GIVEAWAY!!!

I stumbled upon this audio clip and nearly flipped– it’s a vocalist performing the “Star Spangled Banner” and I’m guessing YOU won’t know who it is.

Think you can prove me wrong?  If so, you could win this artist’s ENTIRE CD CATALOGUE in an exclusive bundle pack!

You up for the challenge???

Instructions & Rules:

1.  Click here to launch the PunditPlayer and listen to the track titled “Star Spangled Banner.”

2.  Guess the vocalist singing that song!

3.  Email the singer’s name to giveaway@gospelpundit.com.  Put “MYSTERY VOCALIST” in the subject line and make sure you also include your full name and mailing address.   Enter only once– sending multiple emails will cause you to be disqualified from this giveaway.

4.  From among the correct answers, I will randomly select ONE WINNER to receive a bundle pack of the singer’s entire CD catalogue.

5.  This giveaway open only to residents of the U.S. and Canada.  Sorry to my buds on the other continents!

6.  This giveaway begins Friday, June 25, 2010 and ends on Sunday, July 4, 2010.  All correct entries must be received by July 4, 2010 at 11:59pm CST to be entered into the drawing.  The winner will be announced on Monday, July 5, 2010.

And that’s about it!

Oh, a quick hint:  to figure it out who it is, you might have to look across the aisle…

Let’s GOOOOOOO!!!

This is such a beautiful worship song to me… it’s the new single from CCM artist Natalie Grant, “Greatness of our God.”

If you recall, Evin Martin of 21:03 put us on to Natalie Grant in his Across the Aisle series (more coming soon!).  Her new album, Love Revolution, hits stores on August 24th…

In the meantime, I came across this video of Natalie singing “Greatness of our God” at a church a couple of weeks ago–

Whatd’ya think??

Yoooooooooo… If you haven’t noticed yet, there are BIG things happening at GospelPundit.com.  And GOD is to receive ALL GLORY for it.  I’m excited.

Ladies and gents, GospelPundit.com welcomes its newest contributor– Evin Martin, of the Grammy-nominated gospel group 21:03!

Evin’s gonna be providing guest video blogs (vlogs) for the Across The Aisle series (if you don’t remember what that series is all about, click here).  You may be thinking… “Evin?  From 21:03??  HE’S gonna be talking about CCM artists???”

To that, I say “ABSOLUTELY!”  As he’ll explain in his first vlog, he’s an avid follower of CCM.  Like, huuuuuge.

So, check for his first vlog, coming soon.

In the meantime, e’rybody say “HI” to Evin…

Incredible video… I almost couldn’t decide between posting it as a Video Pick or including the group as part of the Across The Aisle series (cuz y’all need to be up on Casting Crowns anyway!), but I decided I’ma do the video today and the full Across The Aisle deal later.

The song, “Slow Fade,” brilliantly talks about how our biggest issues don’t just HAPPEN.  They start with something much smaller– one glance, one idea, one decision– until we slowly fade into HUGE issues.

The video concept is phenomenal, working backwards to show the progression of our sinful nature… how one “imprudent” decision often leads to major sin struggles in our lives.  And the production is just as spectacular.  In fact, they just won the Dove Award last week for Short Form Music Video.

What do you think???  Feel free to weigh-in on the video and the song!

This is my first entry in one of the latest GospelPundit.com series– Across The Aisle (click here if you don’t remember what it’s all about).

First up:  One of my favorite CCM artists– Chris Tomlin.

Folks who don’t immediately know of him may recognize some of his awesome songs, like “How Great Is Our God” (re-done by dozens, including Jonathan Nelson & Purpose and Bishop Paul Morton,), ”Your Grace Is Enough,” or ”Forever” (recently re-made by Darwin Hobbs).  Or, perhaps many of you have recently learned of him through Israel Houghton, who’s been promoting his new album while touring with Chris Tomlin on Tomlin’s Hello Love tour since the beginning of this year.

In any case, he’s a baaaaaad man.  He articulates his relationship and his WORSHIP of God in such an inspiring way.  His music is refreshing and I can let his albums play ALL the way through every time.

For your listening and viewing pleasure, here’s one of my favorite Chris Tomlin tracks, “Indescribable” (it’s recorded live in the Netherlands, so don’t be freaked out by the foreign writing… pleadin’ the Blood and what not…):

Whatd’ya think?  Are y’all already hip to him?  What songs do you love?  Anybody a “new convert”? LOL  Lemme know.

I wanna take a quick minute to announce a new series I’m starting called Across The Aisle.

In case you’re not familiar with the expression, you typically hear of someone reaching “across the aisle” in a political sense, kinda BRIDGING THE GAP between two separate sides (often, democrat and republican) for the sake of some greater, collective good of the WHOLE.

So, the Across The Aisle series is gonna do just that.  GospelPundit.com is a website focused on the Gospel music community, but we often exclude what is termed “Contemporary Christian Music” or “CCM” because it’s not… “our” kind of music.  And we play ourselves.

The truth is:

(1) God didn’t call us to define our “genres” in that way.  It’s practical and it sometimes makes sense to be able to distinguish what Steven Curtis Chapman does from what Twinkie Clark does.  But we often abuse the classifications, creating unnecessary rifts and divides (racial and otherwise) within the Body of Christ;

(2) If you listen, you’ll love it.  I enjoy a B3 organ as much as the next guy, but there’s also nothing quite like a simple acoustic guitar sometimes, and maaaaany popular gospel songs are simply re-made from CCM songs in the first place (i.e., “Above All” and “Great Is Your Mercy”).  You love it already and you prolly didn’t even know it!

So, that’s what’s fixin’ to go down.

Lemme know if you have a favorite CCM artist you want featured.  Aight?!