After All These Years, It's Still Just as Amazing

Many of you probably know that I have been a fan of various famous entities--real and fictional, human and non-human--throughout my life.  Some came and went rather quickly, such as the three girls from H2O: Just Add Water, or the blue-haired Joe Kido and his "digital monster" Ikkakumon.  Others lasted a while, but still largely fizzled out at some point: Anne Hathaway and her various innocent roles, from the obedient Ella of Frell to schoolgirl-turned-princess Mia Thermopolis; Hilary Duff and her best-known, literally animated role of Elizabeth Brooke McGuire; ApologetiX and their spoofs of everything from "The Real Slim Shady" to "Sweet Home Alabama" to "You Oughta Know"; Putt-Putt the anthropomorphic car and his various point-and-click adventures; and countless others, including many of which you've probably never heard.  There are only a few famous entities which I can say that I have liked for over a decade, and even many of those became weaker in my eyes after a while.  Mork & Mindy's later episodes were disappointing because of all the pop culture references that would easily fly over the heads of viewers born well after the show ended; Home Improvement became old hat because of too many repeats; That's So Raven's inaugural season was easily the best, but that's the only one not available on iTunes; Garfield's earlier strips were hilarious, but, over the past decade or so, Jim Davis seems to be running low on ideas; and, using Mac OS X makes me realize how terrible previous Mac systems were.  However, there is one--or there are three, depending on how you look at it--famous entity/entities whose works have easily stood the test of time, and sound just as good--if not better--than they did upon first hearing them many years ago: TobyMac, Kevin Max, and Michael Tait, also known as the band dc Talk.
You may wonder: What makes their music have such a lasting appeal? Well, to me, it's rather easy to explain: They combined three different styles of musical talent--rap/hip-hop, rock, and soul/gospel--to make wonderful sounds with a timeless message.  Some people feel that, after they went solo/disbanded, their music deteriorated in quality, but I disagree; in fact, some of Kevin and Toby's solo works are comparable to their pre-solo tracks in my opinion.
It's obvious that dc Talk's music, both as a group and solo, has a lasting appeal to me; I listened to songs of theirs such as "Say the Words (Now)," "Dead End Moon," and "What's Goin' Down" countless times throughout my middle and high school years, yet they still get played on my iTunes and iPods fairly often.  Say what you want about their music, but, I'll tell you one thing: It just never gets old.