Filipino-Christian Blogger Ganns Deen » Mandisa

Ganns’ Year-end Top 10s for 2011

Ganns — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:16:00 +0000

At some point in 2011, my Top 10 kinda went offline because my laptop crashed and took the Top 10 with it. After that, it was pretty much to my iTunes to determine what songs should go to #1. Having said all that, this is my personal Top 10 for the year 2011, divided into Christian and Secular (Top 40). Just sharing. (^^,)

CHRISTIAN TOP 10
1. Stronger. Mandisa
2. Good Morning. Mandisa
3. Suitcases. Dara MacLean
4. Make a Move. Royal Tailor
5. Hanging On. Britt Nicole
6. God Is Still God. Heather Williams
7. Hold Me Together. Royal Tailor
8. Hold Me. Jamie Grace feat TobyMac
9. Strong Enough. Matthew West
10. Blessings. Laura Story

No surprise here, Mandisa romps away with the Top two slots on the year-end Top 10, with Stronger edging out Good Morning. The real surprise is Royal Tailor, which has two songs in the final Top 10, a strong finish for both Make A Move and Hold Me Together. Overall, these songs cap what I felt was a weak year in Christian music, with no songs coming out that were particularly groundbreaking or attaching themselves to my brain in an emotional and spiritual way.

SECULAR TOP 10
1. Beautiful Target. B1A4
2. Pinocchio. f(x)
3. Love is Move. Secret
4. Sixth Sense. Brown-Eyed Girls
5. I Am The Best. 2NE1
6. You Know. Piggy Dolls
7. The Boys. Girls’ Generation
8. Don’t Go Home. GD & Top
9. Going Crazy. Song Jieun featuring Bang Yong Guk
10. Be My Baby. Wonder Girls

As you can see, every song on my 2011 secular chart Top 10 is a K-Pop song. That’s really quite impressive, considering I don’t understand a single word they’re saying. (That’s a joke. I have translations.) But yeah, it’s the dominant year of K-Pop on my personal chart, which tells me I really should start featuring more K-Pop on my website because it’s what I seem to be listening to a lot nowadays. Honorable mentions for the year, however, do go to five topnotch (English) songs that just didn’t have enough space on this chart’s Top 10: Adele’s brilliant Rolling in the Deep, David Cook’s woefully underappreciated The Last Goodbye, Beyonce’s amazing old-school throwback Love On Top, Fantasia’s delightful Collard Greens and Cornbread, and Maroon 5/Christina Aguilera’s Moves Like Jagger.

Mandisa, “Born For This”

Ganns — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:11:44 +0000

Contemporary Christian star Mandisa has released Born For This, a song based on the story of Esther, now available on the 18-track CD The Story. Born For This is an encouraging, empowering track that channels the faith that the Biblical Queen Esther needed when she entered the courts of her husband King Ahasuerus unannounced, to lobby to save her people.

The production work on Born For This is absolutely stellar! It starts off with a solo cello before breaking into a mid-tempo hypnotic drumbeat with tinkling piano lines. Hand-claps soon come in for a few more seconds, but everything breaks down to a primal drumbeat for the pre-chorus. By the time Mandisa explodes into the powerful chorus, you can’t help but react to its irresistible singalong words and sing along. The piano, the string section, those persistent drums… throughout the entire song, you can sense the urgency, the passion, and the conviction in Born For This. One of the best tracks I’ve heard to date from Mandisa, and certainly evidence that the former American Idol is truly coming into her own as an artist. She truly was “born for this.”

