The Petra Zone

I know that most opinions on Double Take are fairly negative. Most of this revolves around the fact that in many respects they "butchered the classics". So I present this question:

If Double Take contained original song lyrics set to the music instead of the classic lyrics, would it change your opinion of the album?

No, it would not change my opinion one bit.

My complete issue is with the music and how little melody is left in the Double Take version of the classics. Of course, this was a sign of the times, but I either need a strong melody or it has to evoke some sort of feeling in me that I want to revisit.

I guess I was hoping for this discussion to come up whenever I started the poll for Double Take, but now is as good a time as any.

I think I'm a bit more lenient towards the album than most people. Sure, it is easily on my bottom tier of Petra albums, probably the very bottom... but I can still listen to it from time to time. That said, the music - regardless of the lyrics - isn't the best. It's too bland-ish and over-produced. But well, like I said in the No Doubt poll thread, the 90's were a tough time for a lot of classic rock bands. Petra, like many other secular and Christian bands that fell during that time, just didn't know how to weather the storm. If anything, we should feel happy that they came through one way or the other, and went out with a bang.

As it is, I consider Double Take a noble effort as far as its intentions go, but a misguided one nonetheless.

And, for what it's worth, I consider "Breathe In" to be one of the best Petra songs out there. I love it.

It's not convincing as a Petra album. At least the old classics make it a Petra album, but the music would be sub-par for a regular album. There are some standouts, like Dance and Praying Man. But Breathe In to me actually is one of the worst songs that Petra has ever recorded. It's over-produced, messy, lyrics that don't really mesh together and a mismatch between the vocals and the musical style. Pete is capable of much more. All the material on his solo record is much better than this song.

BriGuyPEI wrote:I know that most opinions on Double Take are fairly negative. Most of this revolves around the fact that in many respects they "butchered the classics". So I present this question:

If Double Take contained original song lyrics set to the music instead of the classic lyrics, would it change your opinion of the album?

Well, the problem is that the music isn't completely new. They have kept a bit of the original, kind of twisted the original. In some cases more than others. If the music was completely new but with old lyrics, I would probably have liked the album better.

It was a bad idea for them to make it, for me to buy it and listen to it. Hate that record on the basis of what it is and how crappy the melodies were. The original songs were memorable in good ways, the Double Trouble versions were not.

Of all the songs on dt I have come to like JUST REACH OUT.

The only thing that is worth anything on DT is Praying Man which in my mind a much better version than the original; the rest of the album is worthless.

Petra should have mangled Amy Grant songs. It would have been great to hear John croon "Father's Eyes". Bwuhahahaha

I've only heard of few of the songs done live. I have no problem with the concept. It seems that most are in agreement that they failed to execute it well. I though Bon Jovi did this concept well. They weren't going to tour it because there was a lot more going on in the songs than the band could reproduce, but they ended up assembling a supporting musical cast and doing some dates in Atlantic City. The Live DVD that came out of it was also really good. Maybe I just really like Bon Jovi, but I'd like to think that I would have recognized a dud had it been one.

I think having different lyrics would have made a little difference, but not much.

If they had written new songs, then you would get a second God Fixation. That's about it; I don't think it was a very good idea for an album, especially as most of the songs were originally sung by Schlitt. I could at least understand if they were mostly Volz's songs... I might even like it! But as it is? It's about the only Petra album I never want to listen to, though perhaps Petra Praise 2 would also fall into that category. DT just has a creepy sound... The makers of it didn't seem to be quite themselves anymore.

I think "Double Take" is a fantastic album and one of Petra's most ambitious and musically complex studio projects.

It's worth pointing out that the album won a Grammy, so it's not as terrible as some fans seem to think.

I don't want to hurt the band's feelings but it was the nail in the coffin for the band. There was never a chance for a full recovery after that album. People had gotten God Fixation before that, which was a disaster, but at least it had a couple of songs worth listening to and at least folks probably could give the new guys kind of a mulligan. However, DT was a complete disaster. It made the guys look like they had no idea what a good song/melody sounded like any more and the songs sounded very forced and the melodies monotonic and I heard that repeated by the djs on the radio who I heard comment about it. I liked Beat the System, Praying Man, Dance, This Means War, and Just Reach Out if I had to pick my favorites but even then, I'd much rather listen to the originals. The band needed a "Jekyll and Hyde" album in the worst way for them to have a chance to stay relevant and DT was done instead. A Grammy is totally bogus if you lose fans and even the hardcore ones didn't even like it and you wind up losing your label because of it. It hurts me to read my own writing on this. It's like talking about when you witnessed your first pet get hit by a car or something. It's traumatizing. It would make me feel better now if I could just move on from it. It's like a band-aid, you just rip it off.

Word had been treating them like crap for years before "Double Take", so you can't blame that album for losing their label. The album probably would have been fine with some good or even decent promotion, but I happened to attend the GMA that year, and Word's press packet was a slim folder with a one-page band bio and a scathing review of "Double Take" that somebody had apparently pulled off the internet. So Petra had a lot of forces working against them during that time.

I won't say it's their best album, but I would certainly rank it as severely underrated.