As a conservative, I've never really paid any attention to Hillsong stuff. What I did hear of typical pentecostal music struck me as pretty shallow and.....commercial. Admittedly as an ignoramus, I do wonder how they get around tax exemption while they rake this all in. I know you can't brush everyone with the same stroke, but it feels reminiscent of those mega-pastors that fly around in their private jets to shake h…
How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
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Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's all about culture. If you were influenced by a high-church growing up, you're more likely appreciate hymns. People that converted without a high-church context gravitate toward a more modern style of worship. The downside of so much hillsong influence is that it dominates a culture and drowns out other modern styles. I feel like all hillsong songs sound the same.
Tend to agree. Most Christian music sounds very samey to me and simply doesn't stir my soul . I realise this is a very personal perspective, but I find a lot of "secular" music better for worship: Hendrix, Led Zep, Guns 'N' Roses, Soundgarden, Hybrid, She, Pendulum, and of course plenty of orchestral and ensemble music from earlier eras. This stuff stirs my soul. I'm honestly not trying to be edgy here, and I'm well…
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#63If you read anxiously through the whole article like I did thinking: "Yeah I get it but what are the numbers?" From 2015 article: "The Hillsong empire they founded (she, too, is a senior pastor) pulled in tax-free revenues of nearly $80 million in Australia last year and more than $100 million internationally." https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/inside-the-hillsong-churchs...
Mega-churches remind me of this warning from Jesus: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it."
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not a Christian, but I feel like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ffg4mU7FNE&t=2s is far more divine sounding then someone with a guitar as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io2WOQ-3aVs . Sadly my faith tradition is stuck with Debbie Freedman.
I would suggest that this is a better comparison with the Bach Cantata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBJJJkiRukY I expect that history will look back and see Hillsong as an example of sacred music from this time period.
The Hillsong song still is very pop chord-cyclic. Much of the song is dominated by a variation of a C minor - E flat major - B flat major - A flat style cycle -- essentially, I would call it vi I IV V (to my ears at first listen the song's "home base" is E flat at least). The chord pattern shifts a little bit from time to time and there is some occasional variation in chord choice -- for instance, later in the song the A flat gets substituted with a F minor (ii) -- and some chord order variation. But Hillsong (like a lot of modern pop music) more relies on texture and instrument density (or lack thereof) for their expression . (Here the repetitive nature itself also can be thought of as an element of expression I'm sure, repetitive chant is a well known element of various religious cultures.)
Bach's tunes were written in the counterpoint style, which is an entirely different way of composing (very much a voice leading dominated style, with a clearly defined function for various chords -- tonics, dominants, etc.). The Bach cantatas honestly are not comparable to Hillsong in some ways as I think they were more meant to be performed, not sung along with by the entire church. But the older unison singalong hymns also did not tend to lean on chord loops like modern pop.
Take Adolphe Adam's "O Holy Night" aka Cantique de Noel (link to a French choral-orchestral version found on Youtube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNCFvg5M-yA). It "loops", but like most older hymns the loop is more verse-chorus oriented. You can have simple tunes with this structure ("Silent Night" is just three chords), but "O Holy Night" IMHO has a fair bit more complex chord progressions while still retaining enough simplicity to be a sing-along. Just to give one example, instead of repeating the chords at the end of the first part of the verse (I-V-I), the second part ends with a iii-VII7-iii so it can transition to the next section (in the Youtube version which appears to be in Eb major, that would be G minor - D7 major - G minor). The chorus goes through another set of chords entirely.
Personally, too often I find the Hillsong style of composing (which actually is very typical of modern secular pop as well) too repetitive for my personal taste, and lean more toward the older style. But this obviously is just my opinion. Hillsong is obviously popular, as is the modern pop style that they are written in.
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#65Hillsong music is simple, catchy, and easy to play. If a teenager can pick up a guitar and lead their friends to sing along with easy lyrics, it'll be a hit. A satirical take on this is How to Write a Worship Song (In 5 Minutes or Less). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhYuA0Cz8ls Translations of Hillsong music into other languages are also popular. 約書亞樂團 Joshuaband translate some songs into Chinese, and it was a hug…
Couple of points on this.. it's interesting how ideological context perculates (and reverse perculate) through a movement. (A) Catholic (an example, for contrast) music tends to be institutional: choirs, organs... Formal. You don't just play the organ for fun, it's a scheduled, authorized activity. It's not something that spreads or something that exists outside of its preallocated box. (B) Hillsong's kind of music i…
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure I guess. tl;dr: Christian organization scams tax payers, recent conservative trends on Hacker News somehow makes this interesting?
Is it really a scam if it’s what taxpayers want? I don’t think this is interesting because any conservative trend. It’s a cool business hack that allows you to make money without taxes.
By this logic, it's a cool business hack to run a megachurch and buy your own 737 without paying taxes, not a scam?
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#67I went to a few Hillsong events about 10 years ago, when the church was becoming very obvious cultural influence Australia-wide. There is a lot that's very entrepreneurial about this church. They also started Gloria Jean's, a big, international Starbucks competitor. Like the music stuff, this had to do with youth culture and creating social aspects to the movement. In Australia a lot of people called the denomination…
> just because they've been "making things happen". Actually, my biggest fear about Christianity in the USA today is that it's NOT "making things happen" Or, perhaps more accurately, the things that it's making happen are businesses. The mainline congregations and Catholics of the 19th and early-mid 20th centuries made serious contributions to: 1. Education. In addition to the obvious middle and high schools, they st…
There's definitely a continuum, though. There are small churches doing the traditional thing just as there's megachurches doing God, Inc. The church I attend now has a definite focus on the fundamentals you listed above.
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couple of points on this.. it's interesting how ideological context perculates (and reverse perculate) through a movement. (A) Catholic (an example, for contrast) music tends to be institutional: choirs, organs... Formal. You don't just play the organ for fun, it's a scheduled, authorized activity. It's not something that spreads or something that exists outside of its preallocated box. (B) Hillsong's kind of music i…
I knew someone that would play Catholic organ music for fun. She'd stream herself at the church she played at after hours. She wasn't Catholic or even Christian but she was good at it and got a gig playing it. She would play classical and her own compositions as well. She would also pull her boobs out and smoke meth on stream too. I think she ended up getting doxxed and kicked out of her parents house.
Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#69Re: How Hillsong Church conquered the music industry
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really a scam if it’s what taxpayers want? I don’t think this is interesting because any conservative trend. It’s a cool business hack that allows you to make money without taxes.
I would argue that all religious tax-dodges are scams if you're an atheist. My businesses and lack of faith don't get a free-ride, but I have to subsidize that of somebody else's? By this logic, it's a cool business hack to run a megachurch and buy your own 737 without paying taxes, not a scam?
They aren’t scammers, though, because most people want this. Of course it is unfair to you, but most countries have their laws originate in their dominant religious culture and consequently favour that culture.
For instance, the San Francisco MTA legalized parking along the median on the street for church services. It’s just the way that people want it to be, and in democracies, they will inevitably get their way so it’s best to take advantage of the laws they make. Being upset is less profitable than playing the game.