House of Heroes
Announcing The 2009 Free Christian Music Awards Winners
It’s time! The votes are all in, and it’s time to announce the winners in the first annual Free Christian Music Awards! You helped picked the nominees, and you voted on the winners – so read on to find out how your favorites did!
Free Song of the Year:
- Switchfoot – “Mess of Me”
- Owl City – “Fireflies”
- Tie: Thousand Foot Krutch – “Bring Me to Life” / Relient K – “Forget and Not Slow Down”
With 41% of the vote, Switchfoot is clear winner in free song of the year, which really isn’t a surprise – Switchfoot’s dedicated fans gave “Mess of Me” a lead from the start, and the fact that it was a radio smash for the band didn’t hurt any. Taking second place with 34% of the vote, Owl City’s wonderfully-popular “Fireflies”, followed by a surprise tie for third between Thousand Foot Krutch & Relient K.
Free Album of the Year:
- We Shot The Moon – “Fear and Love”
- Esterlyn – “Lamps”
- MercyMe – “10 Live”
The award for “Free Album of the Year” was the closest of all the races this year, with We Shot The Moon’s Fear and Love beating Esterlyn’s Lamps for the title by only 1%, and MercyMe’s digital-only live album 10 Live only 3% behind Esterlyn for a respectable third place finish.
Free Christmas Song of the Year:
- Relient K – “I Celebrate the Day”
- Thousand Foot Krutch – “Jingle Bell Rock”
- TobyMac – “This Christmas”
Relient K may have tied for third for “Free Song of the Year”, but they dominated “Free Christmas Song of the Year” from the start, with “I Celebrate the Day” finishing with 1/3 of the vote. Not far behind, with 22%, Thousand Foot Krutch’s rocking rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” takes second place, and TobyMac’s “This Christmas” takes third.
Free EP of the Year:
- House of Heroes – “The End Is Not The End EP”
- B.Reith – “The B.Reith EP”
- Esterlyn – “Mending The Meaning EP”
2009 was a good year to be House of Heroes – not only was their The End Is Not The End EP the undisputed winner of “Free EP of the Year” with a whopping 49% of the vote, but the same EP was also the most-nominated of any of the songs or albums in the running. B.Reith picks up a strong second place finish with 25% of the vote, followed by Esterlyn at third with 20%.
Free Sampler/Compilation of the Year:
- Tooth & Nail Records – “Fuel Sampler 2009″
- Huntington University – “Picks”
- Creation Festival – “Creation Festival 2009 iTunes Sampler”
Taking first place in the coveted “Free Sampler/Compilation of the Year” category by a wide margin is the 2009 version of Tooth & Nail Record’s Fuel sampler, with the underdog and my personal favorite, Huntington University’s free compilation Picks taking second place, followed by Creation Festival’s 2009 iTunes sampler in third.
Most Giving Artist of 2009:
- House of Heroes
- Esterlyn
- MercyMe
“Most Giving Artist of 2009″ is a special category – rather then being nominated by fans, those in the running earned a spot by being exceptionally generous with free music this year. In an impressive (and much deserved) second #1 victory, the title goes to House of Heroes, with Esterlyn in second, and MercyMe taking rounding out the category in third.
Well, that’s it for this year – what are your thought on the results? I don’t know about you, but I’m sure looking forward to seeing what’s in store for 2010. Also, if you’d like to see the full results of the voting, feel free to check out this page for a full list of nominees & how they did.
Free Christmas House of Heroes
Wow, it seems as if AmazonMP3 loves giving us free music. You can currently get House of Heroes’ version of the song, ‘Silent Night’ from Amazon. Even though they’re an upbeat rock band, they still do a great version of ‘Silent Night’. I personally think it’s one of the better ones out there. Anyway, in case if you were wondering, the song also was just released in HoH’s The Christmas Classics EP, which you can also buy at Amazon with the $3.00 credit Matt had mentioned a few days ago. Hope you enjoy!
-‘Silent Night’ by House of Heroes
Oh, and if you have never heard of House of Heroes, you can still pick up their The End Is Not the End EP.
The Weekly Downloads: Oct. 6 – Oct. 12
Welcome to another week of free downloads from all of usual suspects – iTickets, NewReleaseTuesday, Tangle, and Gospel Music Channel – this week, there’s about twice as much music as normal, thanks to Gotee Records – but more on that in a bit.
First up this week, Tangle.com is featuring Mandisa’s song “He Is With You” on their homepage. It’s from Mandisa’s sophomore album Freedom, and the soundtrack to Mandisa’s second music video, which you can watch here
Also free this week is a brand new Christmas song from Chris Tomlin, courtesy of Gospel Music Channel. It’s called “Emmanuel (Hallowed Manger Ground)”, from Chris’s new album Glory in the Highest, which came out two days ago on Oct. 6. Incidentally, that’s the same release date as Downhere & Family Force 5’s Christmas albums. Anyway, it’s never to early to start collecting Christmas music, and this is a pretty good place to start.
