Casting Crowns rocked the music charts this week with with the blockbuster debut of the band's fourth studio album, Until The Whole World Hears. The album scanned 167,432 copies its first week, making it No. 1 on the Nielsen SoundScan Current Contemporary Christian Album Chart and No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart. That makes Casting Crowns the third strongest album debut in the nation on Billboard's Top 200 Chart, behind John Mayer and Norah Jones.
How awesome is that?
In addition, Casting Crowns is the only artist in the Billboard 200's Top 5 to demonstrate an upward sales trend from its last release. The band's last album, The Altar and The Door, scanned 130,000.
This week the band sold 234,000 units cumulatively across its catalog, including another strong sales week of its recent RIAA certified Gold 2008 Christmas album Peace On Earth, which scanned 56,099 this week alone.
Wth millions of fans, record-setting sales, tour and radio success, and national media attention, Casting Crowns is actually a part-time band. As highlighted in a 2008 Billboard magazine article, the seven band members work in student ministry in the Atlanta area, with lead vocalist Mark Hall serving as a full-time youth pastor at Eagles Landing church. Casting Crowns tours and records around its weekly commitment to mentoring teenagers..
During the 2005 Dove Awards, Mark Hall made a few comments about the success of the band that are worth repeating here:
"A teenager will do just about whatever it takes to have someone sit down with them at lunch."
Mark Hall, Casting Crowns, talking about how his job as a youth pastor is much more important to him than success as a band
"When I wake up in the morning, I'm going to play with my kids. I doubt they'll care much about these ... These things aren't going to mean a hill of beans in five years, but how good a dad I am will."
Mark Hall, Casting Crowns, talking about his Dove awards for Songwriter of the Year; Song of the Year; and Group of the Year
You can find out more about Casting Crowns on the band's website.
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