::ALBUM REVIEW::

A decade since its first compilation, the WOW Gospel series continues to move forward with trying to annually assemble the year’s best popular hits into two discs. And while it has been quite a challenge for the gospel series to match the essence and success of its major mainstream competition found in the Now That’s What I Call Music compilations (spearheaded by the same music corporation), its efforts still impress the hearts of gospel music lovers as the most cohesive collections ever assembled of yearly gospel hits. Zomba, jointly working with EMI Christian and Word Distribution, delivers the goods (and what-nots) on WOW Gospel 2008.

All the big stars of gospel make their way into the collection; most are not surprising. And some choices are quite essential - pairing big names with their big hits of 2007. Songs like Myron Butler’s “Stronger” (a perfect edgy follow-up to his blockbuster hit “Set Me Free”), J Moss' big R&B crossover dive with Anthony Hamilton on “I’m Not Perfect”, the Tri-City Singers’ farewell hit “Encourage Yourself” and the Clark Sisters’ “Blessed And Highly Favored” are well welcomed into the mix and are factual hits of the past year. Richard Smallwood’s “I’ll Trust You,” Israel & New Breed’s hip-hop flavored “With Long Life” and Patti LaBelle’s duet with Mary Mary on “Anything” also makes the list. But that is probably where WOW Gospel 2008 stops at living up to their standards as the album, for the most part, shifts into reverse by throwing in hits and misses from older album releases going back to 2005. Mary Mary’s “Yesterday,” clearly one of the group’s most requested and recent hits, shows up here - even though it is clear that it would have been best to place this on WOW Gospel 2007's disc. The same applies for Youthful Praise’s “Incredible God, Incredible Praise,” Kirk Franklin’s “Looking For You” and Byron Cage’s “Holy Holy Holy.” Another disturbing truth resting on WOW Gospel 2008, similar to their previous releases, is the odd decisions to grab the right artist but not the right songs. Marvin Sapp is present on the disc, but “Never Would Have Made It” didn’t make it. Byron Cage is also present, but “With All Of My Might” was out of sight. Dewayne Woods also showed up, but “Let Go, Let God” decided to “let go” of this collection. And another unfortunate factor resting on this double-disc collection is the fact that there are a number of good songs present but never were canonized as radio hits; ultimately exposing one of the crucial and cold repercussions now facing the gospel industry. Songs like Vanessa Bell Armstrong’s “Wait,” Karen Clark-Sheard’s newly-crafted “Be Blessed” and Smokie Norful’s heartfelt “Where Would I Be?” may have never seen the light of day if it had not been for this compilation. Now with sales in the music world at an all-time low, maybe radio will insert the songs from this collection into their playlists and bring these songs to life.

As mentioned numerous times about compilations, the biggest complaint of these efforts lie in the fact that they don’t live up to its expectations; drawing more criticisms with their fancy, big headlining titles like “greatest hits” and “best of.” Because gospel music is still a relatively small genre - in the vast world of music - it doesn’t make any sense to not compile at least half thirty big hits of gospel music into two discs, when mainstream can getaway with putting 20 out of 20 big hits into one disc like the Now That’s What I Call Music. It’s about time gospel consumers take note of this very sad and unfortunate trend. WOW Gospel 2008, in closing, is enjoyable listening but comes off to be disappointing and underwhelming because of its lack of the hits. That’s what the compilation was designed for.