Best of 2018 playlist

This song speaks for itself. Drew Holcomb manages to invite the listener to the porch rocking chair to humbly contemplate life's complexities while the groove drifts by like a lillypad on a lazy river. The lyrics simply yet precisely articulate a truth that I've felt for sometime now but haven't known how to convey; that everyone has "their own set of blues" and perhaps one of the greatest acts of lightening the load and bridging the differences that otherwise separate us is to "walk a mile in another man's shoes."

Bastille made their debut (as far as I know) in 2013 with Pompeii, a driving, chanting, pounding epic. While I appreciated that song, I didn't do a deep dive into their other offerings. Along the way, I encountered Young Bombs, who seem to specialize in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) covers of pop songs. I'm very easily sold on catchy, dance-able hooks and this song has quite a few. By listening to this one, I've grown to appreciate the smooth and unique qualities of Bastille's lead singer's voice. He has a way of adding a relaxed quality to the vocals that pairs well with the contrasting, high-energy, danceability of this song.

Mat Kearney is an anomaly. I first discovered his music in college around 2008/09 and was struck by his cross-genre stylings of acoustic singer-songwriter meets low-key hip-hop ninja. His early songs like All I Need and Girl America adequately reflect his dual-citizenship on either end of this spectrum. To me, Kings & Queens is the result of a gradual and successful merge of both genres. The outcome is a beautiful blend of steady grooves, catchy hooks, and rhythmic flows.

Cory Wong is quite the character. His music seems to be the audible manifestation of his personality, both bursting with an infectious and vibrant passion. He has a history with the band Vulfpeck, a collaborative of super funky dudes, which seems to double as the launch-base for the solo careers of some of its past/present members. Cory's music is the work of an artist who loves his craft and is fearless to plunge its boundaries and explore what lies beyond. One of Cory's notable feats is harnessing the power of social media to gain a recording session with his smooth jazz hero, Dave Coz, on his song "The Optimist" (click here for the story and song). Clouds is a unique song that lives up to its name. Playful guitars dance through the atmospheric vocals and piano, at times swelling to orchestral proportions over the terra firma of a solid bass/drum groove. One of our favorite family past-times is to have spontaneous dance parties to a shuffling playlist. My toddler daughter, a great dance partner, has requested many times to listen to "the clouds", when referring to this track.

Keith and Kristyn Getty are a husband-wife duo whose worship songs are characterized by a multitude of unique qualities. Hailing from Ireland, their music bears the playful/yearning/partying melodies of uilleann pipes and tin whistles merged with a traditional, hymn-based songwriting style. Many other cross-cultural sounds are often found in their musical palette as well, as is the case with For the Cause. They also produce kids albums which contain updated versions of songs from their catalogue as a duo with a choir of children's voices and some revised instrumentation and arrangements. I admire these efforts for their validation of a child's capacity for musical appreciation and am thusly grateful that my daughter frequently requests to listen to them in the car. I highly prefer the kids' version of For the Cause to the original- there is something about a choir of children's voices that evokes the both the power and the innocence of a child-like faith that simply and humbly proclaims, "For the cause of Christ we go, with joy to reap, with faith to sow..."

One weekend in June, I took a bus to NYC to visit my very great friend, Marc. This trip to see an old friend in the middle of a hectic year nourished me in a manner reminiscent of Gandalf's anticipated retreat to see Tom Bombadil after the War of the Ring:

"I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil...I have been a stone doomed to rolling. But my rolling days are ending, and now we shall have much to say to one another"- JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King

Though time, distance, and life demands have reduced our once-spontaneous college hangouts in Boston to sporadic phone calls and email exchanges, little has changed between Marc and I. Regardless of the verbal or digital format, our conversations have examined the heights and depths of anything under the sun from theology and philosophy to the benefits of mixing peanut butter with oatmeal (trust me, it's totally worth it). One staple we inevitably return to is new music that we've been listening to, and Evergreen was one such referral that I received from Marc during the trip. YEBBA ('Abbey' spelled backwards) weaves her powerful vocal finesse through a minimal yet technical groove that throws some slick time-signature changes into the mix. My two-day visit with Marc was brief but has been captured in the soundwaves of this and many other songs that served as the backing tracks to our journey through the close-quarters of Brooklyn and the furious, unceasing streets of Manhattan.

