Song: "Vanity"
Album: Fool's Paradise
Artist: Monday Morning
Let me start with this: most of you probably know the most popular song from this album, "Wonder of it All." That song has been rock solid for me in helping me to remember that where I am is not where I came from, and qualifies as one of the best Christian music songs ever. Period.
You probably also know that the song still isn't available on any digital download format. Go figure.
I, as I did with our previous feature, went the extra step of tracking down the album and buying it second-hand (just like we used to do 20 years ago - buy the whole album just for one track . . .)
I was less impressed with this album, overall, but I did find a couple of songs that I really like. I'm going to share one with you today: "Vanity."
"Vanity" hits hard. The song was released at a time when alternative metal was still a large part of pop music (I miss those days), and it has a lot of the attributes you'd expect from an alt-metal classic: thick distortion, drop tuning, minor progressions, and self-reflection.
What I love best about this song is that 1) the lead singer from Monday Morning is singing from his heart, 2) the song has a strong sense of introspection, and 3) the song provides an answer. So much of the secular alt-metal from those days offered lots of emotional agony and sorrow, but never provided a lot of hope. "Vanity" points squarely at the reason for the despair: your own vanity. Solve that, and we can start to repair the emotional hurt that we've put ourselves through by not putting God first. Nice.
Please, let us know what you think of "Vanity," and stay tuned for more great selections from Christina Music Discovery.
P.S. Did you know that this album was produced by John Elefante? As in "That's Why God Made The Moon" John Elefante? Yeah, I was shocked too . . .
P.P.S. I love the imagery of the album artwork.