BORN FOR THIS Lyrics
Mandisa

Feels like I’ve been holding my breath
Trying to still my restless heart
Everything hangs on my next step
Finding my nerve, playing my part

I found shelter underneath his crown
Found favor inside his eyes
Rock this boat and I just might drown
Honesty seems to come with a price

There’s a time to hold your tongue
Time to keep your head down
There’s a time but it’s not now

Sometimes you gotta go
Uninvited
Sometimes you gotta speak when you don’t have the floor
Sometimes you gotta move when everybody else says you should stay
No way
No, not today

You gotta ask if you want an answer
Sometimes you gotta stand apart from the crowd
Long before your heart could run the risk
You were born for this
You were born for this

I’m leaning on the ones before me
My father’s father’s dreams
I’m standing on the top of their shoulders calling the One delivering me

There’s a time to hold your tongue
Time to keep your head down
There’s a time but it’s not now

Sometimes you gotta go
Uninvited
Sometimes you gotta speak when you don’t have the floor
Sometimes you gotta move when everybody else says you should stay
No way
No, not today

You gotta ask if you want an answer
Sometimes you gotta stand apart from the crowd
Long before your heart could run the risk
You were born for this
You were born for this

One step
One move
Born to trust You
Made to lay my life before You

So you gotta go uninvited
Sometimes you gotta speak when you don’t have the floor
Sometimes you gotta move when everybody else says you should stay
No way
No, not today

You gotta ask if you want an answer
Sometimes you gotta stand apart from the crowd
Long before your heart could run the risk
You were born for this
You were born for this
You were born for this
You were born for this
You were born for this

Mandisa, “Waiting for Tomorrow”

Ganns — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:19:48 +0000

Contemporary Christian superstar Mandisa has followed up her #1 hit Stronger with Waiting For Tomorrow, another standout pop-rock gem from her stellar third studio release, What If We Were Real. Written by, Waiting for Tomorrow keeps in line with many hits that sing of an awareness that we were created to be more than ordinary, that every day is an opportunity for us to take a step out in faith and be used by Jesus for something greater. The desire to do this, however, is fueled not by a need to prove anything, but rather out of the gratitude that Jesus Christ saved us from a life of everything ordinary. It is the gospel summed up, really, in Waiting For Tomorrow, a catchy, singalong single that I predict will nab Mandisa another Top 10 finish. (She has yet to score two Top 10 hits in a row from a studio album, not counting her Christmas CD, which contained the 1-2 chart toppers that were Christmas Day featuring Michael W. Smith and Christmas Makes Me Cry featuring Matthew West.)

WAITING FOR TOMORROW Lyrics
Mandisa

Maybe tomorrow we’ll start over
Maybe tomorrow I will finally change my ways
Said the same things yesterday
Don’t know why I’m so afraid
To let You in
To let You win
To let You have all of me

Can’t spend my whole life wastin’
Everything I know I’ve been given
‘Cause You’ve made for so much more than
Sittin’ on the side lines
I don’t wanna look back and wonder
If good enough could’ve been better
Everyday’s a day to start over
So, why am I waiting for tomorrow

Maybe today I’ll start believing
That Your mercy is really as real as You say it is
It doesn’t matter who I used to be
It only matters that I’ve been set free
You rescued me
You’re changing me
Jesus take everything

Oh, I’m makin this my moment now
To grab the hand that’s reachin down to save me
You saved me
And I’m makin this my moment now
To grab the hand that’s reachin down to save me
Yeah You saved me

I’m gonna grab the hand that’s reachin down
And I’m not gonna wait until tomorrow
Oh, tomorrow

Mandisa greets Ganns!

Ganns — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:28:59 +0000

Sorry, friends, the fan boy in me has to gush! Check this out!!!!

p.s.
Someone says “Come here to Nashville!” Believe me, if I could, I would! I am gonna catch Mandisa in concert, mark my words. Someday, friends, someday.

Matthew West, “My Own Little World”

Ganns — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:45:33 +0000

For the record, my favorite Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter is Matthew West. I’ve followed his music ever since More came out in 2003, off his spectacular major-label debut CD, Happy; I love him so much that he has his own category on my website (the only other singer who has that? His labelmate Mandisa). The two albums that followed, History and Something To Say, just upped the ante for Matthew; each CD was clearly better than its predecessor. Something to Say, in particular, was a superb, stellar, incomparable album that birthed two #1 hits and changed my life in a way that no previous Contemporary Christian CD had done. So I have high hopes of The Story of Your Life, which drops October 5, 2010.

