Amy Grant – Heart in Motion
Growing up in the gloomy Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it could be very hard to maintain a hipster’s music collection with only Sam Goody and Musicland to supply your tunes. As a youngster, I often special ordered albums by Teenage Fanclub and the Melvins strictly because Kurt Cobain talked them up in interviews, not because I had heard them. My parents — who at the time were in a strict Christian phase of their lives — struggled to buy me anything I would like despite their best intentions. It was one of these purchases that somehow became an important cornerstone of my collection.
One day, my parents were about to go shopping when they asked me if I wanted anything. “A CD” was my smart ass answer. Hours later, after their return, I looked on the kitchen table and found exactly what they thought I’d like. Heart In Motion, Amy Grant’s 1991 crossover album that introduced her into the secular music world. At first I was aghast; after all, I was known for my good taste and was often complimented for my fine mix-tape abilities. Regardless, I thanked them and took the disc into my room for a spin.
Little did I know that Heart In Motion was a wonderful record, filled with memorable songs with nary a lick of filler dirtying up the album. The obvious hit singles — “Baby Baby”, “Every Heartbeat”, “I Will Remember You” — were perfect early 90s pop, suggesting the techno-torch singing of Janet Jackson as performed by Christians who were hopelessly infatuated with synth pop. Grant was always good at writing a melody, but once she stripped her lyrics of Christian topics she made it clear that she was entering the decade with the intention of becoming a major force in radio pop.
If it could be left at that, Heart In Motion would be in the same league as Paula Abdul’s second record, but Grant was too aggressive in her change of direction for such a fate. She drove the melodies with brassy horn parts and pounding keyboards, recalling the Pet Shop Boys’ early albums but without the thick British humor. Grant floated gently above these proceedings with a voice so warm and so plain that she became this adorable focal point, making such cute observations and clever rhymes that you just wanted to give her a big hug.
Christian fans were outraged (and this is no joke) upon hearing the dreamy “Galileo”, a beautiful love song in which Grant identifies with the defrocked philosopher. Even more aggravating to her older fans was “Hats”, a song that expressed confusion and frustration with growing up without invoking the feel-good “God will make it okay” lyrics that were a staple of the Christian music scene. There were worried cries of “sell-out”, and this concern did not seem unfounded after a recent controversy — singer Sam Phillips, who was a huge force in the subgenre during the 80s, had vehemently swore off the religious music scene in favor of folky mainstream rock only two years before.
Grant had no such intentions, but between her newfound success on MTV and the severe lack of Christian song topics on Heart In Motion she had effectively pushed away much of her core audience. What she gained was a whopping 10 million copies sold as the record floated near the top of the chart for the remainder of 1991. Grant’s success signaled a very successful reign in the adult contemporary market throughout the 90s, as well as the Christian world’s gradual softening to worldly success once they saw that Amy was certainly not a tool of Satan.
The Bottom Line
Heart In Motion stands tall as one of the weirdest anomalies in pop music history. Think about it: a Christian singer breaking into the mainstream with a synth pop record about relationships that becomes a massive seller while alternately turning off her core listening audience. Way to go! As for me, I would forever expound the virtues of Grant’s perfect little pop record without ever purchasing another note of her music. Not to mention my parents thought they had finally pulled one over on me and I gladly allowed them to keep on thinking that. Thanks, Amy!
