The Petra Zone

Check this out.

The single God Only Knows will be digitally released on December 9th.

The complete album God Only Knows will be released digitally as well as on CD on February 3rd.

Sounds good!

Wow! Sounds awesome. Nice to see Greg getting back to doing some rock and roll. Now if we could just get John to do the same.

Preacherman777 wrote:Wow! Sounds awesome. Nice to see Greg getting back to doing some rock and roll. Now if we could just get John to do the same.

D'you mean John ain't rocking no more?

Though his last albuns' songs aren't so rock and roll thing, I hope he's just having some rest of the rock in his head and ears. Give him two years and he'll be recording the most rocking solo album ever

I would put money on that never happening.

There is one exception. If someone else had a project for him to sing on. But John has said it so many times. His age and the market's bias and discrimination is what drove him in his current direction.

Well, they said Coach Z didn't dance no more, and we all know that wasn't true.

We are talking music. Completely different.

Listen to CCM radio. Do you hear any artists that old doing rock? Nope.

Coach Z? who's that? (if that's part of pop culture --- yeah, I'll admit it -- I am CLUELESS)

CCM radio never did do rock... very few stations were full-out rock channels, and the ones that were pretty much went under. It happened here.

Yep. R&R had an article on that last year. Christian rock music was at an all time high, but stations didn't have the balls to put it out until it was too late and the major markets tanked. It only works in small towns.

Come on folks! Just take a look on sue d's atavar picture...
That big (and some may say "old"(not me)) face of John can't mean nothing but rock!
There are no efforts enough I can picture him as a "pop star" or whatever else than rock.

You are right... the name John Schlitt = ROCK.

BUT... it is a hard style to do in the Christian market when you do not have a label and are not the hot and hip youngster running around on stage with thousands of screaming girls calling your name.

Yes, that does happen in the Christian scene as well as the mainstream.

Rock & roll has always had that 'young' look to it... why is that? because of the energy involved?

You have some mainstream bands still going (like Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, etc.) but how many SOLOISTs can you name that are still doing rock?

Look at Rod Stewart -- he TOTALLY turned over a new leaf and reinvented himself. Now he has a huge following with the 50+ women's club.

John has an amazing rock voice... but if only a handful wants to hear rock -- how is that going to support you financially?

I will win the lottery...

John has an amazing rock voice... but if only a handful wants to hear rock -- how is that going to support you financially?

Then I would have to ask this question. Is he doing better with this pop album than he was doing with rock? I mean I'm really asking because I have no idea how well the new album is doing. I've heard the 2 Guys album didn't do so well, tho I never actually heard any hard numbers on what it sold either, but in reality, John has never done a post Petra solo rock album, so there may not actually be anything to compare it to.

I know I didn't buy his new album, because after hearing the clips, I knew it wasn't my thing. I would have to imagine there are probably more than a few other old Petra fans out there who felt the same way. So that tells me that the only way he can succeed with this is if he picks up new fans in the pop market. The question again becomes, is that happening? Is he finding success with this new formula?

I have always believed that Petra's undoing was that they started experimenting with trying to gain a new younger audience back in the early to mid 90's and stopped giving the die hard fans the kind of music they loved. In other words, they didn't stick with the musical style that brought them to the big dance. By the time they started responding to the fans out cry for harder music again, it was too late. So if John has moved away from harder music because he doesn't care to do it anymore, that's one thing, but if he's doing it in the hopes that it will improve his career, well, it's hard for me to imagine how he thinks that's going to work out for him on his own, when it didn't work for Petra.

I believe Petra's change in musical style wasn't necessarily the band's choice. Possibly it had to do with the record companies and the state of the 'industry'.

And the thing with the VE album: I don't believe they made that album to sell. It's just a fun thing they did. They chose established worship songs, but apparently there are too many recordings of these songs available and the songs are too established to really sell a huge number of CDs. I think it would have been nice to have had a II Guys DVD.
Oh, and maybe VE was just about finding a decent way to release the two missings tracks from Farewell. Probably Inpop didn't want to release these and Bob gave us the treat of releasing them with the bonus of a couple of worship songs Petra-style.

And I don't think John's ever gonna really rock again. If I wasn't already a loyal fan, I think John's new album wouldn't win me over. But I'm a European in my 20s and that's not the group of listeners John's aiming for. It sounds like it's aimed at Americans in their 40s and up, used to listening to MWS and Third Day.

It sounds like it's aimed at Americans in their 40s and up, used to listening to MWS and Third Day.

You may want to make that 50's and up. I'll be 40 next month and I have no interest in music like that. I also know plenty of other people my age and even older ain't ready for the rocking chair.

As for who's choice it was to change their style. I think it was the band's choice. I remember interviews with them back then where they basically said, music has changed and we need to catch up with the changes. This was especially true around the time of No Doubt. The simple fact is, the fans didn't leave Petra, Petra left their fans.