J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.
Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I give it a blanket endorsement. Many of the secular albums on this list are mainly there because they wound up being spoofed by ApologetiX.
1703. Vision Gets Clearer as You Get Closer - ApologetiX
The title for the 68th ApologetiX LP, Vision Gets Clearer as We Get Closer, has a twofold meaning: First, our physical sense of vision gets clearer as we get closer to our destination or whatever we’re focused upon. Second, when God gives a spiritual
vision, the meaning gets clearer as we get closer to its fulfillment. That applies to the visions He gave to the Prophets about Christ’s first coming that have already been fulfilled, visions He gave to the Church about Christ’s second coming that still await fulfillment, and visions He gives to us personally for our own lives that are gradually coming to pass. It applies to this album, too. We had the title before we had most of the songs (More on that later). However, as we assembled them, it became apparent that they belonged together. For example, there are three songs about greed and its consequences, three about the early church’s boldness despite persecution, and three about overcoming death through Christ. The last two songs are about the Lord’s Return. As Second Peter 3 explains, although the devil incites, God is slow to wrath and has delayed the inevitable in order to save as many as possible, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. With that in mind, let’s make every effort not to be shortsighted. Trivia note: I got the idea for the title of this album on September 16, 2022, while on the phone with Pastor Tom Gill of Thornville OH. He was telling me an interesting testimony of something the Lord had recently done for him, and it wound up inspiring me to come up with the wording. I told Pastor Tom that right then and there, as a matter of fact. The CD finally came out in mid-December of that year. It featured parodies of Bon Jovi, The Clash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Def Leppard, ELO, Great White, INXS, Kiss, Live, Rednex, Bruce Springsteen, Thin Lizzy, and Van Halen.
1704. Ultimate Sinatra - Frank Sinatra
Released April 21, 2015, Ultimate Sinatra chronicled the career highlights of Hoboken's favorite son through the decades (1940-80) and across multiple record labels. There were two versions. As 2015 was the 100th anniversary of his birth (he died in 1998 at age 82), the box set contained 100 songs. I bought the digital version of the scaled-down, 24-track, two-disc set after reading Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan, which came out later that same year. I've covered a couple other Sinatra collections on this list, but this one is the most comprehensive. Even the economy model has just about anything anybody but the most obsessive fan could want. Some of his signature songs didn't chart as high as you might think, so you can't just go by chart positions to gage popularity, but here are the contents: "All Or Nothing At All" (with Harry James and His Orchestra) (#2), "I'll Never Smile Again" (with Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra and The Pied Pipers) (#1), "Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week)" (#2), "Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" (#10), "I've Got The World On A String" (#14), "Young At Heart" (#2), "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" (album cut), "Learnin' The Blues" (#1), "Love And Marriage" (#5), "I've Got You Under My Skin" (album cut), "Witchcraft" (#6), "All The Way" (#2), "Come Fly With Me" (album cut), "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)" (album cut), "The Way You Look Tonight" (album cut), "My Kind Of Town" (#110), "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)" (With Count Basie and His Orchestra) (album cut), "It Was A Very Good Year" (#28 pop, #1 adult contemporary), "Strangers In The Night" (#1 pop, #1 AC), "Summer Wind" (#25 pop, #1 AC), "That's Life" (#4 pop, #1 AC), "My Way" (#27 pop, #2 AC), "(Theme From) New York, New York" (#32 pop, #10 AC), and "Put Your Dreams Away" (album cut). The digital version added two bonus tracks, "Just in Time" (album cut) and "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)" (#84). Note: Billboard didn't institute the Adult Contemporary chart until 1961. At various times, it was called Easy Listening, Middle-Road Singles, and Pop-Standard Singles (and it went back and forth among those three titles over the years) before officially becoming Adult Contemporary in 1979.
