Customer Reviews

Time Again: Amy Grant Live (Bonus Dvd)

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This live CD is very well done. The audio is great, you'll think you are at the concert. Just enough chit-chat between songs....to make it interesting. The audio is fantastic. Amy and her band sing their old hits with a fresh new arrangements and you also get to hear a few songs that weren't radio hits, but are fabulous. Excellent CD........check out the live DVD of this concert also.

Amy Grant's music, while always enjoyable and well done, on the surface has rarely reached an artistic level that you might think would stand the test of time. Grant reached her artistic peak to date with Lead Me On (1988), a superb album that in the 1990s widely was considered to be the best contemporary Christian album ever released. (It still deserves that award, IMHO.) Her next studio album, Heart in Motion (1991) catapulted her into the pop stratosphere with its five top 20 hits (four of which reached the top 10). Since that pop success, only the musically spare, mostly acoustic Behind the Eyes (1997) and the overproduced but underrated pop of Simple Things (2003) have hinted at the depths plumbed in Lead Me On.

At the same time, however, artistic depth is not always the greatest good. Grant's radio hits and other pop songs have impacted lives because they are so practical, down home, warm, and full of emotion. Quite simply, they radiate a simplicity and goodness that make them both attractive and relevant. Grant's new live album, Time Again ... Live, commendably shows you both her artistic side and her pop sensibilities. It helps that Grant is a very good stage performer; while I wasn't that impressed with her the first time I saw her live in 1986 on her Unguarded encore tour, her 1995 Decade of Hits and 1998 Behind the Eyes shows both were excellent.

The CD itself works on two levels. First, it's a wonderful trip down memory lane for those who have followed Grant over the decades. Second, though, it shows you that Grant's music endures the passage of years to a degree that you may not have thought possible. Freed from its mid-1980s technopop effects and long opening and closing segments, "Stay for Awhile" packs a greater wallop by bringing to the fore the non-sappy memories of two friends; it's a timeless song. The four hits from Heart in Motion found here still are enjoyable pop tunes 15 years after their initial radio play. The one charting single and three more serious tunes off of Simple Things give you some sense of the depth of the largely ignored album and are played better here than on the original recording.

It helps that Grant clearly is not content with pulling out the hits here. (Otherwise, she should have included at least one song from her first successful crossover album, 1985's Unguarded.) There are more than enough familiar radio singles, to be sure, but there are also a large number of very good tracks that never got their due before. (How many people remember that Grant was the first to record the Will Jennings [cowriter of the Celine Dion smash "My Heart Will Go On" from the film Titanic] pop song "Oh How the Years Go By," which only later became a hit when Vanessa Williams sang it?) Grant was inspired when growing up by 1970s singer/songwriters such as Carole King and James Taylor, and you can hear that influence in just about every song here. (You can also see in pictures and on the DVD, which exists to promote the complete Time Again ... Live DVD [purchased separately], a living room stage set that clearly apes Carole King's living room stage set from her tour two years ago.)

The missteps here are few. It's both surprising and disappointing to find "Lead Me On" as the concert opener. This seminal, important song is an emotional high point and, given its weighty subject matter, needs a buildup of songs with related themes beforehand. (Grant and her bands created such a context in her mid-to-late 1990s tours.) And while Grant is backed by a very good band, I would argue that her prior bands (particularly the one on the 1998 Behind the Eyes tour) were better because they creatively extended many of the songs. The band on this album pretty much follows the studio versions to the letter, although they occasionally shorten some songs. The album's final track, a new studio recording of Grant's "In a Little While" (off of her 1982 Age to Age album), does nothing except for give Christian radio a single with which to promote Time Again ... Live.

Still, if you like Amy Grant's music, you should buy this album. It will remind you of why you have liked her and may just show you anew, as it did me, how she is not to be taken lightly.

Great CD but if you do not have the DVD then you are missing all the "extras". This CD and DVD is a must have for any Amy Grant fan. The ending of the concert If These Ways Can Speak and what she says before going into song is a tear jerker and really makes you think.

Though it is a SHAME that WORD RECORD is not promoting her better

Amy Grant takes the same stage where she gave her first performance 28 years ago (1978!) and gives a wonderfully intimate show on a set dressed like a living room.

