Blur

Album Review

At 15, the wide-eyed vocal powerhouse captivated a nationwide audience with her appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and became an instant star in the Contemporary Christian Music world with her hit 2000 Word Records debut Live For You. Since then, the multi-Dove Award nominated performer has quickly blossomed into a visionary artist whose focus on her career is surpassed only by her ever-growing commitment to Christ. She took more creative control on her equally successful 2002 follow-up, Kaleidoscope, co-writing five songs and incorporating a widening range of influences, from Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill to U2. On Blur, Rachael Lampa enters the next phase of her musical journey, the unique all-remix project. The purpose of this disc is all about her wish to move beyond her core adult contemporary audience and make music for the teenage crowd, which is of course comprised of her contemporaries. As such, there's pop, techno, funk, dance, and hip-hop refashionings of ten tracks from her first two discs, by top CCM mixers like Dan Muckala, Tedd T., and Csaba Petocz. Six of the tracks on Blur come from Kaleidoscope, and four from Live For You. Jeff Savage gives the standout hit "Savior Song" a trippy, industrial funk groove and blends an hypnotic, throbbing ambience with powerful hip-hop beats for "I'm All Yours." Fans of the original tracks may find the extra noise distracting but it's all for a good cause — this album enables Lampa to communicate her ever-inspiring messages to a whole new crowd.