Defending The Indefensible: Amy Grant

I saw her sing "God Bless America" in person here in Chicago during the 7th inning stretch at the MLB All-Star game. She looked kind of trashy and strung out.

BEST DEFENSE EVER

I have a new identity should I wish to claim it.

-- dave q (scrape10...), September 14th, 2003.

do u mean Bye Bye Baby?

I've come to the point where I'd actually rather listen to Next Time I Fall over Love Song, god what a waste of space that was. It's like a little preview of how crap Prince and Madonna would both eventually become in a nice little three minute tune.

thanks to HAKGTWC i have newfound appreciation for 'Baby Baby'

yes! baby baby is incredible, gotta love her voice on that.

no homo irony.

damn

All I know about her, really, is that her ex-husband beat the shit out of her (and then came to a class and gave a lecture on independent music that was terrible).

http://v4admin.sportnetwork.net/upload/379/EMP-4117313.jpg

(and then came to a class and gave a lecture on independent music that was terrible)

the music or the lecture?

(both, i pre-ass-ume)

baby fucking baby

always and forever.

I said it on another thread: her boxed set from last year reveals a fantastic, brave artist who has never stopped making great stuff. Her recent Legacy: Hymns and Faith is just fantastic, as are some of the songs on her divorce album, Simple Things (unfortunate use of fake turntable-scratches on the title track though).

One of my favorite artists anywhere and far, far from indefensible.

songs to hear from Simple Things: "Out in the Open" and "Beautiful," both of which are devastating

i have the remix version of baby baby on a 12 inch somewhere and i don't think i've played it yet. i think today is the day.

AMY WHY ARE YOU TOURING AT THE SAME TIME AS ME BUT GOING UP THE COAST WHILE I'M GOING THE OTHER WAY

DO I GOTTA FLY TO ESCONDIDO ON MY DAY OFF JUST TO SEE YOU SING "SING YOUR PRAISE TO THE LORD"

DON'T EVEN TEMPT ME

she was the all-time favorite of my freshman-year roommate. he was a 2nd-gen korean-american lacrosse player, super christian. his family would come visit on weekends and i'd wake up hungover in my underwear to a room full of immaculately dressed, extremely polite koreans getting ready for church. yoo-sang brought like 10 cassettes to college with him, and half of them were amy grant. i guess they were ok, i don't know. i only let him use my stereo when i wasn't there.

the Gary Lutz story of my dreams

I want to read what Scott thought of the "Baby Baby" 12".

baby baby will forever make her worthwile

Her last pre-crossover album, "Lead Me On," is really, really good.

Her last pre-crossover album, "Lead Me On," is really, really good.

some of the touring she's doing right now is in celebration of the anniversary of this outstanding album

tons of the crossover stuff is great too tho & "Legacy: Hymns & Faith" is just awesome

would blap

Holy cow that album is 20 years old = I am old. :(

It's long past time for one of our contemporary R&B chanteuses to cover "Every Heartbeat." That song is positively Motown-esque.

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/CCM/amy_grant-occult.jpg

best website ever?
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/CCM/amy_grant-exposed.htm

Amy’s album House of Love includes the environmental-mother-earth song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” by new-age-priestess Joni Mitchell (Ibid.). Mitchell is infamous for her open relationship with a spirit she calls “Art.” Obviously she is communing with demons, and it is unconscionable for Amy Grant to be promoting Mitchell’s music to Christian young people.

Lead Me On really is the most wonderful record. but recently made available digitally & missing from the box set, who knows why, is Never Alone, her third album -- which is outstanding. it's in the earlier style (before the grain got into her voice, v. young-sounding A.G. as on My Father's Eyes & Age to Age), which is so light & hopeful & wonderful - so much warmth in it. The arrangements do a neat eliding of 70s production styles (which I view as "narrative" but that's a whole thing) and the oncoming 80s bells-and-whistles style -- you can sort of hear how people who'd learned to engineer in a 70s environment were thinking things would go. Which, in CCM, they did - this stuff makes a huge impact on a whole genre, really sets a tone (along with Michael W. Smith records, obviously).

Important also, individual song on a Rich Mullins tribute: AG's version of "Nothing is Beyond You" is A+++ all-time top-ten.

I love this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2wrtoloJ6k

oh man that is my deal right there

that first big chord change in the first verse...sublime. and when she gets to "I'll be your champion, and you will be mine"...she is so so great I will never get enough she should make a new album every other month.

coworker on 'baby baby' just now: "that big hit she had in the 90s ... kind of a new jack swing kind of a thing"

i dunno. i can hear that there's value here but i feel kind of awkward listening to it. like i haven't put enough distance between myself and my (RC) upbringing to manage to critically listen to CCM stuff at all. so er back to listening to spoon i guess /:

Crappy audio but great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKE0BxQN6Y

this was the tour I saw her on!

she has a new song btw, song of the year easy, it autoloads here:

http://www.amygrant.com/newsite.html

ok, i'm making my way through this stuff. i see the appeal, though i find myself liking the pre-crossover stuff better than the big-time early-90s stuff. although the more dunderhead fundie lyrics really defeat me.

she has a gorgeous reading of jim webb's "if these walls could speak."

that song is indestructible. i can imagine a version erring on the side of the gloppy, but even glen campbell's late-'80s version is pretty solid. why hasn't more been written about this phenomenal song? why haven't more covered it?

