The Free Christian Music Blog

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?

Tags: BarlowGirl, Before Their Eyes, Burden of a Day, Capital Lights, Esterlyn, Fighting The Fall, House of Heroes, Jonathon Steingard, Leeland, Number One Gun, Run Kid Run, Sanctus Real, Staple, The Becoming, The Devil Wears Prada, Three Cord Wonder

Required Listening

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how sad it was that people who are just getting into free music are missing some of the best songs. Take Nevertheless for example. They were my nineth post!

For that reason, I just added a small list of downloads to the sidebar. They are some of my personal favorites that I wanted to draw attention to. Right now, I’m not sure how long I’ll have it up – I’m not sure I like the look of it. But it’s there for now, and the music is good. Well worth checking out!

Tags: Esterlyn, Krystal Meyers, Mourning September, Nevertheless, Staple, Subseven

Free Music From Staple

Free music today from the Christian hardcore-metal band Staple. They have one free song available on their Purevolume. It’s called “Dictatorship vs. Democracy” (sometimes “DvD”). It’s an awesome song. I can’t get enough. Rock on!

Tags: Staple