The Petra Zone

Well the Greg X Volz polls have ended, well kinda. Check out this weeks 2nd poll. Oh, and while your in there. Vote too.

With the recent ending of Petra's 33 year music ministry I thought it'd be kind of interesting to start a series of polls on favorite songs. Starting with their first album and working to the last. I figured I'd do an album each week.

So for those interested, get out your petra CD's and start listening. Do it now!! Stop watching that Farewell DVD. Listening is NOT optional!!! :Razz:

Voting for last weeks album "Petra Praise- The Rock Cries Out!" has completed.

And what did the rock say??.... Stop beating on me! God told you to just tap me.

Here are the results from the previous poll.

I Love The Lord [19]
Salvation Belongs To Our God [5]
Take Me In [3]
The Battle Belongs To The Lord [1]
I Will Sing Praise [1]
The King Of Glory Shall Come In [1]
We Exalt Thee [0]
I Will Call Upon The Lord [0]
Friends (All In The Family Of God) [-1] (what??????)
Hallowed Be Thy Name [0]
King Of Kings [0]
Jesus, Jesus, Glorious One [0]
No Weapon Formed Against Us [0]
I Will Celebrate / When The Spirit Of The Lord [0]

The obvious winner being "I Love The Lord". "Salvation Belongs To Our God" had a pretty decent running with 5, and "Take Me In" managed to eek out 3 votes. The rest? Well who cares.. Moving along.

Next Up? "Beyond Belief". Released in 1990. I think many agree that this is/was by far Petra's best album, and pretty much Petra at their peak. Afterall hindsight IS 20/20.

A few junkets.

1) This is the one that got Petra a Dove Award (or was that a grammy), thus removing them from the D&K and Petra most nominated/not won club. (or was it petra praise?). I need to watch the Farewell DVD again.

2) "Seen And Not Heard" uses a guitar riff similar the KISS song "Heaven's On Fire". Info courtesy of TomatoBob

3) This is when Petra got heavily involved with James Dobson. In fact they released a video cassete to go with this album called "Beyond Belief Video Album"

4) Bob wrote "Seen And Not Heard" out of concern of all the negative attention tele-evangalists were getting at the time.

5) This was the 2nd (out of two) Petra album to make it on the CCM list of top 100 christian albums.

phew. almost blew it there. clicked on post instead of update.

I decided to go with "Seen And Not Heard". To many "christians" out there that spend alot of time fingerpointing, arm chair quarterbacking, showing off their biblical knowledge, you name it. So that song means alot to me. It certainly doesn't hurt that the song rocks too!

If I was a ballad kinda guy I'd go with "Love". Not only is it based on my favorite verse, but Jesus also said (not an exact quote here) to "Love the Lord, with all thy heart, mind, and soul... and thy neighbor as thyself". In addition he said "If you love me you will obey my commandments". I lot of things are done out of love these days. Like love of money, love of things, love of self. But the kind of Love that song talks about has non of those qualities.... Great stuff.

Although Bob said this was not really a concept album. Alot of the songs can be connected together thru a concept oriented thought process.

Some good ones here folks. So get to voting!

Certainly one of their best albums, start to finish. Even today I can put it on, hit replay all and listen to the CD 3-4 times.

I have to go with the title track. Its almost an anthem feel with a mellow beginning but then crunching in the middle and then mellowing out toward the end, almost to allow the listener to reflect on what was said.

I have to be honest. It took me awhile to get what this song meant. Once it was explained, it was "Oh yea, that makes sense!".

Even on the farewell Tour, it was one of my favourites. It really plays out well in concert.

Boy this one is going to be tough because there are so many great songs on this album. Maybe Petra's most complete album of all time. I voted for "Creed" because it is very straight foward with what Petra believes. I got to see Petra 3 times on this tour they came through Houston twice and than I saw them in Dallas also.
When you listen to this album on your IPod you can really here the great guitar work and also the keyboards really shine on this album. I had a couple of close seconds as in Seen and Not Heard and I Am on The Rock, but really Creed just says it all for me.

my favorite's song from Beyond Believe am "I Is On The Rock." that one are mine favorite. but me had hard time of to pick an favourite, Their was two many choices.

Seen and Not Heard gets my vote. I don't care if the song sounded like a Kiss song or not. The song rocks. And I agree with what har har said about the message of the song. The whole album is a great one. Ranks up there in the top 3 for me.

