RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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What a difference a year makes. Capitol Christian Music Group celebrated its 50-year anniversary as it held its annual partner summit at its headquarters in Nashville on Aug. 20, but also feted the massive growth the genre has experienced in the past year.
“A lot has changed in 50 years — really a lot has changed since we got together 12 months ago,” CCMG president Brad O’Donnell told those in attendance, which included CCMG staffers and Interscope Capitol chairman/CEO John Janick and Capitol Music Group chairman/CEO Tom March. “There were early signs [a year ago] about the Christian and Gospel market getting ‘hot.’ Things that we would never have imagined before have happened, including how young our fanbase is getting.”
“Christian and Gospel is now one of the most frontline-focused genres,” O’Donnell added. “Even more impressive, streaming in our genre grew by 18.5 points in 2025. We are entering an amazing period for faith-based music globally.” According to recent Luminate data, Christian/Gospel is the fastest-growing genre behind rock, increasing its marketshare by 0.25 percentage points.
One of the many artist highlights over the past year for CCMG has been the career surge of Josiah Queen. Queen’s sophomore album, Mt. Zion , debuted at No. 1 on Billboard ’s Top Christian Albums chart in 2025, and he made his all-genre Billboard Hot 100 debut last year with the song “Dusty Bibles.” He also notched a three-week No. 1 Christian Airplay hit last year with the Brandon Lake collab “Can’t Steal My Joy.”
Pictured (L-R): Brad O’Donnell, Chris Tomlin, Tom March, Anthony Piedmonte. Photo courtesy Raymond Alston / CCMG
March noted that CCMG and the greater Capitol Music Group team “focused on Josiah in the same way we focused on breaking Doechii or Leon Thomas… These artists, they are just great artists. We don’t necessarily look at the genre, we go, ‘How can we find an audience and how can we get their music in front of those audiences? We need to use the traditional routes, those are still incredibly important, but the walls have come down — we can find audiences everywhere.”
For Queen, one of those focuses was looking at building an international fanbase early, taking him to tour cities in Europe. “We played hundred-cap venues all across Europe, it was a huge success, and now we’ve just finished playing 3,000-cap venues. We found audiences in all of these markets to grow his business globally,” March said.
Janick, who was instrumental in signing Paramore among many other artists early in his career, recalled how his vision even then was: “‘This is what you believe in. Let’s not put it in a box, and let’s amplify who you are and what’s authentic to you.'”
Janick added, “What is interesting in our partnership now, because now we have the best resource in faith-based music at Capitol Christian Music Group, that’s what we talk about — how do we honor the genre and what the artists want to achieve, but not put limitations on it. When you have an artist like Paramore or NF or any other artist, it’s making sure you honor that genre and do the right things, but also are able to expand beyond, which is what I think you have to do in any genre.”
Other current CCMG successes include Jamie MacDonald, whose songs “Left It in the River” and “Desperate” have led the Christian AC Airplay chart last year, and reached the top 10 on the Hot Christian Songs chart. Meanwhile, her self-titled album reached No. 3 on the Top Christian Albums chart.
The summit also teased upcoming music from Tauren Wells — who is hosting the GMA Dove Awards for a fourth consecutive year this year — as well as Tasha Cobbs Leonard and Anne Wilson.
Pictured: Josiah Queen and Brad O’Donnell. Photo: Raymond Alston / Courtesy CCMG
One of the highlights of the summit was the announcement of CCMG as the exclusive music partner for the popular television series about Jesus’s life, The Chosen , and will have music inspired by the first five seasons coming this Fall.
The series’ president Cam DeArmond said that the show earns over 5 billion impressions on social media globally each year, and the series is in 120 languages currently. He also played a teaser for season six of the series, which will premiere in November.
“We want to work with artists who naturally have their own experience with The Chosen … where they can reflect and express [how they] have been inspired by this incredible journey we’ve seen on the screen,” DeArmond said. “We want to reach new audiences…a lot of people who don’t go to church watch The Chosen … [we want to] continue to partner with new voices and new communities beyond our social reach, to continue to spread this.”
Two-time Grammy winner Lauren Daigle and Onsite founder Miles Adcox later discussed the importance of mental health, and how executives can continue supporting artists both on and off the road.
Pictured (L-R): Brad O’Donnell, John Janick, Anne Wilson, Matthew West (Anne’s manager), Candice Watkins. Photo: Raymond Alston / Courtesy CCMG
“Public professions create abnormal life circumstances,” Adcox said. “We also know that abnormal life circumstances create high levels of stress. We know that unaddressed stress can create loneliness, burnout, anxiety, depression, strained relationships, all of which ironically start to threaten the very currency and the thing that brought you to the dance to begin with, which is your creativity and your ability to connect. When we start to try to protect the human behind the art, we can take that obstacle and turn it into a great opportunity. If you’re going to put that much time, energy and resources and money behind [an artist], wouldn’t you like them to be around for a while and have some shelf life?”
Daigle spoke of the importance of balancing business with humanity, saying that often in the industry, “ev...
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