Forever Reign

Okay, first of all, our whole family loves the "Praise Baby" series. Collectively these albums contain wonderful peaceful versions of some of the best loved Worship & Praise music and Hymns available anywhere. They are a delight to listen to. For the past 5 years my family has listened to songs in this series nearly every morning as we get the house going for the day. The music is perfect to have on as a pleasant, worshipful background while making breakfast, packing lunches, getting dressed, and otherwise getting ready to head into the day. We received the first album as a gift many years ago since we had small children then, but once we listened we had to have the rest of the albums in the series and we've just kept on listening year-after-year. I highly recommend buying the whole series. We have the Praise Baby Collection on all the iPods in our home and play the songs on shuffle all the time. So, why am I disappointed in this album? Well, because it has only 3 new songs on it and the rest of the album is filled with songs from previous albums--and it almost appears that the publisher is trying to hide that fact and trick people into buying music they may already have. This is a kind of "buyer beware" tactic that to me is totally beneath this publisher and does not speak well of them. For the record, the three new songs are, "Forever Reign", "I Will Follow", and "The Greatness of Our God." These are all great songs, well done and make a nice addition to the collection. But it is frustrating that the publisher is not up front about the fact that the majority of this album is repeated material from other albums. It's so frustrating when you are a family on a budget, then you see something new that you are familiar with and just know love, so you buy the album (you're really buying the Praise Baby "brand") that is packaged like it's all new music, only to discover that you've paid the full price for an album that is mostly music you already have. It's just not being fair or honest with your customers. It's almost like saying, "Oh, you didn't know most of this album is almost entirely repeats? Well, tough luck on you. You've paid for it now." In theory, of course, I have no problem with the publisher releasing an album like this--other artists do it all the time. They call it a "Greatest Hits" album or "Best of…" compilation. Then they throw in a few new songs to keep things interesting. All this publisher would have to do is put a label on this album (or at least give an honest, accurate description of it) so that people don't buy it thinking they are getting an album of all new material. As of this writing, the publisher has not done that. I don't say any of these things to try and intentionally hurt the publisher or artists. I speak as a true fan of this music, these artists, this series and this publisher. I have bought (and will probably continue to buy) this music to give away to many friends. I guess I'm just highly disappointed in them for choosing to market such a great product with a less than honest tactic. Here's my real hope. I wish this music was so well loved and so popular that the publisher could afford to put out a new "Praise Baby" album every year (or twice a year!). I love the way these albums are performed and I wish I had 20 more of them. So, Provident Music (i.e. the publisher), please keep recording and releasing more music in this series. It's great stuff. But please also be honest with your customers when you do release something that is a compilation so they don't feel like you are trying to pull the wool over their eyes and trick them into paying for music they may already have. Thank you.