Second Decade 1993-2003

Personnel includes: Michael W. Smith (vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards); Amy Grant (vocals): Glenn Pearce (guitar); Anthony Sallee (bass); Steven Curtis Chapman, Avalon, Point Of Grace, The Nashville String Machine.
The self-explanatory title of the SECOND DECADE: 1993-2002 anthology neatly frames that period of Michael W. Smith's career. As the disc unfolds, we hear Smith's Christianity-oriented lyrics wrapped around charging rock, pulsating pop, and fragile guitar and piano ballads. One is immediately struck by how much these songs have in common with the contemporaneous work of Christian pop acts like Third Day or Jars of Clay. However, the modifier in the album's title serves to remind us that Smith was forging his faith-based pop-rock sound well in advance of any of those artists. In fact, he pretty much led the way for the Christian rock sound that swamped the charts and the airwaves in the 1990s and 2000s. So this second summing-up is no mere vanity project, but a chronicle of where this pack-leader went next after he blazed the trail so many others came to follow.