Tara Isabella Burton

Like the improvisation, the praise breaks, the harmonic complexity.

If you really listen to a lot of the music popularized by Maverick City, they bring with them instrumentation.

They bring vocal style.

They bring a lot of aspects that sound sonically like gospel music, but there are some pieces that they don't bring with them because

white churches won't know how to make that music.

So there is still this element of kind of church segregation, even shaping the ways that this music is made and produced and marketed and

And not just marketed to radio audiences, but marketed to churches.

That's the CCLI piece of this.

Christian Copyright Licensing International tracks the use of music across churches.

And there's a reason why so much of the music in there is tracking what's being used in white churches.

And there's not as much music that is regularly used by Black churches there.

So all of this is shaping the Christian music industry and the sounds of popular Christian music as we watch this all unfold.

Why might this music be resonating?

What does it tell us about masculinity and conservative politics and the search for faith at this moment?

Yeah, there is a big economy around this.

And I would say that probably for at least 20 years or so now,

That megachurch experience has been driving the style and format and intended effect of a lot of CCM, what I would call contemporary worship music.

You can find resources.

We call it multi-tracks or stems that are created for churches to basically plug and play.

You can buy the padding synth effect that goes underneath this Bethel song.