Miranda Dodson is an Austin, TX singer/songwriter. I know of her music because she is the sister-in-law of Jonathan Dodson, pastor/planter of Austin City Life Church. I almost turned down the chance of getting a review copy of Change A Thing because I didn't want to risk not liking what Jonathan pointed me to. But I took a chance. And here we go.

I like a lot of music of various sorts. Plenty of it is by people with so-so voices. A lot of the best music out there is by singers that are pretty good but not great. I rarely hear a new album or artist and say, "Dude, that chick can sing!" This is one of those albums and one of those artists. But she also sets that voice in place and works the message. She doesn't show off. It's a tool. 

Miranda's voice is really interesting. She has power, range and control. It can sound full and rich. It can also sizzle a bit. In an email to her I said her voice has a "fizzy edge" to it. Something like Nelly Furtado's voice at times. She can also turn the fizz up for one song (like "Too Late") and fill her voice out a bit in another (like "Fly"). I hear some of my favorite sirens like Neko Case and Jenny Lewis too. No question about Patty Griffin as well, as you can see from Miranda's great cover of "Up To The Mountain."

Miranda writes her own stuff, but the songs aren't overly lyrical or streams of consciousness. So while I hear hints of Joanna Newsom in her voice, I find nothing of her vast storytelling. This isn't wordy. This isn't really story. This is snapshot. As I hear it, it's life meets God and captured in a moment. And the argument is brief, to the point. Someone like Newsom adds a million brush strokes. Dodson is taking pictures and tweaking how we feel about them through adding some musical black and white tones, or upping the saturation, or cropping in to less-noticed detail.

Track list & brief comment

change isn’t gonna change a thing;

sold our souls a long time ago

tryin’ to get back, tryin’ to get back



where do we come from, and where

will we go from here where, along this road, did we lose our souls?

This lump in my throat grows larger and larger

It’s my pride, I know, and it’s getting harder,

I must have swallowed…I will wallow



It seems as though I’ve reached my destination,

no need to make your reservation

The seats are taken, save for one at the bottom

King - "This is no kingdom." Immediately appealing and enjoyable.

I Will Be Free - Love the Brandi Carlile flavor I hear in this one. Positive. Driving. Moving. Hopeful.

Fly - One of the most interesting tracks on the album. Structure harder to discern for me. Interesting sounds, strings. The melody follows the flight of the butterfly in the song. Beautiful.

you carry the rainbow on your wings,

you dance so I can hear your wings

you carry me like you carry thieves,

you carry hope like the Prince of Peace

Never Be The Same - Short. Contemplative. Simple. Not simplistic. 

I highly recommend and have been thoroughly enjoying Change A Thing. I hope you'll pick it up. 

Buy Miranda Dodson: Change A Thing

The David Crowder Band recently released an EP called “Summer Happiness“. It has four stripped-down versions of songs from their “Church Music” album…which is one of my new favorites.

I’m thinking you’ll really have some summer happiness when I tell you that everyone who comments on this post will be entered to win the Summer Happiness digital album, the Church Music CD and an exclusive vinyl of Summer Happiness. Since I’m coming off of summer vacation and feeling particularly generous, one winner will also receive a Church Music vinyl along with the other prizes.

So, just to make things real simple, one contest winner will receive:

• Church Music vinyl
• Church Music CD
• Summer Happiness vinyl
• Summer Happiness digital album

And three more lucky winners will receive:

• Summer Happiness vinyl
• Summer Happiness digital album
• Church Music CD

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post that includes your email address. Feel free to include your best David Crowder impersonation if you’d like. As always…

Play nice.

UPDATE: We’ll keep the comments open until 5:00 pm EDT on Thursday, July 15.

UPDATE: The three winners of the smaller music packages are Jeff S., JC and Jonathan. The grand prize winner is Tim H. Congratulations!

Related Posts:

• My Interview with David Crowder
• New David Crowder Band Single
• The Power of Music
• Listen to the New Carlos Whittaker Album for Free!
• New Worship Music from Vicky Beeching

• My review of Miranda Dodson's excellent album, Change A Thing, should be out in a day or two. -- I started listening to it for a potential review. I've kept listening because it's a good album.
• $3.99 Today: Self-titled album of indie supergroup, Blue Giant. You MUST check this one out. Check reviews by No Depression and AbsolutePunk. I'm loving it. 
• Stream New Albums Free: Milwaukee band Jaill: That's How We Burn | School of Seven Bells: Disconnect From Desire (Loving this one. Buy it Tuesday.) | Dangermouse & Sparklehorse: Dark Night of the Soul | The Innocence Mission: My Room In The Trees
• $5 Albums for July: My Favorites | All 100 at Amazon
• New song from S. Carey of Bon Iver, "In The Dirt."

