In these moments, life can feel overwhelming and devoid of hope. But in this collaboration by Christian artists NEEDTOBREATHE and Tori Kelly (which you can find on the companion soundtrack for Prime Video’s new series House of David), we’re challenged to reframe our disappointments. We’re invited to look at life’s dark moments not with despair, but with a faith-filled belief that God’s redeeming work sometimes happens in life’s deepest, shadow-filled valleys.

POSITIVE CONTENT

NEEDTBREATHE frontman Bear Rinehart unpacks the paradox of how God meets us and provides for us in our most desperate moments. “I was standing at the bottom,” he sings. “Piled up ash and broken bone/It was only then I realized/What I needed all along/At the end of me/Finds the truth of You.”

Likewise, Kelly’s part in the song echoes similar ideas about encountering redemption when life feels bleak: “There’s a beauty in the ashes/There’s redemption in the fall/There’s no way that we can rise/Until we’re brave enough to crawl.”

The chorus mingles NEEDTOBREATHE’s soulful, Southern, country-rock style with Kelly’s more pop-focused sound and a backing choir that lends the entire song a very strong gospel vibe: “Cause I’ve got a story (We can sing, we can sing)/From out of the fire (We can sing, we can sing)/We’re gonna rise up/We got victory/Hallelujah (Hallelujah).”

CONTENT CONCERNS

None.

TRACK SUMMARY

Rinehart said of the song and the TV series to which it’s connected, “I heard about the show and always felt connected to the story of David. I could always see myself in his story. Sometimes beauty and brokenness can exist in the same place. The song ‘I’ve Got a Story’ is really my story.”

Kelly added, “‘I’ve Got a Story’ is a song about struggle, perseverance, reflection and triumph. I believe its message is relatable to so many people going through trials and tribulations in their lives. I hope this song finds anyone who listens to it in a moment when they need it most, whether they’re going through a painful time or a moment of victory.”

Fans of NEEDTOBREATHE or Tori Kelly will likely love this gritty, redemption-focused collaboration. And even if you’re not familiar with them, “I’ve Got a Story” is definitely worth checking out if you’re in need of an inspirational, gospel-focused dose of hope.

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These days, new dance crazes find a fertile ground for viral critical mass on social media. And that’s definitely the case with the hand motions and dance moves for Rosé and Bruno Mars’ absolute smash global hit “APT.” Do a search on any video platform and you’ll find thousands of videos of young people, old people, pets (with human help) and, who knows, maybe even aliens doing this dance.

Those videos have helped propel this savagely infectious earworm collaboration between Rosé and Mars to nearly a billion streams on YouTube alone. Listen at your own risk, really, because this is a tough one to get out of your head once it gets loose.

POSITIVE CONTENT

None.

CONTENT CONCERNS

The chorus of the track—which is what the dance is based upon—is a repetition of Korean word for apartment, “apateu.” That’s innocuous enough without context. But as Rosé explained to Jimmy Fallon in December 2024, “apartment” is actually a Korean drinking game.

The balance of song is silly, gushing flirtation—albeit mildly suggestive: “Kissy face, kissy face/Sent to your phone, but/I’m tryna kiss your lips for real,” Rosé sings with a playful pout. Later she adds, “Don’t you want me like I want you, baby?/Don’t you need me like I need you now?/Sleep tomorrow, but tonight, go crazy.”

The most problematic lyric comes from Bruno Mars, who embraces excess at a spontaneous apartment party: “Turn this apateu into a club/I’m talkin’ drink, dance, smoke, freak, party all night.”

The video for the song features just the two artists performing it together. Rosé wears short-shorts and a midriff-baring top.

TRACK SUMMARY

As cultural trends go in 2025, this one’s probably not going to have parents clutching their proverbial pears in horror. Mostly, this is a fairly mindless, if flirtatious, song with a chorus that might threaten to take over your mind.

Any young fan of the song and its accompanying dance, however, will likely learn that it’s a reference to a drinking game. Thus, it could potentially make getting drunk at a party seem like a lot of fun.

