My Top 10 worship albums of the late 90s / early 2000s

Let’s dive straight in.

Here, I’m going for a hybrid of the most personal worship albums to me in the late 90s / early 2000s, but also the ones I felt were most significant to the church in the UK and beyond.

Worship music in churches was evolving heavily in the early 90s and really hit both a new anointing and a heightened level of musicianship it hadn’t occupied before, outside gospel music that is. Together this gave the emerging church in the 90s something new, exciting and pioneering to feast on.

I could write a whole book on the explosion of sounds, styles and lyrics that erupted in this time period, particularly in the UK. God was uncapping something special and you could feel it. Very normal men and women, and in many cases kids people from youth groups or their humble youth leaders were writing and recording songs that were about to spread around the globe.

All of that is probably for another time, right now let’s just get to the list. This is meant to be a fun blog after all.

Let me know if you agree, disagree or feel I missed a real obvious one…

Come Now is the Time - Vineyard

This was my FIRST EVER worship album. I can still remember putting the disc in my Alba CD player, hearing those words “Sing to the Lord a new song”, followed by that flute setting the tone, a chugging guitar and then, “Come now is the time to worship…”.

Goosebumps.

There is pure nostalgia with this album for me, I can’t deny the personal impact this had, but listening back to it now I hear real heart and the passion in each track, that hasn’t been lost even if the style now seems old fashioned. The songs are all here, “Lord reign in me”, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate”, “All who are thirsty”….we sung our heart out on these songs for years. Yes some of the saxophone and oboe solos feel a little cheesy now, but there’s nothing here that would feel out of place in a modern day worship set.

For Sunday church worship in the UK this album was like a crack in the door into a whole new and unexplored room. We sung these songs and peaked in through the gap with excitement.

In my opinion this album was a catalyst for the Vineyard worship movement and for many incredible albums that followed in the years to come.

Hungry - Vineyard

Speaking of which…Hungry.

This is a special album. If ‘Come now is the Time’ was a crack in the door to something new, then ‘Hungry’ was the door flung wide open.

I remember being at church one Sunday when the worship band introduced songs from this album. The rocking ‘Refuge’ (electric guitars and grunge in a worship song!?), the brooding ‘Hungry’, and intimate love songs like ‘Jesus be the centre’ and ‘Child of God’, which would stand out on any current worship album in this generation.

I remember feeling like the songs were a gift. We were going to be able to sing these, play these and worship with these for weeks to come. I was maybe 15 or so in the youth group at church, I didn’t know about discerning the Spirit‘S movement or anything like that, but when these songs were introduced one by one you could feel the room was changing as we sung.

I still put Hungry on now from time, that familiar drum introduction playing out still takes me back to that time, puts a smile on my face, and leads me back to Jesus.

Your Name’s Renown - Soul Survivor

This is a significant one for me, firstly and simply just due to the fact that for years as I was growing up Soul Survivors worship, messages and festivals ministered to me so much. Every year my friends and I in the youth band waited for the new Soul Survivor album, there wasn’t any doubt that there would be songs on it that we would love and be wanting to lead when it was our turn leading at the next Wednesday night youth meeting.

Among us budding worship leaders there was often a race to be the first one to lead the new song on the album at youth group or church. Maybe we thought that if we led the song first we could somehow claim responsibility or praise for its very existence?

Insert awkward emoji here.

The second reason this album is significant is that I was at this years festival and had my first experience of being at an event that was recorded. This was my first “I was there moment”.

Chris Tomlin and his songs were just bursting onto the scene, he brought so much energy and joy to the worship. Tim Hughes and Matt Redman were there, “Open the eyes of my heart” was at its height and “Light of the world” had just been introduced to the church and was wrecking everyone.

Like many of the albums on here, this one doesn’t have a bad song on it. It’s of it’s time sure, but it’s pure. The main meeting tent that everyone was meant to fit in that year had broken a couple of days before the festival began and so everyone was packed into the ‘Toolshed’ where usually all the retail, merch and charity stands were. We were all squashed together, there was no glitz or glam about it. Everything’s was raw and authentic, no flashyness or hype, it was all about exalting Jesus.

Have a listen to this album (again), you can hear it.

Glimpses of Glory - Soul Survivor

This album was basically my set list for about 2 years as a young worship leader.

‘Beautiful One’, ‘Consuming fire’, ‘Blessed be Your Name’, ‘Angus Dei’, ‘Sovereign Lord’, ‘Befriended’. These were the songs of my teenage years pursuing Jesus. As I found my way back into the church, but this time into the presence of God for the first time, the words of these songs gave me my theology and the language to put to that new relationship.

He was a fire. Things weren’t always easy but we worship anyway, He is Lord and God but also freind.

