Hillsong Music Australia - Millennium: The Story So Far
STYLE: MOR / Soft Pop RATING OUR PRODUCT CODE: 2367-2846 LABEL: Hillsong Music HMACD131 FORMAT: CD Album ITEMS: 2
Reviewed by Philip Crawley
What can you say about Hillsongs? Coincidentally I was in Australia recently visiting friends and their congregation sing almost nothing but Ms Zschech's compositions on Sundays. In that regard they have had as much an impact on worship (at least in the southern hemisphere) as Messrs Redman and Smith have had here in Blighty. So, here is a double CD set (in a very fancy package that won't fit on the shelf with your other recordings!) that features the most popular 32 songs from the past 10 years (yep, doesn't seem possible, but a whole decade). All of the songs are lifted from Hillsongs live albums and as such do capture real people worshipping, I was familiar with probably half of the numbers having sung them in church ("Jesus, What A Beautiful Name", "Shout To The Lord", etc) and so really enjoyed hearing them in a big band/big congregation setting. They do seem to understand arrangements with mighty sounding brass sections and great backing choirs - this works really well on good songs, but on the slightly less strong numbers it leaves them feeling over-produced and more "product" that gospel. Still, if you don't have any Hillsongs in your CD rack this is a great introduction but if you already have a couple of albums then maybe this isn't a great value purchase. The strange thing is that this collection is a "limited edition" and so perhaps you won't have the choice!
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