Choose Life

Description

Choose Life is the fourth album by the American pop-rock band Big Tent Revival, released on Ardent Records in 1999, distributed in the US by Chordant Distribution Group. The album was produced and arranged by Kevin Paige.

Forget about Big Tent Revival, the rocking band of last year’s Amplifier, exhibiting Memphis roots in soaring B3 runs and gritty guitar solos. Enter the new, improved, focus-group-tested Big Tent Revival, a pop group designed with its eyes set on listener-friendly radio play. In the past, Big Tent has won Grammy and Dove nominations acknowledging its artistry. Here the band throws its talents in service of preachy pop anthems designed to connect in a big way with one of Christian music’s largest market shares – church youth groups.

Tearing a page from the Petra playbook, frontman Steve Wiggins has crafted sermonic content into familiar pop music forms on the band’s fourth album. Some of that trademark Memphis style has persevered, although the guitars have been turned down and Beatles-esque vocal harmonies have become prominent.

To Wiggins’ credit, much of the time he’s able to deliver his four-spiritual-law content in honest poetry. «Livin’ Off Your Love» is one of his most engaging – and least driven by churchy language – comparing our situation apart from God’s love to that of orphans. But at a time when preachers are struggling to speak with less emphasis on religious cliché and relying more on narratives, Wiggins & Co. tend to-take the opposite approach.

If Choose Life feels a little contrived, it may also be because there is a Christmas tune and a Valentines song, along with several praise & worship-influenced numbers. Evidently, the band felt compelled to do it all this time around. Big Tent Revival, nevertheless, delivers on what it set out to do, and Choose Life will undoubtedly touch a lot of people. After all, it’s in the design. [Brian Quincy Newcomb, CCM, November 1999]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/choose-life/1501716067)

CD tracklist:

01. Livin’ Off Your Love
02. Choose Life
03. Fill Me With Your Spirit
04. Love Me Like You Do
05. The Word Of God
06. Now Is The Right Time
07. Will You Be Mine
08. Live For You
09. Please Forgive Them
10. One More Song
11. I Worship You
12. What I Want For Christmas

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