I've seen her concerts several times over the past couple of decades and she always puts on a terrific show. Her choice of songs for this CD/DVD covers her career and touches on the many levels her music has taken her, from her Contemporary Christian beginnings to her pop hits.

If you're a fan of Amy's (from any point in her career), you won't be disappointed. She's still strikingly beautiful, she sounds great, and she still touches hearts with her songs.

Amy Grant has enjoyed a 28 year career and was among the first artists to cross over from Christian music to enjoy some pop success. In all that time, her only live recordings were from earlier in the career. So, to correct that, she released this CD.

While she does some of her earlier hits, the focus is on the second half of her catalog. Frankly, this makes sense since this is most likely what she does in concert these days. Still, I was disappointed not to see such classics as "El Shaddai" and "My Father's Eyes" not make the CD, although I do understand they are on the DVD.

What is here is great. The songs mostly sound like they did when first recorded. And most of them stand up well all these years later. The biggest change is to "In a Little While," which she gives a modern pop sound. I like the new version just as much as the 24 year old classic version. But I don't think we needed to have the live version and a studio version on the disc. Another highlight is "Believe," the theme from her short lived TV show "Three Wishes," which hasn't been released anywhere else to my knowledge.

Long talking breaks can make or break a concert CD. While Amy talks occasionally, it's only for a few seconds at a time. There are no long stories that give additional insight into these songs. At the same time, there are no jokes that were funny the first few times but fall flat on repeated listens.

The CD comes with a bonus DVD that includes five songs from the DVD release of this concert.

This is a great collection of songs from a long pop career. I was reminded just how much I love some of these songs. By no means perfect, it will certainly please her many fans.

Amy Grant does it again! Amy has an irresistable charm and elegance about her, and this live recording is no exception! the full band sounds awesome!
my favorites on this work are "After the Fire" the backgroud harmonies with Amy's voice- it sounds Amazing! and "Believe" and of course "Stay for Awhile"-everything is Absolutely worth evey cent!
Awesome Album!

Absolutely terrific album but when I'm home I always have the DVD on instead. This is just for the car. Get the DVD if you don't have it.

And the kids wonder why she's still a dominant force in Christian music, even though she hasn't had a number one pop hit in years. Well, she has a back catalog of 200-plus quality, honest, lived-in songs and a charming and lovably unadorned "Ideal Friend" public persona that no other CCM artist can touch. That's why.

As others have noted, she was sometimes given short shrift for her singing and songwriting abilities because of her unmatched popularity and her looks. But time has proven her impressively capable in both arenas. In fact, some of her lyrics are revealed as prescient and are even more powerful as she (actually, we) go through midlife. Sandi Patti was the premiere Christian vocalist in the 1980s but Amy was the impassioned voice of everyone's hopes and doubts.

A word of caution: If you're fixated on being able to sing along note-for-note with these classic songs, you may be in for a disappointment. Not only have the arrangements and instrumentation of her older synth-pop tunes been altered for a casual stripped-down feel but Amy is more experimental in her phrasing these days. if you appreciate the Frank Sinatra/Willie Nelson school of reinterpretation with each performance, you'll love this set. If you're interested in a perfectly recreated nostalgia session, not so much.

The constraints of the single-CD format cause some of Amy's trademark just-folks banter and pindrop-quiet stories of the DVD presentation to be lost. But this is a mandatory audio version for the car and iPod.

Amy Grant may just be considered the greatest Christian Contemporary Artist in modern music history. She has both the commercial and critical success to back this up. It's hard to believe that Amy's career spans nearly 30 years. On top of achieving this success in the Christian Contemporary arena, Amy had a very successful "crossover" to the mainstream pop-music scene in the 1990s. Surprisingly, most of Amy's most successful material - in both the Christian and Pop arenas has not been on a live album. Yes, Amy released two albums very early in her career (1981's "In Concert" and "In Concert Volume 2"), but this did not contain the material that fans are most familiar with. It would be 25 years later when "Amy Grant - Time Again" would be released. This would be the long-awaited live album that would draw from her most successful material. Overall, this album while not perfect - does help to fill this one void in Amy's very successful career.