With a rhythm that rocks and sways like the tossing of the waves, this song can serve as a lighthouse beacon for ships adrift in the lonely night and the tumultuous day-to-day. The song strikes a sweet balance between anthemic folk and lilting lullaby, leaving the listener to receive it in either manner for which they have need. His poetic lyrics are rich with imagery and convey ideas that are much larger than the minimal and precise words in which they are packaged:

When I get to Heaven, I won't say 'I love you',

I'll just look at you with my father's eyes and you'll know that I do

- Steve Moakler, Holiday at Sea

This is a song for the weary, those worn down by the burdens of this world and/or those fatigued from their own failures. It is an invitation to set our sights at what lays beyond the veil of this present life; to daydream about Heaven and all the Heavenly things those in Christ will do as well as all the Earthly things we can let go of when we are with Jesus face-to-face.

Ben Rector has the distinction of having appeared on both of my "Best Of" lists so far. Ironically, I honestly haven't heard more than a handful of his songs. Yet every one of those few whets the palette with such rich musical nourishment as to leave a lingering thirst for more. Each of these samplings spring from a thoughtful songwriter who proves himself to be a conscious and grateful observer of the miraculous and remarkable buried wtihin the normalcy of everyday life. Last year, I added his song, "The Men That Drive Me Places" to my list for his endearing reflection on, quite literally, the men that drive him places. That song is a reminder to be thankful for the shoulders of the quiet giants who you stand on and an offering to sing for the unsung, everyday heroes in our lives. Similarly, "Old Friends" is a call to gratitude for those whose shoulders are on an equal plane with yours, walking side-by-side with you. Ben reminds us that "no one knows you like they know you and no one probably ever will...you can't make old friends." How privileged are those friends from long bygone days that know, for better or for worse, the person you once were at a time when you "weren't scared of getting older." It seems to me that this is a recurring cycle. We all change as we age. I marvel at how quickly my friends from college have already passed into old friend territory. forming a new layer of aged friendship over those previous. They too have privileged knowledge of a version of myself that existed for a time and has since changed thanks, in part, to their presence in my life. Be thankful for your old friends. As we've learned from Ben, you can't make them.

Brian Reith is another anomaly that has long held a corner in the hybrid space between the pop, hip-hop, and worship genres. His music waivers between all three, usually zested with humor, social consciousness, or contemplative reverence. Under his former moniker of "B.Reith", many of his former songs alluded to the inevitable mispronunciations of his name. Thus "Good 2 B Back" appears to be a sort of re-branding to utilize his full name (notice how intentionally he enunciates it at 1:15). I've always appreciated the production behind Reith's songs; great effort has been made in the quality of sound via real instruments and/or extremely authentic samples. In an era when digitized music rules the airwaves, it can be very refreshing to harken back to its archetypes.

This year has seen me both blessed and pressed; so much to be grateful for yet also a breadth of trials, some of which I have yet to fully comprehend. Furthermore, our social era is a bitter and divisive one and seems similarly confused. At a time when mankind boasts of such vast resourcefulness and global connectivity which no previous age has yet known, we still struggle so deeply to understand ourselves and one another, prone toward the trails of fear, bigotry, and war that haunted our predecessors. This song comes as salve on those old wounds, pleading with us "Oh God, grant us peace." May we remember, as Jesus taught us in Matthew 5:14 to be the light of the world that he made us to be and, as the song implores, to "let the light in, keep it shining, let it break into the darkness."

Full list: For the full, 49-song playlist, you can listen via Spotify (click here) or YouTube (click here). Enjoy and remember to stay tuned next week for details on the new home for this blog. Happy New Year!