With over two million albums sold and 700 million career streams to date, multi-platinum-selling Hillsong UNITED continues to establish itself as one of the most influential artists in the history of contemporary Christian music topping multiple charts this week with its highly-anticipated sixth studio project, “WONDER.”
The album debuted at #1 on both iTunes (#5 overall) and Billboard’s Top Christian/Gospel Albums and Contemporary Christian charts while taking the #1 position on multiple Soundscan retail charts including Praise & Worship, Gospel Christian Retail (both overall & current), Christian/Gospel Mainstream Retail (both overall & current) and Christian/Gospel Physical and Digital Retail (both overall & current). In addition to its top placements, “WONDER” landed at #21 on the Billboard Top 200 and #4 on the Billboards Digital Albums chart, taking the #9 spot on Billboard’s Top Current Albums and the #10 position on Billboard’s Top Albums charts. The title track single also maintains momentum at Christian radio, climbing the charts (currently #18 on the Christian Radio Airplay chart) and impacting key networks nationwide with continued adds including K-LOVE, Air1, KLTY, SiriusXM and more.
With an incredible response from both fans and gatekeepers, “WONDER” was the highest audio streamed album in Christian music history on street week with more than 4.4 million streams. For the first time ever in the Christian genre, every song from the project debuted on the Top 100 On-Demand Audio chart, with 8 of its 12 songs charting in the Top 20. Hillsong UNITED’s custom lyric videos for “WONDER” also resonated with fans, garnering an unprecedented 1.1 million YouTube views in just one week since going live.
In a review for “WONDER” Billboard said, “Hillsong UNITED’s New Album Works Wonders,” adding that it “has an optimistic, upbeat feel, both lyrically and sonically.”
When asked what he hopes fans will get out of this project, frontman for the band Joel Houston told Billboard, “Hope is an interesting word. We believe there is hope in the world, amidst all of the devastation. But as for our album— we always just try and enjoy and trust the process, make music we like and hopefully other people do as well… It is the dream of any artist that their music reaches new listeners, that the story or message goes out and impacts more and more people.”
The group is currently on the road in support of “WONDER,” performing at local venues and making select press stops, including their recent appearance on The TODAY Show.