1705. Grinning Streak - Barenaked Ladies
In the summer of 2013, a lively, witty, new Barenaked Ladies tune, "Odds Are," took the Jackson family minivan by storm, loved by young and old alike. That song didn't chart in the United States, but, in Canada, it went to #89 on the pop chart and #16 on the adult contemporary chart. "Odds Are" was actually the second single from the 10th full-length Barenaked Ladies LP, Grinning Streak. The first was "Boomerang" (#11 Canada AC). A third single, "Did I Say That Out Loud?" did not chart. Released on June 4, 2013, Grinning Streak was BNL's second album after the departure of co-founder Steven Page, who left the group in February 2009. Fellow co-founder/singer/guitarist Ed Robertson assumed most of the vocal duties. I probably would have chosen the same three songs as singles myself, but there were plenty of entertaining tracks. My other favorites were "Limits," "Off His Head," and "Fog of Writing." I also liked "Gonna Walk," "Smile," "Blacking Out," and "Who Knew?" Three of the songs I mentioned were actually bonus cuts on a special deluxe edition released through Target, but they're on the digital version now. Robertson co-wrote three tracks on Grinning Streak with Better Than Ezra's lead singer/guitarist, Kevin Griffin: "Odds Are," "Did I Say That Out Loud?," and "Gonna Walk." Although the singles fared better north of the border, the album itself went to #10 on the Billboard 200, two spots higher than it in peaked on the Canadian albums chart.
1706. Eclectic - ApologetiX
Released in mid-May 2023, the 69th ApologetiX LP featured parodies of The Bangles, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Hooters, Hot Chocolate, Billy Joel, Barry McGuire, Poison, The Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Ugly Kid Joe, and Wang Chung. No album in the ApologetiX library came together with more ease ... er ... "E"s than this one; it features a dozen parodies with titles that begin with the letter "E." Originally, we had earmarked the title Eclectic for a potential future endeavor featuring all '90s stuff, like Ticked and Apoplectic. However, as we began accumulating potential tracks for our 69th CD in early January 2023, we looked at what we had and said, "That's an eclectic mix." Then we noticed that three of our four most-recent releases at the time, "Ezra," "Elizabeth's Song," and "Eve of Instruction," all started with the same letter as Eclectic, as did another spoof we had just thought of the day before, "Evidence." On top of that, three old ApX tunes we'd been hoping to redo, "Every Crown Has Its Thorns," "Eight Ways to Be," and "E.Z.Kiel" also started with "E." With seven songs set to go, we decided to put all our eggs in one basket and do a dozen. We already had partial lyrics in the vaults for "Elijah's Lament," "Everybody Can Come to Christ," "Everyone's a Sinner," and "Every Day About You." A brand-new parody, "Ease Your Burden," completed the set. With three songs from the '60s, three from the '70s, five from the '80s, and one from the '90s — it really is an eclectic mix. Of course, based on the cover, maybe we should have spelled it "Egglectic" or "Eclectegg"? Nah, we were too chicken to do that.
1707. Golden Heart - Mark Knopfler
I didn't discover Mark Knopfler's first solo LP until I'd already heard most of his subsequent ones. I don't just mean I didn't listen to it till then ... I literally didn't know it even existed. Maybe that's because none of the songs on Golden Heart were featured on the 2005 collection Private Investigations: The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler that first exposed me to the excellence of Knopfler's solo stuff. I don't know if that was because of labels or licensing, but it certainly wasn't due to a lack of quality material ... there's not a dud among the 14 cuts. Apparently, I'm not the American who missed it; Golden Heart reached the Top 10 on the U.K. albums chart (#9) but couldn't crack the upper half of the Billboard 200 (#105). Released on March 25, 1996, it spawned two singles, neither of which made the U.S. charts: "Darling Pretty" (#33 U.K.) and "Cannibals" (#42 U.K.), a tune reminiscent of the Dire Straits hit "Walk of Life." I like them both a lot, particularly "Darling Pretty," which reminds me of my wife, Lisa. A couple other songs that appealed to the romantic in me are the lovely title track and "A Night in Summer Long Ago." My two other favorite selections both dealt with real historical figures. One of those is "Imelda," about Imelda Marcos, who is probably best known to Americans of my generation as the exiled former First Lady of the Philippines (1965-86) with notoriously expensive tastes and an infamously extensive shoe collection. She and her late husband, Ferdinand, are still listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under the dubious distinction of "Greatest Robbery of a Government." That's the stuff that inspired Knopfler's mid-'90s song, but her story was far from finished. She later returned to her homeland and held various prominent political offices herself (including four terms in the Philippine House of Representatives from 2010-19), and in 2022 became mother of that country's current president. As if that weren't enough to remember her by, Imelda was convicted of new crimes in 2018. The second song I alluded to earlier is about another well-known world leader who staged a political comeback that ended in ignominy, the famed French emperor Napoleon. "Done With Bonaparte," sung from the perspective of one of his soldiers after the defeat at Waterloo, is a marvelous mix of words and music. It sits somewhere near the summit of all-time Knopfler playlist. And that's saying a lot! "Je Suis Désolé" (translation "I'm sorry") is another shining moment on Golden Heart. The closing track, "Are We In Trouble Now," was also covered in 1996 by Randy Travis and became a #24 hit on the country chart.
