Artist:Chris Tomlin
Song:Holy Forever
Album:Always
In the music business, if an artist is going to remain relevant for a long time, the artist has to keep an eye on musical trends and change things if necessary. Chris Tomlin has been a popular CCM singer songwriter since 2004. When his record sales started to decrease, he decided to incorporate Praise & Worship (P&W) into his music. And he's working with some of the popular P&W artists. This started when he led a tour called Worship Night in America in 2015. When the 2015 single Good Good Father topped the CCM charts, he knew he was going in the right direction. For the 2022 album Always, he went even farther in the P&W direction featuring appearances by Elevation Worship, Steffany Gretzinger of Bethel Music and Brandon Lake of Maverick City Music. Though veteran producer Ben Glover produced most of the album, Jonathan Smith produced a couple of songs including Holy Forever. He has worked with P&W artists like Elevation Worship. Tomlin wrote Holy Forever with Brian and Jenn Johnson of Bethel Music, veteran CCM songwriter Jason Ingram and Phil Wickham who is probably the most popular P&W artist right now. And you'll notice that Wickham appears in the video clip. So for me, it looks like Tomlin is aiming some of his songs at the P&W crowd. Of course Tomlin won't admit to this. But Holy Forever topped the Christian charts and that and the album were nominated for Grammys. Always is available on CD. His 2025 album The King Is Still the King was very similar. Jonathan Smith produced and Wickham and Ben Fielding of Hillsong made guest appearances. I don't think he will alienate his existing fanbase because he hasn't changed his music that much. But it is a significant shift though he will never admit it was done for commercial reasons. Here's Chris Tomlin featuring Phil Wickham performing Holy Forever live in Nashville.
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