It seems that when you slap that "Christian" label on an artist, they are blindly labelled as horrible, or not worth listening to. It's understandable to an extent, because the vast majority of Christian music is rather horrific, or too cheesy to be looked at as good. Just using the name Jesus in a song can cause a typical face to curl in disgust. This is a shame, a real honest shame. With so much conflicting religious ideas these days, and so many people who find Christian faith to be completely appauling and idiotic, it's hard for a Christian artist to make it big. There may be a massive heap of crap out there, but Christian music is an entirely different realm of music...an entire different world. For every Death metal, doom metal, folk, ska, punk, rock, etc. album there is there is some Christian artist making an album for the same genre. There are standout artists in this realm that deserve success in both musical worlds. One of these artists is the young and talented singer/songwriter Shawn McDonald.
I've always wanted to see a wonderful Christian artist completely tear down the walls of music and touch people's lives. Everyone's lives, not just those who make religion a priority. Shawn McDonald has this potential. He's been a remarkable icon for those bible-thumping young adults, with his debut album Simply Nothing having moderate success. There's not a whole lot not to like about the man, he has a beautiful voice, his words are sincere and real and glorify the name of christ in the most wonderful of ways, he keeps the cheesiness to the minimum, it's emotional, and bare yet complex. His new album Ripen demonstrates all of this very well.
On this album, Shawn shows the world the maturity in his songwriting. Most of the music is simple, stripped down to a few sparce percussion instruments and his soothing voice over top his slow, cascading guitar parts. If Simply Nothing proved his talents in a worthy debut, Ripen completely expands the horizons entirely. Though most of the album is rather slow paced and focuses more on sad sounding melodies and lyrics of praise and love, he manges to delve further into other genres. "Home" for instance reveals a more upbeat, alternative country-ish sound and "Imago" brings latin influenced beats and guitar into the mix, making for a nice change in pace and an interesting little jam session.
But those are just a few different breaks from the action. Shawn McDonald has come to form as the Damien Rice or Sufjan Stevens of Christian singer/songwriters. He actually holds his own with them, and I think that if the mainstream audience got a hold of him they would see the music as capable of being grouped with such prestigious artists. The album opener, "I Want To Be Ready" is so bare, stripped to the bone, sad sounding but inspirational and uplifting. Worthy of mainstream success. It's the song subject that may turn others off, as it is about being ready to face the Lord in heaven.
I want to be ready, to be embraced by his love
For the almighty, to take my up above
Those lyrics make the Christian devotion obvious and the apparent cheesiness is what may make many people not like him. But the emotion put behind his words, the way he sings and the way he beautifully composes this track is something incredible. Especially towards the end when everything calms down and it focuses on his wonderful voice. It's one of the best on the album, and the wonderful thing is there are plenty of more songs where that came from. "Reason" is an uplifting, catchy pop song with an extremly uplifting chorus that is flooded with a beautiful atmospheric background and soaring vocals. "Free" is a somewhat popular single that recieved some airplay and is a great worship song without being too blatantly obvious or cheesy.
Then there is "Pour Out", another stripped down, bare track that displays his wonderful songwriting ability and reminds me of Ryan Adams would write were he Christian and his voice a little less raspier. A limited use of harmonica and keys are used in this track as well and impletmented well. "Ramblings of a Beggar" is an extremely short but dark sounding song with beautiful lyrics that literally almost brought me to tears the first time I heard it. His vocals echo above a very sparse guitar riff and then a low rumbling choir towards the end. By far one of the best tracks on the album.
And then there are my two personal favorites "Confess" and "Lovely". Confess is a simple pop song with a little bit of harmonica but mainly just a nice simple acoustic guitar part that reminds me of Damien Rice more than any other track on the album. It's definately a track I could see making a huge impact on the airwaves, as it is very accessible and emotional. "Lovely" is the album closer is so incredible beautiful it also almost brought my sappy self to tears. It's dark track, with lyrics dealing with death and sadness revealing themselves throughout the song, and yet it ends with uplifting lyrics once more. A nice buildup to the chorus is present and a nice gentle swarm of strings works out nicely here.
So overall, Shawn McDonald has matured into something spectacular and it's a shame few people are going to realize just how great of an artist he is. As much as I'd like to see him break down the boundaries of Christian music and other music, it's probably not going to happen. But for what it is worth, this is a very honest, pure, and emotional record that deserves a listen from everyone. It can be looked upon as both a beautiful singer/songwriter folk/pop record or a very worthy praise and worship album, depending on which way you'd like to look at it. Either way, his voice and his mature skill are worth a listen by all...no matter what your religious stance.
