Chant (1994)

So how did Gregorian chants from a.d. 600 ever get on the pop album charts? Maybe for the same reason that New Age books make the best-seller list-people are - thirsting for spiritual relief. There's a marketing campaign, too, of course, building on the surprising European pop success of this disc's longer version. Still, there's no hype in the actual recording of Chant-nothing but the unaccompanied voices of Spanish monks, floating weightlessly in the natural resonance of their 900-year-old monastery. Even judged against the long history of other recorded Gregorian chants, these are exceptional; they're rapt and serene, suffused throughout with quiet ecstasy. This has to be the most surprising hit in pop music history, and it deserves its acclaim. A