Genre: Pop/RockLabel: ForeFront
Release Date: February 9, 2010
Rating: 4/5
Fans of TobyMac won’t be disappointed with his newest release, Tonight. The album has everything you’ve come to expect from the former D.C. Talker and Jesus Freak: a ridiculously catchy mix of rock, pop, and hip/hop, some less than stellar lyrics in terms of depth, a clear desire for the Lord, and some cool cameos on some of the songs.
I’ve enjoyed TobyMac’s first 3 releases, and there’s been some growth musically from each to the next. For this one, though, I don’t feel like Toby really branched out that much. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. The music has such a professional feel to it, it becomes easy to take for granted how Toby can consistently produce such high quality, catchy music. That said, this feels like more of a continuation to me of what he did on Portable Sounds, which I did enjoy.
The album leads off with “Tonight,” which is vintage TobyMac. It mixes rock, hip/hop and pop perfectly and features John Cooper from Skillet. The autotune being used was a little different for me, but it wasn’t overly distracting. “Get Back Up” follows, which is the extremely catchy pop song on the album. My least favorite song on the album was easily “Funky Jesus Music,” which utilizes the phrase, “Gimme that juicy flow.” Seriously. It does.
Other highlights on the album were the first single, “City On Our Knees,” which still sounds to me like something OneRepublic could come out with and has fantastic lyrics. “Changed Forever” features Nirva Ready and her vocals compliment things perfectly. TruDog (Toby’s son) makes his obligatory appearance on “Loud and Clear (TruDog ’10), and this continues to be a fun part of each TobyMac album. “Wonderin” features Matt Thiessen of Relient K and sounds exactly like you’d expect a song from TobyMac and Relient K to sound.
Overall, I enjoyed most of the album musically. Toby continues to craft some of the most ridiculously catchy songs in CCM. He’s a true professional when it comes to production, and everything sounds crisp and clean. One thing I could have done without was the prevalent use of autotune on this album, but that’s just a pet peeve of mine. Others may enjoy its inclusion. Overall, TobyMac has delivered again, and the king of Christian pop isn’t going anywhere soon.
*This album was provided for review by ForeFront Records.
2 comments:
Great review. Might have used the phrase "ridiculously" a little redundantly, but it was nice to see a current review. It took me a while to find one!
Its taken me a while to get used to the use of autotune in ANY music, but if you listen to the top 10, 20, or even 30 downloads on iTunes, you'll hear it in basically everything. Its in, and I was impressed that tobymac was keeping it fresh.
Yeah, I guess that's why I try to avoid the majority of popular music for the most part. What's considered "fresh" is usually not that interesting musically. Making people sound robotic? Just my taste; I can see why some people like it I guess.
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