Amy Grant’s new CD, which releases today, is not so much a collection of old and new as it is a microcosmic look at a career that includes success on the pop and Christian charts, she says.

The album originally was intended to be a catalog release, that is, mostly previously released songs with a few new songs sprinkled in, but Grant, who said she is still constantly writing and recording, said the album evolved as the song selection process went along.

EMI, the record label that owns her catalog of songs, wanted to pair three new songs with nine from her prior work that echoed the journey through life. But Grant kept coming up with new material that she pitched to EMI.

“I have been in the process of recording songs for the past year,” she said by phone. “And when they came up with this idea, we just looked at things at things I had recorded [recently] and chose the songs that we thought made the best package.”

So most of the songs are new and four are from her catalog, including a new version of “Arms of Love,” written in 1982.

Much of the album was recorded at the new recording studio in the home Grant and her husband, country music legend Vince Gill, own near Nashville. Gill helped produce the album and sang background vocals on several songs, including “Arms.”

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