John Tesh is the only big-name New Age musician who can actually claim to be worse than Yanni, so it’s fitting than Yanni was the one who gave him his start. He was a TV show host before he became a musician, and I will acknowledge that he at least has a distinct (if irritatingly smarmy) personality when he talks, but as an actual musician, he seems to have no value at all. He combines the blandness and lack of effort characteristic of the Contemporary Christian music genre with the pretentious tedium of bad New Age Music, so you can imagine how bad that combination turns out. The particular song I chose as an example, “Breathe”, is often cited by Tesh’s fans as a ‘highlight’ of his famous Live at Red Rocks concert. The tune is utterly banal and frustratingly slow, with long, unnecessary pauses between each line, resulting in one of the most boring songs I’ve ever heard in my life. Not helping are the lyrics, which are stale platitudes with none of the eloquence a good hymn should have and which devolve into insane levels of repetition after the first couple of verses. Tesh has a reputation for being a musical punchline even by the standards of musical punchlines, and frankly, from the stuff of his I’ve heard, I can’t really argue with that assessment.
Verdict: In terms of overall lack of quality, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever reviewed.