The Collection [LP Version] (CD - 1986)

Personnel: Amy Grant (background vocals); Dann Huff (guitar); David Gamson, Michael W. Smith, Robbie Buchanan, Shane Keister (keyboards); Steve Schaffer (Synclavier); Paul Leim (drums); Paulinho Da Costa (percussion); Chris Harris, Gary Chapman , Greg X. Volz, Mark Heimermann, Richard Page (background vocals).

Audio Mixers: Ed Goodreau; Sabrina Buchanek.

Photographer: Mark Tucker .

Depending on their tastes, record buyers are likely to have had one of two different reactions when they came upon the Amy Grant compilation Collection in its initial LP and cassette releases in the summer of 1986. General music fans, aware of Grant, if at all, only for her 1985 Top 40 pop hit "Find a Way," may have wondered why this one-hit wonder deserved a best-of so soon. But contemporary Christian music (CCM) fans would have been surprised that it wasn't a double album. After all, over the previous eight years, Grant had scored 22 hits on CCM radio according to CCM magazine, all but three of them in the Top Ten. Collection, originally containing only ten tracks with a running time under 40 minutes (standard for the LP era), attempted to address both these constituencies, succeeding with one more than the other. For the general pop fan, it demonstrated that there was more where "Find a Way" came from. The album largely eschewed material from Grant's first five albums, including only "Father's Eyes" from 1979's My Father's Eyes. It was dominated by songs from Grant's mature works Age to Age (1982), Straight Ahead (1984), and Unguarded (1985), with one song from A Christmas Album (1983). Those songs had all been CCM hits, but a longtime fan must have felt that they told only part of the story. And Collection looked forward as well. Each side of the LP led off with a new song, "Stay for Awhile" on the first side and "Love Can Do" on the second. Neither song had religious content (though both became CCM hits); both were very much in the synth pop style of Grant's recent music. So, for the most part, Collection satisfied Grant's new fan base while tossing a bone to the faithful. [The original cassette version added five tracks, only one of which, "All I Ever Have to Be," came from Grant's early recordings. A 1990 CD reissue added two more early tracks, giving the album better balance.] ~ William Ruhlmann

Amy Grant's first compilation, Collection, was released initially as both a ten-track LP and as a 15-track cassette. The LP version focused primarily on her recent and then-present work; only one of its songs, "Father's Eyes," came from before 1982's breakthrough album Age to Age, and Collection contained two brand-new songs, "Stay for Awhile" and "Love Can Do," both of which looked forward to Grant's secular pop career. The cassette version better addressed the interests of Grant's longtime fans as well as the large fan base she began to acquire in the mid-'80s, but only slightly. "Father's Eyes" was still the only track from 1979's My Father's Eyes. But "All I Ever Have to Be" was culled from 1980's Never Alone. The other additions were two more from Age to Age, "In a Little While" and "I Have Decided"; the Grammy-winning single "Ageless Medley"; and one more from 1984's Straight Ahead, "Where Do You Hide Your Heart." Of these five additional tracks, only "In a Little While" and "Ageless Medley" were hits on CCM radio. So, on cassette, Collection still short-changed old fans who might have expected that early favorites like "Old Man's Rubble," "What a Difference You've Made in My Life," and "Look What Has Happened to Me" (not to mention 1984-1986 radio hits like "Jehovah," "Wise Up," and "Sharayah") would be included on a best-of covering Grant's first decade of recording. The singer can perhaps be forgiven for considering her early work juvenilia, however. (In 1990, a 17-track version of Collection was released on CD and cassette, adding the 1980 song "Too Late" and the 1981 song "I'm Gonna Fly," which gave the album a better balance of older songs and ones from the mid-'80s.) ~ William Ruhlmann minimize