Michael W Smith's best albums?

[dms1972]

The more I listen to his older stuff - which is The Live Set at the moment, I think most of his best stuff was up to and including Change Your World. But contrary to received opinion, I think now that I 2 Eye with the exceptions of the songs Hand of Providence and Secret Ambition wasn't his best from the first decade recordings. It was good material but I think his best albums are Change Your World and Go West Young Man, and The Big Picture.

Or is this a generational thing, now that im in my 40s?

Go West Young Man and Change your World seem to have had and still have more influence to push me out of myself in love towards others, some of his stuff is a really gracious kick in the butt for me at times.

 

[markb77]

I'm in my mid-50s and first saw MWS before the first album came out (playing in Amy Grant's band). I own pretty much all of his albums up until the last few. To my ears, all of his early albums were good, especially eye and Big Picture. His praise albums were a great source of encouragement to me when my daughter was going through cancer treatment, and I still enjoy those to this day. However, it felt to me like his more commercial late 80s - early 90s stuff was a bit of a step backwards in quality. For my taste, he lost some of his edge and became a bit too "popish". But that's just my taste. I will say that his music has aged gracefully, and his more recent releases reflect (to me) an artist who is not afraid of changing his musical style as he grows older. It would be silly to think he would still want to run around the stage today like he did (literally) back in 1983. No doubt he helped make CCM what it is today, and his body of work (particularly those first four albums) is still a highwater mark for the genre.

 

[dms1972]

Great comment.

Go West Young Man was to me a bit of a departure (not in quality) but I grew to really like it, but I'd only had heard I 2 eye, that I thought highly of, and still do particularly the aforementioned songs. Also need to mention Live and Learn from that album as another standout. I hadn't heard his earlier songs till well after that. And thought it wasn't going to be up to what I heard, but I was really surprised, Admittedly I was listening more just for pop value more than anything else at the time. But several songs have helped me in difficult times.

Sometimes what happens is that a singer moves from pop (whatever that is) to AOR then back to pop when their audience is expecting more AOR, both Amy Grant and Michael W Smith done that around the same time - though MWS's earlier couple of albums was closer to what i'd call Techno in sound.

Why didn't Michael, Wayne, and Amy and a few sessioners form that christian supergroup for one album? I think they should but do it really anonymously and release several re-recorded versions of old timeless CCM classics.

 

[lightninboy]

I think that in all CCM pretty much the older the better.

 

[dms1972]

I think that in all CCM pretty much the older the better.

I tend to agree, just as I would with the hymns with some exceptions, but I don't think that needs to be always the case. Sara Groves for instance is more recent and worth listening to, and no doubt there are others new luminaries. I see no reason not to think that there will be more high watermarks, as there was in the 70s / 80s / even 90s when it wasn't just a matter of trying to provide a secular alternative, and producing something timeless was important.