Still riding the energy of the breakout film God’s Not Dead, Christian pop group Newsboys continues to strive for fresh new ways of delivering timeless truth. For their latest album, band members found inspiration in the church hymnal.
The new record is the fourth to feature Tait as the group’s lead singer, and he feels really good about the place the band is in now. With a string of hit albums, recent concerts that have seen triple the crowd numbers as normal and a blockbuster movie appearance (God’s Not Dead 2 is being discussed, Tait said), “Newsboys 2.0,” as they’ve dubbed this version of the band, has become the standard, and Tait’s voice guides most of the band’s more recognizable songs.
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| Bringing hymns of the church to a new generation |
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| Written by DeWayne Hamby |
| Tuesday, 07 October 2014 02:39 PM America/New_York |
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Newsboys merges traditional lyrics with modern sounds on November release
Hallelujah for the Cross (612058638014, First Company Management/Capitol Christian Distribution), the group’s Nov. 4 release, delivers the message of traditional hymnody to the group’s younger listeners. Songs such as “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “I Surrender All,” “It Is Well” and “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” are given the Newsboys’ treatment. “There’s something about those old songs,” lead singer Michael Tait told Christian Retailing. “There’s a salvation and a freedom and some beautiful pain in the struggle and the awesome outcome because God’s Word does not return void. My idea was to bring back the old songs for the newcomers because kids don’t know where they came from. Respect where they came from. Don’t try to make them something they’re not, but put a little Newsboys ‘sauce’ to make it special for the next generation and get the Word of God at the same time.” On “All Hail the Power,” Tait goes a capella, complete with high and low parts and vocal instrumentation. “It took about four days to record it,” he said. “But it’s all me. It’s all Michael Tait.”
Tait said recently he read a tweet of a young teenage boy who posted a picture of the band’s previous incarnation featuring Peter Furler as frontman. “He said, ‘Who’s the white guy and where’s Michael Tait, the lead singer?’ ” Tait’s lighthearted response? “That’s when you know I am captain of this ship now.” Learn more about Hallelujah for the Cross at capitolchristiandistribution.com |
