What A Heart Is Beating For - Review

Yesterday, Chris Rice's latest album, What A Heart is Beating For, was released. I've been a big fan of Chris for quite some time, so I downloaded it (legally, through iTunes) first thing.

Chris Rice has been a CCM recording artist since 1996, has written famous songs such as Go Light You World, Welcome To our World, Deep enough to Dream, When Did you fall, and is considered by many to be one of the Greatest CCM artists of all time, With a talent equalled only by the Late Rich Muillins.

As always, you never know what you're going to hear from Chris, and, as always, you're pleasantly suprised. It's the same for this album.

With his older albums, the lyrics were a lot of the time, questions, wonderings, etc. It seems with this album the lyrics lean more toward giving advice, and somewhat more of a simple understanding of life, if that makes any sense.

The music is very well composed, with solid bass lines, great sounding guitars, non-overbearing drums, and the vocals nested pristinely within the music, not overpowered by the instruments, but not standing out on top of the instruments, either.

Noting the success of When Did you Fall (in love with me), from has last album, Amusing, Chris has done some more love songs in this album, including; Song much for my Sad Song, with great piano and vocals, Here Come Those Eyes, with a very catchy tune - I don't even know what you'd call this style, kind of retro and jazzy, and a few other love songs.

If you download the Album via iTunes , you get a digital booklet, and two bonus tracks. I would have to say my three favorite tracks from this album are: So Much For My sad song, You Don't Have to Yell, & Kids Again (Bonus Track). Below is a sample of those three songs.

This album gets a 4¹/₂ star rating from me.

+What A Heart Is Beating For - On iTunes+

Music Sharing

   Can I share with you my thoughts on a subject that chaps my aortic artery?
Illegal Music sharing, I really have quite a disdain for it.

Picture This:
   So, You're listening to your favorite Radio station, and you hear a new song by your favorite artist, so you hop on Kazza or Limewire and you're thrilled to find out The Talking Azaleas From a Planet Beyond Neptune, your favorite band, Just released their newest album, Try to Keep the Weed-Be-Gone off of Me. With a click of a computer pointer (that's what it's called now, you know, as the Mus Musculus – or true Mouse, really doesn't appreciate being equated with a piece of bacteria covered computer hardware), you've now got a copy of the song, to sync with your Walkman, or maybe record out to a tape to use with your portable cassette player.

   Maybe you don't use a sharing program like Limewire, but your friends burn you CD's and you import them to iTunes, or you give your friends burnt CD's. Whether you do it over the internet, or with old fashioned compact disks, it's the same thing, and 99% of the time, it's not legal. I realize that most record companies have become quite slack on prosecuting music sharers, but just because you don't get caught doesn't mean it's not wrong.

   It blows my mind how many people have absolutely no problem with it. Maybe it's because it's an audio file and is somewhat abstract - doesn't seem material, maybe cause it's so easy, I don't know, but for some reason people don't see it as theft. Most Christians, Christians have no problem with it. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, without compensation for the product, is an elementary definition of theft. Giving your friend a burned CD for them to upload to their computer is like stealing a car and giving it away. You don't have the right to copy or give away music, It's not your property.


   I'm just sayin'... If you're going to steal something, steal something, rob a bank at gunpoint, steal a vial of tritium from a laboratory for a buddy's science experiment, pick-pocket the Prince of Saudi Arabia. But music sharing? Man, come on, don't be a coward.
I don't get it.