Juice – Taste The Music

I picked this up from the Wesley Owen Christian bookshop in Kingston back in 2003.

It was openly just a big long advert for the plethora of Christian music CDs that were available to buy at the time, however I'd got one of those previously and quite liked the idea. Unfortunately I discovered too late that this new CD, rather than containing a dozen full-length tracks like the last one, only contained minute-long samples from about 40 songs – two from each album.

Nonetheless, it still sat in my CD-player for quite a bit of the first half of 2004 anyway, as I got up, exercised, and generally got on with my life to these 40 snatches of music.

As a result, re-listening to it today, it was the first half that I found really evoked what had been going on my life back then, particularly my first explorations of New Zealand. That minute of The Rock'n'Roll Worship Circus' A Beautiful Glow still conjures-up the dry scorching Waikato sky, squinted-at through the front windshield of that Toyota I spent so much time in.

That's also the one album sampled here that I did ultimately get my hands on a copy of. It irritates me (and probably Rhett who I borrowed it from) that I still haven't actually listened to it, sitting as it now is in a box some 10,000 miles away with the rest of my NZ life, in patient readiness for whenever I am eventually persuaded to return. (sorry Rhett)

Other musical highlights that stand-out are the moments of Fred Hammond, (he's so funky!) Yfriday and Reana, about whose work the entirely objective blurb states:

"But be warned! Inside this innocent CD case is an album that will set your CD player on fire! Reana's voice is reminiscent of Melissa Etheridge and the raw power of Ashley Cleveland with the result that she wrings out the emotional intensity of every line she's written. Her songs are intimate and her state-of-the-art pop rock production only adds to the appeal. Wow, what a ride!"

Okay, you want me to buy it, I've got it.

Perhaps ironically, many of these CDs are compilation albums themselves, one of them even "sung by a selection of top session singers."

While I would still rather have found about a dozen complete tracks on here like last time, I have to admit that, listening again this morning, I did feel a little disappointed not to own a few of these albums.