Customer Reviews

Lead Me On (20th Anniversary Edition) (2 CDs)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This by far is one of the best albums..........period!
Since "Heart In Motion" became Amy's "Thriller"..."Lead Me On" is definetly her "Off The Wall"....an album that you can play over and over again and never get tired of it!
AND...if you have a chance to see the LEAD ME ON 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR...GO AND SEE IT!!!

Seeing her do these songs live after 20yrs is amazing! I remember all that I was going through when this album came out and how it got me through!!...It still has the same impact today as it did so long ago.

BTW, another reviewer mentioned how "Faithless Heart" is difficult to listen to considering what Amy has been through in her personal life...I understand why this was said ......BUT, I do want to share what AMY said during the concert:
"Gary Chapman played bass on the original tour and since he, Vince and I decide that would not be a good idea for this reunion, I got the guy who played bass on the orignal recording, Mike Brignardello".....(The audience laughed!).....So with that said, all I can say is "Thank You Jesus for the power of forgiveness!"

I remember purchasing my original copy of Lead Me On 20 years ago! This special edition sounds great and I love the acoustic versions of some of the classic recordings from this CD. Any Amy fan must have this anniversary edition in their collection!

As a long time Amy fan (yeah I remember her on vinyl)I can say this is definitely an essential addition to any Amy collection. I cannot believe it's been 20 years, can any of you? I love disc two...a very intimate listen. I haven't heard those live recordings since the Lead Me On tour, and what a FUN tour that was. Amy-keep on making music...you are still an important singer/songwriter and we all would like to keep listening to what is on your heart and mind. Beautiful recordings. A MUST have!

For those looking for a few live versions of songs from the album and acoustic versions of songs from the albums plus an interview where she and Michael reminisce about the album, this Anniversary edition is for you. The album itself as heard on the CD included in this set (the 2007 remaster), doesn't sound as dynamic as the original A&M CD due to the loudness wars being applied on the remaster. The loudness wars are when mixing and/or mastering engineers are ordered to compress and heavily EQ the heck out of the album at the expense of dynamic range resulting in inferior sound quality that is especially noticeable if you play the recordings side by side, listening to the recordings carefully, etc. The songs though are all classic Amy and the songs are what made the album one of the best CCM albums of all time (the title track, 1974, Saved By Love, If These Walls Could Speak, Faithless Heart, and Wait For The Healing are some of the best songs on the album). Most of the stuff on the 2nd CD in this set is very dynamic sounding though due to the acoustic recordings. If you happen to have a BMG Music Service copy of this anniversary edition, this is packaged in a jewel case while store copies are packaged in an inferior digipak. If you just want to have the album, do not care about the bonus material, and have excellent sound, I recommend The A&M CD issue, the Myrrh CD issue or a vinyl copy of the album.

Many will always have that moment, that moment when you first hear a song that captures you and opens up a new world that you never knew existed. I will never forget the first time I heard an Amy Grant song. I was 17 years old (1988) sitting in the High school library and a gal in my class was sitting at the same table. She reached over her sony walkman headphones and said: "listen to this". It was the opening 60 seconds to Lead Me On. I was floored. Who is this? That day was the first day I became an Amy Grant lifelong fan. (doesnt hurt that as a 17year old kid with raging hormones thinking Amy was "way hot" either) I listen to many types of music, theres a time for Motley crue(they rock), a time for Sting......but I will always make time for Amy. My children know her voice around the house. Thank You Amy (and thank you Kelly my classmate)

If any Amy Grant album -- indeed, any contemporary Christian music (CCM) album -- deserves a 20th anniversary edition, it's Lead Me On (1988). Over 20 years ago, from the moment you first started playing your LP, cassette tape, or CD of this album (and I had the LP version, which had two fewer songs than the other two formats), if you were paying even a modicum of attention, you knew immediately something was different. The opening shake of the tambourine and the cascade of organic sound that immediately followed was the total opposite of the technopop of Amy Grant's previous release, the successful crossover (i.e., from Christian to secular markets) album Unguarded. Unguarded had been many things -- extremely evangelistic, joyful, and fun come most immediately to mind -- but it had only very rarely been deep and even less frequently been introspective. Lead Me On showed us an Amy Grant who was willing to bare her darker side, not (thankfully) in a way that even remotely approached a gossipy tell-all, but in a here's-what-my-real-life-is-like kind of admission. (In interviews, Grant and her then-husband Gary Chapman spelled out what much of the music pointed to: an extremely difficult time in their marriage.) In doing so, Grant not only made an "artist's album" that showed her, for the first time, to be a very talented poet as well as a very good pop songwriter, but also unintentionally brought the entire CCM industry to a new level of honesty and maturity.

The album opens with the poetic "1974," a song recalling Grant's teenage conversion to Christianity in the year mentioned. The song surprises by being both wistful ("We were young") and honest about Grant's own sense of distance from that faith (to God, she pleads, "Stay with me/Make it ever new/So time will not undo/As the years go by/How I need to see/That's still me"). It is immediately followed by the rich lyricism of the title track. Using evocative imagery to depict both slavery and concentration camps as illustrations of inexplicable events, the song offers no answers for the issues it raises, but only poses questions. The only possible response is to ask God to "lead [us] on" into his presence. The musically quirky "Shadows" initially sounds lighthearted, but it describes a Romans 7-type battle between good and evil within the speaker and conveys a sense of both sadness and menace in its atypical-for-Grant lengthy musical conclusion. Thanks are due to the wonderful band The Innocence Mission for this cover tune, although Grant took their song and made substantial lyrical changes to it. (I'm not sure about the musical end.)

