Evangelist and hymn writer Matthew Bassford recently compiled a list of “The 50 Greatest Hymns of All Time.” After sharing it on Facebook and hearing feedback from others, he revised the list slightly, adding four songs and removing four of his original picks.
His legwork inspired us to search YouTube to see if we could find a cappella recordings of all 54 hymns from the two lists combined. We found them all except “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Now you can listen to them all in one place.
Several of these recordings are audio only, with album covers, slideshows, sheet music or lyrics as visuals. The videos in the list include some that are professionally choreographed. Other videos feature studio remixes with one person singing all the parts, informal performances in various locations and congregational singing.