Apparently, the first single off The Story of Your Life is a track called My Own Little World. For The Story of Your Life, Matthew invited his fans to submit the stories of their lives, and holed himself up in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere to pray over, collate, and create new material inspired by their stories. (He also met a Cabin Mouse, but that’s another story.) He received more than 10,000 stories, and while I’m sure that certainly wasn’t easy, he came up with several songs that made the cut, so to speak. The new CD, according to New Release Tuesday, run the gamut of human experience, “from joy to sorrow, struggle to victory, and life and death.” Some of the tracks include Family Tree (which “describes how Christ gives us a new identity and legacy and life”), Broken Girl (which “tragically recounts the countless stories Matthew received about sexual abuse – and describes the healing and redemption that Christ promises”) and One Less, which chronicles the joy of adoption and helping those most in need. (Note to self: when the record’s out, compare One Less to Mark Schultz’s Everything To Me, which is still my template for songs about adoption.)

My Own Little World, however, puts everything in perspective. It describes the transformation of a person from one who apparently lives an apathetic lifestyle, to one who genuinely wishes to change the world for the better. Written along the vein of Brandon Heath’s Give Me Your Eyes or mikeschair’s Keep Changing The World, My Own Little World is catchy and inspiring, although admittedly, it initially underwhelmed me, given the quality of Matthew’s three previous carriers. (More and You Are Everything both topped the Christian chars, while Thirteen (Next Thing You Know) was a decidedly catchy song, one of my favorites; I will never understand why it didn’t go to #1.) But then again, I was also underwhelmed by Brandon Heath’s Give Me Your Eyes, which was a monster hit last year, so I guess I’m no longer the demographic.

Regardless, My Own Little World bodes well for the whole CD, which I will definitely order (hopefully off MusiChristian.com, which gets autographed CDs off Sparrow artists). If history bears itself out, and Matthew continues to improve with every new album, well, The Story of Your Life could be Matthew’s best album to date.

Listen to Matthew West’s My Own Little World

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

MY OWN LITTLE WORLD Lyrics
Matthew West

In my own little world it hardly ever rains
I’ve never gone hungry or always felt safe
I got some money in my pocket
shoes on my feet
In m own little world
Population me

I try to stay awake through the Sunday morning church
I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give ’til it hurts
and I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see
it’s easy to do when it’s population me

What if there’s a bigger picture
what if I’m missing out
What if there’s a greater purpose
I could be living right now
outside my own little world
Wooh

Stopped at the red light, looked out my window
Outside the car, saw a sign, said “Help this homeless widow”
Just above this sign was the face of a human
i thought to myself, “God, what have I been doing?”

So I rolled down my window and I looked her in the eye
Oh how many times have I just passed her by
I gave her some money then I drove on through
in my own little world there’s Population two

What if there’s a bigger picture
what if I’m missing out
What if there’s a greater purpose
I could be living right now
outside my own little world
Wooh

whoa yeah
whoa yeah
whoa

Start breaking my heart for what breaks Yours
give me open hands and open doors
put Your light in my eyes and let me see
that my own little world is not about me

What if there’s a bigger picture
what if I’m missing out
Show me there’s a greater purpose
I could be living right now
outside my own little world
Wooh
My own little world yeah
My own little world woo

Five Christian songwriters to love

Ganns — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:02:57 +0000

As a Filipino-Christian songwriter, it is only natural that I am bound to have influences when it comes to my songwriting. There are many, many amazing Christian songwriters out there, including Casting Crowns’ Mark Hall, MercyMe’s Bart Billard, Aaron Shust, Nichole Nordeman, Nicole C. Mullen, Rich Mullins, and the incomparable Bill and Gloria Gaither. I started listening to Christian music in 1990 – even though I only really got to know Jesus in 2001 – and have been writing music about and for Him ever since.