Like all dance crazes, this one will likely fade to becoming a Wikipedia footnote about as fast as it took root and exploded in popularity the last couple of months. But if you find your kids imitating the song’s momentarily globe-conquering moves, you may want to talk with them about the song’s origin and meaning.

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The latter is definitely the case with Shaboozey’s smash 2024 country anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” Indeed, you could argue that the song’s title alone tells us virtually everything we need to know about the lyrics within.

If you don’t know his story, you might even think that Shaboozey’s name itself is a reference to getting drunk. In fact, Collins Chibueze took his stage name from his high school football coach, who had trouble pronouncing this son of Nigerian immigrants’ last name.

Mispronunciation notwithstanding, Shaboozey is likely laughing all the way to the bank, based on the smash success of “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” It spent a whopping 19 weeks at No. 1 on the mainstream Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2024, tying the previous record set by Lil Nas X’s “Old Time Road.” In Canada, Shaboozey earned the record outright, spending 25 weeks at No. 1.

The song also topped the charts in a long list of countries not known for their love of country music, including Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Norway and Sweden.

Just as Jimmy Buffet did with “Margaritaville” and Garth Brooks accomplished with “Friends in Low Places,” Shaboozey has tapped into the time-honored good-‘ol-boy tradition of dealing with stress by getting drunk in a bar.

Positive Content

The song’s second verse seems to suggest that money and success haven’t changed who Shaboozey is, something his mother is apparently concerned about: “I’ve been Boozey since I’ve left, I ain’t changin’ for a check
Tell my ma I ain’t forget (oh, Lord).” The first verse delivers a litany of relational and financial stresses that many listeners probably identify with: “My baby want a Birkin, she’s been tellin’ me all night long/Gasoline and groceries, the list goes on and on/This nine-to-five ain’t workin’.”

Content Concerns

The pressures of daily life lead Shaboozey to wonder, “Why the h— do I work so hard?” That wondering doesn’t last long, though, before it’s off to the bar to start taking the edge off: “Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey/They know me and Jack Daniel’s got a history/There’s a party downtown near 5th Street/Everybody at the bar gettin’ tipsy.”

Elsewhere in the song’s chorus we hear, “Tell ’em ‘Bring another round,’ we need plenty more/Two-steppin’ on the table, she don’t need a dance floor/Oh my, good Lord.”

Track Summary

Life is hard. And folks struggling with that reality have turned to the bottle for solace at least practically since the beginning of human history (see Noah’s story of drunken woe in Genesis 9:20-27).

It’s no surprise, then, that a bar anthem like this one has seemingly universal appeal, especially when paired with it’s undeniable earwork listenability. For some people, sharing your woes with a drink and friends at the bar might be as good as it gets. The 1980s sitcom Cheers, for example, practically immortalized the notion of the neighborhood bar as a place “where everybody knows your name” and “they’re always glad you came.”

“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” taps into the same appeal, delivering a feel-good ode to knocking down shots as a temporary strategy for knocking down life’s inevitable rough patches.

I get that appeal. Still, if our kids are connecting with Shaboozey’s glorification of going to the bar to get drunk as a strategy to deal with life’s pain, we might want to have a conversation with them about the headaches and hopelessness that inevitably wait for people the next morning.

And pushing further, there’s a deeper conversation waiting about where we find lasting hope and relational connection in life. Both require something deeper and more substantial than the tempting-but-fleeting buzz of getting a little “tipsy” to take the edge of life’s troubles.

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Now let me add another young woman’s name to that burgeoning list: Gigi Perez.

This 24-year-old singer-songwriter’s path in some ways mirrors many who’ve gone before her. She leveraged her huge TikTok following into a contract with Interscope, a major record label.

But then a curious thing happened: She decided she’d like to go back to just releasing music herself, independently.

One of her latest efforts, “Sailor Song,” proves that you don’t need a major record label to be successful, as the track has had nearly half a billion streams on Spotify alone and climbed as high as No. 7 on that streaming outlet’s main singles chart.

I think it’s also safe to say that Perez has a unique sound. Armed with an acoustic guitar and an ethereal voice, Perez sounds more like Bon Iver than the women listed above, with distant echoes of something like The Beach Boys lingering further back in the sonic haze.

