{"id":975,"date":"2007-04-23T12:05:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith.html"},"modified":"2007-04-23T12:05:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-23T12:05:00","slug":"nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Nicole C. Mullen Plants &#8220;Seed&#8221; of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/nicoleCMullenphoto.jpg\" align=\"right\" \/><span style=\"font-size:0\"><\/span>Listening to pop\/gospel artist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nicolecmullen.com\" target=\"_new\">Nicole C. Mullen&#8217;s<\/a> powerful vocal gymnastics on songs like &#8220;Call on Jesus&#8221; and &#8220;Redeemer&#8221; has long been an antidote for lifting my spirits whenever I&#8217;m feeling a little blue. So it was difficult not to feel some significant disappointment at first when I listened to her latest effort, &#8220;Sharecropper&#8217;s Seed, Volume 1.&#8221; This is a softer, more reflective Mullen and, after a second listen, I realized that although the album has a few stellar moments, Mullen&#8217;s new, more mature style&#8211; which focuses on spare musical arrangements&#8211;might take a little getting use to for her fans.<\/p>\n<p>Mullen draws from her family experiences for several songs on &#8220;Sharecropper\u2019s Seed,&#8221; but does so effectively only on the title track, in which she tenderly looks back at her family&#8217;s difficult, yet priceless, spiritual legacy. The other songs like &#8220;Baby Love&#8221; and &#8220;When I Grow Up&#8221; feel so intimate and personal that they leave the listener feeling awkwardly uncomfortable&#8211;like an outsider who is eavesdropping on a someone&#8217;s private conversation.<\/p>\n<p>There are also the prerequsite worship songs that Mullen&#8217;s fans have come to expect, but songs like &#8220;Elohim&#8221; and &#8220;Convinced,&#8221; while thoroughly enjoyable, are still too predictable and just don&#8217;t have the depth of her previous work. The closest Mullen gets to her past worship efforts is on the song &#8220;Fall,&#8221; in which she passionately expresses the beauty of letting go of life&#8217;s troubles and relying on the grace of God.<\/p>\n<p>So while I am not sure there is a memorable blockbuster on &#8220;Sharecropper,&#8221; I think Mullen hits just enough emotional notes&#8211;as well as musical ones&#8211;to make keep most of her fans happy, while her mellower style may attract a few new ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listening to pop\/gospel artist Nicole C. Mullen&#8217;s powerful vocal gymnastics on songs like &#8220;Call on Jesus&#8221; and &#8220;Redeemer&#8221; has long been an antidote for lifting my spirits whenever I&#8217;m feeling a little blue. So it was difficult not to feel some significant disappointment at first when I listened to her latest effort, &#8220;Sharecropper&#8217;s Seed, Volume&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nicole C. Mullen Plants &quot;Seed&quot; of Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nicole C. Mullen Plants &quot;Seed&quot; of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listening to pop\/gospel artist Nicole C. Mullen&#8217;s powerful vocal gymnastics on songs like &#8220;Call on Jesus&#8221; and &#8220;Redeemer&#8221; has long been an antidote for lifting my spirits whenever I&#8217;m feeling a little blue. So it was difficult not to feel some significant disappointment at first when I listened to her latest effort, &#8220;Sharecropper&#8217;s Seed, Volume&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-04-23T12:05:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/nicoleCMullenphoto.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nicole C. Mullen Plants \"Seed\" of Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/04\/nicole-c-mullen-plants-seed-of-faith.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nicole C. Mullen Plants \"Seed\" of Faith","og_description":"Listening to pop\/gospel artist Nicole C. Mullen&#8217;s powerful vocal gymnastics on songs like &#8220;Call on Jesus&#8221; and &#8220;Redeemer&#8221; has long been an antidote for lifting my spirits whenever I&#8217;m feeling a little blue. 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