These are my five favorite Christian songwriters, just to share:

1. Steven Curtis Chapman. Chapman has won the Dove Award for Songwriter of the Year 10 out of the past 20 years, which is testament to the quality of his material (and to the predictability of the GMA members, ooh, burn). Chapman writes primarily for himself; his most popular work is arguably I Will Be Here, a wedding staple. Other popular Chapman singles that topped the Christian charts include Live Out Loud, Magnificent Obsession, Yours, and most recently, Heaven is the Face.

2. Michael W. Smith. Smith is probably the most popular crossover Christian artist of the 1990s, thanks to his breakout hit Place in This World. Other popular songs that hit the Hot 100 include I Will Be Here For You (co-written with Diane Warren), For You, and Love Me Good. I have every single Smitty album since Go West Young Man; that’s how much I love Michael W. Smith.

3. Cindy Morgan. A Dove Award winner in 2008 for Songwriter of the Year, Cindy is a prolific songwriter and singer in her own right. She has actually topped my chart four times (without my knowing it), being one of the songwriters behind Michael W. Smith’s Christmas Day, Mandisa’s He Is With You, Brit Nicole’s Set the World on Fire, and Mark Schultz’s phenomenal Letters From War.

4. Ronnie Freeman. Ronnie Freeman is an independent singer and songwriter who has created some of Christian AC/Inspo’s more enduring melodies. He is responsible for Mandisa’s He Is With You (co-writing it with Cindy Morgan) and God Speaking. He is currently #1 on my personal Top 10 as of this writing, having co-written Ashmont Hill’s Show My Love.

5. Matthew West. I saved the Christian songwriter I love best for last. Matthew West is my hero; it is my dream is to one day meet Matthew West. Matthew has this God-given ability to take a lyric and give it the perfect melody in such a way that it just hits you – WHAM! – in the gut, and knocks the wind out of you as you realize the sheer depth of what he just communicated in song. Matthew can do it all – he can sing, he can write, he can play instruments – and do it with excellence. He can write humorous, tongue-in-cheek songs; he can write gut-wrenching ballads; he can write stadium-rocking anthems. He’s had several chart-topping songs, including More, Only Grace, You Are Everything, Something to Say, Save a Place For Me, and his biggest hit to date, The Motions. He’s also written hit songs for some of Christian music’s more popular names, including Natalie Grant (Perfect People), Mandisa (Only the World), and Melissa Greene (Next Step).

Who are your favorite songwriters, Christian or otherwise?

Billboard’s Top Christian Songs for 2009 and for the decade

Ganns — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:48:08 +0000

Billboard.com has released its 2009 Year-Ender charts (okay, they did it the first week of December, but I didn’t have time to check it out until today). According to the chart, The Motions by Matthew West is the top Christian song of 2009, according to Billboard.com, and rightly so. The Motions spent more than a month at at #1, and changed thousands of lives with its encouraging message. Here are the Top 10 Christian songs of 2009:

1. The Motions, Matthew West
2. By Your Side, Tenth Avenue North
3. Revelation Song, Phillips, Craig & Dean
4. There Will Be A Day, Jeremy Camp
5. I Will Rise, Chris Tomlin
6. More Beautiful You, Jonny Diaz
7. Lead Me To The Cross, Chris and Conrad
8. Wait and See, Brandon Heath
9. Born Again, Third Day feat. Lacey Mosley
10. Free to Be Me, Francesca Battistelli

Pleasantly surprised to see Chris and Conrad’s Lead Me to the Cross in the Top 10; obviously, you don’t have to finish at #1 to place well; you can be consistent. (The same kind of chart longevity boded well for By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North, as we’ll see later.) Some other notable chart positions include Mandisa’s My Deliverer, my #1 song of 2009, finishes at #26; Britt Nicole’s The Lost Get Found finishes at #18, and Jimmy Needham’s Forgiven and Loved, also in my Top 5, a notch above Mandisa at #25.

