Song:Touch The Sky
Album:Empires
Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) fans will be familiar with the very popular Australian group Hillsong. Hillsong UNITED is a spinoff of Hillsong. They started as members of Hillsong's youth ministry called Powerhouse. In 1998 Hillsong founder and leader Darlene Zschech suggested they tour with Hillsong and record a live album. The band was originally led by Reuben Morgan, Marcus Beaumont and Tanya Riches. Hillsong UNITED didn't record a studio album until 2007. By this time Morgan was musical director of Hillsong and Joel Houston was made musical director of Hillsong UNITED. He had been a bass player before that. He is the son of Hillsong senior pastor Brian Houston. Like Hillsong, Hillsong UNITED is very popular in the Praise & Worship genre of CCM. Touch The Sky is from the 2015 album Empires. It reached #3 on the Hot Christian Songs chart. The album was produced by Houston and guitarist Michael Guy Chislett. They wrote Touch The Sky with guitarist Dylan Thomas. Houston is also one of several rotating lead singers. Taya Smith-Gaukrodger sings lead on Touch The Sky and a few other songs on the album. They tend to rotate singers in and out of the group. Some are volunteers. They just released a new live album and Taya is still in the band. The Hillsong franchise is very successful within the CCM genre. I think Hillsong UNITED is an unexpected success. I prefer black gospel so it's not my kind of music. But I certainly respect their marketing power. Here's Hillsong UNITED performing Touch The Sky on the Capitol Records Tower roof 2015. Capitol is their worldwide distributor.
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