This album stands out for me though however for its closing track ‘God of all Comfort’. This was if memory serves, the first recorded spontaneous worship I’d heard on an album. Now I know that many records had done it before that, and in the UK Delirious? (more on them later) had released “Live and in the Can” which was full of spontaneous moments. This was ‘my first’ though.

I was doing my gap year at the time, living in a shared house with two other youth workers and I remember one of them, Matt, spent an entire day in the living room preparing for the week end’s sessions with “God of all Comfort’ on constant repeat. You could feel the peace and presence of God in our house that day. I hadn’t experienced that kind of feeling outside a church meeting up to that point in my life.

This was worship off the map, away from the set list, something I just hadn’t experienced before on a recording. And as John Arnott says, it turns out you can record the anointing, you can listen or watch back and still feel what God was doing in that moment. What a gift those Soul Survivor festivals were to the church in the UK.

Worship - Michael W. Smith

I think this was the first non-UK worship album I bought. Again, there is not a single weak song, arrangement or fluffy make up the numbers track on this album or on it’s follow up ‘Worship Again’ (the blue one!).

I remember watching the recording of the album on VHS. I’d never seen a stadium of people worshipping like that before. The songs were big, the arrangements huge, and then…suddenly it’s just Micheal on a simple piano that his kids painted for him singing “There is none like you…” with no hype or showmanship.

Just one guy leading thousands in a simple song of worship and prayer.

I learnt so many classics form this album (“Above all”, “Draw me close”, “Let it rain”, “Awesome God”). Some people are quite down on Micheal W Smith, perhaps seeing him as someone who takes less mainstream Christian worship and “CCMs” them, making it perhaps more palatable and less raw and edgy, more radio friendly perhaps?

Personally I’ve always seen him as a faithful worship leader, someone who is just using what influence they have to point to Jesus and serve the church.

This is an epic album of worship and glorifying God. It’s also very joyful, there’s a lot of enjoyment of God and being together in His presence here. This was a big influencer on me.

Cutting Edge 3 and 4 - Delirious?

Ok.

I could only go so long without mentioning the D:boys.

If you know me well you’ve probably been surprised that this entire lost hasn’t just been Delirious?’s entire discography.

There is an argument to be made that it should have been…

Despite that, this is the one. This is my desert island Delirious? disc, my favourite worship album (though technically it’s a compilation of CE 3 and CE Fore). There’s just something about these songs. They were humbly put together, recorded onto tapes and sold for a fiver put of the boot of a car after a youth worship night in a soggy field by the English coast. It’s all born from very humble but very passionate beginnings..

The prophetic proclamation of “Did you feel the mountains tremble” that is still being re-recorded and reproduced on worship records to this day. The living room stripped back feel of “Shaken up” and then drum and guitar heavy ‘I’m not ashamed’ sitting side by side, the intimate “I’ve searched for Gold” and the authentically broken “When all around has fallen” all just sweep over you. Each one with its own personal message. There’s nothing generic here.

“Did I tell you it was wine when really it was water?…I’ve tried to heal your bones, I’ve tried to tell your future…maybe I should just call up my friends, play some music…be myself”.

These words ring out from “All I want is You”. I’d never heard worship songs ask questions like these, make statements like these, have the guts to admit openly that in all our God pursuit we can still get things to misplaced.

I loved the heart of it. I loved the screaming guitars from Stu G, I loved Martin Smiths scale defying voice and crowd rallying cries.  They weren’t leading Sunday morning service songs, they were writing songs for a new generation. Some could and would be sung on a Sunday (“Shout to the north” anyone?), but some just couldn’t be, and that was OK. They needed to be at the heart of the youth group meeting, or blared out of tape deck on a car stereo. They wouldn’t be contained by the church walls and that was the point.

And then thinking it’s all done and over with, you get to the last track “Obsession”.

‘And my heart burns for you…’ rings out to gentle plucking…then to crashing symbols and by its end to soft linger strings. Each time cutting you to the core and you hold out your hands to Jesus knowing that it’s all He ever wanted from you.

This album started my love affair with Delirious?, but it’s not the only D: album on this list…

King of Fools - Delirious?

I think if you asked most Delirious? fans what the definitive delirious album was, I will put the money on this being top of the list.

Writing songs that can sit in a middle of a Venn diagram of worship, personal intimate experience of God, musically impressive and at home with the sound of the music charts more than the sound of the church band - all in one go - is not an easy thing to achieve.

This album gave our youth group “History maker” and What a freind”.

It gave the evangelists “Revival town”.

It gave those fans wanting to reach their music loving friends “Deeper”.

It gave the humbly broken “Sanctify”, “King or cripple” and “White ribbon day”.