"Prayer", I just vote "Prayer". Before heard (and understand) this album, I don't belive that chirstian music could'nt express a more deep message than "Pajarito canta t�, canta t�, canta para Dios (Traditional song for the sunday church school in M�xico)". I believe that the deeper message was for the sermon or the biblical class. But Petra came and change it all. Even my father like this album, well, not the music, the lyrics. He tell me a lot of times: "Play that record of you, when they sing about Pray. Well boy, you need pray more..."

Ancient times...

OK...
Friends cannot have gotten a -1 unless you counted my vote as a negative number...wassup wit dat?

Seen & Not Heard bears a similarity to "Heaven's On Fire!" off of Kiss' Animalyze album.

I still think Unseen Power is the better album but this is definitely a good one.

I would give friends two minus votes just make sure it remains in the reds.

This was the first Petra album I got and liked (I hate admitting that Petra Praise was actually my first-well it was my brother's so I can kind of fudge on that...). It still feels like going through a time machine to hear-every time I play it (and it has been frequently over the years) I feel 12 again. hehe I can remember almost overturning our couch when my best friend and I did a jump from the coffee table to the couch during Beyond Belief. It was so cool that my brothers took guitar lessons in Regina and my parents would leave me home alone to listen to Petra and wreck the furniture.

It's still fun to run through the first side of this album. The same friend and I used to say prayer should have been on the first side. Our reasoning was that then the A side would've been perfect, as we didn't particularly care for Love-all that noise. Although after hearing them play that pared down version of Love last year, I realized it is a much better song that the production of Beyond Belief made it out to be. I wish they had've played the whole thing.

In the end, I voted for Creed. It has become one of the most enduring of the songs on this album for me. If only they had've done a song about Athanasius and the Nicene Creed, it would have rounded that out so nicely.

Oh no!!! It's Bob the Tomato!!!

This album I believe is the pinnacle of Petras's career. An all time Christian rock classic. Even non-Petra fans own this record. This truly is all killer, no filler. Actually the first Petra song I ever heard was off this cd. It was Seen and Not Heard. I knew that that song sounds like KISS song Heavens on Fire. I Am on the Rock sounds like Def Leppards Pour Some Sugar On Me as well.
My vote is for Creed. This is my all time fave Petra song. There is just something about this song, especially live, that makes it stand out. I used to love the way John belted it out acapella live in the earlier days. Close seconds would be Underground, Whats in a Name, and Love. Petra could do a concert comprised of just songs off this cd and everyone would go home happy. There is no question why this was Petra's greatest accomplishment.

Oh, I could go on and on and on for years talking about Beyond Belief. It's my absolute favorite album of all time, of anyone. My favorite song is "Beyond Belief", with "I Am on the Rock" as a close second. This album is pure perfection. It's got the perfect mix of all the instruments, and the bgv's are excellent (not to mention John's singing, but that goes without saying). I'd have to say that "Underground", "Seen and Not Heard", and "Last Daze" are three of the most underrated songs ever. I call those three songs the "triple threat". LOL I SO wish that they had made a video for "Underground". I can just picture them rockin' out in that airplane hangar.....man, that would've been soooo cool!

Okay, we all know by now of the Kiss/Def Leppard similarities. I think that the bass line on "Last Daze" sounds an awful lot like the bass line on Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer". Anyone else think that?

What's not to love about this album?

I can't really vote on this one because I dont have this album. But I like "I am On the Rock."

Unseen Power and BB are the only 2 Petra records I dont have. Hopefully I'll be able to get them soon.

WOW!!

UP & BB are there biggest tours and part an era of high commercial success.

Depending on your taste, they do sound dated (80's arena rock). They were absoluetely terrific albums in thier time, being as well done as any secular album.

I know we have anti-Elefante members here, but I still like the production values on the albums they're associated with.

I vote for "Beyond Belief". I loved the new guitar intro Bob did on the song during the last couple of tours.

I like 70s and 80s. I Dont perticurlarly care for the 90s and today(unless it is from Petra or another one of my fav bands) thats when nu metal and grudge started coming in(I think). I dont care for that kinda rock. I dont really like the kinda music played by Kutless or Creed(bands such as those). Ill pop a kutless cd in once in a while, but I prefer Petra.

I think UP or BB will be my favorite record. Right now it is either the 1974 album or NOTW Im not sure. Im leaning more toward NOTW.