Youth is an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 by American Hasidic

Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...

 Jewish reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 singer Matisyahu, which was released on March 7, 2006

2006 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2006.-January:*January 10 – Eric Burdon releases his album Soul of a Man and begins touring with a new band....

. It is his second proper studio release, as Live at Stubb's

Live at Stubb's (Matisyahu album)

Live at Stubb's is a live album by Matisyahu. It was recorded live at Stubb's in Austin, Texas on February 19, 2005 under his record label Or Music. The album first debuted at #5 on the Billboard Reggae Albums Chart, then seven months later it debuted at #176 on the Billboard 200...

is a live album. The CD quickly shot to the top of iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 best sellers list the day it was released (partially because iTunes ran a special promotion for pre-orders).

The first single from the album is "King without a Crown", which was also appeared on Matisyahu's previous album, Live at Stubb's

Live at Stubb's (Matisyahu album)

Live at Stubb's is a live album by Matisyahu. It was recorded live at Stubb's in Austin, Texas on February 19, 2005 under his record label Or Music. The album first debuted at #5 on the Billboard Reggae Albums Chart, then seven months later it debuted at #176 on the Billboard 200...

. However, a different music video was shot for the Youth version of the song, whereas the version on the Stubb's concert album was accompanied by a concert video. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 with over 119,000 copies sold in its first week released. A month later, the album was certified gold by the RIAA. As of September 24, 2008 the album has sold approximately 585,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen Soundscan

Nielsen SoundScan

Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...

.On December 27, 2006, Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 announced that Youth ranked 3rd overall on the 2006 Reggae album charts, immediately behind Live at Stubb's.

The topic of the album is mostly the support and promotion of youth voice

Youth voice

Youth voice refers to the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people as a collective body. The term youth voice often groups together a diversity of perspectives and experiences, regardless of backgrounds, identities, and cultural differences...

, more explicitly in the eponymous second track. The album, along with its topic, mixes Matisyahu's lyrics, which contain several references to his Jewish beliefs, with a mainstream sound.

Track listing

1. "Fire of Heaven/Altar of Earth" – 3:59
2. "Youth" – 4:18
3. "Time of Your Song" - 4:27
4. "Dispatch the Troops" - 4:05
5. "Indestructible" - 4:09
6. "What I'm Fighting For" - 2:11
7. "Jerusalem" - 4:00
8. "WP" - 3:58
9. "Shalom/Saalam" - 1:06
10. "Late Night in Zion" - 3:13
11. "Unique is My Dove" - 3:24
12. "Ancient Lullaby" - 4:18
13. "King Without a Crown" - 3:42

Personnel

• Matthew Paul Miller—vocals
• Roots Tonic
  Roots Tonic
  Roots Tonic was the name of the three piece rock-reggae band best known as Matisyahu's backing band during live shows and studio recordings. The band was made up of Aaron Dugan , Josh Werner , and Jonah David...
  
  —music (Aaron Dugan: guitar, Josh Werner: bass and keys, Jonah David: drums)
• Marlon "Moshe" Sobol —guest musician on "WP"
• Stan Ipcus—guest musician on "WP"
• Yusu Youssou—guest musician on "Shalom/Saalam" and "Ancient Lullaby"
• Bill Laswell—production, engineering
• Ill Factor & Jimmy Douglass—production on "Time of Your Song", "Indestructible", and "Jerusalem"
• Bob Musso—engineering
• James Dellatacoma—assistant engineering
• Michael Fossenkemper—mastering