Rebecca St. James

Item: Wait for me: The Best from Rebecca St. James
Author: Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen

Wait for me: The Best from Rebecca St. James

(2003)

Reviewed by Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen

Discogs Apple Music Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label ForeFront RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

ccm pop pop rock

A student in an adolescent psychology class I teach recently brought a guest with him-a DJ employed at a Christian radio station. I agreed to have this DJ speak to my students about the marketing strategies employed by the station to draw older adolescents and young adults. He described a prototypical person named Heather that all programming is geared towards. She is a young, middle-class, white female who never wants to be challenged, and is content to hear the same old Christian songs with the same old clichés and platitudes. Though I bit my tongue and continued to apply a diplomatic strategy to the classroom interaction, the fact that he was content with this cookie-cutter approach to Christian music honestly sickened me. I did introduce a few questions that at least hinted at my displeasure. His telling response was, "You're a music lover. I'm not." I appreciated his honesty. This candy-coated CD flirts with the same canned, manipulative approach.

I've got a marketing tip to pass on to the folks at Forefront Records concerning Rebecca St. James's latest CD. In order to effect a dramatic rise in sales to music lovers, try selling the record by way of a good old-fashioned striptease.

What I am referring to in my provocative suggestion of a strip tease, is a systematic stripping away of superfluous tracks or adscititious layers that add little to what is already a densely rich, angelically pure underlying sound. I'm advocating for an auditory, not a visual, revelation towards nudity. On most songs, four or five tracks would be adequate. Try listening to this CD and imagining it being performed unplugged in a small, intimate setting such as a coffeehouse. A natural affinity clearly emerges between Rebecca St. James and this type of musical minimalism.

Rebecca St. James is a true artist, worthy of much respect, and, though not every song is profound, there are some vital lyrics and dynamic vocal paroxysms here that beg to be heard. They are the types of beautiful scars that Jesus sported on his hands and feet after he rose from the dead. They represent the ultimate sacrifice that Christ made when he died on the cross for our sins. In Wait for Me..., these beautiful scars are buried in layers of palatial clothing designed to protect the listener from the painful truth. So, if your name is Heather, you'll appreciate this collection of buried treasures. As for myself, along with all of the other "music lovers," we'll have to wait for the "strip show," an unplugged version to someday be released.

2.5 tocks