Kirk Franklin - Kirk Franklin Presents: Songs For The Storm 1 (CD)

All Music Guide

It took gospel superstar Kirk Franklin 15 years in music and ministry to see the release of his first career retrospective, Songs for the Storm, Vol. 1. For someone like Franklin whose hits, sales, awards, and media coverage are more befitting an RB celebrity than a selfproclaimed church boy that's certainly a long time. That lapse becomes an eternity if you consider the scattered array of groups, choirs, and offshoots the bestselling gospel entertainer has recorded with over the years, which have made it all the more imperative to have a comprehensive, onestop source for all things Franklin. This includes his breakout material with the Family and God's Property, shortlived experiments like 1NC, and his own solo days beginning with 2002's The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin. All of these periods are covered in Songs for the Storm except his charttopping Hero, notoriously excluded from the proceedings but don't think of it as a greatesthits package. Zomba instead marketed the album as a "c...ollection of songs that brought us through and carry us over," which, in gospel speak, means the anthology focuses largely on Franklin's biggest anthems and ballads, plus one or two upbeat pacesetters. Nothing wrong with drawing attention to the epics in fact, some of Franklin's best moments occur during heartfelt, earnest gospel balladry. But these in no way represent the full scope of Franklin's multidimensional persona, which spans dancepop, hiphop, urban gospel, classic RB, and everything in between. That means fans looking for definitive Franklin staples such as "Stomp," "Revolution," "He Reigns," and "Looking for You" will have to go to the source recordings: four different albums in all. As it stands, though, Songs for the Storm is Franklin at his most reverent emotive enough for his more traditional audiences, no doubt, but far from the vivacious, tireless ring leader his younger fan base knows him to be. - Andree Farias, All Music Guide Read more Less