Undercover Worship

When it comes to modern music there are two broad categories. One is secular music and the other is spiritual music. There are many bands that fit into one category or the other, but there are few bands who fit into both categories. Switchfoot is one of the bands that can easily fit into both categories. There songs sound like secular music but offer messages of hope within their music. They are devoted Christians that chose to offer hope through music. One of their songs, "Meant to Live," talks about how we are meant to live for so much more than our present state and that there is life to be found. Another song, "This is Your Life," boldly asks the questions "This is your life, are you who you want to be?" Switchfoot's music offers hope and asks questions that inspire soul searching and worship. This is one of the best modern bands.

Music Memories

I was born in 1990. Music had drastically changed since then. When I think back on all the music I have heard in my lifetime, I realize that music can change drastically in a relatively short amount of time and at the same time music has no time bounds. There have been many different styles of music that I have been attracted to through the years including county, rap, rock, you name it, I've listened to it. The cool thing is that music never gets old, you can always relate to it years later. I stumbled upon The BoomBox's "Best Songs of the 2000's" and looked at their top ten songs and laughed as I remember listening to and singing with these songs. Music brings back so many memories.

Stress

College students across America are beginning to feel the stress; the end of the semester is quickly approaching. Here at Gardner-Webb there are only one week of classes left and then a week of finals. Many have projects, tests, and papers due and feel that they are pushed to their limits. The magic of music is that during times like these you can put on some headphones and go into your own world. If you are in need of some music to relax you, I recommend Jon Foreman or The Swell Season. Good luck to everyone in these last few days!

I Am T-Pain

T-Pain is a hot hip-hop artist that makes heavy use of a feature in his music called auto-tune. It was originally created to use in recording studios to create perfect vocal tacks, however, artist, T-Pain, uses it every time he sings.  It creates an interesting sound that it not natural but very intriguing.  Now, anyone can sound like T-Pain.  There is an application on the iPhone that allows you to sing into it and it puts an auto-tune effect on your voice. It's a very cool application. Watch this video to see people demonstrating this app.

Tom Anderson Crowdster

I went to the David Crowder Band concert last night in Charlotte and had an amazing time. I've seen Crowder several times before but this time was the debut of their new CD, Church Music. There is so much layering on this CD that it seemed it would be impossible to play live. However, they did an impressive job. They created a robot drummer and there were a total of 5 key boards in the band. Each person was responsible for nearly 3 instruments. One guy even had a little key pad on his acoustic guitar. It was insane. All of these things were great, but the one thing that attracted me most was the Tom Anderson Crowdster. The Crowdster is an acoustic guitar ideal for live music. It has no external pickups or a soundhole so there is absolutely no feedback. It sounds so clean and very crisp. I've been reading many reviews about them and even made a bid on ebay. I would love to have one of these guitars.

Switchfoot's Twitter

I have made extensive use of my twitter in the past several months and many others are taking advantage of this site. Twitter is an amazing resource for bands. It allows artists to issue notices about their tour and let their fans know how life is on the road. Switchfoot makes great use of this nano blogging, giving updates like this, "Done with tv, now on our way to 102.1 the EDGE. Drew's mustache says hello.http://yfrog.com/79mghj." It allows fans to feel like they are a part of what's going on with the band.

Taylor Swift

Who said age makes any difference? This year, 19 year old country sensation, Taylor Swift, took four awards at the Country Music Awards. One of these was the Entertainer of the Year in which she is the youngest person to ever win the award. It amazes me that Swift and I are the same age and she is doing things I only dream of. Props to Taylor for being an inspiration to young people everywhere.