Tag Archives: for king & country

MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 43: LECRAE

I’ve never been in a box. It’s really the irony of it, but publicly I didn’t realize how much of a box I was in. Personally, I was able to navigate in a million different spaces, but I remember [author/theologian] Christena Cleveland challenged me by saying I was an evangelical mascot. I said, “Wow, is that really how I’m perceived?” When I saw that, it really made me do some internal soul searching and say, “Wow, I didn’t realize that was the perception.” I had to ask friends. I was in the dark. By placating people so often in certain circles, you’re viewed as an advocate. If you hang out at the biker club so many times, people will say, “He’s a biker.” I’m way more complex and nuanced than that. It’s not to say that I hate that world or anything like that; I have great friends over there and everywhere. Now I’m just content with saying I’m just a follower of Jesus. That’s it. I don’t belong in any camp. I guess to drive it home for me, it’s not being worried if I disappoint the box people thought I was in in the first place. Because it’s like, “Oh, you’re hanging out with this person? You must be liberal. No, wait. Why are you hanging out with this person? Are you conservative?” It’s like, “No, because I’m nuanced and complex and I like both of them.” I’m not going to worry about the way people perceive me because if you meet me you’ll say, “Oh, OK, I didn’t realize that there was this lane in the middle here that people could run in.” But that’s what you’re going to have to deal with.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 34: FOR KING & COUNTRY

‘…when the foundation of a city is founded on music, you’re bound to be around people who are better at their craft than you are. One of the things that we tell younger artists is to go where people are thriving in that industry. Go to where people are considered to be further along in their craft than you are so you can learn from them. And Nashville’s got tons of songwriters, producers and people working in the space of music. That continues to breed music and creativity seems to be thriving in that spot. And for us, we hope that it continues to grow…It’s always different making any new piece of art. That’s actually the temptation you find when a record has been successful and you start to say, “Maybe I’ll replicate this”. But if you do that, you would’ve repeated what was unique and special that time. People would’ve already consumed that so you have to force yourself to innovate and change. One of the things that we talked about with making the new album is evaluating what songs people connected with on previous albums. And the songs were those that we were personally attached to, so we challenged ourselves on this new one to make every single song have that personal touch. If it was conjured up in our head and it wasn’t real, it was discarded. It had to be something that we’ve walked through or a story that we heard first-hand from somebody else. You always hope for the process to be smoother but, ironically enough, if it was, it would be less important. Art that stands out is difficult to make. That’s been our experience. And if somebody knows how to make amazing art that’s easy, let me know because I would love to sign up for that…’

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BEST OF 2019- PART 5: TOP 20 MUSIC VIDEOS OF JANUARY – JUNE

Hi everyone, it’s about 12 days into July- starting to firmly flow into the second half of the year. So what do you think we are posting about today, that isn’t a review, nor a Momentous Mondays post nor a Flashback Fridays post? Yep, it’s time for us to unveil 20 music videos from January til June this year, which have resonated with us as a site. So without further ado, here they are. What are yours? Let us know in the comments. Til next time!

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FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: WEEK 43 (Tenth Avenue North’s ‘Followers’ and For KING & COUNTRY’s ‘Burn The Ships’)- Why do we need to let go of our control, and surrender our entire being to Jesus?

Recently of late I’ve been thinking about what the perfect gap in years between an album actually is. In a world where people consume more and more music, it’s probably accurate that we all have attention spans of around minutes and seconds rather than hours. Also, as we are living in a world where people are easily distracted and want the newer stuff ‘now’; I reckon it’s no surprise that artists are trying to release music in bite size pieces, and more of it. EP’s of around 5-6 songs every 7-8 months seems to be the ‘in’ thing these days. But I truly and wholeheartedly believe that the more music that is being recorded and made, and then sent out into the public; the more that there is a risk that other songs already released on albums previous, won’t be truly appreciated for the gems and treasures that they are, for a long time. For listeners are already latching onto the ‘newest’ song- which isn’t necessarily the most impactful, nor the most inspiring, the most influential and the most, dare I say, needed in one’s life at that very moment.

Continue reading FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: WEEK 43 (Tenth Avenue North’s ‘Followers’ and For KING & COUNTRY’s ‘Burn The Ships’)- Why do we need to let go of our control, and surrender our entire being to Jesus?

BEST OF 2018- PART 8: TOP 20 SONGS OF 2018 (OCTOBER – DECEMBER)

Is it December already? Seems like it. In about one and a half weeks, it’ll be Christmas time… so it’s time for a slew of ‘best of’ lists. But before we give our opinions on our favourite albums and EP’s of the year, as well as music videos for the second half of the year, it’s time for top 20 songs of the last quarter. So without further ado, here are 20 songs that are our most favourite of October-December 2018.

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BEST OF 2018- PART 7: TOP 15 ANTICIPATED ALBUMS OF 2018 (OCTOBER – DECEMBER)

Hello again! Two times in one day, isn’t this a treat! If you’ve read my previous best of 2018 post, then you’ll know I delved into my favourite 20 songs released from July – September 2018. So what else could I post about, given the posts we’ve already written about in the ‘Best of 2018’ series? Well, it’s time to speak about 10 releases that are most anticipated (by myself!) that are set to release within the next three months.

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FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: WEEK 22 (Crave by for KING & COUNTRY)- Church isn’t a building- it’s the people; so why do we act as if our Christian life is only limited to Sunday mornings, during ‘church’?

Over the past few weeks while Mum has been recovering from her fall and subsequent operation (which I detailed in a blog about suffering a few weeks ago!); I have noticed something that I reckon needs to be briefly talked about. Something that we as a people are prone to fall into the trap of- and it’s the lie that Church can only happen on Sunday, or Church only deserves to occur on Sundays. And that something was highlighted by our church family. Though we haven’t been at church for a while (many years in fact since we’ve regularly gone, since we’ve bought the café!); our church family still felt that we were connected enough to the body enough for them to deliver meals to us during the initial stages of Mum’s healing. The pastor and the pastor’s wife used their initiative, created a website app thing (take them a meal) where people could sign up and put their names to dates, write down dishes, and do tangible things- be the hands and feet of Jesus that way and have fellowship with us. Now not every single person from our church came to visit, or cooked, but I reckon that’s beside the point. What mattered was that in our time of need, we were being thought of, we were being appreciated, and we are being loved, no matter if we had religiously been to church every week, or in our case had ‘backslidden’ and become an irregular member. Though Mum didn’t really have high hopes for our church family in showing us God’s love, we were pleasantly surprised overall at the amount of love we were shown. And this brings me to what I have noticed.

Continue reading FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: WEEK 22 (Crave by for KING & COUNTRY)- Church isn’t a building- it’s the people; so why do we act as if our Christian life is only limited to Sunday mornings, during ‘church’?

TOP TWENTY ARTISTS AND SONGS THAT SHOULD BE PRESENT ON WOW HITS 2020

Welcome to the latest installment of our most recent blog series Top Tens. Last time, we unveiled 10 artists and songs that in our opinion should have been included on the official WOW Hits 2019 track listing, but weren’t. This time, on this special post, and in keeping with a similar theme, I will take an educated guess and list 20 songs that should be shoe-ins for WOW Hits 2020 (key word- should… I wrote a similar post last year and only 3 out of the 20 made it on WOW Hits 2019- better than 2/20 for the year before though!). Some songs that I will predict for WOW Hits 2020 are released right now, so audio slides/lyric videos/music videos/song stories will be below, but others haven’t been released yet and I am just predicting based on the artist. Some are singles, and some songs aren’t singles yet (but could be!) Will these tracks be there in a year’s time? Only time will tell.

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