It gave me my personal favourite song ever, “August 30th”, all about the day Martin’s car crash almost killed him and how God gave him another chance to step into the fullness of his life’s calling. Even now not too many weeks will pass in my life before I put that on and hear the words ‘thank you for the chance to live again I will run, always for you’.

If you want to feel the rawness of this album, go onto YouTube and search for “Delirious? live from the terraces”. Firstly it has the best version of August 30th and History maker you’ll ever hear. But also it has the presence of God and this cultural moment that was “Delirious?” for generation growing up in the 90s.

This album is full of expectancy in God, full of faith, full of honesty, full of hope. It’s a call to be part of a God driven movement not to celebrate a band.

Matt Redman - Intimacy

I couldn’t not put Matt Redman on this list. Right?!

For me this is an interesting album because I never actually opened it until I was probably in my 20s. The songs of this album though of the songs of my very first steps as a teenager into God’s presence.

We sang “The heart of worship”, “Let everything that has breath” and ”I am yours” on Wednesday nights squished in together in the living room, teenagers side-by-side learning how to worship i’m not feel awkward because the girl you fancy sitting opposite you. These were the first worship songs I ever sung outside of a church.

Matt is one of the most gifted worship leaders to ever resource and serve the church, I truly believe that. 20 years on from this album He is still writing songs that are being sung all over the globe in all manner of churches. This album is a showcase of a Singer songwriter starting to learn their craft, and more importantly than that, how to give glory to Jesus in a way that invites others alongside them so easily.

Matt has recently released a new album “Lamb of God”, and its a showcase of what started here. Simple, singable songs, deeply rooted in scripture while also drawing out the heart of the worshiper and brining them to a place where they can meet God. Thank you Matt.

Delirious? - Glo

Yeah I’m not done with Delirious? yet.

1999 saw the release of Glo, short for glory or glorious. This album is just a worship explosion of colour, sound and heart from start to finish.

A Gregorian monk choir introduces “God you are my God”, piecing guitar riffs bring in “God’s romance”, the beautiful and tender “What would I have done” written in the studio while the album was recorded offers a gentle break after the tour de force of the that is “Investigate”. At many Delirious? gigs the clocks just seemed to stop as Stu guitar rung out and Martin sung out “fly away!”.

“My Glorious”, “Everything”, “Awaken the dawn” complete with bagpipes, ‘Jesus blood’ with melancholic strings and plucked viola. This album just seemed to have every sonic expression you could think of.

Much more than that though, it was a both a return to the roots of and an extension of the bands spontaneous worship that stuck with me. Multiple songs had unplanned spontaneous sections where the music and creativity just flowed. I love the spontaneous moments more than the songs. As a worship leader, a pastor and most importantly a follower of Jesus these are the moments i want to live in. Following God and taking it where it goes.

I loved that worship could include both the planned and the creatively flowing unplanned. This album was an education and an encounter.

Robin Mark - Revival in Belfast

I had a youth worker from Northern Ireland growing up in my local C of E Church. He definitely impacted me a lot in my faith and I think he impacted all of us in the element of Irish culture he brought with him.

This album from the worship leader Robin Mark it’s just oozing with Celtic sound and imagery. Take that away, and you still have an album of good songs… But it is the “Irish-ness” of this album that makes it so special.

This is an album that needs its Celtic culture to sound like it does. I’m convinced that every nation has its own unique sound that can be represented through its music as worship to God. We are not called to all have the same style. I love Bethel and Hillsong, but I don’t believe it is God’s will for all churches across the globe to sound like Bethel and Hillsong!

“Days of Elijah” and “Jesus all for Jesus” really stand out for me on this album. These were huge songs for me in my days at youth group and when I first started leading worship. Years on the lyrics still hit the same spot (just check out Upperroom’s recent spontaneous version of ‘Days of Elijah’ on YouTube, flip it’s good.).

There are so many other moments on this album, but you won’t quickly forget the sound of a whole congregation singing out again and again with passion “Revive us… revive us…with Your fire’”.

I love Robin Mark’s poetic and biblical imagery, but also his ability to bring really down to earth lyrics in his worship songs. This album declares bible end tine prophecies AND gives words to finding the spirit of revival while you’re in a traffic jam.

I dare you to listen to this album and see how far you can get into it without a big old grin forming on your face.

What do you think?

There are some massive albums that I didn’t include, and someone that just fell out of my slightly vague timeframe (Matt Redman’s “Facedown” for example, Tim Hughes got left out, no Tomlin or Sonicflood).

But what do you think? Should Sonicflood have been on here? maybe DC Talk or Passion? Graham Kendrick was just before my time but his influence was huge on the UK worship scene…

Let me know what you think. These were the songs of my youth and journey into God. What we’re yours?