types of worship

what is a worship song? i like to think of a worship song as one that directly and explicitly glorifies God, that lifts Him up and honors Him. chris tomlin's "how great is our God" would be an obvious example of this:

the splendor of a king
clothed in majesty
let all the earth rejoice
He wraps Himself in light
and darkness tries to hide
and trembles at His voice

however, there are other kinds of songs that we have in the worship canon. a good mainstream example would be matt redman's "the heart of worship":

i'm coming back to the heart of worship
and it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus
i'm sorry Lord for the thing i've made it
when it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus

it's got the line "it's all about You" to redirect the attention towards God, but really this song is about a personal journey, and about the self. not that it's a selfish song, because obviously it's about repenting from making worship into a selfish thing. still, this is a different breed of song.

the subject of "how great is our God" is "our God". the subject of "the heart of worship" is the "i". i simply come, though i'm weak and poor, i'll bring you more than a song, i'm coming back.

it's an incredibly profound song, and one that has impacted me personally and inspired many powerful times of worship, but i've learned to be cautious. the song with the self as the subject should be the exception; the majority of the time we should be taking our eyes off of ourselves and focusing them on the greatness of God. other songs of this breed include "how He loves" (a great vehicle for encountering the love of God, but we must remember that this is not the ultimate goal of worship), "lead me to the cross", and "breathe". i'm not trying to say these are bad songs, i love them all and have used them all in worship settings. each of these songs have helped me draw closer to Him and to lay aside the distractions and idols i have placed before Him. but once this has been accomplished, ultimately, there must be a response. what do we do once He's lead us to the cross? what happens once we've been forgiven for the thing we've made it? how do we respond now that we're not lost without Him? once we've acknowledged our own frailty and brokenness and indebtedness to Him, we must worship Him for who He is.

holy, righteous, faithful to the end
savior, healer, redeemer and friend
i will worship You for who You are
i will worship You for who You are
i will worship You for who You are
Jesus

about live albums

are hillsong/hillsong united albums truly live? now, i know practically every secular live album put out nowadays has been "studio enhanced". but i guess i never really thought about worship albums in the same way. i know the passion artists do this frequently with their live albums (on a particular matt redman album some rather cheesy timed-delay effects have been applied to his vocals at certain points), but i suppose i assumed, "surely a church worship album would be a document of a real worship experience."

then i stumbled upon this amateur (bootleg) recording of a hillsong united performance of "desert song":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWwDyxJlmck

it's a good performance, but there are moments when brooke's vocals are out of tune, a natural occurrence in live performance. and i suddenly realized, i've never heard anyone singing out of tune in a hillsong album (please feel free point out an exception), which is quite an anomaly considering the quantity both of singers and of albums hillsong has.

compare that performance with the recent "tear down the walls" "live album" performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgUUeQh0CQ

and now compare this with a live broadcast of hillsong's annual conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QiiuhFHi4k

take particular note of brooke's prayer that "You hear the song of our hearts greater than the song of our lips...that our praise to You would be authentic and genuine." what follows is a true live performance, broadcast live before any studio doctoring could be done. brooke's vocals are buried in the mix, so you have to listen carefully; but what's there is incredible. her vocals are more authentic and genuine than i've ever heard on an official hillsong release. you can tell she's caught up in the moment, not trying to "sing good", but merely singing honestly. her voice drifts in and out of the range of the microphone, and her pitch trails off at certain points. towards the end she improvises the melody (5:08-5:22). the usually photogenic brooke looks completely oblivious of the multiple cameras. this recording has the excitement of discovery and revelation and unpredictability of live music, of live performance.

i'm not saying it's completely the studio work and producers who smooth out these rough edges. i imagine it's mostly the producers' musical aesthetic, choosing the performances that are most presentable, most flawless, and the worship teams' professional attitudes towards rehearsal and performance, augmented by studio re-recording. however, they let one slip through the cracks with this undignified, undone performance.