Here's "Windstorm" from the new School of Seven Bells album Disconnect From Desire (link to stream above). Dig it. (Song only...)

Everything awesome about the Avett Brothers is found in this live Bonnaroo video: Gentle strums, soaring harmonies, gradual building melodies and a rocking out screamy ending. BOOM! "Laundry Room"...

*****

When I was in high school, I loved to sing. I sang in the shower. I sang in my room. I sang while walking down the hallways at school. I sang until people told me to shut up. (They seemed rude at the time, but in retrospect, they had a point. It was pretty annoying.) By the time I was sixteen, I figured out a way to sing in a more socially acceptable way. I learned how to play guitar.

Like many high school kids before and since who’ve learned to string together three guitar chords, I was soon recruited to lead the worship singing for my youth group’s weekly meetings. (Or forced myself upon the position— my memory fails me at this point.) After leading the music, I would sit down and hear a message, whose point was often that I needed to try harder. Try harder to be a “good witness” at school. Try harder to avoid temptation. Try harder to obey God.

Somehow, the idea of trying harder carried over to worship. My repertoire consisted of praise and worship songs (none of which had an F chord— I didn’t know how to play that one), mainly ones that talked about how much I wanted to worship God. I thought that if I tried harder, was sincere enough, and really meant it enough, that I would enter into a state of capital-w Worship. The world around me would fade away, I would lose my inhibitions, and I would achieve a spiritual state of being lost in worship.

But this state of spiritual ecstasy never arrived. And, in my mind, there was only one person to blame–me. I was a failed worshiper.

*****

When I arrived at Belmont University in Nashville, I found myself at a Bible study called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). The guy leading the singing had an acoustic guitar, and I was instantly captivated by the music he was playing (and by how unreasonably often he broke a string). I had never heard any of these songs before, but was drawn in by the words. They were beautiful—artful even—and though I didn’t understand the meaning of every line the first time through, each song captivated my imagination.

I soon found out that these songs were old hymn lyrics set to new music. That certainly explained the Thees and Thous.

*****

Over the following weeks, as I stood and sung these hymns and sat and heard the Word preached, I found myself intrigued, fascinated, and even offended. For the first time I heard clearly that life was not about me and how hard I tried. Every way that I had tried and failed to please God, Jesus tried and succeeded. And he didn’t do it in order to put me in His debt, or just be a good example for me to follow, or show me how easy life would be if I came up with the right strategy. He did it while I was dead in my sins. Everything that needed to be done was already accomplished at the cross, and the empty tomb meant true, lasting freedom for me.

The lyrics I was singing were not about my desires and how much I wanted to worship God, they were about Jesus and His desires, and they gave specific and beautiful reasons why He was worthy of worship.

Arise, my soul, arise! Shake off your guilty fears—the bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears.

Before the throne my surety stands…my name is written on His hands.

The hymns also invited me to be honest. Rather than demanding that I leave the hardships of life at the door to lose myself in a “worship experience” (which had never panned out anyway, and upon reflection, seemed more of a Buddhist ideal than a Christian one), they spoke frankly about how weariness, sorrow, and pain are a part of the normal Christian life—not a sign of personal spiritual failure.

Dear refuge of my weary soul, on Thee, when sorrows rise
On Thee, when waves of trouble roll, my fainting hope relies
To Thee I tell each rising grief, for Thou alone canst heal
Thy Word can bring a sweet relief for every pain I feel

These lyrics went deep into my heart, and the way I thought about worship began to change. I was no longer examining myself to see if I was trying hard enough to worship. For a few minutes every week, my eyes were briefly turned away from measuring my own performance (spiritual or otherwise), and I was invited to measure Jesus’ performance on my behalf. And He never came up short.

*****

A couple of years into college, Kevin Twit (the RUF minister who led the music and broke all those strings) decided to record a CD of some of the hymns we were singing, primarily to get the music out to other RUF chapters. One week he had handed out the lyrics to a hymn called “Come Ye Sinners” and told us that someone needed to write music to it. That night, I sat down with a guitar in my dorm room with those words.

Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus, ready, stands to save you, full of pity joined with power.
He is able, He is able; He is willing; doubt no more

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requires is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you, this He gives you, ‘tis the Spirit’s rising beam

It’s hard to imagine words that could more perfectly capture what I had been experiencing. My dreams of “fitness” (being good enough for God) had been dashed, replaced by a vision of a Savior who was able, full of pity joined with power, to stand and save me.

By the end of the evening, I had finished the music. It even had an F chord.

*****

That first CD, Indelible Grace, spread by word of mouth. We began receiving orders from all around the country (and soon after, the world), and it became clear that these hymns were not resonating only with college students. I soon began to travel and play concerts of hymns, and was encouraged to see young and old respond to what they were hearing. The first time a lady in her eighties came up to me after a concert and thanked me for singing these hymns, I did some mental math—I’m pretty sure she didn’t listen to U2, or Wilco, or The Beatles, or any other music I liked. But she got it. In that moment, we connected over the beauty of the Gospel, no matter what music it was sung to.

I recorded “Come Ye Sinners” again for my first solo CD, Even When My Heart Is Breaking, and have continued touring and recording ever since. At every concert, I hope to give others a taste of the freedom I first experienced in college. As I grow older, these hymns have woven themselves into the fabric of my life. With every hurt, every failure, these words go deeper and resonate more, as they gently but firmly lift my head to my sure Hope, the ascended Savior who earned a righteousness for me, and whose perfect life of worship makes this failed worshiper forever accepted by God.

Lo! The Incarnate God, ascended pleads the merit of His blood
Venture on Him; venture wholly, let no other trust intrude
None but Jesus, none but Jesus, can do helpless sinners good

*****

Matthew can be found online on Facebook and Twitter. Churches interested in concerts and seminars can send a message requesting information by clicking here.

Blog readers can buy a download of Matthew’s first record, Even When My Heart Is Breaking for only $2.97 with the coupon code CHALLIES at http://matthewsmith.bandcamp.com. The code expires on 7/19/10. His album All I Owe is also on sale for $7.99 for a limited time.

Sponsor:

 

You like the folk/rock sound of Bruce Springsteen? Then you might really like the music from John Mark McMillan. His new album, The Medicine, released this week from Integrity Music (one of my fave partners). Head on over to iTunes to preview the album and download it for your listening pleasure.

And, if you’re a worship artist, check out the fun project Ben is pulling together for Story featuring JMM’s “How He Loves”.

More Fun on TonyMorganLive.com:

• Worth Dying For
• Catalyst | Eight
• Enewsletter Insights
• You Write the Headline
• Would the “Hot Wok” Play in Peoria?

But I've noticed something recently that isn't always true, but pert near. If you can appreciate an album cover as good art, you are more likely to enjoy the album as good art.

With this idea in mind I went over to check out the recently released albums at Amazon MP3. A screen cap of 5 are below. Which albums are going to be artistic? Which will "say something?" And which are more likely to tickle your ears for a minute maybe and then dissolve as something forgettable?

I've checked out all five. The first is a soundtrack and isn't quite the same category as it uses movie art and the album is a score. The next three are pics of the artists in various forms. Juvenile is there to look tough-ish. Enrique Iglesias is there to look good for chicks and I guess Cascada is there to look good for men, though odds are it's chicks who will listen to her. Notice you get four faces (and some body on the fourth). But the album on the right is different.

I haven't heard of Kathryn Williams or her album, The Quickening, until a few minutes ago. Her cover art caught my eye. The colors are odd, old, aged. There's both structure (lines and shapes) and busyness (clutter). I want to see what the bits and pieces are. Looking more closely we see it's a doll house. It seems worn, cheap, and as far as dolls are concerned, empty. What does that mean? The first albums try to convey something quick and seductive. "He's tough," or "She's hot." The final one is trying to tell me something. Trying to get beyond the heat of the moment and talk about something real, lasting, important. The first few tell me everything, which isn't that much. The last one only gives me the doorway for what I hope will be much more. I want to go there. If I try to be succinct, the first few appeal to "lust" (of one sort or another) and the last is about "life." 

After listening to samples from each of them learn that my impressions are correct. William's lyrics and music is artistic, rich, thought-provoking. The rest are nothing special. 

