God is trending. A new generation of male pop stars are on their knees – literally – begging for redemption. How did we get here, asks Hannah Ewens
Benson Boone performs during the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (Amy Harris/2025 Invision/AP)
When I saw moustachioed pop sensation Benson Boone play a show in London last year, the pop star performed the best of his pedestrian midtempos last: his religiously ecstatic hit, “Beautiful Things”. It was inevitable that his UK No 1 track would be saved to leave the audience with a lingering sense of catharsis. In the song, Boone depicts himself as a simple man on his knees, praying to the divine. As the music builds to a holy drop, he belts out: “I want you, I need you, oh God / Don’t take / These beautiful things that I’ve got.” Cue a dramatic backflip, a Boone trademark at this point. (But really, how else can a man demonstrate religious fervour if not by launching himself into the air from a dangerous height?). The mostly reserved congregation went wild.
Faith-pop, sung by faux-ordinary guys desperately appealing to God, is the dominant sound in Top 40 music right now. TikTok star Alex Warren has just scored the longest-running UK No 1 this decade with “Ordinary”, a cinematic, “take-me-to-church” number full of heavy-handed Christian metaphors. “You got me kissin’ the ground of your sanctuary / Shatter me with your touch, oh Lord, return me to dust,” he croons on the chorus. The almost-as-ubiquitous gospel-tinged radio hit “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims was one of the biggest tracks of 2024 and remains one of this year’s most-streamed and bought. The addiction anthem may not explicitly mention God stuff (bar the aside that “the devil’s knocking at my door”), but – through its themes of surrender and brokenness – reads clearly as Christian-coded.