FEATURE: Spotlight: Lauren Daigle — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Lauren Daigle

_________

AS her fourth studio album…

is out today (12th May), Lauren Daigle should be very proud! Her eponymous album follows 2018’s Look Up Child. Recording her first album with a major label (Atlantic), it will draw division. As a Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) artist, there is something about independence and staying true to faith and God. It is a passionate fanbase, but one that is quite divisive and critical when artists break from the traditional. Lauren Daigle is the first album of non-faith-based love songs. Whereas the music is ruminations on the modern world, fans will interpret the tracks to be personal. There is a certain rigidity when it comes to what Christin artists can do. Maybe seen as selling out or corrupt if they cross into Pop or sign to a major label, there is going to be a mixture of applause and backlash regarding the new album. It is a shame. If it will polarise some of the fans, it will bring Daigle’s work more into the mainstream. Releasing her most personal and best album to date, I wanted to shine a spotlight on the biggest artist in CCM. She is someone who has faced some bad press in the past. On 7th November, 2020, Daigle performed as part of Sean Feucht's Let Us Worship tour protesting COVID-19 restrictions. This drew criticism from New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell, including requesting that Dick Clark Productions not book her to perform for its annual New Year's Eve television special, New Year's Rockin' Eve (which has included segments broadcast from New Orleans). Whilst it is hard to be a true Christian and a major artist – as certain views and stances might draw criticism and judgement -, Daigle deserves a lot of praise and love.

Her music is definitely worth seeking out. I am going to pull in a few interviews with the incredible Lauren Daigle. The Louisiana-born artist is someone that you should look out for. You do not need to be a Christian or interested in the genre to appreciate what she is putting out. Lauren Daigle is an album that is broader and more accessible than her previous work – which, in itself, was amazing and worth digging out. The Guardian spoke with Daigle this month. It is clear that she has had quite a hard past and road to prominence:

“When Daigle was 15, she contracted cytomegalovirus, an enervating condition that required her to complete her education at home. First a creative outlet, singing soon became a religious calling – she has described having prophetic visions of “stages and tour buses” while a teenager. After competing in the audition rounds of American Idol, she signed to the CCM label Centricity Music in 2013. Two years later her debut album, How Can It Be, topped the Christian charts. Her 2018 album, Look Up Child, was a blockbuster hit, reaching No 3 on the mainstream US albums chart.

But her popularity was contingent on a Christian audience who were not always as forgiving as they ought to be. “The microscope of people always looking at your life, feeling people will take your best intentions and turn them on you, and doing that in the public eye – that’s a lot,” she says. Attempting to immunise herself from criticism, Daigle kept her private life hidden to the point that she became a self-professed control freak – until the panic attack. “I learned that if I’m going to constantly keep myself contained then I am going to combust.”

PHOTO CREDIT: PR

There’s more than a glimpse of the personal in her new album: Waiting celebrates holding out for a romantic relationship. Being single as a famous Christian doesn’t make dating easy – Daigle can’t do dating apps, and she’s only willing to be set up by trustworthy close friends. “People will shame you for it, judge you for it, make you think you’re being too picky,” said Daigle. “But being patient, that type of longing, I think is really fruitful.”

She finds it “shocking” that Trump is still in the headlines – “it’s wild that there’s this gravitational pull to constantly talk about him” – in a way that suggests a certain naivety. The 45th president’s legacy remains encoded in the country’s current legislative agenda: what about the near-total ban on abortion that went into effect in Louisiana last year, with no exceptions even for rape or incest? “I have no idea, I’m terrible,” says Daigle. “I know that we have a Democrat governor but I don’t know where our abortion laws are in Louisiana.”

There can’t be many thirtysomething women who can afford to remain similarly uninformed. Her US representative steps in to change the subject. But the repeated message of Daigle’s album is to keep listening to other points of view. “It’s a tricky line that we’re walking,” she sings on the gothic Don’t Believe Them. “We got so many people talking, and nobody thinks that they’re wrong”.

Before getting to a great interview from The New York Times, I want to bring in another terrific interview. This one is from The Tennessean. In terms of the lyrics and sounds explored through her self-titled album, this is going to be one you will not want to miss. Lauren Daigle is a distinct and original artist that very much has her own aesthetic and sound. Make sure that you check her out:

“Instead, her forthcoming self-titled album digs into a world where kalaidacospic folk tunes, jazz grooves and R&B influence — anchored by Daigle's rich voice and tales of faith — take center stage. As she eyes an arena tour and major label debut, the next chapter for Daigle may prove that "You Say" was only the first stop on a creative climb fueled by freewheeling artistry.

But for the new album, she simply focused on making good songs, period. Part one of the self-titled release is out May 12 via Atlantic Records/Centricity Music.

"I needed to have a little distance between all the noise," Daigle said. "Ironically, I didn't know we would all experience a pandemic at the same time. That isolation was actually really good for me. I got to sit and learn what are the things I actually want to communicate on this record.

"Who am I? And how do I write from that place? ... What's the thing that's the truest to me? What's the purest? What's the most authentic? Instead of coming off the inflammation and the excitement of the previous season, it's giving the most recent revelation, versus riding the buzz of what was before."

The 'heart' of self-titled

"This might be the wrong thing to say," Daigle said behind a bright smile on a warm weekday afternoon in April. Sitting in a music management office on the edge of Nashville's Hillsboro Village neighborhood, wearing an outfit doused in a rainbow of colors and matching accessories to-boot, she continued: "But people always say, with the success of ["You Say"], with the success of "Look Up Child," did you feel pressure going into this? And it is so funny, I'm so one-track minded. ... I was genuinely hyper-focused on what we were working on."