Looking into this album there's another interesting fact. This album was released in February in the UK. Check out the original cover. I don't feel at all weirded out being a dude and buying the album above. The doll house is odd enough that it doesn't seem girlish. But the original cover found through the link seems more like a real, modern day doll house. Less likely to pick up that album. Funny how it works, but that's my reaction.

Judging an album by it's cover doesn't always work, of course. But for the most part as a means of music discovery, I've been pretty pleased whenever I judge an album by its cover.

• Heat of Summer Music: Vampire Weekend: Contra ($5.99) | Arcade Fire: Funeral ($5) | Essential Beach Boys: Perfect Harmony ($5) | Burial: Untrue ($7.99)
• 99 Most Essential Classical Masterpieces for $1.99: Schubert | Mendelssohn | Handel | Relaxing
• 100 $5 Albums for July: My Favorites | All 100 at Amazon

Tokyo Police Club: Champ is a thoroughly enjoyable album. Solid fun. Here they are on Letterman with "Wait Up"...

CAUTION: If you can't handle songs with four letter words, move along. If you can, you need to watch Titus Andronicus with "Four Score and Seven." This sucker is long, starts with a whimper and eventually rocks out. It's from their great album, The Monitor. Follow along with the lyrics. Excerpt...

Because these humans treat humans like humans treat hogs,

They get used up, carved up, and fried in a pan.

But I wasn’t born to die like a dog, I was born to die just like a man.

I was born to die just like a man!

It’s still us against them, and they’re winning.

Yeah, I know. You read to the end to see if there's another helping of Avett Brothers. There is. Shhh shh shh. No need to say it. I love you too. And this wonderful song is just for you - "Ten Thousand Words" from the album I and Love and You.

• Brandi Carlile: Give Up The Ghost
• Gorillaz: Plastic Beach
• Iron & Wine: The Shepherd's Dog
• Silversun Pickups: Carnavas
• Spoon: Gimme Fiction
• Arcade Fire: Funeral
• Broken Bells: Broken Bells
• Passion Pit: Manners
• Mary Gauthier: The Foundling
• Pearl Jam: Ten
• The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
• Radiohead: Hail to the Thief
• The National: The National
• Modest Mouse: Good News For People Who Love Bad News
• Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do
• Camera Obscura: Let's Get Out Of This Country
• Band of Skulls: Baby Darling Doll-Face Honey
• M. Ward: Hold Time
• Smashing Pumpkins: Gish
• Sleepy Sun: Fever
• The Heavy: The House That Dirt Built
• Dead Confederate: Wrecking Ball
• Menomena: Friend and Foe

• Free Streaming Albums: Dark Night of the Soul (Dangermouse & David Lynch) | Maps & Atlases: Perch Patchwork | Alejandro Escovedo: Street Songs of Love 
  
• Hot on the iPod: Miranda Dodson: Change A Thing ($8.99, review coming) | Bad Veins: Bad Veins ($9.90)
• Last Chance $5 Albums: All My Favs 
• • Arcade Fire: Neon Bible - #5 on my 2007 albums 
  • Once Soundtrack - #8 on my 2007 albums
  • Free Energy: Stuck On Nothing - fun summer album, true energy 
  • Caribou: Swim - excellent new album 
  • Radiohead: Amnesiac - outstanding
  • Coldplay: A Rush of Blood To The Head - one of my fav albums ever 

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs is out on August 3rd. Very excited. Through their new album, Arcade Fire sheds some light on the experience that is particular to suburbia. Remember "Wake Up!" from their great Funeral album (only $6.99)? I was reminded last week of this Austin City Limits video...

Here's Delta Spirit's video for one of their best songs, "Bushwick Blues." Their new album, History From Below, is outstanding.

• Musicy Stuff: Paste's Best Music of 2010 So Far | Brent Thomas on seeing Mumford & Sons | Nathaniel Rateliff free at Daytrotter
• Stream New Albums: Alejandro Escovedo: Street Songs of Love | Stars: The Five Ghosts
• Great Deals: The XX: XX - $2.99 | Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine - $3.99
• $5 June Albums: My Favorites | All $5 albums
• Music I'm Into Right Now: Bad Veins | Tokyo Police Club | Villagers

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has a new video for "Say No To Love." Such a charming, young band. I very much enjoy their self-titled album. Buy "Say No To Love."

My family LOVES the video from Diane Birch for "Valentino" (from Bible Belt, $7.99). So fun! Don't miss the making-of video. Outstanding.