Wednesday, November 23

Petra: Time To Say Die!

Today, the last Petra album has been released!

Youth Pastors of the world, UNITE!

Spend some time at The GUIDE TO PETRA, if you can handle it! All of today's content comes from there. Please leave comments about what other albums SHOULD have won the grammy in that respective year. Especially 2000. Double Take was a redo greatest hits album. Something else should have won FOR SURE.

2000
Grammy Award - Best Rock Gospel Album - Double Take

1994
Grammy Award - Best Rock Gospel Album - Wake-Up Call

1992
Grammy Award - Best Rock/Contemporary Gospel Album - Unseen Power

1990
Grammy Award - Best Rock/Contemporary Gospel Album - Beyond Belief

This album cover is the first of a number of album covers which include a variety of altered guitars doing things guitars don't normally do. This guitar, for example, is sailing the ocean shooting torpedoes at ships. All we see of the guitar is the neck and part of the back. The guitar is sailing toward us, and the torpedo it has just shot is in the air on the right-hand side of the picture with the words "NEVER SAY DIE" written on it. There are spouts of water in a line in front of the guitar (flak), and in the distance there is a burning ship (which may or may not be made of a guitar) and a plane which is going down in flames.

3 comments:

Scott Cheatham said...

Nahh..Petra rocks. They made possible what is happening today. To think that a group which has its roots as far back as 1974 is still making music (albeit with a new lineup sans Hartman) 31 years later is a testimony to the fact that many recognize these guys for who they were and the contribution they made to the Christian Rock scene. I enjoyed the past 18 years ago or so with Schlitt as the frontman but my best Petra years were with Greg X. Volz. Greg came to Petra after turning down the vocalist's gig for REO Speedwagon before Kevin Cronin. I have the first Petra albums all the way up to the 1986 live set (including the Video).

Youth pastors should Unite and thank these guys for their contribution. Of course, most of the Youth pastors wouldn't understand because they weren't even born when Rob Hartman started rocking!

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honors should be coming for these pioneers.

"Come and Join us" to say thanks! To the past and present members of Petra!

Matthew Westerholm said...

Now Scott, I'm with you about the early stuff. I still sing every single lyric to "Beat The System" at the top of my lungs. . .

Blessings,
<><

Anonymous said...

I'm no expert, but based on the theme of the artwork, I surmise that the flaming ship in the background did, in fact, "say die."

Likely it is made from instruments that are not as seaworthy as what appears to be a reddish-pink Gibson Les Paul (or, for that matter, lack the Les Paul's factory-standard torpedo deployment capabilities). Assuming, as can be implied from the picture, that seaworthiness is directly related to how hard an instrument rocks, one can imagine that this is perhaps an acoustic guitar, or the remnants of an instrument that would be played in a more traditional worship/rock the flock setting.