Kristin Chenoweth
“As I Am”
Integrity Music
13 tracks @ 54:54:43

Kristin Chenoweth has an impressive track record on Broadway and a current role on TV’s “The West Wing.”

She says, “My goal, my purpose is to be the best Christian I can be in the non-Christian world. And what that does is make people take a look at their lives. I work with a lot of famous people who ask, ‘Why are you so happy all the time?’ Being able to respond to those people and talk about my faith is one of the reasons God has put me here.”

Any one who has read the late Bob Briner’s Roaring Lambs recognizes the importance of having Christians in secular fields such as mass entertainment. Now the entertainer releases the record that she “really wanted to do.”

The only problem is this record doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it country with the tracks “It Will Be Me,” “Abide in Me,”and “The Song Remembers When”? Adult contemporary with “Word of God Speaks”? Traditional hymns with “Upon This Rock”? This record is trying really hard to cross over somewhere. Perhaps the strategy is for the non-Christian songs to pull in the secular crowd and then expose them to some Christian themes on the other tracks.

I found the most interesting tracks to be the direct opposites in style. “Joyful Joyful,” based on Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” is one of the few tracks to exhibit the full range of Chenoweth’s wonderful soprano voice while “Power” is a crunchy rock song. However, while I did enjoy the arrangement of “Joyful Joyful,” the syncopated pattern of the lyrics during the first half of the song was annoying.

The CD ends with the stupid show tune (from what, I don’t know) “Taylor, the Latte Boy,” which, if I could burn it off of the CD I would.

- Rob S.