depending on when they hear it in their lives. And at a certain point, a song can be a catalyst for change, personal or as a collective, to be something better, to look inward and see what needs to realign and refocus, or what values that is held close, need to be reassessed, and which need to still stay the same. So to answer my own question that I posed earlier…I don’t really know what would’ve happened if I did listen to artists when their respective albums released. I mean, had I did listen to artists like Avril Lavigne, Ronan Keating, U2, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride, even Owl City and Lifehouse, during the times when albums of these said artists released; maybe, just maybe, the wonder and awe, and the unique feeling that comes when discovering a whole discography of a new artist, could be less and less. Because essentially if you follow an artist’s career from year dot, you become accustomed to their music your whole life, as opposed to someone else discovering for the first time a whole discography of an artist they’ve missed out on…’

‘…mainstream music for me has always taken a bit of a back seat throughout my life, and it was only when I heavily invested my time and my intrigue and interest into this blog series that I started to undertake last year, that I truly understood that there was a lot of mainstream music out there that I was missing. That mainstream music was just another avenue of music that God can and does use for Himself to be revealed in our lives whenever we hear the music, either currently of now, or of the years gone by of yesteryear. As I’m about to undertake blog post #40 this week, I have reflected upon the artists I’ve delved into thus far: Delta Goodrem, Lifehouse, Sara Bareilles, Ronan Keating, Owl City, Martina McBride, U2, The McClymonts, Shania Twain, Ed Sheeran, Rascal Flatts, Evanescence, OneRepublic, Tina Arena and Daughtry, to name a few; have all had impacting and influential careers in music over the years. And all of them have been instrumental in the reshaping of my own views of mainstream music since my discoveries of this wide array of music from last year onward. And, all these artists aforementioned are under the label or category of ‘mainstream’ music, or just music that isn’t Christian, or ‘religious’ in any way. And maybe, just maybe, mainstream music doesn’t have to be as bad as I myself originally thought it was back in high school. It was only last year that I was stretched in my understanding and comprehension of what good music really looked like, and that it was ok for me to enjoy music that wasn’t Christian in any way, and that God Himself could move if He wanted to, speaking to me through the unlikeliest of sources, even mainstream music. And that’s ok! …’

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