CD Review: Hymned

I’ve been remiss in not reviewing this CD until now, but it’s called Hymned, by Bart Millard. It’s a CD of [mostly] traditional hymns, but with modernized music. (I have trouble categorizing the style of the music, but I guess “Country” will do.)

Near the end of last Construction Season, Andrea and I popped into a Christian music store, to look for some music the choir could sing. She was specifically looking for a CD or two with some hymns on it, but modernized, because those always go over well.

Of course, while she was searching, I was just goofing around, and looking for something I would enjoy. But while I was, I happened on this CD, which was new, at the time, and being advertised heavily. They had it at a listening station, where I could hear it, and so I popped it in. The first song on it was Just a Closer Walk With Thee, and for a couple of minutes, I just couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. I thought I did; it had a “fun” feel to it. But I wasn’t convinced. So I skipped to the next track, MawMaw’s Song, which I definitely didn’t like. It wasn’t, however a hymn—although it uses parts of In The Sweet By and By for the chorus—so I wasn’t worried. By the time I put on track 3, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior, I was hooked. I knew I was going to buy this CD whether the choir used it or not.

So I brought Andrea over, and had her take a listen. Now, I wasn’t really sure what would happen, at this point. Our tastes in music aren’t always the same, so there was a good chance that she would tell me it was crap, and the choir would never hear of it. But luckily, she loved it too. So far, we’ve already done a few songs off this CD as a choir, and we’ll likely be doing more for the concert.

The CD is good enough that some of the choir members even listen to it for pleasure. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but frankly, when we’re singing a song as a choir, we all get sick of it pretty quick. After you’ve sang the first two lines of the second chorus of the song eighteen thousand times, it starts to grate on you. So the fact that some of the choir members like this music enough to listen to it even after that, indicates to me that this is a pretty quality CD.