The song Until the Whole World Hears is all about reaching out to the world in love, just as Jesus would. Casting Crowns encourages all Christians to be bold in sharing their faith. Casting Crowns hopes to continue sharing that message over and over again Until The Whole Hears.

There Is A Way By Newworldson

Until the release of their self titled, debut album on March 6, 2010, little was known about this Canadian based band. However, this song, There Is a Way exploded onto the charts with glory and power and praise. Based on John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (NIV), There Is A Way has now become the third best selling Christian song in the nation.

City On Our Knees by tobyMac

This song needs little to no introduction. City On Our Knees has been one of the top 5 singles since it's August 14, 2009 release date. Fans eagerly waited for the entire album, entitled Tonight, which was released in February 2010.

City On Our Knees talks about bringing everyone together as one. For just a moment in time, put away all the differences and come together as one family unified in Christ for a greater and higher purpose. It's a song that encourages everyone to look beyond beliefs, cultures, and skin color and into each other's hearts.

Forgiven By Sanctus Real

There was no surprises here. Sanctus Real has been around for several years. Last year they gave us the hot single Whatever Your Doing. Since its release, October 20, 2009, Forgiven has slowly climbed up the charts. It was #6 last week. However with the upcoming March 9, 2010 release of the complete album project, Pieces Of A Real Heart, fans very well could send Sanctus Real all the way to the top in the next few weeks. Forgiven is a song that expresses regret over mistakes made in the past. However with the acceptance of salvation through Jesus Christ, believers are assured that they are forgiven. There is peace in the arms of a loving and forgiving God.

Contemporary Christian Music

All of these artists are considered Contemporary Christian music artists. What is Contemporary Christian music? It's music that reaches people of all ages in many different ways. It's a style of music that takes people where they are at and helps connect them with God in an intimate way that breaks all traditional boundaries.

Where Contemporary Christian Music is concerned, God is not distant. God is with us and desires a close relationship with all mankind. The Contemporary Christian Music Movements strives to bring hope and inspiration to a lost world.

For any band that continues to record and tour at a non-stop rate, change is inevitable. Band members will come and go, the focus will evolve and the music will tighten and grow. So is the case with Christian music’s rock mainstay, Kutless, as they release their fifth full-length album, To Know That You’re Alive.

With a new band member, an unconventenial choice for producer (Pete Kipley who has worked with MercyMe and Phil Whickham) and a writing process that saw over 70 songs come and go (their previous record was 15), Kutless was ready to record one of their most challenging projects to date. Recording started in June of 2007 and for five months, they traveled to an oceanside studio in San Diego (another change) to lay down the tracks.

Jeff recorded drums until all he could do was lay on the floor in a pool of sweat. They didn’t sleep, they drank too much coffee, and they depended on each other. They pushed harder than they ever have, and somewhere in that process, they started to become a new band.

To Know That You’re Alive is the result. It represents the hardest music Kutless has ever recorded (songs “The Feeling,” “The Disease” and “The Cure”), the most experimental (“Dying To Become,” “Sleeping City”) and the most melodic (“Guiding Me Home,” “Broken Pieces”). The album is about feeling fully alive. It’s about that feeling that you get when you know that you are doing your very best with what God has given you, and that you’re doing it with your friends – everybody, together. It’s definitely not a standard Kutless record.

Recently, lead singer Jon Micah spoke with NRT’s Bill Lurwick about their new album, To Know That You’re Alive, along with an update on former bandmate Ryan and how the new project has transformed the Kutless sound that we’ve grown so familiar with.

Jon, thanks for joining us here at NRT. I want to jump right in and talk about the different line-up for the first time in Kutless’ ranks for a while. Recently, Ryan had to leave the group last year.

That’s correct.

How did you guys find Nick, who has stepped in recently for Ryan?

Nick worked for us for about a year as our guitar tech before Ryan left. He’s been playing guitar for us for over a year.

Let’s give everybody an update on Ryan: He left the group for a good reason. Let everybody know why.

His daughter has been dealing with some medical stuff. She’s legally blind, and they had tons of doctor appointments. He decided it was best to be with his family and to be able to take care of stuff.

Do you guys still remain in contact with him?

A little bit, not a lot. We see him in church every once in a while.

Of course, we’ll keep him in our prayers. Is it a different sound on To Know That You’re Alive without Ryan there?

Nick definitely brought a lot to the table on this record. He was really involved in the writing process. You can definitely hear his influence on the record, which I think is really cool. We also tried to change it in a lot of ways. We used a different producer, different studio, different everything! Up until this point everything has been done with Aaron Sprinkle and done up in Seattle. And this time we didn’t do any of that [laughter]. I think that helped freshen up the sound, and make it a little bit different.

Was it refreshing to work on this project?

Yeah, it was both refreshing and stressful. There were definitely some moments that were refreshing, and there were also some moments that were very stressful. That’s just a part of making records. It goes hand in hand, especially when you’re doing it professionally. You’ve got deadlines and so many things to do. It’s not as simple as just hanging out and making music for a couple of months. I’m definitely pleased. I think we accomplished what we set out to accomplish in creating a record that is fresh sounding, yet somehow familiar sounding at the same time.