“(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life” by Stacie Orrico, Wednesday, November 16, 2022

In 2003, Stacie Orrico was among a spate of Christian artists crossing over to secular radio. At that time, it seemed like every act was secretly Christian. Stacie Orrico's breakthrough record as a Christian artist came when ForeFront Records released Genuine in 2000. The record sold well and several singles were released including the biggest hit "Don't Look At Me," which topped the Christian Hit Radio charts for eight weeks.
 
CHASING DOWN EVERY TEMPORARY HIGH TO SATISFY ME.  Stacie Orrico's first record was unambiguously Christian. Though she dealt with teenage issues, her thesis lay in the message of her biggest hit, "Don't look at me, look at Him," meaning Jesus. But "Don't Look At Me" didn't have a music video. Christian labels often released one music video per album because videos are a great expense and the record sales often didn't mirror general market acts. Orrico's team chose to make a video for the album's title track, "Genuine." The video featured Orrico dancing to the song leading a team of female dancers. The video was successful both in Christian and secular markets, reaching the Top 5 on Disney.com. In 2001, Orrico opened for Destiny's Child on their Survivor Tour. With this attention, Orrico signed with Virgin Records and began working on her sophomore, self-titled record. Stacie Orrico wasn't quite a Katy Hudson to Katy Perry rebranding. While the lead single of Stacie Orrico, "Stuck," had nothing to do with a spiritual topic, the song was promoted on some Christian Radio and music video programs. Elsewhere on the record, songs are vaguely and sometimes explicitly spiritual, though much less than on Genuine. 

WHY CAN’T I LET IT GO?   Stacie Orrico's second single, "(There's Gotta Be) More to Life" uses a subtle evangelistic tool of bating listeners with an existential question. Some chose to answer that question right away, but the more marketable artists don't. If listeners was really wondering what that more is, while either filling their homes with luxurious imported Missoni furniture or drunk-driving to the club on the weekend, they only need to listen to Orrico's debut record to find out what the answer is. I've been importuning upon my readers Christian songs popular for millennials when we were in middle and high school this year. As a kind of exvangelical, I feel nostalgic for this music, and really I don't think that there's too much I disagree with. I think there's gotta be more than what I'm seeing right now, but I wouldn't be so quick to name what that thing is. And just like me, not all of the Christian singers of the '90s and '00s are cemented in political evangelical Christianity. Oricco's most recent album, Beautiful Awakening, was released in 2006. She mostly works on other projects these days and is married to the actor Isaiah Johnson and talked about parenting bi-racial children during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 with her husband on the Never Thought I'd Say This podcast. Oricco seems like a really cool person, and like the episode of Good Christian Fun, I'm going to have to send this song "Heavenbound."





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