#7. Coloring Book
By: Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book may be considered a mixtape, but it is jam packed with more cohesion, beauty, and artistry than almost any “proper album” this year. Bump all of the contemporary Christian music Nashville peddles around to dopes who do not know what actually makes praise music praiseworthy. Coloring Book is the best Gospel album of the year, and possibly of the decade. Chance has no interest in packing his songs with enough lab-tested Christian buzzwords to sell records - “sell” is an interesting choice of words, seeing how Chance insists on giving his music away. His music focuses on genuine uplift and exaltation, both in God and the beauty in everyday people. His rebranding of “Blessings” and “How Great” instill life in two melodies I thought for sure to be lost to the soul-sucking beast of corporate Christianity. If the occasional curse word offends you, just don’t listen; but this is Gospel music like I have never heard it.
Key Song:
“No Problem” - The album’s biggest single is a furiously catchy, jubilant takedown of corporate greed. The insistence on pushing units at quality’s expense is something Chance obviously understands better than anyone else. “No Problem” does not mention God directly, as many of the other tracks do; yet its message of giving away something uplifting and beautiful for free, without charge or consequence, is a sentiment that gets to the heart of what Jesus was all about.
By: Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book may be considered a mixtape, but it is jam packed with more cohesion, beauty, and artistry than almost any “proper album” this year. Bump all of the contemporary Christian music Nashville peddles around to dopes who do not know what actually makes praise music praiseworthy. Coloring Book is the best Gospel album of the year, and possibly of the decade. Chance has no interest in packing his songs with enough lab-tested Christian buzzwords to sell records - “sell” is an interesting choice of words, seeing how Chance insists on giving his music away. His music focuses on genuine uplift and exaltation, both in God and the beauty in everyday people. His rebranding of “Blessings” and “How Great” instill life in two melodies I thought for sure to be lost to the soul-sucking beast of corporate Christianity. If the occasional curse word offends you, just don’t listen; but this is Gospel music like I have never heard it.
Key Song:
“No Problem” - The album’s biggest single is a furiously catchy, jubilant takedown of corporate greed. The insistence on pushing units at quality’s expense is something Chance obviously understands better than anyone else. “No Problem” does not mention God directly, as many of the other tracks do; yet its message of giving away something uplifting and beautiful for free, without charge or consequence, is a sentiment that gets to the heart of what Jesus was all about.