The Collection

Description

The Collection is a compilation album by the American singer and songwriter Amy Grant, released on Myrrh Records in 1986, a division of Word. Also manufactured and distributed by A&M Records. It is the 10th album by Amy Grant and spans her first decade in music (1976-1986).

The Collection includes two brand new songs; “Stay For A While” (featuring backing vocals by Richard Page of Mr. Mister fame) and “Love Can Do” (featuring backing vocals by Chris Harris, Gary Chapman, Mark Heimermann, as well as Greg X. Volz of Petra fame), the former song being a Top 20 Adult Contemporary hit in the US. According to CCM Magazine, The Collection was the best selling album of 1987 in the Christian music market. It is as well considered to be the best-selling contemporary Christian music compilation album ever released, having sold in excess of 1 million copies.

Depending on their tastes, record buyers are likely to have had one of two different reactions when they came upon the Amy Grant compilation Collection in its initial LP and cassette releases in the summer of 1986. General music fans, aware of Grant, if at all, only for her 1985 Top 40 pop hit «Find a Way», may have wondered why this one-hit wonder deserved a best-of so soon. But contemporary Christian music (CCM) fans would have been surprised that it wasn’t a double album. After all, over the previous eight years, Grant had scored 22 hits on CCM radio according to CCM magazine, all but three of them in the Top Ten. Collection, originally containing only ten tracks with a running time under 40 minutes (standard for the LP era), attempted to address both these constituencies, succeeding with one more than the other. For the general pop fan, it demonstrated that there was more where «Find a Way» came from. The album largely eschewed material from Grant’s first five albums, including only «Father’s Eyes» from 1979’s My Father’s Eyes. It was dominated by songs from Grant’s mature works Age to Age (1982), Straight Ahead (1984), and Unguarded (1985), with one song from A Christmas Album (1983). Those songs had all been CCM hits, but a longtime fan must have felt that they told only part of the story. And Collection looked forward as well. Each side of the LP led off with a new song, «Stay for Awhile» on the first side and «Love Can Do» on the second. Neither song had religious content (though both became CCM hits); both were very much in the synth pop style of Grant’s recent music. So, for the most part, Collection satisfied Grant’s new fan base while tossing a bone to the faithful. [The original cassette version added five tracks, only one of which, «All I Ever Have to Be», came from Grant’s early recordings. A 1990 CD reissue added two more early tracks, giving the album better balance.] [William Ruhlmann, AMG]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-collection/1440837007)

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Stay For A While” – 5:34
A2. “Find A Way” – 3:25
A3. “Everywhere I Go” – 4:09
A4. “Angels” – 4:12
A5. “El Shaddai” – 4:05

Side Two
B1. “Love Can Do” – 4:21
B2. “Sing Your Praise To The Lord” – 3:12
B3. “Father’s Eyes” – 4:03
B4. “Thy Word” – 3:19
B5. “Emmanuel” – 3:08

Note: The album was originally released in two different versions: a cassette version and an LP version. The LP version was directed to her newer fans, who knew her primarily for her Top 40 pop hit “Find a Way”. The cassette version was directed to her older fans, who knew her for her Christian work as well as her secular work. The LP version contained ten tracks, and the cassette version contained fifteen tracks (the five extra tracks being: “Where Do You Hide Your Heart” / “In A Little While” / “I Have Decided” / “All I Ever Have To Be” / “Ageless Medley“). In 1990, The Collection was re-released on CD with the 15 tracks featured on the cassette version, and two additional tracks, “Too Late” and “I’m Gonna Fly”.

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