Hillsong Worship

Australia's Hillsong Church, a Pentecostal ministry located in northwest Sydney, gave rise to the popular and prolific praise & worship ensemble Hillsong Worship. The group first appeared in the early 1980s under the name Hillsong Live, a designation it retained until 2014. In those years the collective issued more than two dozen albums and introduced several notable CCM artists, among them Darlene Zschech, Marty Sampson, Brooke Fraser, Reuben Morgan, and Joel Houston. The switch to the Hillsong Worship name occurred with the 2014 album No Other Name, after which the act sustained a steady presence on the Billboard Christian Albums charts through such acclaimed projects as The Peace Project (2017), Awake (2019), and Take Heart (Again) (2020).

New Zealand natives Brian and Bobbie Houston established Hillsong Church in August 1983, initially calling it Hills Christian Life Centre. The congregation began with only 45 members yet reached 900 within four years. The Houstons launched the annual Hillsong Conference in 1986 to instruct and support contemporary Christian musicians. Under the Hillsong Live banner (later rebranded Hillsong Worship), the live album The Power of Your Love appeared in 1992 and featured singers and songwriters Geoff Bullock and Darlene Zschech, both of whom remained central to subsequent Hillsong releases. By 1999 the Hillsong name had grown so familiar that the Houstons applied it to the church itself. Although several controversies later made the church a focal point for criticism of its political positions, the enterprise continued to expand; the 2004 live album For All You've Done reached the top of Australia's mainstream pop charts, more than 30,000 people attended the July 2005 Hillsong Conference, and by early 2006 weekly attendance exceeded 19,000.

Hillsong Worship has issued an album each year drawn from material recorded at the annual conference, while the separate Hillsong United series originated as the church's youth-ministry band. First known as United Live and led by Reuben Morgan and Marty Sampson, the group set its pattern with the 1999 debut Everyday: each album was captured live at the October youth event Encounterfest, incorporated contributions from assorted church members, friends, and supporters (including Christian folk singer Brooke Fraser), and appeared on CD and DVD early the next year. When Morgan departed in 2002 to pursue a solo career, Joel Houston assumed leadership and the ensemble adopted the Hillsong United name. Popularity grew on both sides of the Pacific, with United We Stand becoming Canada's best-selling Christian album of 2006. Comparable success followed for All of the Above (2007), a_CROSS//the_EARTH: Tear Down the Walls (2009), and the companion live set Faith + Hope + Love.

As Hillsong established additional campuses worldwide during the 2010s, its principal musical divisions began to share the single Hillsong name on album covers. Other active series under the Hillsong umbrella include Hillsong Chapel and Hillsong Young & Free. While the brand remained strong in Australia, it also achieved substantial U.S. success; God Is Able (2010), Zion (2013), No Other Name (2014), Open Heaven/River Wild (2015), and Let There Be Light (2016) all topped the Billboard Christian charts and frequently placed high on the pop charts. The six-track EP What a Beautiful Name arrived in 2017, its title track performed by Brooke Ligertwood. The concert recording There Is More: Live in Sydney, Australia 2018 appeared the next year and featured the song "Who You Say I Am," which reached the Top 30 of the Billboard 200.

Awake, issued in 2019, was preceded by the lead single "King of Kings" (again sung by Ligertwood) and contained twelve new worship songs. That same year the group released its first Spanish-language album, Hay Más, a companion to There Is More that presented Spanish versions performed by Brooke Ligertwood, Jad Gillies, and David Ware with a choir of worship leaders from Hillsong Buenos Aires. Take Heart (Again), a 2020 collaborative album uniting Hillsong Worship, Hillsong United, and Hillsong Young & Free, followed. In 2021 the ensemble released the stand-alone inspirational single "Fresh Wind."