What? You’ve never heard “The Motions”? Okay, click here.

Billboard also published a best-of for the decade, (2000-2009, I imagine), and these were the Top 10 Christian songs of the decade:

1. Word of God Speak, MercyMe
2. My Savior My God, Aaron Shust
3. By Your Side, Tenth Avenue North
4. The Motions, Matthew West
5. Give Me Your Eyes, Brandon Heath
6. East to West, Casting Crowns
7. Blessed Be Your Name, tree63
8. There Will Be A Day, Jeremy Camp
9. You Are My King (Amazing Love), Newsboys
10. Voice of Truth, Casting Crowns

Word of God Speak is a fantastic track, and MercyMe is a fantastic band. How can you top I Can Only Imagine? You can’t, but Word of God Speak came really close. A bit surprised that My Savior My God is #2 for the decade, especially since I thought Create Again was Shust’s masterpiece, but that single tanked. By Your Side is an absolutely phenomenal song; it was powerful in 2008, and powerful in 2009 to actually finish ahead of Matthew West’s The Motions, which finishes at #4 for the decade. No small feat for Matthew, whose You Are Everything – the first single off Something to Say, and a track I feel is superior to The Motions - finishes #17 for the decade. (Matthew is currently #1 today on the Christian charts with Give Christmas Away, a duet with Amy Grant off the OST of the new VeggieTales video.) (BTW, the highest-ranked female vocal for the decade? A guest spot by Mandisa on Lose Your Soul, #29 for the decade. Highest-ranked solo female vocal? Francesca Battistelli, squeaking in with Free to Be Me at #40.)

What? You’ve never heard “Word of God Speak”? Okay, click here.

Waitaminute, you’ve never heard “By Your Side” either? All right, click here.

To see the Top 10 Christian songs in the USA as of this week, please click here.

Ganns’ Top 25 Songs of 2009

Ganns — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:55:45 +0000

After much computation and iTunes integration, these are my personal top 25 songs of 2009.

TOP 25 SONGS OF THE YEAR

MY DELIVERER, Mandisa (7 weeks)
GIVE ME THE MELTDOWN, Rob Thomas (4 weeks)
WHEN LOVE TAKES OVER, David Guetta feat Kelly Rowland (3 weeks)
ONE REASON, Chynna & Vaughan (4 weeks)
FORGIVEN AND LOVED, Jimmy Needham (2 weeks)
SORRY SORRY, Super Junior (2 weeks)
CREATE AGAIN, Aaron Shust (2 weeks)
BATTLEFIELD, Jordin Sparks (3 weeks)
NO OTHER NAME, Freddy Rodriguez (3 weeks)
SOMEBODY TO LOVE, The Glee Cast (3 weeks)
YOU FOUND ME, Big Daddy Weave (1 week)
LIVE LIKE WE’RE DYING, Kris Allen (1 week)
IF THIS ISN’T LOVE, Jennifer Hudson
PAJAMA PARTY, Super Junior Happy (3 weeks)
HOW MUCH, Mandisa (1 week)
COOKING COOKING, Super Junior Happy (1 week)
THE LOST GET FOUND, Britt Nicole
VANILLA LOVE, Lee Hyun Ji feat. Onew
NO SURPRISE, Daughtry
BEGIN AGAIN, Colbie Caillat
ARISE, Avalon (3 weeks)
RING DING DONG, SHINee
GEE, Girls Generation
PERFECT PEOPLE, Natalie Grant (3 weeks)
DEFYING GRAVITY, The Glee Cast (3 weeks)

For me, 2009′s best single was My Deliverer by Mandisa. The carrier single of the American Idol Season Five finalist’s sophomore CD, Freedom, is a vibrant, effervescent, jubilant single that I literally couldn’t resist for months. It was – and still is – one of the finest Contemporary Christian songs I have ever had the privilege of hearing.