-Christ Tomlin’s “Emmanuel (Hallowed Manger Ground)” on GMC-
Besides that, last week, Gospel Music Channel had pretty cool song that’s still available. It’s “It Is Your Grace”, by Andreas Sandlund. If the name sounds familiar, there’s a good reason – I was privileged to feature his song “We’re Miles Away” on TFCMB last January, and I’m really excited to see him getting some major attention. Definitely check this one out!
-Andreas Sandlund’s “It Is Your Grace” on GMC-
iTickets also has several free downloads this week, from COS, Relient K, and Paul Wright. Now, Relient K shouldn’t need much introduction, nor should Paul Wright, but COS doesn’t have the advantage of being famous, at least not yet. Basically, “Your Will” is a super-stripped down worship song, it’s barely acoustic, and actually sounds quite good. Worth checking out.
This post is getting long… and I’m only about half way. Seriously, this is a big week – and the biggest batch of downloads of from NewReleaseTuesday.com. They have a whopping 8 downloads this week, seven of whom are Gotee Records artists. The listing:
- Relient K – “The Lining Is Silver”
- B.Reith – “Mess”
- House of Heroes – “In The Valley of the Dying Sun”
- Abandon Kansas – “I Wonder If It’s Me”
- Ayeisha Woods – “Transparent”
- Stephanie Smith – “Not Afraid”
- I Am Terrified – “Falling On Everlasting”
And hanging on from last week, an excellent song from non-Gotee artist Matt Maher called “Alive Again”. I’ve already gotten all 8 songs free from other sites, but if you’re missing all or any, this is a great opportunity to download them, for free. 
-New Release Tuesday’s Free Music Page-
Augh! I just keep finding more music… ah, it’s hard to complain about that. You can also get three free songs from Michael W. Smith, Matt Maher (once again!), and Phil Stacey at this link:
And you can download three songs from Matt Papa, Jason Gray, and High Valley at OnCourse. Bottom right of the page, follow the instructions there.
And that wraps up the weekly downloads for this week, so till next week, this is Matt signing off.
John Reu, House of Heroes, and The Sonflowerz
iTicket’s has got some very cool downloads this week, from John Reuben, House of Heroes, and new artist The Sonflowerz. John Reuben’s track, “Do Not”, is a classic song from Reuben, and also the soundtrack to his first music video ever. More on that in a bit. Also featured is HoH’s jammin’ song “If” from their latest, The End Is Not The End, and The Sonflowerz’s “Edge of My Seat”. If you’re a fan of Point of Grace, or female-fronted folk-tinged pop in general, don’t miss these girls. They’re definitely a new artist to keep an eye on.
Now, the music video for “Do Not”. The Christian music video website VideoRocket is giving away a free copy of the music video for this week only. I have to say, “Do Not” is probably my favorite John Reuben video (unless you count the extented edition of “Doin”. That would be close.) Reuben’s got a nack for quirky videos with memorable characters, and “Do Not”’s disgruntled ice cream man is no exception. What follows is pure Reuben fun. Check it out!
-VideoRocket’s Free Video Download Page-
And while I’m talking about John Reuben, I might as well mention that I found him on Twitter a few days ago, so… If you ever want to see what Reuben is dippity dip doin’ (I know, I just couldn’t resist…) you can follow him here.
“Back To The Airwaves!”
Well, I’m back. I had an absolutely wonderful time last week. God answered so many prayers, it was amazing. It was well worth going offline for a while, even if I did miss a free Since October song on iTickets.
One of the reasons my week away has become more like a week and half away is because my poor laptop gave me the blue screen of death twice last Friday. That was the same laptop I started TFCMB on a couple of years ago, so I’m deeply sadden at it’s untimely (but not really unexpected) error messages. At present, to protect all my information from a total crash, I’m going to be using some other computers for posting and such.
Let me think, what else was I going to put in this post? Aha! Yes, I remember now. To make up for being gone so long, I’m going to be featuring several full CD downloads in the next couple of days. At least two of them will probably be samplers, so you can go ahead and get excited about that. 
Also, I just checked my email this morning and I had an email from FreeHoH.com, about a new free acoustic song download. I haven’t seen the link on their website yet, so I think it might be just for mailing list members. So… if you signed up for FreeHoH.com, you need to check your email. If you didn’t, you should.
That said, thank you to everyone who prayed for me last week, and for not complaining about my absence. I really do appreciate it, and I shall try and make it up to you soon.