1708. Best of En Vogue - En Vogue
On July 19, 2022, I took Lisa to see a concert by the first musical group she ever loved, New Kids on the Block, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. Four other major artists were on the bill: Rick Astley, Salt-N-Pepa, and R&B female vocal act En Vogue. Originally from Oakland CA, En Vogue scored six Top 10 hits in the '90s, including three #2s: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" (#2), "Hold On" (#2), "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#2), "Whatta Man" (with Salt-N-Pepa) (#3), "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" (#6), and "Free Your Mind" (#8). Released in November 19, 1998, Best of En Vogue included all of those, plus their five other Top 40 hits: "Give It Up, Turn It Loose" (#15), "Whatever" (#16), "Too Gone, Too Long" (#33), "Love Don't Love You" (#36), and "Lies" (#38). Two additional tracks on this compilation also charted, "Runaway Love" (#51), and "No Fool No More" (#57). I was really impressed by En Vogue's performances on stage and on these recordings. Although there really isn't any filler on Best of En Vogue, my favorite numbers are "Don't Let Go (Love)," "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)," "Free Your Mind," and "What a Man," which they sang with Salt-N-Pepa at the show.
1709. The Greatest Hits - Cheap Trick
And now we take a moment to recognize rock band Cheap Trick, paragons of power pop and the pride of Rockford IL, an important city in ApologetiX history ... because that's where we played our first major Christian music festival, Q-Fest, in 1999. We ended up on the front page of the local newspaper the next day, and the event opened the doors for us to play numerous major festivals nationwide and many more concerts in Illinois and Wisconsin and the rest of the Midwest. As I mentioned long ago on this list, I acquired Cheap Trick's fourth and fifth LPs, At Budokan and Voices, courtesy of the Columbia House Record Club when I was in high school. I bought this album about 20 years later, although it was first came out on October 1, 1991. The Greatest Hits featured a dozen tracks from 1978-90, plus a remake of the Beatles classic "Magical Mystery Tour" that had been recorded in the late '80s but hadn't been released at the time. The rest of the disc comprised most of the group's best-known numbers: "The Flame" (#1 pop, #3 mainstream rock), "Don't Be Cruel" (#4 pop, #8 mainstream), "I Want You To Want Me (Live)" (#7 pop), "Can't Stop Fallin' Into Love" (#12 pop, #4 mainstream), "Dream Police" (#26 pop), "Voices" (#32 pop), "Ain't That A Shame (Live)" (#35 pop), "Tonight It's You" (#44 pop, #8 mainstream), 'If You Want My Love" (#45 pop, #11 mainstream), "Surrender" (#62 pop), and "She's Tight" (#65 pop), plus the non-charting 1983 single "I Can't Take It." I was a little bummed that The Greatest Hits didn't include "Everything Works if You Let It" (#44 pop), but that oft-overlooked gem made it onto a later collection, Authorized Greatest Hits, in 2000, which I also owned at some point. The Greatest Hits only made it to #174 on the Billboard 200, but it eventually sold a million copies. ApologetiX spoofed "Surrender" in 2009 and "Dream Police" in 2016, the same year Cheap Trick was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