Though Perez says she spent some time in a Christian school, this song expresses her disbelief in God now. Perez is also openly gay, and romance (and more) chronicled here is obviously one between two women.

POSITIVE CONTENT

We hear that Perez’s mother is concerned about her wellbeing: “My mom says that she’s worried.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

“Sailor Song” describes infatuation at first sight that quickly moves into a sexual relationship: “I saw her in the rightest way/Looking like Anne Hathaway/ … And then, she came up to my knees/Begging, baby, would you please?/Do the things you said you’d do to me, to me.” While not explicit, those lyrics—and others like them elsewhere in the song—carry an erotic charge and leave little doubt about what’s happening in this relationship

The same-gender aspect of the song is clear when Perez sings, “She took my fingers to her mouth.” And the singer also adds, “And when we’re getting dirty, I forget all that is wrong.”

Perez also says bluntly that she’s rejected God and is now seeking salvation in sex and romance: “I don’t believe in God, but I believe that you’re my savior.”

TRACK SUMMARY

Looking for identity and meaning in sexuality is hardly a new thing. What has become much more frequent the last few years is the number of musicians, both men and women, singing openly about same-gender relationships and sensual encounters.

That’s what Gigi Perez gives listeners in “Sailor Song”: an unabashedly sensual song about connecting physically with another woman.

Just as we saw in Chappell Roan’s story and heard in her music earlier this year, Perez seems to have had some experience with Christianity before rejecting it—and saying no to belief in God, too. Instead of seeking a relationship with God that leads to redemption, she’s looking to sexual intimacy to provide transcendent meaning in life.

Kids growing up today are bombarded with messages like Perez’s when it comes to God and sex. The culture is having an ongoing conversation about these issues –every single day—one in which individual autonomy and emotions trump nearly everything, including faith.

The question we face as faith-guided parents, grandparents, youth leaders and concerned adults, then, is this: How do we enter into that conversation, too? It almost certainly won’t be comfortable. And there’s likely not a one-size-fits-all answer.

But our children need our voice and our listening ear, too, if they’re going to encounter grace and truth that are bigger than a momentary feeling or experience.

I don’t know what Gigi Perez’s experience of God was in the Christian school she went to. But I wonder if she had someone who was genuinely willing to hear her, to be present with her, to ask hard questions and to engage in authentic dialogue with her. I wonder …

She’s having that dialogue now with millions of kids. And we need to be willing to step into it with the ones we know and love as well if they’re going to hear a message of salvation that’s bigger than sexual identity or experience. 

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ROSÉ’s new song “number one girl” is a moody, confessional piano ballad. In it, the singer exposes her desperate longing for love and acceptance. And I do mean exposes. At times, as ROSÉ delivers this plaintive plea for affirmation, I wanted to get out a metaphorical blanket, cover her up and tell her that it was all going to be OK.

Turns out, she feels exactly the same way about the song. In her Paper interview,  she said she wanted to pen a track that was “so disgustingly vulnerable and honest that people learn that I am a person that goes through these emotions, and I hated that about myself. If anything, it’s something I want to cover up. Even in interviews, I’m like nothing really fazes me, you know? But it does. Every word, every comment, it crushes me.”

Accordingly, the lyrics here feel devastatingly raw—which we can likely view as both a good thing and perhaps a not-so-good thing as well.

POSITIVE CONTENT

At its core, “number one girl” is a plea for love. That message is right there in the first lines of the song: “Tell me that I’m special, tell me I look pretty/Tell me I’m a little angel, sweetheart of your city/Say what I’m dying to hear/’Cause I’m dying to hear you.” And ROSÉ expresses it in different ways throughout the rest of the song.

ROSÉ articulates her emotions with almost painful honesty. Her demeanor here is completely devoid of anger, manipulation or ulterior motives. Instead, we simply get her unvarnished need to be loved and accepted.

Whether we admit it or not, all of us have that need—both in a romantic relationship, as ROSÉ sings about here, and more generally in life. That said, we often cloak that heartfelt desire in layers of self-protection, because expressing it leaves us vulnerable to rejection and disappointment.  

Which leads us to the next section.