A Failure to Excommunicate
Gotee.com recently added 7 new free songs to their already impressive line-up of free songs. They’ve got two new, old House of Heroes songs (“Friday Night” and “Serial Sleepers”), one Flynn Adams song (“Feel It Now”), two sweet old school Relient K tracks (“Failure to Excommunicate” & “I Am Understood?”), and two free Paul Wright songs (“Heaven” and “You’re Beautiful”).
I would highly, highly recommend the Paul Wright & Relient K songs. I hadn’t heard much of Paul Wright before, and he really impressed me, both lyrically & musicially. And of course you can’t go wrong with Relient K, especially their older stuff. Trust me, it’s good.
You do need to sign-up to download the songs, but it’s easy enough to do. And, after that you can get all 7 songs, plus the 8 that were previously available. Enjoy!
Free EP From House of Heroes
When I first got this in an email this morning, I thought it was too good to be true, but nope, it’s legit. So get excited.
Amazon & House of Heroes have teamed up to release a free 3-song EP called The End Is Not The End EP. It’s got three songs from HoH’s latest CD…
- “If”
- “Lose Control”
- “In The Valley of The Dying Sun”
All three are great songs, and worthy additions to any Christian rock collection. Like I said, the EP is free, provided you have an Amazon account (see below the link if you don’t). Though it doesn’t say so on the site, I’m pretty sure this is up to promote the physical release of The End Is Not The End this week. It came out last year in digital-only form, but at long last, the actual, physical CD comes out this week. Exciting stuff. Anyway, enjoy!
-The End Is Not The End on Amazon.com-
For those not on Amazon Mp3 (specifically those of you living anywhere but the US) there’s still a way to get 2/3rds of the songs. You can download “If” from AbsolutePunk (information on this post) and “In The Valley of The Dying Sun” from Gotee.com. Information on that here. That leaves just “Lose Control”, which, unfortunately, I can’t help you with. Still, those two songs should tide you off until you can by the CD.
James’ Top 10 Downloads Of 2008
So, it was hard, but I narrowed down my top 10 list. And I only included three of my own posts, unlike Matt, who listed ten of his. Nevermind the fact that I joined him late in the year and only posted one day a week for not even every week til the end of the year…
Anyway, I sorted through the 300+ posts and probably 1000+ songs and ended up with this list of favorites:
10: Tie Between Children 18:3, Children 18:3, and Children 18:3 – So, Matt had a tie at 10th, so I thought it was only fair that I do the same. Children 18:3 was a band I found near the beginning of the year and was the first band that year to show me that pop-punk could be something that I could enjoy if it was done right.
9: Sides of the North – This small band was one of Christian music’s best kept secrets, which is a shame because they were awesome. Six songs by them is definitely an awesome post and worthy of placing in the top 10.
8: Summer Slam Volume 2 – Indie Vision Music has been one of the top sources of free Christian music, and SSV2 is their biggest and best. It gave me free songs from Project 86, Stavesacre, Ocean is Theory, The Dark Romantics, and introduced me to a bunch of smaller bands, especially The Human Flight Committee, with their song “She’s A Car Destroyer.”
7: The Devil Wears Prada – I became a fan of TDWP when I saw them at Warped Tour (and crowdsurfed to them). So I was very excited when I found a free sampler containing “Hey John, What’s Your Name Again?”
6: The Awkward Romance – The Awkward Romance was already my favorite local band before they came out with this CD, This Song Is Writing Me, but this CD caught me by surprise by how well produced it was. And the fact that they gave it away for free was an even bigger surprise.
5: Capital Lights – What Children 18:3 started was reinforced by the introduction to my of Capital Lights. And what we have here with “Can I Get An Amen” is Capital Lights at their best.
4: Stavesacre – Stavesacre is a band that I’d heard of a for a while but never listened to for the longest time. However, once I saw on here that they had a song (“It’s Beautiful Once You’re Out There”) up for download, I decided to give them a listen. I was far from disappointed, and I must say that I have found one of my new favorite bands.
3: mewithoutYou – As I’ve mentioned before, mewithoutYou is my favorite band. The only reason that this isn’t listed higher is that I already had the song long before I found the download that I featured. Still, they are my favorite band.
2: Tooth & Nail Fuel Sampler – Any Tooth & Nail sampler is gonna have awesome songs on it, but this one caught me by surprise with the artists that I enjoyed the most on it. Now, I already had the great songs from Children 18:3 and Showbread, but this sampler introduced me to Capital Lights and Oh, Sleeper plus it gave me amazing songs from Sever Your Ties and my personal favorite on the whole sampler, “Abracadavers” by The Classic Crime, which was a band I had long ago written off.
1: House of Heroes – Sure, I found it before I found this site, but the three free songs, in combination with the ones they streamed on myspace, held me over until their new CD finally came out in September. “In The Valley Of The Dying Son” has been in my collection since March and has yet to ever at any point get old, and neither have any of the others, which is why this places as the number one download of the 2008.
