| Track Title | Rating (Out of 10) |
| Stand Out | 5 |
| Hold On | 8 |
| Look Up | 7 |
| Bless the Lord | 9 |
| I Need You | 8.5 |
| Prodigal Son | 9.5 |
| All Hail the King | 8 |
| Hallelujah | 9 |
| Let Us Worship | 8 |
| So Amazing | 7.5 |
| He Has Made Me Glad | 10 |
| I Made It Through | 10 |
| Chasing After You | 10 |
| Well Done | 10 |
| Good in the Hood | 8.5 |
| Average Rating (per song) | 8.5 |
| Album Rating | 9.2 |
I had been waiting for the release of this album since Victory Live! came out a couple years ago. As a musician and choir director, I’ve grown to love his style immensely. He’s active. He’s radical. He lets it all hang out. He falls on stage in the middle of his songs—on purpose. He’s out of the box. He even said at one point that he and his group have been kicked out of churches for their at times scary new take on gospel music.
In short, he’s weird. And I love it.
But there was always some speculation as to his comments concerning the status of homosexuality in the world and the church, and in exposing myself to the many kinds of people there are in the world, I’ve learned that sometimes, just saying “don’t be like that” or “stop doing that” isn’t enough to represent the gospel properly.
By the way, I once mentioned “homosexuality” maybe 3 times in a 25 minute sermon, and I was asked afterwards if I was gay. Am I? Well, you may have questions, but I don’t. And to me, that’s all that matters.
But yea…the church has been known unfortunately to sanction hatred, and lately, the scapegoat has been homosexuals. I generally can’t stand hatred and rejection in the church, because the church is supposed to be that one place you can go to when you can’t go anywhere else. Even the “Prodigal Son” (the 6th track on Tye’s album) said “at least I can go to my father’s house.” So I’m always a bit aware of when something seems slightly hateful and loftily rebuking.
Then I heard the title track on this album. First of all, it was kinda dull to me. I saw the visual on his website and it was more active, and I think it needed that visual aspect to appeal to me. Aurally, it's also grown on me. But being familiar with Tye’s work, the “war cry” he screams for sounded a little sheepish. Not sure why, but that's what I felt.
Even these lyrics sparked some anger among the
“How you gonna be the praise leader
when you listen to r&b
And hip hop is on your ringtone
Trying to tell you God ain't pleased
And since when did it become cool
For you to live together unmarried
Men with men, women with women
Telling you God ain't gonna have it”
Now, is there a problem with these lyrics? Possibly, depending who you are. I personally have a problem with people saying “don’t listen to hip-hop” or things like that, and I’ll tell you why in more detail later. But these comments—not even the homosexuality, because that’s traditional church so I see where it comes from—but the hip-hop and r&b comment are comments that I’ve known to be personal opinion from Tye himself. And when you’re in a genre that people expect to be infallible, mixing any sort of opinion in it--obscurely--is a dangerous thing to do. So it was a bit of a turn off, and I almost didn’t buy this album.
But thank God I did.Tye and Soundcheck have proven themselves as outright musical geniuses. They took almost every chord progression you could possibly think of and reworked it just a little bit more than most bands out there would. You could tell just by listening to the record that they enjoy what they do, and they take it seriously.They called on Kim Burrell yet again to lend her soulful power to “He Has Made Me Glad,” the closest thing they have to a traditional track. She, of course, was amazing. The choir on this one reminded me of James Hall. GA’s pretty versatile if you listen closely.
[Quick comment: Do you remember on Victory Live! when Tye and Kim tried a run together, and it didn’t quite work out? Well, of course, they redid it on this album and got it right. I thought that was cute.]“I Made It Through” is Soundcheck’s reinvention of shout music, and the main reason I love them so much. It’s New Orleans Jazz mixed with church shout music mixed with…all sorts of crazy mess. They made every effort to put every possible run and change in the song as possible, and it worked because they could resolve it. Some people may argue that he was doing too much. As a musician, I would disagree wholeheartedly. Of course.
“Chasing After You” is my second favorite track on the album.
What really stuck with me about this album is the fact that though Tye does some opinionated stuff sometimes, though he goes against the grain in what may be a questionable way, and though he's made enemies and friends and whatnot, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter to him. The track "Well Done" sealed that for me, and it wasn't even because of what the choir was singing, or what the musicians were playing. It was because of this comment during a musical interlude:
"Most of us have plans for this life. We have a blueprint of our business and how we want our future to be. And it's good to have a vision and a plan, for 'without a vision, the people perish.' So that's a great thing. But let's be mindful as we pursue our dreams and as we pursue our goals, that at the end of all this, the reality is, I'm living my whole life just to hear two words, and that's 'Well Done'"
I don't have time to preach on it right now, but suffice it to say the album is well worth the purchase. If you’re worried about hateful remarks and excessively opinionated statements, don’t be. Tye's human, just like everyone else. It happens. But he also ministers. And this album ministers.
Go get it.
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