CONTENT CONCERNS

I really do admire the singer’s honesty in this track. That said, where it gets out of balance is the fact that her identity seems unhealthily reliant upon her would-be romantic partner’s acceptance of her.

In pursuit of his love, she says that everything (which we can only presume includes physical intimacy as well as the emotional variety) is on the table: “I’d do anything to make you want me/I’d give it all up if you told me that I’d be/The number one girl in your eyes.”

We could have a long discussion about the role of self-esteem in healthy relationships. But as far as this song is concerned, the singer doesn’t seem to have much sense of her self-esteem apart from a lover’s affirmation. And when we’re that dependent upon others, the odds of getting hurt, taken advantage of or emotionally abused (or worse) are pretty high.

TRACK SUMMARY

So where does that leave us?

I think the very thing that makes this song so powerful, ROSÉ’S complete transparency, is also what creates concern when it comes to younger or impressionable listeners. They could easily internalize both messages here: that it’s good to tell the truth about our hearts’ desires, but that we must promise ourselves completely to someone in order to get our needs met.

In fact, the latter statement is true, but only in the confines of a healthy marriage. God’s intention for marriage is that it would be a place where we can safely, beautifully give and receive love at the level ROSÉ is describing.

But apart from the protection of this God-ordained, covenantal relationship—where both parties are reciprocating other-centered affection and affirmation—our hearts are wide open to being wounded deeply. But unfortunately, the suggestion that marriage is where we can enjoy this kind of intimacy is absent from this song.

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Since then, the singer born Stephanie Germanotta has meandered in all manner of musical and artistic directions, from pop to folk to country to jazz to movies and now … right back to her musical roots.  

“Disease,” the lead single from Gaga’s forthcoming seventh album, LG7*, comes cloaked in a synth-driven, dance-pop sheen—thoroughly up to date, yet recalling early hits from the singer such as “Just Dance,” “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance.”

Like those songs, there’s an infectious, club-ready vibe paired with lyrics that weave between suggestive sexuality and spiritual references that perhaps allude to Lady Gaga’s Catholic upbringing.

POSITIVE CONTENT

At the core of the song’s narrative, Lady Gaga believes that she has the ability to rescue and heal an emotionally broken lover. “There are no more tears to cry/I heard you beggin’ for your life/ … Poison on the inside/ … Like you’re gonna die.” But, she claims, “I can cure your disease.” 

CONTENT CONCERNS

Gaga repeatedly appropriates spiritual language but then twists it in a sensual, suggestive direction as she seems to think she can give this person something like salvation: “Bring me your desire, I can cure your disease/If you were a sinner, I could make you believe/ … I could be your antidote tonight.”

It’s pretty clear what her medicine would consist of: “Lay you down like one, two, three/Eyes roll back in ecstasy.”

Gaga employs spiritual language again when she talks about this guy’s relational isolation: “You reach out, and there’s no one there/Like a god without a prayer.”

I’m not even 100% sure that that last line makes much sense, but perhaps she’s hinting at a spiritual hunger she believes she can quench through carnal means: “Screamin’ for me, baby/Like you’re gonna die/Poison on the inside/I could be your antidote tonight.”

GAME SUMMARY

There’s a lot going on in this track, as it blurs the lines between sex and spirituality. On the most basic, obvious level, I think this song is mostly about the singer’s confidence that her sexual prowess can save this guy and somehow be an “antidote” to his inner turmoil and isolation.

If we want to dive deeper, though—maybe even deeper than Lady Gaga herself intended with these lyrics—she’s rightly identifying a couple of things, namely brokenness and the need for salvation from outside herself.

She arguably has the diagnosis right: This guy seems pretty desperate and in need of a rescue. But Lady Gaga styles herself as a sexual savior here, instead of recognizing that it takes more than a steamy night to piece back together what life and sin have broken.

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If, that is, the pressure of her supernova fame doesn’t prove to be her undoing—and the jury is still out on that question. (More on that in a moment.)