The Top 10 songs have five Christian songs and five secular tracks. I am pretty sure I no longer fit pop music’s demographic, as the only song in the chart to have displayed some kind of Billboard Hot 100 chart success is Battlefield by American Idol Season Six winner Jordin Sparks. Songs by Rob Thomas (Give Me the Meltdown) and David Guetta (When Love Takes Over) fizzled in the lower end of the charts.

The highest ranked non-Number One song in the Top 25 is If This Isn’t Love by American Idol Season Three finalist and Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson (Do we detect a pattern of Idol winners here?). Other Idol-related artists who have performed well on this year’s final tally include Season Eight winner Kris Allen, whose Live Like We’re Dying barely misses the Top 10 at #12, and Daughtry, led by Season Five finalist Chris Daughtry, with No Surprise. Mandisa also places a second track in the final chart, How Much, at #15.

American Idol is a television show, as is the Fox drama/musical Glee. The Glee Cast also sports some muscle, placing their remake of Queen’s Somebody to Love in the T0p 10, as well as their revival of Defying Gravity from the Broadway musical Wicked at #25. (A third track, Can’t Fight This Feeling, barely missed the Top 25.)

Of course, we can’t let the year go without the Catherine Deen-fueled Korean invasion. The later part of 2009 saw the entry of several singles from K-Pop artists, including Korean supergroup Super Junior and its sub-groups Super Junior M and Super Junior Happy; idol group SHINee; vocal group SS501, and nine-member girl group Girls Generation. Almost all the acts mentioned end up on the final chart, led by Super Junior’s Sorry Sorry, powerful at #6. Super Junior’s subgroup Super Junior Happy, also place well with Pajama Party (#14) and Cooking Cooking (#16). MusicBank’s top single of 2009, Gee by Girls Generation, squeaks in at #23; a notch above them is SHINee with Ring Ding Dong, the carrier single of their stellar mini-album 2009: Year of Us. SHINee’s leader, Onew, finds himself ranked a few notches above that, with his duet with Lee Hyun Ji, Vanilla Love, at #18.

Well, that’s it for this boring music an. Have a spectacular music-filled 2010, everyone!

Mandisa earns 5th Top 10 hit!

Ganns — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:50:42 +0000

RadioandRecords reports that Mandisa’s My Deliverer increased by 11 measly spins this week. However, Josh Wilson’s Savior Please loses 70 spins, and flipflops with Mandisa, earning the Dove Award nominee her fifth Christian AC Top 10 hit! WOOT!

To date, Mandisa’s chart history on Christian AC is as follows:

Only the World (peak: 5)
Christmas Day (with Michael W. Smith, peak: 1)
Christmas Makes Me Cry (with Matthew West, peak: 2)
Lose It All (TobyMac feat Mandisa & Kirk Franklin, peak: 2)
My Deliverer (peak to date: 10)

Congrats, ‘Disa! Girl, you deservin’!

In other news, Avalon’s Still My God is still #2 on Inspo, losing 4 spins, but Greg Long’s Uncommon, a duet with Kristy Starling is new at #19; Ashmont Hill’s Gifted Response rises 4 notches to #14, and Meredith Andrews’ The Song We Sing, a new entry on my chart, is also new there (#20). New songs rising up the chart worth listening to include Phillips, Craig and Dean’s take on Kari Jobe’s Revelation Song (new at #15); Jobe herself debuts two notches lower with I’m Singing. It’s a great week in CCM!

Mandisa “Freedom” reviews

Ganns — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:36:42 +0000

I’ve compiled some reviews of Mandisa’s sophomore release, Freedom. Most reviews are positive. :)

Mandisa on Arms Wide Open
Mandisa on Bring the Beat Back
Mandisa on Christian Music Today
Mandisa on The Cleveland Leader
Mandisa on Copious Notes
Mandisa on Cross Rhythms UK
Mandisa on JesusFreakHideout
Mandisa on Soul Audio
Mandisa on Soul Tracks
Mandisa on Today’s Christian Music