5. Grace Period

 BACKGROUND:

Grace Period is the ApologetiX's 8th album (counting Isn't Wasn't Ain't as the 1st album and Radical History Tour as the 2nd album), released in  August 2002. The album consists of 20 tracks. The original release date for the song parodied on this album span from 1962 to 2001.

TITLE:

A "grace period" is extra time given past the deadline to submit something without facing punishment. For humanity, that grace period is time the Father has given to accept the Son as Lord and Savior. While that alone explains the album title, lyricist and lead singer J. Jackson adds a period (no pun intended) after each word to give it new meaning. According to Ephesians 2:8-9 salvation comes by grace. Period. Again, another stunning example of using double meaning to give their album titles so much meaning.

CRITIQUE:

As mentioned above, the tracks on the album range from 1962 to 2001. To break that down further, of the 19 tracks, 5 come from the 60's, 7 come from the 70's, 2 come from the 80's, 1 comes from the 90s, and 5 comes from the 00's. Looking at this breakdown, it seems like Grace Period serves the book ends. To really enjoy this album, you have to like the oldest classic rock or the newest modern rock. More specifically, you'd have to like the newest of the newest modern rock because all 5 albums come form 2001. It doe kind of make sense, as the album came out August 2002, meaning 2002 modern rock hits would not be parodied in enough time. Still, 00's could have seen some representation from 2000. Despite the bookends of the decades representing a majority of the album, it still does span across 5 decades. Whatever music you grew up and made "your music," you have some representation here. Even the 90's, with just 1 song, has the quintessential 90's song.

Stronger than its variety in musical decade is Grace Period's variety in musical genre. Of course, a majority of this album finds its identity in classic and modern rock, but that does not mean the album consists solely of classic and modern rock. You desire some country? "The Devil Went Down to Jordan" (parody of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels Band) is for you. How about some disco? That would be "YHWH" (parody of "YMCA" by The Village People). Want your rock to be more like oldies rock 'n' roll? Then listen to "Love the Jews" (parody of "Love Me Do" by The Beatles). Want your rock to be more like grunge? Listen to "Smells Like Thirtysomething Spirit" (parody of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana). Like pop? Either "Drop of Lucifer" (parody of "Drops of Jupitar" by Train) or "Follow Me" (parody of "Follow Me" by Uncle Kracker) will fill that need. In terms of musical genre, Grace Period has the variety to attract many people.

As if Grace Period does not already have enough variety, the album gains more variety with the number of original artists represented. I would argue that Grace Period has 22 artists represented. How can that be, considering there is only 20 tracks on the album? This album has a couple tracks in which a future band would make their own cover of an older song, which made the song ever more popular than it already was. "I'm a Receiver" parodies "I'm a Believer," originally performed by the Monkees but made even more famous by Smash Mouth. "Smooth Grandmama" spoofs "Smooth Criminal," originally performed by Michael Jackson but made even more famous by Alien Art Farm. For both songs, ApologetiX decided their parody would sound more like the more famous cover, and I think they made the right decision both times. Anyway, the variety in original further increases the diversity of the fanbase for this album.

What separates Grace Period from other ApologetiX albums is their approach to teaching theology. I like to call Grace Period the metaphors album because many of its parodies teach a theology by centering it around an illustration, metaphor or symbol. "Lemonade" (parody of "Renegade" by Styx) uses the illustration of lemonade to explain how mankind no longer needs to face the punishment of sin because of what Jesus did on the cross. Just like lemonade turns a sour fruit into a sweet drink, so the Holy Spirit turn sour sinners into sweet Christians. "How You Rewind Me" (parody of "How Your Remind Me" by Nickelback) uses the imagery of rewinding a cassette (boy, that imagery age this song) to teach how God can start us fresh again. "Flurry" (parody of "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd) uses the metaphor of snow to teach things add up, whether that be our sin before God or the evidence that God exists. My only criticism of this parody is that the spoof's main symbol seems to fade away as the song progresses. Technically, "Baa! We're Lambs!" (parody of "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys) also fits in this metaphor category because it is indeed a metaphor, but to be fair, the Bible pretty much handed that metaphor to J. Jackson. I like this use of metaphors it's an easy and fresh way to teach theology.