Honorary Mentions:
Everyday Joe’s – This sampler was no longer available by the time that I found this site, but anything that includes Listener Project is awesome.
Christmas Day 12 – Matt put a ton of work into this post, listing something like 2 dozen artists with Christmas songs up for download.
Matt’s Top 10 Favorite Posts of 2008
Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that it’s 2009 already. Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel much different from 2008 so far. Hmm. Anyway, James came up with a great idea for the end of the year. We’re both going to go through last years posts and pick our top ten. There was a ton of great music last year, and I had trouble narrowing it down to just 10, but I finally succeeded. Without further ado, my list:
10. Tie: Jonathon Steingard’s Atlantis EP & Fighting the Fall- I just couldn’t decide on this. The Atlantis EP is an excellent & personal solo debut from Hawk Nelson’s guitarist Jonathon Steingard that I really like. On the other hand, Fighting the Fall is a talented independant emo/screamo band with two good free songs. Both Atlantis & the FtF downloads are still available.
9. Run Kid Run “One In A Million” and Sanctus Real “Turn On The Lights” – “Turn On The Lights” is a great song, but the real reason I particularly love this post was “One In A Million”. It’s an awesome, catchy song that I can’t get enough of. Sadly, both songs are no longer available.
8. Leeland “Opposite Way” – Not only do I like the song, but I also really like what Leeland did by asking fans to share their stories about “going the opposite way”. This one is still available, if you’d like to check it out.
7. The Devil Wears Prada, Burden of a Day, Before Their Eyes – It’s hard to top The Devil Wears Prada, and when you add in two promising new bands like Burden of a Day (with an excusive demo, I might add) and Before Their Eyes, it’s probably going to be good. Still available.
6. The Tooth & Nail Fuel Sampler – I shouldn’t really need to explain this one much. Something like 25 free songs from the best Tooth & Nail Records bands. My favorites are Run Kid Run, Capital Lights, and The Becoming. By the looks of it, this sampler is still available too.
5. House of Heroes’ FreeHoH .com – Three awesome songs from The End Is Not The End, House of Heroes’ latest that could very well be the best CD of the year. Really, really good. As far as I can tell the songs are still available.
4. Staple “Dictatorship vs. Democracy” – I don’t know what it is about this song, but I just don’t get tired of it. This one has been on my mp3 player all year, and I still love it. This one is also still available.
3. Number One Gun – Pure alternative rock goodness. I don’t think I can begin to count how many times I’ve listened to these three songs this year. Still available, and highly recommended.
2. Three Cord Wonder – Even though they may not have been the next big thing musically, I think Three Cord Wonder was one of the coolest Christian bands I featured this year. I listen to a lot of music, and I rarely ever get to hear such a unashamedly Christian band. Sure, the lyrics are simple, but they’re true, and give glory to God. That’s a band I can look up to.
1. Esterlyn – I’d never heard of the group Esterlyn before 2008, and now, they’re one of my top artists. In fact, I liked their music enough to write up a whole spotlight on them. Extremely good.
There you have it, the year 2008 in free Christian music as seen by Matt. Now, even though those were my favorite free music posts, there were a couple of others that deserve mention simply because they were particularly fun, random, and unusual. That list includeds No More Gloom, the free CD Everyday Joe’s Coffee House (in Fort Collins, Colorado) released, featuring different songs by artists who’ve played there, which was really random. And then there’s the BarlowGirl song on the German site that required step-by-step instructions. That was a lot of fun to write up. And, last but not least, the mind-blowing weird song titles post. That was so much fun to research and write for, and totally random too.
That’s why I decided to start stockpiling song titles for version 2, which you can look for sometime soon. Like last time, I’d love it if everyone could contribute their favorite weird-and-wacky titles. Leave a comment, or shot me an email at freechristianmusicblog@gmail.com. Thank everyone for reading, and happy New Year!
Oh, and I just remembered, I was going to ask what your favorite posts from 2008 were. Do you agree with me, or have your own top pick?
Free Music from Gotee Records
I’ve got some sweet downloads today from a whole slew of artists on Gotee Records. Gotee.com just got a whole new free download section of the site. They actually added the new features a week or two ago, but because of technical issues, no one was able to sign in to download the songs.
Thankfully, they were able to find and fix the problem and now, all 8 downloads should work just fine. They actually have one download from every artist on Gotee (Relient K, I Am Terrified, House of Heroes, John Reuben, etc) except for Flynn Adam, who just signed.
The cool part is that you can use the same email and password from FreeGotee.com on Gotee.com – very convient. Plus, it’s free music, and almost all of it is extremely good. What do you have to lose?
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