Reviewed by Tony Cummings

In the excellent sleeve booklet which is part of this CD/DVD retrospective, each of Superchick's band members (save for drummer Chase Lovelace who sadly died before its release) wrote a bit about their memories of the extraordinary 14 year history of the CCM hitmakers. The most surprising piece was penned by their near genius Chinese American keyboard player, composer and producer Max Hsu. Addressing Superchick's fans Max wrote, "We thought you were awesome. We (Superchick) jumped and fell and made clumsy music, but you picked us up and carried us across the line on your shoulders." In truth Superchick were far from a clumsy band. Their music which so skilfully fused pop, dance and rock brought them not only tens of thousands of avid fans, their extraordinarily catchy songs saw them placed in countless movies, video games and TV shows and even though they never quite achieved the mainstream mega-success when they got the big conglomerate push from Sony, they achieved a vast amount as this 16-song compilation demonstrates. Their classics like "Beauty From Pain", "Pure", "Barlow Girls" and "One Girl Revolution" all show that Tricia Brock was a surprisingly versatile singer equally able to handle the staccato pop punk of "Barlow Girls" and the reflective piano-led balladry of "Beauty From Pain". As well as these and other tracks from their albums 'Karaoke Superstars' (2001), 'Last One Picked' (2002), 'Beauty From Pain' (2005) and 'Rock What You Got' (2008) this compilation features five previously unreleased tracks originally intended to be part of a new album. They're well up to standard. "Mister DJ" over an infectious rhythm recounts the tale of a life-and-soul-of-the-party character who "dances at the bus stop/People look, he doesn't care" before reminding us that "Someone needs to be the first to dance. . .You can move the world if you take a chance." Equally effective is "Hope" where Tricia reminds us that there is always hope when Christ carries us through life. Catchiest new song of all though is "Sunshine" which even though the group is no more, deserves the radio play it is getting. It's one of those declarations of positivity that Superchick became particularly adept at. It goes, "Every day is Christmas/When every day is thanksgiving/I can find the sunshine/If I count my blessings/I got love/And a brand new day." One reviewer called this particular lyric "hokey." Now I know what he meant, but I think this cooler-than-cool journo showed the kind of perspective that meant that Superchick were never embraced by the hipster set. But that was never the band's aim. As guitarist Dave Ghazarian spelled out in his piece on 'Recollection''s sleeve booklet, "We set out to make people realise their unique God-given gifts and to use them to do huge things for him, if only to inspire them to take the first step." From "Barlow Girls" in 2001 to "Sunshine" in 2013 that they did brilliantly, with carefully crafted lyrics that spoke to the hearts and minds of a huge sway of 15 year olds around the fringes of the Church. And that, for me, is a far greater achievement than demonstrating music for the hipster audience.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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