How the charts found God: the creeping dominance of faith-pop
When I saw moustachioed pop sensation Benson Boone play a show in London last year, the pop star performed the best of his pedestrian midtempos last: his religiously ecstatic hit, 'Beautiful Things'. It was inevitable that his UK No 1 track would be saved to leave the audience with a lingering sense of catharsis. In the song, Boone depicts himself as a simple man on his knees, praying to the divine. As the music builds to a holy drop, he belts out: 'I want you, I need you, oh God / Don't take / These beautiful things that I've got.' Cue a dramatic backflip, a Boone trademark at this point. (But really, how else can a man demonstrate religious fervour if not by launching himself into the air from a dangerous height?). The mostly reserved congregation went wild.
Faith-pop, sung by faux-ordinary guys desperately appealing to God, is the dominant sound in Top 40 music right now. TikTok star Alex Warren has just scored the longest-running UK No 1 this decade with 'Ordinary', a cinematic, 'take-me-to-church' number full of heavy-handed Christian metaphors. 'You got me kissin' the ground of your sanctuary / Shatter me with your touch, oh Lord, return me to dust,' he croons on the chorus. The almost-as-ubiquitous gospel-tinged radio hit 'Lose Control' by Teddy Swims was one of the biggest tracks of 2024 and remains one of this year's most-streamed and bought. The addiction anthem may not explicitly mention God stuff (bar the aside that 'the devil's knocking at my door'), but – through its themes of surrender and brokenness – reads clearly as Christian-coded.
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