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Reviewed by Tony Cummings

If ever you wanted proof of the premise put forward by writer Franky Schaeffer a good few years back that evangelical Christians are irretrievably "addicted to mediocrity" one needs to look no further than the gigantic sales success of the Cedarmont Kids series of CDs. The fact that these woeful albums are, to quote the ad on the sleeve, "the world's best selling Christian children's music" with a staggering 17 million units sold should fill any discerning Christian with shame. For as Cross Rhythms have said time and time again, most of these albums are puerile tosh where squeaky-voiced kids sing songs like "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" over pathetically trite, cheaply produced accompaniments. But now it seems Cedarmont are moving with the times, as the bi-line here, "12 Modern Worship Favorites" indicates. So instead of kiddies' material from ancient Sunday School songbooks we've got modern, well, comparatively modern, songs from Brenton Brown ("Your Love Is Amazing"), Tim Hughes ("Beautiful One" and "Here I Am To Worship"), Michael Card ("El Shaddai"), Keith Green ("There Is A Redeemer") and even the Newsboys. So that's the songs. What about the production? Well, thankfully they've got better too, with Christopher Davis and Matt Huesmann putting together "real instruments" backing tracks that DON'T sound like they are the product of half an hour programming. Even the kids sing better than of old with some kids even handling lead vocals adequately. So, the standards for Cedarmont Kids albums have been dramatically lifted - but only, please note, from abysmal to below average.

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