It's been quite a while since the last installment of our ongoing coverage of worship music releases, so without any ado here's an overview of a dozen or so releases from the latter half of 2000.
The Praise Mix is the youth oriented release and usually contains the more interesting arrangements of emerging songs. Last year's release didn't live up to the R:age and Praise Mix albums from 1998 but while 2000's still doesn't quite have the cutting edge of R:age there are a few interesting tracks, such as a breezy, funky take on "All Over the World." It is the chilled tracks such as that which are the album's strong points, and thankfully there are several of them. This year they've again stayed with just a single live CD release after several years of releasing two volumes. The cut back does help the album, highlighting some of the better tracks and allowing for plenty of variety as the producers try to showcase as many worship leaders as possible, but the album unfortunately contains a number of weak tracks where repeated, catchy choruses seem to obscure the fact that there are very few lyrics with any meaning to them. There are a few tracks on here which are worth a listen, but generally unless you were at the event and want the album as a keepsake it's difficult to recommend.