I can look at Amy Grant's career as encompassing three main phases. The first phase covers 1977 through 1981 (her debut self-title album "Amy Grant" through the "In Concert Volume 2"). In this phase, Amy definitely showed her youthful side (her first album was released while she still was in high school). For the most part, Amy did some nice songs and was able to establish herself as a Contemporary Christian Artist. In Phase 2 (this would cover 1982-1988, starting with "Age to Age" and going to this album "Amy Grant - The Collection"), Amy ascended to legendary status in the Contemporary Christian music-world both commercially and critically. This is where her husband to be Gary Chapman would begin to have an influence in her music. In this phase, Amy would show the most depth with her Christian music. When Phase 3 (1988 to present, starting with "Lead Me On" to present), Amy went into her full-fledged crossover into the mainstream (pop) music arena. 1981's "In Concert" albums do a great job at showing some of Amy's best live work from Phase 1 (in fact, many fans will find some really "hidden gems" in Amy's career on these albums). "Time Again" will focus more on her work from Phase 2 and Phase 3.

As mentioned, this collection does help to fill the void. It has its good points and weak points. Here are ten things to look from:

1.The collection draws its music from performances on April 11-12th, 2006. For the most part - there is something magical about hearing a great performance on a single night captured on a collection. For the most part, I find that when taking live songs from different concerts on different nights, the flow is disrupted. . However, this collection does a nice job at getting as close to creating a single night experience as possible.

2.The collection includes a CD and a "Bonus DVD". The "Bonus DVD" should not be confused with the separate full DVD release of "Time Again". It is important to know that not all of the songs from the April 11-12th shows are included on here. A more complete version is found on the full-length DVD. Songs such as "Carry You", "Lucky One", "Fathers Eyes", "El Shaddai", "Big Yellow Taxi", and "If These Walls Could Speak" are only included on the full DVD. "Lucky One" is also not on the CD, but is on the Bonus DVD. The band Rush released an identical CD copy to their DVD "Rush in Rio" - and it was a complete concert from a single night. I wish more artists would follow this lead.

3.The Bonus DVD didn't do a lot to sell me on the full DVD release. I found much of the camera work to flip too much between Amy and the band - breaking focus on the performance. There are split screens that are on "Stay For a While" and "Lucky One" which I also found to be very distracting and annoying.

4.The nice thing is the small venue that these performances were taken from. The performances were from Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. I think the intent of having an "intimate" live recording is successful. The Bonus DVD helps to demonstrate this visually. In addition, Amy has a strong band backing her up - and this helps Amy make the most of this setting.

5.There is a very interesting version of "Baby Baby". Amy does a country-spin on the song. I felt this spin in a live setting was actually a better version of the song.

6.The version of "Every Heartbeat" is outstanding. It is the best live cut from the collection - the only problem was it was too short.

7.One can make an argument that albums such as "Lead Me On" and "House of Love" are not well represented on the set list. However I think a more glaring omission is that there is no material from "Unguarded".

8.The set includes an Acoustic "unplugged" Set midway through the performance. This is typical with most live performances today. This helps enhance the "intimate" setting of the show.

9.I liked the inclusion of "Believe" - the theme song from Amy's reality show, "Three Wishes".

10.There is a solid new studio version of Amy's 1982 show, "In a Little While". This new studio version not only has more of a pop feel than the 1982 version, but it also reflects Amy's maturity as now a 40 plus year-old woman. You will also hear more guitar on this version.

The liner notes include acknowledgements from Amy herself and producer Steve Bishir. There are also musician and songwriting credits listed. Overall despite some of the weaker points of this collection, I don't think anyone can complain about the quality of the performance. This is one that should help fill the void of the lack of a live album from Amy Grant and should also appeal to the mainstream fan.

For fans of Amy Grant CD that this is a can not miss, beautifully presented, beautiful arrangements and great musical repertoire.
Recommended for those who like good music too.

Para fãs da Amy Grant este é um cd que não pode faltar, apresentação maravilhosa, belos arranjos e excelente repertorio musical. Recomendado para que gosta de boa musica também.