My Top 40 Albums - #39

#39
Steven Curtis Chapman - "Heaven in the Real World"

Year: 1994
Label: Sparrow
Favorite songs: Treasure of You, Facts are Facts, Dancing with the Dinosaur, Burn the Ships, The Mountain, Heaven in the Real World
Lyric sample: "As sure as there's a law of gravity / That says what goes up must come down / This is the ultimate reality / That God is, God loves, and God can be found"

It's worthless to lyric-sample Steven Curtis Chapman. Very rarely does one line stand out as being particularly brilliant, but everything he does is grounded. This was perhaps the first album that I really listened to and loved. Up to this point, I just listened to whatever my mom played in the car or around the house. I knew who Steve Green was, and Amy Grant, and then I remember my mom playing The Great Adventure a lot. Then when Heaven in the Real World came out, I actually started remembering and singing the songs. I liked "King of the Jungle" a lot. So nostalgia has a bit to do with the high placement of this record, but I feel it has enough inherent worth to maintain it.

Heaven in the Real World is the follow-up to The Great Adventure. If that record put Steven on the map, Heaven in the Real World established him as a force to be reckoned with, a high-roller in the world of Contemporary Christian Music, if you will. But there's no luck about it. Steven's success isn't in the dice - it's in his fantastic music. Chapman is a class guitarist and songwriter, and on this effort he combines his musical influences seamlessly into a colorful, rousing song list. Lyrically and musically, Heaven is an uplifting album full of positive pop-rock anthems. It would be far too politically correct to call it socially conscious, but in a way it is also accurate. The title track addresses the despair and decay in the world, but doesn't hesitate to celebrate God's remedy. "Dancing with the Dinosaur" calls us to stand on the truth of God's Word that is often deemed outdated (or extinct) in our modern world. "Facts or Facts,"  probably the finest rock tune on the album, also deals with this theme, though it is more concerned with simply laying out the trues we know about life and God.

The energy of jam tunes like "Treasure of You" (is he trying to rap again?) gives way to a number of tender ballads that Steven fans should expect. Among them "Still Listening," "Heartbeat of Heaven," and the especially quiet "Miracle of Mercy."  "Remember Your Chains" is a sober admonition to recall the bondage we were once in to sin, and rejoice in our freedom in Christ. To me the standout is "The Mountain," a soothing guitar piece that boils over to a rock bridge before descending again. Affirming and encouraging, Heaven in the Real World is perhaps Steven's most purely fun record. Yet it's not style over substance, it's only that the former carries the latter. One of the milestone records of the 90's, and one that is essential for the CCM aficionado. Facts are facts.