Alongside Elizondo, she enlisted a cohort of co-writers and collaborators who make hitmaking look pretty easy. The album includes co-writes with Natalie Hemby — a tenured Nashville hitmaker and Highwaywomen member who's worked with Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves and Lady Gaga — and Jon Green, a London and Nashville-based writer who's penned tunes for Little Big Town and Linkin Park.

After writing sessions, Daigle and her band cut most of the album live on the floor in Elizondo's studio, she said.

"All these other people have worked on records that've gone way bigger than 'You Say,'" Daigle said. "For them, seeing their ease and their approach to this, like, 'Come on, let's just make more music.' It was the epicenter — the heart — behind how we tracked everything."

Self-titled songwriting

Songs on part one of Daigle's self-titled project take listeners on a sonic hop-scotch, from the soft-touch 1960s pop on "Waiting" to feel-good jam "These Are The Days," introspective ballad "To Know Me," R&B-infused "New" and the roots-inspired standout "St. Ferdinand."

She sings nuanced stories — sometimes pulling from a longtime fascination with creating fictional backstories from passersby. On "New," Daigle teams a real-life story of addition recovery with ubiquitous scene-setting and storybuilding.

She sings, "You say you used to hang around Diablo's every night/ Tryin' to fit with the crowd/ Makin' bets and pickin' fights/ But that was your story before me ... 'Cause old habits die, when you wanna live/ I don't see the old you, I just see the new."

These storytelling elements feel "new and different compared to some of the other records I've been part of," she said.

And on "St. Ferdinand," Daigle co-wrote a blissful folk nod to New Orleans born out of a newfound appreciation of Nashville's country-folk scene. After years in Music City, she found herself brought to tears one night after hearing Holly Williams — grandaughter of Hank Williams — sing "Waiting On June," a seven-minute song about her maternal grandparents that left Daigle in tears”.

I am going to finish with an interview from The New York Times. More than any genre, I think Christina/CCM artists have that difficulty when it comes to broadening out. Daigle might be seen as backing away from her faith, diluting her music, or betraying her roots. She is someone who, as a person, is Christian…but she is growing in popularity and it is confining in terms of themes. She wants to expand her songwriting. It is a shame that there are some who will judge her harshly:

“She wrote some songs with Shane McAnally, a Nashville hitmaker who is gay. And because the themes on her album are less faith-based than in the past, she knows some will count what’s referred to in the CCM world as JPMs (mentions of Jesus Per Minute) and find the music too worldly.

“I’ve seen people ask, ‘Is Lauren Daigle even a Christian anymore?,’” she said. “At this point, it’s to be expected, so it doesn’t bother me.”

In a radio interview after the DeGeneres fracas, Daigle summed up her view of Scripture. Anyone who expected her to shun gay people had “completely missed the heart of God,” she said. “Be who Christ was to everyone as well.” This brought more opprobrium, including a Christian Post column that scoffed, “Lauren, dear sister in Christ, you failed this test.”

Does Daigle, who identifies as nondenominational, feel that Christ’s messages have been widely corrupted? “Oh, absolutely. I have seen people use what He said to promote an agenda and keep people controlled. You have a lot of power if you’re telling someone their eternal destiny.”

Grant, a friend, praised Daigle’s “lovely” voice, adding that “the dynamics of her own life give her a deep compassion for other people.” As for the criticisms Daigle has faced, “My response is, God is good, people are a mess — all of us.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Crumm for The New York Times

“Dealing with post-Covid symptoms paired with the animosity that plagued our nation brought me to one of the lowest points of my life,” Daigle said. “I had to do a deep dive on who I was.”Credit...Olivia Crumm for The New York Times

Christian rock began in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when it was known as “Jesus Music,” a grass-roots movement led by longhaired hippie outsiders. It gradually built its own infrastructure of record stores, media, festivals and radio stations. Major labels took notice, and began to buy up Christian labels or start imprints of their own.

The first schism came over the Amy Grant generation of crossover artists who played songs that could be interpreted as devout or romantic, a middle ground known derisively in some CCM circles as the “Jesus is my boyfriend” or the “God or a girl” phenomenon. But Daigle’s crossover, close observers say, was different.

“Lauren represented a new type of stardom on unapologetically confessional terms,” said Joshua Kalin Busman, an assistant professor of music history at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. “She left no ambiguity in her music and spoke transparently about her personal relationship to God.”

As a child, Daigle dismissed Christian music as cheesy. She was raised in a religious home that welcomed secular music, as long as there “weren’t F-bombs every five seconds,” she said. She got in trouble a lot at school, for cheating or talking too much. She believes she has ADHD, and also mentions “some OCD” and a few episodes of depression.

As her interest in music grew, she cleaned her church choir director’s bathroom in exchange for singing lessons. But she also became ill, with symptoms that included extreme fatigue, jaundice and worsening vision. She eventually learned she had cytomegalovirus, a chronic illness, and began home-schooling using a syllabus and a set of VHS tapes as her guide: “That was the season that changed the trajectory of my life.”

She started reading the Bible and had visions of herself as a music star. “I could literally see stages and tour buses. I said, ‘God, are you showing me this, or am I losing my mind?’ I think it was God, because everything I saw has come to pass”.

A wonderful artist who is going to continue to release albums and grow in popularity, I hope that she has some U.K. dates in the future. At the moment, there are only U.S. dates in the diary but, as her music gets international traction, that will change! As she is now a major-label artist and getting press in the U.K., there will be people here who want to see her play far and wide. Lauren Daigle is a great album that deserves positivity and praise – although she is going to court some despondency, flack and approbation from a more hardcore or strict Christian community. Her loyal fans embrace and follow her more Pop-based direction, but it is a pity that Daigle always has this shadow or disappointment from some. A magnificent talent who you should know about, go and follow…

THE brilliant Lauren Daigle.

____________

Follow Lauren Daigle