Chappell Roan (real name: Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) has erupted like a volcano into the music mainstream this year. Her smash hit, “Hot To Go,” comes complete with a dance and addictive earworm appeal paired with an infectious ‘80s vibe. Think Toni Basil’s 1982 classic “Mickey” fused with Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and set on fire with a pop-punk flamethrower. Yes, it’s been floating around for a year or so. But in early September, the song was featured in a Target commercial. That’s next level stuff for any musical act, and it’s indicative of Roan’s sudden ubiquity in the musical realm.

We’ll get to Roan’s latest hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” in just a minute. But there are a couple more details we need to hit before we do.

Roan grew up in a conservative Christian home in Willard, Missouri, one that emphasized virtues such as modesty and chastity. But since 2018, she’s embraced being gay and a public persona that draws heavily from drag culture and imagery—so much so that The Washington Post dubbed her a “queer pop powerhouse” in a 2023 profile piece titled “Chappell Roan doesn’t care if she’s going to hell.” She told the Post, “There’s a special place in my heart for queer kids in the Midwest because I know how they’re feeling and I know how isolating it can feel.”

The Missouri singer has also had a deeply ambivalent relationship with social media. In the same article quoted above, Roan said, “I have a pretty toxic relationship to it [social media] because I feel like I’m a slave to it. And if I stop, then I’m missing out on my career. I feel really horrible about it, honestly.” She’s also been very open about her mental health struggles, including being diagnosed as bipolar.

But in the last few weeks alone (late September to early October), the combined pressures of fame, social media and an exponentially expanding fan base have become more than she can handle, leading to cancellations of shows in Paris, Amsterdam, Washington, D.C., and New York City. This has left fans disappointed and frustrated.

Roan has taken to social media to explain, hoping for a sympathetic response. “I apologize to people who have been waiting to see me in NYC & DC this weekend at All Things Go, but I am unable to perform,” Roan said on Instagram September 28, a day before one of the shows she cancelled. “Things have gotten overwhelming over the past few weeks and I am really feeling it. … I feel pressures to prioritize a lot of things right now and I need a few days to prioritize my health.”

We’ll see if Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise leads ever higher into the stratosphere of pop culture, or whether she metaphorically flames out under the pressures of fame.

As for her latest hit, “Good Luck, Babe!” it’s a breezy-but-bitter synth-pop breakup song about a former female lover whom she imagines will probably end up trapped in a disappointing marriage to a man.

POSITIVE CONTENT

There’s little that could be construed as positive as Roan processes her anger and disappointment over a breakup with another woman. About the best one could say of it is that she’s honest about how broken she is, albeit with a big dose of bitterness.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Roan clearly longs for a deeper relationship with this woman than is being reciprocated: “I don’t wanna call it off/But you don’t wanna call it love.” And she perhaps hints that the issue is her partner’s denial of her attraction to women and/or a willingness to commit to a long-term, same-sex relationship: “You can kiss a hundred boys in bars/Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling/You can say it’s just the way you are.”

Later, Roan speculates that this woman will likely end up married to a man … and miserable: “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife/And when you think about me, all of those years ago/ … You’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’”

And after all of that, Roan repeatedly—albeit sarcastically—tells her ex, “Good luck, babe (well, good luck) … /You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.” The implication, it would seem, is that Roan’s ex has never come to terms with her attraction to women and now is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man instead of just being truthful about who she really is.

As for the failed relationship itself, Roan primarily talks about it in terms of her physical intimacy with the other woman: “It’s a sexually explicit kind of love affair.”  

TRACK SUMMARY

Chappel Roan has, by her own admission, left behind the conservative Midwestern and Christian values she grew up with. In their place is an enthusiastic embrace of LGBT culture.

That part of her story might not be immediately evident upon a casual, uncritical listen to this song, or “Hot To Go.” You might think what you’re hearing is a really catchy, deliberately retro breakup song. “Good Luck, Babe!” is that—but the breakup in question is between two women, one of whom longs for more and the other of whom apparently can’t quite commit to being openly gay.

In a mainstream culture where sexual identity is increasingly seen as a fluid part of our identity, the rise of an artist such as Chappell Roan is hardly as shocking as it would have been a generation ago. She both reflects that cultural norm and reinforces it.

