WELCOME to christopherkent.com!

Christopher posts new creations here every month, including music, original articles, poems and music videos! (His music tracks are also usually available everywhere across the Web, although you can usually download them here for free.) Recently, he’s been releasing tracks from two new album projects: Wild Ideas, and The Heart Chronicles — plus a Christmas album, Songs of the Season, and digital singles that will be part of future albums. (In November he released the final track from Wild Ideas. The album will be available on CD soon!) You can listen to and/or download most of the tracks from all three forthcoming albums on this website. You’ll also find a collection of Fan Favorites below, for those of you visiting for the first time!
Please stop by every month to see and hear what’s new—and if you like what you find, please share it with your friends!

Many years ago, I worked briefly at the Stanley Kaplan test prep company in New York City. One of our jobs was to create practice tests for students to take before they took the test that counted, where the score might help them get into the school they preferred. To do that, we worked with tests from previous years (which were always published), recreating each question into a new one that tested the same thing, but wasn’t the same question. We called them “SBDs”—which stood for “same, but different.”

Many years later I realized that “same but different” is a kind of magic formula for what appeals to the human mind. We like things that have familiar elements, but also new elements. (Completely new makes us wary; completely familiar is boring.) This principle explains a whole lot of stuff—including why songs are structured the way they are and why people like rhymes.

It also is a good description of human beings. As individuals, we change constantly—and yet we’re still the same person. As a society, we’re each unique, yet we’re also the same. (Sometimes people need to be reminded about that!)

This song celebrates that reality. Enjoy!

PS: For this month’s essay, I’m leaving up last month’s post: “It Was the Worst of Times?” Maybe Not. It’s still relevant to all the latest developments in the world around us, and some folks have told me they’re sharing it with friends around the world. So if you haven’t read it, I hope you’ll check it out! (See below)

To read the lyrics to Same But Different, click here!

Held over from June: It’s easy to become depressed watching familiar societal problems rear their head for the umpteenth time, all around us. However, some reading I’ve been doing recently has given me an interesting perspective on these events. Sometimes problems are so big that they have to be solved one step at a time — and it’s easy to forget how much worse things were the last time they forced us to take action. I hope my comments will help brighten your outlook, at least a little!

To read my comments, click on the link below!