The album then slows down for the first CCM single, "Saved by Love." Amidst standard country music stylings, Grant first paints a loving picture of a sibling's (here given the fictional name of "Laura") challenging life before turning the spotlight upon herself. The transparency then goes through the roof as the singer confesses to adulterous temptations and prays for God to remove them in the harrowing "Faithless Heart." All of the struggles related in the song are internal -- Grant made it clear in interviews that no transgression had been committed -- but CCM conventions were nonetheless shattered.

If you weren't uncomfortable and challenged yet, the biting "What about the Love" (the side two opener if you had the LP version) would no doubt throw you over the edge if you paid attention to the lyrics. Credited to both '70s pop star Janis Ian and the lesser-known Kye Fleming, the song blisteringly critiques evangelicals for a lack of concern for social justice and a lack of love in general. These sentiments are couched within stories related by a devout-but-legalistic speaker, a technique that drives the point home with force when the speaker realizes that the real problem is his or her own judgmentalism. The repentant tones of pop songwriter Jimmy Webb's moving "If These Walls Should Speak" follow next. Grant stretches her voice to incredible effect in this spare, piano-driven ballad of family estrangement.

The album now winds to its conclusion. "All Right," a gospel song, looks with hope to God's faithfulness in the midst of many troubles without taking back the many questions already raised in previous songs. Just one simple line of doubt amidst the hope, "When will I learn there are no guarantees," proves enough to again move us away from standard CCM territory. It is ironically followed by the less confident, although still hopeful, "Wait for the Healing," a song that examines pain on a cultural level and offers no answers save for the advice to do what the song title says. The album then closes with three songs about marital relations: the optimistic "Sure Enough," the bouncy-but-tinged-with-uncertainty "If You Have to Go Away," and the moving closer "Say Once More." All three express marital commitment in the midst of doubts and/or other challenges.

At the time it was released, Lead Me On was billed as a step backward from pop star trajectory for Amy Grant, but that assessment has always been too surface-level. Yes, the album is often musically spare when compared with Grant's two previous studio releases (Straight Ahead and Unguarded), but not always; songs such as "Lead Me On" and "Wait for the Healing" are more complex and rich musically than anything on those albums. Yes, the album is unquestionably more of an artist's album than an appeal to the masses. But it's important to remember the album that had dominated the pop music scene since the previous year and had shot a band to superstardom: U2's The Joshua Tree. That album was full of musically "organic" (a term favored by Grant to describe Lead Me On) and spare, lyrically downbeat "desert songs" (U2's term for The Joshua Tree's content). It's always been hard for me not to see Lead Me On as Amy Grant's own Joshua Tree, and I've always supposed that A&M Records limited their tinkering with the album (most later Grant records would be plagued by the company's interference) in the hope that it could ride on U2's coattails.

In any case, Lead Me On still retains most of its power after 20 years, and its influence on the CCM industry proved remarkable. Some artists (e.g., Out of the Grey) have said that a major reason for their decision to enter Christian music was seeing the artistic freedom accorded Grant with this album. Furthermore, it's hard to imagine artists such as Jars of Clay being able to make their music without Lead Me On having blazed the honesty trail path. And as Grant herself admits in an interview on the 20th anniversary extras disc, it probably will remain her most-loved and most-remembered album. If you already love Lead Me On, the 20th anniversary edition is worth the price for the live versions of several songs taken from the 1988-89 tour. (The new acoustic studio versions of some songs are puzzling, as more live versions would have been infinitely preferable.) But in any format, Lead Me On is still, in this reviewer's mind, the best CCM album ever made, and unquestionably an outstanding album by any standards.

The Lead me on Anniversary Edt. is a great CD..especially the BONUS CD with the LIVE Tracks from the 1989 Tour and the Accoustic recordings are a blast to listen.
I hope Amy will do many many new songs..she has such an heart-warming voice, the lyrics are so real, positive and it was fun listening to her in the 80's in the 90's and also in 2008.

You have to understand that Amy Grant's musical style, prior to 'Lead Me On' were VERY upbeat, sweet, contemporary christian. She was, after all, a teen-aged evangelical. This album, however, marked a change. Now, we hear about her struggle... her history... her maturing faith. There are even some selections where she DOESN'T mention God! A very honest, lean album full of heart-felt, more mature songs. Great album.

As a huge Amy Grant fan, I am so excited this came out. The remaster on the tracks is amazing. The bonus disk has some interviews, as well as live concert tracks. Lead Me On is probably my favorite Amy CD of all time. My only complaint- the remakes of a few songs on the bonus track. They are acoustic sets, and I feel like they changed the songs too much. I wish they had kept them similar to the originals. This is a CD you HAVE to own if you are an Amy fan!

Lead Me On would be the one album I would would recommend to someone curious about Amy's music. It is the one album that stands out above the rest, lyrically and musically in my opinion. When I need music to help me put life into perspective, I choose Amy's Lead Me On. Amy says so much in this album singing about grace, heartache, forgiveness, humility, nostalgia, loneliness, wandering, returning and love.

The 20th anniversary is a plus. Amy records some raw versions including an acoustic version of Lead Me On. Interviews at the end were interesting though i felt they could have made it one track vs. four. Otherwise, I recommend this album though AG fans may only find value in the anniversary edition.