But if your kids have casually become fans due to this song’s (or others’) undeniably catchy sound, you should know that there are deeper messages about sexuality here that need to be critically unpacked from the Christian point of view that Chappell Roan herself has rejected.

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No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t have a cameo, though I think that’d be pretty great. But Focus on the Family’s Emerson Collins did—showing up right about the 2-minute mark of Christian rapper Not Klyde’s video for his track “Bible in My Hand (Remix).”

If you’re wondering how that happened, it’s because Collins leads Focus on the Family’s Bring Your Bible Day initiative, which takes place the first Thursday of every October. If you’re a student, we encourage you bring your Bible to school! If you’re an adult, bring your Bible to work. No matter what stage of life you’re in, it’s a powerful reminder—to ourselves, to others—that God’s Word provides a foundation for our lives and for living in a way that pleases him.

Which brings us back to Not Klyde. Each year, the Bring Your Bible Day initiative teams up with like-minded friends to get the word out about this event. And this year, that meant connecting with Not Klyde on the song “Bible in My Hand (Remix).”

POSITIVE CONTENT

Not Klyde compares the Word of God to the five stones that David picked out before his battle with Goliath: “Bible in my hand, treat it like a rock/Watch David steppin’ on the field/Sling swingin’, go crazy.” From there, the song’s next lines jump to the New Testament: “Watch Jesus steppin’ on the water/Eyes up, no wavin’.”

As the song progresses, the rapper emphasizes having the Scriptures with him always (“Bible in my hand, I got it/ … I bring my Bible every day, who’s askin’?”), connecting with other believers (“I’m in the pen, I’m in the flock”), relinquishing isolating individualism (“Not independent, big squad”) and prayerfully remembering to be good stewards of the time we’ve been given (“My prayer lifted, wristwatch/The time is tickin’, tick tock”).

Klyde also tells us he’s saying no to drinking the vodka brand Cîroc, which is frequently name-dropped in mainstream rappers’ songs: “No Cîroc, I’m on the rock.” (Parents may want to talk through this allusion if younger listeners aren’t sure what Klyde is referring to here.)  

The second verse expands the song’s spiritual warfare vibe, describing God’s Word as a weapon to use against demonic enemies: “Bible in my hand, treat it like a spray (pew, pew)/Flip the script, watch demons turn away.” Those lines recast, in a contemporary way, the notion of putting on the full armor of God that the Apostle Paul writes about in Ephesians 6. And in the chorus, not Klyde echoes Hebrews 4:12: “Scripture like a double-edged sword, guess you get cut.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

We do hear one use of “oh my gosh.”

TRACK SUMMARY

In Romans 12:2, Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

How do we grow in our walk with God, knowing His will as well as recognizing and rejecting the world’s counterfeit truths? By grounding our hearts, minds and lives in truth, as revealed in His Word.

Bring Your Bible Day encourages all of us—and especially students—to build our lives on that firm foundation, one that Not Klyde reminds us of in “Bible in My Hand (Remix).” Only as we equipped, infused and empowered by God’s Word will we be able, as Paul exhorts, “to withstand the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

And that’s not just a message for Bring Your Bible Day, but for every day.

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The term “stick season” refers to the period between the vivid foliage at the end of October and the soon-to-arrive first snow of winter, when leaves have fallen and bare trees line the small towns.

When asked to describe this time of year, Kahan said, “It’s a time of transition, and it’s super depressing.”

Written and released in the twilight of the COVID-19 pandemic, “Stick Season” gradually became a rallying cry for those who found themselves transitioning to and from quarantine. And aided by TikTok, Kahan’s hit single soon developed into a streaming anthem.

Kahan’s ascension can be traced back to the success of “Stick Season,” which highlights the singer’s personal struggles with cycles of depression, alcoholism, and family strife. Kahan spends the majority of the song searching for the perfect coping mechanism to dull the pain of the season following the memories of a painful breakup.

The nostalgia of his hometown and the anguish of his failed relationship meld together to produce an appealing folk song, though Kahan’s attempts to solve the problem of finding purpose following his recent breakup often lead to more pain rather than the erasure of it. 

