The past 12 months have cemented Gotye as global star but the Grammy grabbing hitmaker may not remain Australia’s biggest musical export for long, with Hillsong United’s Zion making a mark in charts worldwide. Having bundled Nick Cave from the top of the Aria charts earlier in the week, the Sydney based faith collective have claimed No. 1 album overall on iTunes in the United States, South Africa,
Sweden, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Singapore, Ghana and Columbia in
addition to reaching the Top 5 at iTunes in Canada, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, Uganda and Ecuador. Further more the group confirmed they’d cracked the mainstream market, debuting at number 5 in the Billboard 200.
In stark contrast to Gotye’s Somebody I Used to Know (an atheist anthem about a failed relationship with God?), Hillsong United’s brand of life affirming Christian rock has succeeded in-spite, or perhaps because of the stigma attached to faith based creative endeavors, with Christian rock aficionados the world over banding together and supporting the release.
So do we break out the sacramental wine in a show of solidarity or wistfully reminisce about those heady days of rawk (I’m looking at you Jet/The Vines/Wolfmother) when Australian music was fronted by a motley group of ragged piss-fit hedonists? One thing is for certain, it’s sure blurred the line between being an offensive outspoken music critic and a hateful bigot.
Picture Hillsong/Instagram
