Carman - "The Standard"

Carman - The Standard
1993, Sparrow

1. Who's In the House?
2. Now's the Time
3. Great God
4. Everybody Praise the Lord
5. The River
6. Marchin' and Movin'
7. Sunday School Rock
8. Holdin' On
9. Lord, I Love You
10. America Again

The Standard sort of represents an "end of the age" if you will - at least in the respect of me liking Carman. This was the last album of his that I ever got into. I think I was growing out of him. After all, this album is full of the same schtick he'd been doing for years. We've got a hip-hop song ("Who's In the House"), a Carribean-flavored song ("Now's the Time"), a rock song, ("Great God"), etc, etc. There is a noticeable lack of real ballads on here (save "The River") for which I am thankful. Carman had also weathered a lot of the controversy that hit when Addicted To Jesus came out and was still a huge name in the Christian music scene. But yeah... I remember listening to the album after this, R.I.O.T., and it did not impress me. So I moved on, musically, but I still have fond memories of Carman and as a result The Standard is in my collection. I remember having to go to the bathroom during one of his concerts - it was just at the end. As I was coming back from the bathroom Carman's "secret service" guys made a little tunnel for him down the stars. I saw a sweaty Carman go backstage and completely ignore me! He was a mere four or five feet from me! Surprisingly, I was not that starstruck.

Now that all the warm fuzzies are out of the way I can rant about "America Again." It's a "story" song except there's no story. It's just Carman ranting about how America is on the path to hell and the solution is to get prayer back into schools. America should repent. Everything was better in the 50's. Blah, blah, blah. Want to know the truth? All the stuff that is happening today was happening then. The difference? NOBODY TALKED ABOUT ANYTHING! You want to know why chewing gum and talking were the two biggest problems in school? BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD EVER TALK ABOUT RAPE! Yes, everyone back then was very pious and religious and had very nice haircuts and wore hats, but they were still assholes that molested and raped and killed and treated their families like garbage. Here's a message to any old people reading this blog - YOUR TIME WAS CRAP, TOO. DEAL WITH IT. Okay, got that off my chest. On to our regularly scheduled blog...

Useless Fact: Margaret Becker provides some guest vocals on the country-esque song "Holdin' On."