POSITIVE CONTENT

On some level, Kahan realizes the role he played in the destruction of his relationship, singing, “And it’s half my fault, but I just like to play the victim.”

This connects to his earlier admission that some of the blame should be placed on him for how things ended. “Now I’m stuck between my anger and the blame that I can’t face.”

Kahan’s growing realization of his role in the relationship balloons into what is perhaps the track’s most poignant lyric: “So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad/I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from Dad.”

It’s clear Kahan has committed significant time to working through his role in this situation. Elsewhere in interviews, Kahan is quick to mention the amount of therapy he’s received to unwind the past trauma of his depression and his family’s trauma.

CONTENT CONCERNS

Two of the primary depictions of Kahan’s attempts to ease his pain appear throughout the song. Of the memory of his breakup, Kahan sings, “And memories are something even smoking weed does not replace.”

Later, Kahan muses on the loneliness he feels during “stick season,” saying, “I’ll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas.”

Kahan also hints at an underlying sense of anger he feels toward his ex and how things ended, which is set against the backdrop of his nightly dreams of the memories of this relationship.

TRACK SUMMARY

“Stick Season” and its subsequent 30-track album connect with a generation of listeners who understand and relate to the nuances of depression, anxiety, and therapy.

Throughout his meteoric rise, Kahan has highlighted the importance of mental health with several benefit concerts donating proceeds to local charities.

Even though those positives are worth celebrating on their own merit, they exist in the shadow of Kahan’s unabashed use and promotion of alcohol and drugs as worthy solutions to his pain.

To be clear, the content of Kahan’s expanded work does little to shy away from drug use, alcohol consumption, and lashing out in anger following failed relationships. These consistent themes are reason enough to be cautious of diving too deep into Kahan’s folk songs.

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“Your music stinks.”

“You disgust me.”

Throughout the video for Skillet’s new song “Unpopular,” the lead single from the group’s forthcoming album Revolution, messages like those can be seen in the background. (Similar stuff is heard audibly at the outset of the video, too.)  

The message of the song itself is unmistakable: According to Skillet, some people don’t like Skillet. Dig a bit deeper, and we see that the band’s unapologetic commitment to truth isn’t always warmly embraced.

Skillet, of course, has been an immensely popular band for nearly 30 years. Cooper and his current bandmates (wife and multi-instrumentalist Korey, drummer Jen Ledger and lead guitarist Seth Morrison) have been pioneers in forging a fusion between hard rock and faith, pushing that genre forward.  

But in the band’s first single since leaving Atlantic Records, Skillet speaks to its unpopularity.

Positive Content

Though Scripture doesn’t use the word “unpopular,” the Bible describes how early Christians were persecuted, imprisoned and cast out of both Jewish and Roman society.

Similarly, Skillet’s frontman John Cooper acknowledges the unpopularity of his convictions: “Unpopular, unpopular/Call me out/ … Can’t supplement true facts.” And though at first he feels like “I’m a loner in the crowd,” eventually he rightly recognizes that he’s not alone in the fight: “I ain’t a loner in the crowd.”

Cooper also recognizes his blessings (“Got my family, sanity, everything I need”) and stands firm in his beliefs, singing “I won’t apologize when I speak my mind.” In fact, the band seems to embrace its countercultural identity: “I think today’s a good day to be unpopular.” Cooper also wonders why it seems like “everybody’s lost their dang minds.”

Content Concerns

The second verse contains a line some might hear as profane: “If thinkin’ for myself is called raisin’ h—/I guess that I’m an outlaw, woo.”

And others might be surprised that the song doesn’t directly reference God as the source of truth that makes the band’s convictions “unpopular.” (That said, not every Skillet song directly references God, though every album definitely does.)

Track Summary

Leaving Atlantic Records has given Skillet the freedom to experiment with their sound. Longtime fans may notice that this track’s more stripped-back and raw production recalls some of their earlier albums, stylistically speaking.

But if the sound here is perhaps a bit of a throwback, John Cooper and his bandmates maintain an unwavering commitment to truth despite any criticism that might come their way.

Our lone concern here is that some families might not be crazy about the phrase “raisin’ h—,” even if Cooper is perhaps making reference to that biblical reality.

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