#PlatVnyl6 The Nominations Begin: Gospel/R&B Video of The Year

We had a full representation in the video awards this year (well, with the exception of Children's Music, but that would just be a veggie tale adventure anyway). We move on to Gospel Music, along with R&B. The nominees for #PlatVnyl6 are: I Luh God by Erica Campbell; Invincible by +armarraehillVEVO (Armar'rae Hill and True Foundation); Wanna Be Happy by +Kirk Franklin ; The Way That You Love Me by +Jonathan McReynolds ; and You Are Worthy  by JJ Hairston and Youthful Praise.

The Playlist follows: 

Alternative Video is next. Until then, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

#PlatVnyl6 The Nominations Begin: Modern Worship Video of The Year

We continue with our nomination announcements for #PlatVnyl6. As is usual since the format got gelled into its present form, we begin with the Video of The Year Award Nominations. The third group of nominees in this grouping is that of Modern Worship Video of The Year. The Nominees are: Ever Be by Kalley Heiligenthal and +Bethel Music; Good, Good Father by +Zealand Worship ;Lead Me by +Young Oceans ; Leave Me Astounded by +Planetshakers and Let It Be Jesus by +Christy Nockels 

The playlist follows.

That does it for this genre. Next up is Gospel/R&B Video of The Year. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

#PlatVnyl6 The Nominations Begin: Adult Contemporary/Inspirational Video of The Year

#PlatVnyl6 is now underway as the Nomination Announcements begin. The Road to the Finals starts here. We start, as always, with the Video of The Year Awards. Our second group of nominees is Adult Contemporary/Inspirational Video of The Year. The Nominees are: Be Like You by +Finding Favour ; The Joy by +theneverclaimVEVO  My Story by +Big Daddy Weave ; We Are One by +thecityharmonic ; and We Will Rise by Natasha Owens.

Here is the Playlist of the nominated videos.

Our next announcement will be for Modern Worship Video of The Year. Until next time I am Awaiting Your Reply.

#PlatVnyl6 The Nominations Begin: Folk/Folk Rock Video of The Year

We are about to get underway. I am going to go about things a little differently for #PlatVnyl6 and we shall see how things pan out.

The Nominees for Folk/Folk Rock Video of The Year for #PlatVnyl6 are: Little Bird by Misty Edwards; Neosho by +Jennifer Knapp ; Not Enough by +The Vespers ; Psychosocial by +brooke fraser and Yahweh by The Brilliance. 

Here is the playlist.

Next Up is Adult Contemporary/Inspirational Video of The Year. Like I said, we are underway. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Night Beat Rewind: February 2016

I could give a bad confession here about always being behind, but I am not going to do it. The truth is that we always seem to get new release information just about the time we are ready to post a Rewind, and we always try to get every entrant in the pool that should be. So that is why it is almost the end of March and I still have to get February in the bag. Good thing I've ditched the links.

We start our edition of Rewind with song releases, and there were quite a few.

The Singles Scene

• Eshon Burgundy - Pray 4.50 Emeralds
• Charles Butler and Trinity - Make It 4.50 Emeralds
• Canon - Take It All Away 4.50 Emeralds
• Copperlily - I Do Right Now 
• Fearless BND - Revival 5 Emeralds
• Fearless BND - Revival (Instrumental) 5 Emeralds
• Christon Gray - Fort Knox 4.50 Emeralds
• Nights Like This - Back to You ft Nate Cronk 4.50 Emeralds
• 1GN - Get Hype 4.25 Emeralds
• Sagebrush Church - Stand 4.75 Emeralds
• K Sparks - Sunshine 4.50 Emeralds
• Thousand Foot Krutch - Running With Giants 5 Emeralds

That is a big singles scene. I don't recall ever having a dozen songs in a month, unless we were talking about a complete album. The first group of albums, however, left me cold,

Missing The Mark

• Matt Baird - Keeper of My Heart 3.75 Emeralds
• Jody McBrayer Keep Breathing 3.75 Emeralds
• J-Giles Son - Kill To Protect 3.75 Emeralds
• K Sparks - Seasons Theme 3.75 Emeralds
• Newsboys - God's Not Dead: The Greatest Hits of the Newsboys 3.75 Emeralds
• RAW - Rawmerica 3.75 Emeralds
• Zadok The Godhop MC - Freedom 3.75 Emeralds

Like I usually say, these aren't terrible, but not award worthy in any respect. The next bunch of albums are not just award worthy, but they are in the finals and have a great shot at walking up to the podium.

Pure Platinum Perfection

• Anchor and Braille - Songs For The Late Night Drive Home 5 Emeralds
• Annie Moses Band - The Art of The Love Song 5 Emeralds
• Lacey Sturm - Life Screams 5 Emeralds
• Virtue - Fearless 5 Emeralds
• Adam Young - Apollo 11 (Instrumental) 5 Emeralds

And finally those in between the two extremes.