I've met Amy Grant in person a couple of times. She's really pretty & very nice.

The circle won't be broken

Sure he didn't link to another AG thread?

I'm not 100% sure what I'm talking about but Good to Me almost feels like freestyle's last gasp on the chart. Obv I dont think AG was from Miami but just in production choices...Alfred, you seem like a freestyle enthusiast? Do you get the same impression?

YOU GET BRAVE WHEN I GET SHY
JUST ANOTHER REASON WHY

I also feel the need to mention her vocal performance on That's What Love Is For

"I Will Remember You", even though its central message is fairly optimistic, used to really depress me as a teen, as I had bad separation anxiety issues so losing touch w/ people was a shattering concept. great tune.

Obv I dont think AG was from Miami but just in production choices...Alfred, you seem like a freestyle enthusiast? Do you get the same impression?

A bit, yes. It'd have to be faster. Certainly those synths already sounded outdated in '91.

took me forever to notice the album and single mixes of "every heartbeat" are different but they're really different

Yep. Prefer the album version, thanks to that burbling sequencer.

same, for the same reason

also (fake?) horns

btw if "Hats" still bothers you, just imagine she's singing about 'condoms.'

i like "hats" now

(hats)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euMfgdv_TWw

been bumping Cetera's "Next Time I Fall" a bunch lately and she's great on that. actually I've always liked her in general, including "I Will Remember You"

Tbh I had no idea until just now that Amy Grant did "Baby, Baby," which makes me feel like there are a lot of other songs from that era that I attribute wrongly.

But also this tidbit from earlier in the thread:

defned
I have a new identity should I wish to claim it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, September 14, 2003 9:24 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Heart in Motion is the Christian Thriller, and one of the decade's best.

i am here at the ryman for the amy grant/vince gill christmas concert. hard for it not to feel like a superspreader event but i’m gonna try to enjoy myself for the last time ever regardless

rodney crowell is opening ;_;

Every one of my heartbeats belongs to you, Brad.

amy grant extolled the virtues of community more than once during this show so i hereby refer to her as comrade amy grant

I went to the Amy Grant/Vince Gill Christmas concert in 2011 (can't imagine it's changed all that much in the last decade) and it was quite a pleasant experience.

I know it's been said before in this thread but "Baby Baby" is a jam and I've always loved that song. Something about the drum sound/production in particular evokes my childhood. Same goes for a lot of 'soft rock'/adult contemporary from that period but this is a highlight.

Great read, this -- and a familiar voice is quoted within.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/29/amy-grant-kennedy-center-honors/

Got it on my second guess.

She rules:

Amy Grant announced that she & her husband Vince Gill are going to host a same-sex wedding on their farm for her niece. Amy is quoted as saying, “Jesus you just narrowed it down to two things: love God & love each other.” https://t.co/SznCI3trDg

— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) December 19, 2022

I think we can all agree now that "Baby Baby" is leagues better than "Smells Like Teen Spirit" right? It took awhile, but I'm glad society finally caught up

You're taken with the notion!

Had false hope that the tweet would have more likes than the inevitable tweet 2

Amy Grant getting soft-canceled for defying conservative evangelical expectations …the 90s are back! https://t.co/MqdEG1kJZH

— Ruth Graham (@publicroad) December 19, 2022

I mean I'm not shocked at the reaction (the Christian scene disowned her for far less than this decades ago), but once again, props for Amy.

Suddenly inspired to watch the Kenney Center Honors. (I'll fast forward thru the U2 segment.)

Then you'll miss the Bono-Amy duet on "Every Heartbeat."

Far more likely he takes a verse on "El Shaddai"

"Next Time I Fall", with a cameo from Peter Cetera who comes onstage and promptly beats him to death

does Vince Gill replace the Edge

Still have a very vivid memory from the one year I was forced to join a youth group and attending one Friday night meeting where three girls in the group tearfully yanked the tape from the spools of their Amy Grant cassettes and dramatically threw them in the garbage for "going secular".

I'm glad it hurt them personally

ever since the day
you threw my tape in trashcan

In the "Rednecks and Bluenecks" book Rodney Crowell talks about how Vince Gill's values were actually pretty liberal but that he identified as a Republican because they were the Jesus team.

I legit liked "Everywhere I Go" and "Wise Up." Strong songs. I am not religious or Christian at all but those are solid pieces of music.

three girls in the group tearfully yanked the tape from the spools of their Amy Grant cassettes and dramatically threw them in the garbage for "going secular"

It's what Jesus would have wantd.

*wanted

*wanded

Eric's simple, but he's no fool.

Alfred's a wonderful counselor, a lord of life, lord of Soto

https://i.imgur.com/FIdmzrn.gif

Fat Baby is an awesome song

[Outro]
He's just a fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat
Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat
Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat, fat
Baby

"He's just a faaa...
He's just a fat little baby!
Wa, wa, waaaaa..."