Night Beat Rewind: June 2013

Three down one to go. June closes out the third quarter of eligibility for the 4th Platinum Vinyl Awards. This has been an interesting quarter. During April's rewind I said that no releases missed the mark. Well that was before I discovered I misplaced almost three dozen entries for April, about a dozen for May, and about the same for June. June was privileged to be completed in its entirely, but April and May and the entire first and second quarters, had to be re-evaluated. It is the aim of the Platinum Vinyl Awards to "Leave no Album Behind", and to be as perfect as possible, and that means having as complete an entry pool as possible.

Missing The Mark

• Brandy Allison - Walking on Faith 3.75 Emeralds
• Brad and Rebekah - When We Gather 3.75 Emeralds
• Maria Cederholm - Megaphones 3.75 Emeralds
• Creations - Unworthy / Humility 3.75 Emeralds
• Keisha Cory - Still Standing 3.75 Emeralds
• Hour 6 - This Is Life 3.75 Emeralds
• Graham Kendrick - Worship Duets 3.75 Emeralds
• Justin McRoberts - K 3.75 Emeralds

Thank God for Amazon and iTunes. I really never heard of any of these, and probably neither did a lot of people. I think the standard Christian outlets wouldn't have either. Sometimes I was testing the big boys as well.

Perfect Platinum

• August Burns Red - Rescue & Restore 5 Emeralds
• Caroline Cobb - The Blood + the Breath: Songs That Tell the Story of Redemption 5 Emeralds
• JSon - Braille 5 Emeralds
• Skillet - Rise 5 Emeralds

ABR and Skillet were on the initial list. Cobb and JSon made the revised list. Of the four, Caroline Cobb "knocked my socks off" the most. This was an amazing album for the folk genre.

Semi-Precious Metal

• Abandon Kansas - A Midwest Summer 4.75 Emeralds
• The Almost - Fear Inside Our Bones 4.75 Emeralds
• Audio Adrenaline - Big House to Ocean Floor 4.75 Emeralds
• Building 429 - We Won't Be Shaken 4.75 Emeralds
• Isaac Carree - Reset 4.50 Emeralds  
• Colossus - Time & Eternal 4.50 Emeralds
• Extol - Extol 4.75 Emeralds
• Family Force Five - Reanimated 4.75 Emeralds
• Ghost Ship - The Good King 4.50 Emeralds
• Heath McNease - The Weight of Glory: Second Edition 4.75 Emeralds
• Mr. Del - Faith Walka 4.75 Emeralds
• Tim Neufeld - Trees 4.50 Emeralds
• R-Swift - Apply Pressure 4.75 Emeralds
• Remedy Drive - Resuscitate: Acoustic Sessions 4.50 Emeralds
• Sleeping At Last - Atlas: Light 4.75 Emeralds
• Still Trill Christians - Kings 4.50 Emeralds
• Tim Timmons - Cast My Cares 4.50 Emeralds
• Tony Tilman - The Tillman EP 4.50 Emeralds
• Unspoken - The World Is Waking 4.50 Emeralds
• Various Artists - In Christ Alone: 25 Of Today's Most Powerful Modern Hymns 4.50 Emeralds
• Hezekiah Walker - Azusa The Next Generation [+digital booklet] 4.50 Emeralds
• We As Human - We As Human 4.75 Emeralds

Seems like the new trend in music is the Self Titled album. Seems to be a lot of them these days. Most of the 4.75's are nitpicks, as I can't hand out 5's like candy. 4.5 is where I start to really deduct points. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.