I guess I need to give some criticism here to explain why this album is in 5th and not the top 4. First, yes, I will say it again, the number of tracks. Much better than the 18 of Jesus Christ Morningstar and 19 tracks of Spoofernatural, but ApologetiX have albums with 21 or 22 parodies on them. The longest song on this album is "Smells Like Thirtysomething Spirit" (parody of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana) comes the longest at just under 5 minutes. Surely the band could have squeezed 1 or 2 more spoofs into Grace Period. I also have to give a demerit to some of these songs for missed opportunities. "Corinthians" (parody of "In the End" by Linkin Park) just needed minor tweaking to turn it into a parody about how the book of Ecclesiastes teaches that everything is meaningless or that nothing really matters. "I'm a Receiver" (parody of "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees/Smash Mouth) just needed all the "she"s turned into "he"s to make it the perfect love song to God. Don't get me wrong, the spoofs J. created definitely work, but I feel there is so much lost opportunity to preserve the original by just giving it those minor tweaks to make it God-honoring. If I have to nitpick one parody specifically, it would have to "Don't Fear the People" (parody of "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult). Why is that beautiful solo missing?! Yes, I know people listen to "Don't Fear the People" for the Christian lyrics, and if they wanted to just listen for the guitar solo, they would listen to the original. Let's be honest, though, that guitar solo is one of the reason people like that song (besides the cowbell ;) ), so the song is severely missing without it. Seriously, this would have made it my favorite song on the album because of all the redemptive work it does on the lyrics (going from a song praising suicide to encouraging strength through persecution), but I just can't without that guitar solo. The good news is that ApologetiX re-recorded the parody with the guitar solo included :) . The bad news is the band chose a live re-recording : ( .

FAVORITE SONG: "The Devil Went Down to Jordan" (parody of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels Band) 

Now I am definitely not a fan for country music, but the ApologetiX made me a fan for 1 parody. "The Devil Went Down to Jordan" (parody of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels Band) is a classic example of the band retelling a Bible story. In this instance, it retells how Satan tempted Jesus in the desert for 40 days. Although not one of the bigger and grander redemptive songs, this spoof still does a good amount of redeeming. The devil in the original sounds cartoonish and comical. As lyricist and lead singer J. Jackson points out in his journal, from a biblical perspective, the Devil won in the original because he made Johnny more proud and more arrogant at the end than he was in the beginning. A Christian can't help but think that's what Satan is trying to do with the original song. He tries to make himself seem cartoonishly and comically silly and weak, so he can sneak in and make people's sin worse. On the contrary, this parody retells the Bible story accurately, and by doing so, teaches about Satan's tricky tempting schemes accurately. The instrumental music is fantastic here, too. To my knowledge, this is the first ApologetiX song with a fiddle. In fact, the band wanted to do this spoof sooner, as early as Jesus Christ Morningstar, but they could not, since they had no one who could play the fiddle. The aimed high to find a fiddle playing, aiming as high as Charlie Daniel himself! While Charlie declined due to his busy schedule, he recommended somebody who could do it, and that person did do it! Seriously, ApologetiX got the 2nd best fiddler to play fiddle for their parody. That's some serious clout. In the future, Bill Hubauer would learn how to play the song on fiddle, allowing the band to play it live. As of matter of fact, that's how I got to see it live in 2012. At this point in 2012, Bill Hubauer had retired from ApologetiX altogether (with the exception of helping a little bit in album producing) and Todd Waites had already filled in the role as the new keys player. For some reason I can't recall, Todd Waites could not make it to this concert, so Bill Hubauer filled in for him just this once. The second I received the news, I knew the band would perform "The Devil Went Down to Jordan" Sure enough, the band took advantage of Bill's guest appearance, and they played the spoof. This song is great song to listen to on the album and live in concert. Seriously, this is the one time I recommend listen to both the studio-recorded Grace Period and live Hits: The Road. As a matter off fact, I wouldn't mind if they re-record this song doing it in the dueling guitars manner that Steve Ouimette did for Guitar Hero 3.

FINAL VERDICT: 5th.

Grace Period continues ApolgetiX's attempt to expand its net wide to gather in as many new fans as possible. It represents 5 musical decades, at least 8 different music genres and 22 original artists. This diversity, however, can hurt unity. If a person only listens to a specific music decade, a specific music genre or specific music artists, that person will only take a couple or few songs off the album and never come back to it. It's a shame because the band found out that metaphors work wonders for teaching theology, and they use them to their full potential. On the flip of that, J. Jackson seemed to pass to easily on parodies that would have been closer to the original, thus truly redeeming the song. Perhaps I should give J. more props for not taking the easy way when it comes to spoofs. In the long run, these criticisms are nitpicking. While the nitpicking keeps this album from the top 4, it definitely serves its spot in the top 5.