Bigger Than Me (2017) - Le'Andria Johnson

Bigger Than Me is a breezy, light-hearted gospel album that clocks in at right around forty minutes and is close to a pure pleasure.  Johnson has the kind of soaring voice that this kind of music requires and the music backing is funky and soulful, a more modern, urban style than some black gospel.  The one track that goes full old school gospel, Change is Now, is the worst track on the record, a track featuring only Johnson and a painfully loud, overly intrusive organ.  The other nine songs are all very good in my opinion.  Standouts include Come Through, a melancholy prayer for strength; I Will Go, a quiet, beautiful dedication to purpose; & Holy Spirit, a cooking funk track with a groove to die for.  And, with a thirty-nine minute running time, there’s no opportunity to get tired or for the album to become repetitive.  What a phenomenal, funky, good-time for the soul.  4 stars.

tl;dr – short running time, great songs and a funky groove make this a gospel album that should win over even the cynics.  4 stars.

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Podcasts: iFanboy Comic Book Podcast!

iFanboy Comic Book Podcast

Studio: ifanboy.com

Category: Visual Arts

What Is It

A weekly exploration of the best comics of the week. 

Technical Details

The show drops a new episode every week with an occasional extra thrown in.  Episodes run forty-five minutes to an hour typically.  The iTunes archive goes back 300 episodes.  If you want episodes that go even farther back than that (the show is currently at more than 600 regular episodes), you can find almost the entire archive at the show’s official page.   

What About It

I read some comics, not a lot.  I’m not a snob, but I just rarely get around to comics.  But I still really like this podcast a lot.  The hosts have a lot of chemistry together and I like the format of the show.  Every episode one of the hosts chooses the Pick of the Week issue; there’s pretty in-depth discussion of that issue and then more generalized discussion of several more issues that released that week.  The show clearly takes a lot of homework and the hosts are at serious expert level in terms of their knowledge of the entire field.  I like that the show spans all genres; the pick of the week might be a Batman issue or it might be a new issue of The Flintstones or some indie property you’ve never even heard of.  I also really like the Special Edition episodes which is where the hosts discuss comic-book related movies and TV shows.  You’ll get an episode about the latest Marvel movie, sure, but they’ll also throw one out about the latest direct to DVD animated DC movie or maybe they’ll just go through an entire season of Gotham.  The content on this channel is top notch and they put out a lot of it.  Even if you’re not a super-fan of comics, you’ll find a lot to love about this show. 

3 ½ stars. 

Essential If

You’re actually well aware of the post-modern tone of the modern Flintstones comics.

Avoid Like the Plague If

You’ve reached peak-superhero. 

Best Starting Place

It might be fun to start with a movie review of one of the recent comic book movies, but that wouldn’t give you the real show format.  So, skim around and see if you find something. 

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