Music Notes

What Are We Waiting For?

Christian contemporary music and I have a long and conflicted history. I've spent years trying to analyze what it is about CCM that appeals to me, or not. To make a long and boring story short, I'll say at this point I approach modern Christian music with the same standards that I use for secular music: lyrics, melody, and artist identity.

To me, CCM is generally a vast ocean of bland, boring, repetitive and corny songs, with little to offer from an artistic standpoint. It makes good background music because the decency of it sets the mind at ease, but it mostly all sounds the same and says the same two or three basic things over and over (which, honestly, most secular pop music is guilty of as well.)

The Christian songs that stand out to me are the ones that rise above the rest, with distinctive voices, powerful production, and lyrics that display some kind of songwriting talent beyond the usual soothing, meditative mush. (There are also those Christian songs that "try too hard" to be poppy and modern and appealing, instead coming across as downright trappy, overdone, and cheap.) I can name a handful of artists who consistently develop their identities in a way that catches my fancy: TobyMac, Lauren Daigle, Jeremy Camp, Sanctus Real, Jordan Feliz, and perhaps most importantly For King and Country, who I am featuring today.

4K+C are a pair of brothers, born in Australia, who emigrated with their parents and siblings to Nashville Tennessee. Their musical career is long and illustrious, and I have even captured some of their songs "crossing over" into mainstream secular public playlists. They'll be releasing a biopic this summer.

I enjoy 4K+C for many reasons: their voices are remarkably calm and steady, their songs are well-structured and memorable, and they have strong family values. It's also amazing that two brothers share the vocals so harmoniously; I have yet to tell which guy is which, but it's always nice to hear them.

I chose to feature What Are We Waiting For because it came out in the summer of 2023, so it qualifies for the prompt of "music that shaped your past year" if we're paying any attention to that, and also because it bears a surprising resemblance, in theme and even in faint stylized echoes, to the 2023 OneRepublic song I featured yesterday, RUNAWAY.

I don't have the opportunity to really "get into" 4K+C; despite my admiration for their talent, I really only know a handful of their songs across the years. I found out about What Are We Waiting For via Twitter, when they announced the release of the music video for it. I happened to have some time on my hands, and when I saw the brothers describe the music video as being "a mashup of Dune and Mad Max," I had to watch it, partly because I consider Mad Max to be a prime example of what not to watch, in my naivete

This is a good song that reminds me to focus on my goals and get something accomplished. It has almost become a subconscious theme song these past months as I've become more deeply embedded in the WdC community. In fact, the day I discovered it was the day I posted and submitted a story to Gaby's Ladies Night Out contest.