The Petra Zone

How about your least favorite individual studio-recorded Petra songs? I personally never understood why the following were included on any published studio album...

I can be friends with you
friends
all over me
hand on my heart


Have any of the rest of you ever wondered about these specific songs? Do you guys think these were included as "just for fun" songs that the band enjoyed among themselves for some reason, or did marketers really believe fans would like them? Anyone know the background? Or is it just my individual taste at work here?

I hope I don't sound demeaning here - I don't intend to be at all. I love Petra and all the great music they created over the years.

andy

It's all individual taste and era of recording. "All Over Me" is one of my favorite bluesy type songs that they did, and bluesy stuff was somewhat popular at the time, think Killing My Old Man the ballad. "Hand on My Heart" was supposedly a song for Smokey Robinson and if so, I can let that one slide. Friends sucked no matter what

I will say this, most of the ones I pick are musical taste reviews, not lyric dislikes.

My worst five:

Friends (All in the Family of God) -sucked the blue whale.
Holy Ghost Power (Disco Fever) - If you took Tom Hanks' career as a parallel, this is like the movie Joe vs. the Volcano. You can forgive them for one bad one
Falling Up - Love the lyrics. Their version of Blind Melon's sound, similar sounding to "No Rain". IMO, sucked.
Judas Kiss (DT version). Ruined song
Beyond Belief (DT version). I couldn't believe it either.

Honorable Mention (not enough room for these but they equally suck with the other DT songs above):

Dance (DT version) - sounded like a jr. high dance if you know what I mean.
Creed (DT version) - bland version of awesome song.
He Came, He Saw (DT Version) - same as Creed.

All of Double Take!

Falling up is one of my top tunes! Funny how that works. Musically speaking I don't like :
Lucas Mgraw (or whatever it is called.
Clean- any version, but partly because I think the lyrics are silly
Midnight Oil
Strong Convictions, pretty much all of WUC with a couple BIG exceptions- Just Reach Out, Sleeping Giant are awesome.

zman7720000 wrote:All of Double Take!

Ditto, plus all albums before Never Say Die, Back To The Street (if there were every a transition album that was a huge let down to me personally, that was it), Revival, and then the following songs:

"Hand On My Heart"
When I heard it, I believe my response was something like, "Ohhhh Myyyyy Gaaaaaawd! What kind of crap is this!?" That song should have been a rocker. Maybe, if I get some time, I will rework that one. That was a Schlitt solo record song, not a Petra tune.

"Friends"
Holy cow. What a stylistic train wreck. The whole album sounds like crap, but now I know why. They did it without any money on John L's sequencer. So, it is what it is.

Funny how styles differ, isn't it? Personally, I love Hand on my Heart (used to be the song I'd listen to falling asleep) and Friends (used to jump on the couch to that one, when I was WAAAY younger)

Personally, I'd say everything off Double Take I don't like, except maybe The Longing. That one was okay. Also, Occupy never did much for me. Sally, I just found extremely embarrassing. Then, A Matter of Time, God Fixation (song, not album), Set for Life, and Shadow of a Doubt.

Oh, and as for the Beat the System album, seven out of the ten songs were played on CITAS, and in my opinion are better on CITAS. I still like the other three songs on BTS though.

Friends (All in the Family of God). total flow-kill. The rest of the album is stunning.

Hollow Eyes. Suffers the worst from the '80s dated sound of the BTS album. Plus, it's just depressing. (Yes, I know why it was recorded. Doesn't make it any more tolerable.) Homeless Few is a MUCH better song for the same idea.

Double Take. The original cuts are a bit better; the remakes....eeek.

I love the BTTS album. The whole sound flipped when John joined the band, and late '80s/early '90s Petra is my fave era of Petra.

I can honestly say, all of Petra's songs are my favorite.
How can All Over Me be in anyone's worst song list???

FOr some reason I can forgive Friends and Hand on my Heart as they were stylistic novelties.

I won’t make a worst song list. Instead I will name a song from the same album that I think is worse than the one you listed. Just for the sake of disagreement.

I can be friends with you –> My least favorite on the album would be the title song: Never say die.
Friends –> It’s a kind of 50’s parody song that I quite enjoy. My least favorite is “Jesus, Jesus Glorious one”.
All over me –> I think I agree there. Or possible “Let everything that hath breath”.
Hand on my heart –> Who’s on the Lord’s side!

Holy Ghost Power -> Sally
Falling Up -> God Fixation.

Lucas Mcgraw -> I'm not ashamed.
Clean -> Hollow Eyes
Midnight Oil -> Sleeping Giant
Strong Convictions -> Sleeping Giant

Pretty strange that the songs people list as their least favorites don't match at all (almost) with the bottom 5 albums in the other thread!

Matt RJ....forget the earth. It was here before we evolved on it, and it will be here after we are gone.

BTW, did you guys watch that show on Discovery where scientists model what would happen to earth if man were to be completely wiped out? They said that it would take about 2000 years for the earth to have no visible signs of mans existence.

Yeah, I have to agree with "Friends (All in the Family of God)" and "Hand on My Heart." They totally mess up albums that are otherwise among my favorites.

On the earlier albums, "Parting Thought" doesn't work for me, and neither does "Ask Him In." It took a couple of albums for Petra to get the hang of writing ballads that weren't deadly boring, and Bob Hartman singing doesn't help either.

Tied for fifth-worst would be sort of a list of songs that are just blah for me. I don't actively dislike him like the first two or skip them in my iTunes, like the next two, but these just seem mediocre and forgettable: "Godpleaser," "I Can Be Friends With You," most of the last half of No Doubt, "God Fixation," the two original songs on Double Take (I don't count remakes in my ranking) and most of Revival (although none of those was written by Petra).

I have to agree with "Hand on my Heart" being among the worst, but what's even worse was the dance routine that was part of the Unseen Power tour to go along with this song. Does anyone remember this? The whole band, including Louie, stood near the front of the stage with sparkly jackets and danced to this song. This was my first Petra concert, which I really enjoyed in spite of this exception!

Just listened to Revival and the more I listen to it, the more it seems like Petra didn't really make that record. John's vocals and some of Bob's solos are the only Petra signature things, but the rest is all Jason Halbert and Dwayne Larring. Of course in the past JDB and the Elefante's made Petra's sound, but on this album Halbert and Larring lost Petra's sound. I think the only genuine Petra sounding song on this album might be Meet With Me and to me that is even one of the sillier songs on the albums. So even though these guys are full of respect for Petra on the Revival DVD, it seems to me like they totally didn't understand and/or honour Petra's legacy by creating such an album where they let John do guest vocals and Bob play a few guitar parts that were completely hidden in the mix. And I know that this is one of the few albums where Louie's drumming actually ended up in the final mix, but it feels like it's been buried in programming. And when I listened to it yesterday, what really killed the album for me were the layered vocals. How many times can John back up his own vocals? Sometimes there's a whole choir of Johns. Ridiculous... Oh well, Send Revival still ranks as one of my all time favourite praise songs by Petra. To me that song outshines the whole album, but that's more in spite of than because of the production.