50 Hymns & Praise Favorites 2

John St. John | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 27, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Madacy Records
• ASIN: B0002IQDCO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #498,537 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You can get twice the number of these tracks for about the same price, April 28, 2007

By 

Bruce in Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50 Hymns & Praise Favorites 2 (Audio CD)

As best I can tell, Madacy first released the 3-CD box set entitled "100 Best Loved Hymns" in 2001, featuring various artists performing traditional classics. Since then, those same 100 tracks -- same singers, same musicians, same arrangements -- have been mixed and matched into so many other CDs that I keep uncovering them. Some or all of these original tracks have been used in different combinations to produce: "100 Hymns and Praise Classics" (4-CD box set), attributed to 'Various Artists'; "50 Hymns & Praise Favorites" (2-CD set), "50 Hymns & Praises" (3 CDs), and "20 Best of Hymns and Praise", attributed to the Joslin Grove Choral Society; "A Treasury of Golden Hymns" and "50 Amazing Hymns", attributed to the Great Plains Chorale; "50 Hymns and Praise Favorites" (2-CD set), attributed to John St. John; and "Inspirations: 50 Best Loved Hymns", disingenuously attributed to Thomas Kinkade solely because he provided the cover art. All of these CDs are posted separately on the Amazon site.

The John St. John CD set being offered in this posting contains only 50 of these 100 tracks. At the time of this writing, the 3- and 4-CD sets containing the full 100 tracks can be purchased for about the same price as this smaller CD set on Amazon Marketplace. Thus, it makes sense to shop around for one of those 100-track sets (e.g., "100 Best Loved Hymns") before buying this smaller collection.

Regarding the content of this oft-released, multi-titled, multi-attributed collection of tracks, the hymns are sung in traditional arrangements, often with a full choir accompanied by a piano or organ. Some are by soloists or smaller groups of singers, accompanied by a piano. If you're looking for a solid traditional presentation of these classics, you will probably not be disappointed. I give the music 4 stars rather than 5 because some of this choral group's soloists on some tracks -- while good singers -- have voices that are perhaps not sufficiently smooth and mellow to allow them to come across well as soloists on a recording.