Semi-Precious Metal

• Merideth Andrews - Deeper 4.75 Emeralds
• Audrey Assad - Inheritance 4.75 Emeralds
• John Ball - By Declaration and The Death 4.50 Emeralds
• Covenant Worship - Take Heart 4.50 Emeralds
• CTZN Collective - Almost Home EP 4.75 Emeralds
• Colorfair - Hurricane Rain 4.50 Emeralds
• Colours - Ivory 4.75 Emeralds
• Datin - The Roar 4.75 Emeralds
• Elevation Worship - Here as in Heaven 4.50 Emeralds
• Hillsong Young and Free - Youth Revival 4.75 Emeralds
• Marc Jay and The J Crew Band - I am God EP 4.50 Emeralds
• K-Drama - The 8th 4.50 Emeralds
• Newspring - Difference Maker 4.75 Emeralds
• Oceans of Grace - Oceans of Grace Deluxe 4.50 Emeralds
• Matt Price - Dream 4.50 Emeralds
• Rival Choir - I Believe, Help My Unbelief 4.75 Emeralds
• Chandler Roberts - The Color EP 4.50 Emeralds
• The Rocket Summer - Zoetic 4.75 Emeralds
• Sanctus Real - This Is Love 4.50 Emeralds
• Steve Taylor and The Danielson Foil - Wow to The Deadness 4.75 Emeralds
• John Tibbs - Dead Man Walking 4.50 Emeralds
• Various - Christ Redeemer EP 4.50 Emeralds
• Various - (Voice of The Martyrs) I Am N 4.50 Emeralds
• Various - Risen: Songs That Celebrate The Epic Film 4.50 Emeralds
• Vineyard UK - Great Big God 4.50 Emeralds
• Mark Wagner - Love and Be Loved 4.50 Emeralds

That is it for February. Yeah. Now I can get on with March. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Nine Lashes With A Wet Noodle

Such is my verdict on Ascend , the fourth release from Nine Lashes. For those who didn't grow up in the Royal Rangers, the reference is to a "punishment" meted out by using a cooked spaghetti strand to "whip" the offender a certain number of times. Anyone who has ever cooked spaghetti knows how fragile it is, so it would be no surprise to know that the "whip" broke many times and had to be replaced and everything devolved into a messy and slimy scene. The laughter and embarrassment was the punishment, and I do not recall anyone ever being subjected to the indignity twice.

Which brings us back to Ascend. Nine lashes began back in 2009, in the dark period before this blog began. (Night Beat Trivia: First Post July 8, 2010). The Collide Records release is very rough but is Hard Rock top to bottom and it is not hard to see how they caught the attention of King Midas (Brandon Ebel) at Tooth and Nail Records. Their sophomore effort, World We View, dropped in February 2012 and received a rating of 4.75 Emeralds, very good for a debut, as I was unfamiliar with Escape. Anthem of The Lonely set the mark for others to follow. The follow up, From Water to War, scored an equal rating in January of 2014. However it only rated a Rock Classification. Perhaps I should have been alarmed. The line between Rock and Hard Rock is a matter of degrees.

Third (or Fourth) time is not the charm. Ascend is a bizarre cross between Anthem Lights, Newsboys and Owl City, and a bit of City Harmonic Thrown in for good measure. The problem is the artists mentioned do it better, Even the current incarnation of Newsboys. Techno Heartbeat or boy bland Deeper. No. You can do a lot better. The "Corporate" Culture is blamed, and amusingly, Kutless is trotted out as a prime example. I say amusingly because Kutless began as a Creed "clone", and to mainstream music they may have been as corporate as ever. Radio hits like With Arms Wide Open and Higher inspired quite a bit of "homages". It was only as they decided to create a more personal sound that they went wrong. I mean, I have no problem with all the FFR bands channeling their inner Amy Lee. Anyway "corporate" is codeword for Program Manager, and they still feel that anything harder than Michael W. Smith is too risky for prime time. Rap, Rock and other like music are either excluded altogether or done for about an hour after Midnight. Knowing you can record anything you want but that nobody will play it on the radio makes it hard for most bands to maintain their "standards". Until we put human beings in the Program Manager position instead of dinosaurs nothing will change.

Ascend misses the mark with a score of 3.25 Emeralds. I wish I could ship them a box of wet noodles to mete out punishment. I know it will never get there, so they will have to be satisfied with suffering the ultimate punishment there is, knowing that your work will never be considered for a Platinum Vinyl Award. Next time they should remember "If you wish to ascend out of a hole, quit digging." Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

#PlatVnyl6 Update: March 2016

Time for another peek at the inner workings at The Platinum Vinyl Awards. We are dong better than I thought we would be doing at this time. We are going to be shaking things up once again at Night Beat HQ. We have finished picking the nominees for the Video of The Year and Album of The Year was the first to be finished. So all we have to do now is the Song of The Year nominees and the general field. I am feeling a whole lot more optimistic about this than I was last month.

Now as to the shakeup. I have recently discovered Youtube Playlists. I always knew they existed but I thought they were just for me. Now that I have discovered that they can be shared (and embedded) this has opened up an entirely new avenue for promotion of the Platinum Vinyl Awards. Where I had embedded individual videos (5 for announcing video nominees) this should save a bit of space, and that is always appreciated. With the exception of the General Field Video Awards we are all done, and so I may start this process next week, but we shall see. It may be just a teaser.

I may be dropping Children's Music Album of The Year this year, as I was only able to find 2 entries that made the cut. On the upside I will be re-introducing the Keaggy Award for best guitarist, and I am hoping to make it an annual thing.

That will do it for now. Time to continue picking the nominees. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.