Branding, Music, and Religion: Standardization and adaptation in the experience of the “Hillsong Sound”

This chapter analyses the interplay of branding, music, and religious discourse at the London branch of Hillsong Church, an Australia-based trans-national evangelical Christian church that brands itself through its distinctive musical offerings. The production of the church’s music is centered on its flagship church in Australia, and disseminated across its network through standardized recorded and performative forms. Despite this standardization, interviews with congregation members based in Hillsong’s London branch revealed a branded experience of the music in which imagined ideas of London and Australia were shaped through extra-musical communication, giving otherwise objective elements of music distinct subjective qualities.