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What Makes Popular Christian Music “Popular”? |
51www.jrfm.eu
2020, 6/2, 41–57
Lauren Daigle: “You Say”
American musician Lauren Daigle (born 1991) writes most of her music as
well as her lyrics.42 Her early career has an interesting parallel to that of Koe-
nige & Priester, for she participated in the casting show American Idol be-
tween 2010 and 2012.43 Daigle stated in an interview given in 2014 that her last
participation, in 2012, was spiritually important to her,44 and indeed a strong
commitment to Christianity is important for musicians from the PCM genre
as a whole, as it contributes to their acceptance by the desired target group.
The song I will explore in this segment is titled “You Say” and was released
in Daigle’s 2018 album Look Up Child. As of June 2020, the official video clip has
had around 157 million views on YouTube, and the song has been streamed
over 235 million times on Spotify. The first musical association stirred for me
by the song was with the British pop singer Adele (e. g. her song “Hello”45) – a
comparison frequently evoked by music journalists.46 Daigle’s “You Say” is ar-
ranged in the style of a piano pop ballad in the key of F major, and in terms of
the song’s harmony, its chord progression focuses on a four-chord turnaround
progression of F – Am – Dm – B♠(tonal-functionally represented as I–III–VI–IV),
which remains constant over the course of the song, an approach that can be
identified in various secular pop ballads in recent years – very prominently in
Emeli Sandé’s “Read All About It (Pt. III)”.47 Despite the consistent repetition
of this chord progression for over four and a half minutes, the song is by
no means monotonous, by virtue of the light, yet sophisticated arrangement
(e. g. the subtle adjustment to instrumentation for different segments of the
song), as well as Daigle’s expressive voice, which contributes to the affective
potential of the song. The production of the song is perfect for the chosen
style of a modern pop ballad. At the musical level, only the short “I” vocaliza-
tions in the chorus provide an indication of a religious context, based on the
resemblance to a gospel choir. Daigle uses these gospel-choir-like vocaliza-
tions in various songs on the album.
The lyrics do not significantly differ from secular pop songs. Where the PCM
approach is often more direct, Christian references or rather the potentially
42 Look Up Child (Lauren Daigle, US 2018a, Centricity), liner notes.
43 Yep 2014.
44 Yep 2014.
45 25 (Adele, US 2015, XL Recordings).
46 e. g. Harrington 2019.
47 “Read All About It (Pt. III)” (Our Version of Events, Emeli Sandé, GB 2012, Virgin).
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02
- Title
- JRFM
- Subtitle
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Volume
- 06/02
- Authors
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Editor
- Uni-Graz
- Publisher
- SchĂĽren Verlag GmbH
- Location
- Graz
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Size
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Pages
- 128
- Categories
- Zeitschriften JRFM