In less than a week, the 45th annual Dove Awards will be taking place in Allen Arena. With Lumination’s final installment of our Dove Awards preview series, I will be breaking down the Best Artist category.
This year’s nominees for Best Artist are:
Casting Crowns 2
Hillsong United 5
Lecrae 4
Mandisa 5
NEEDTOBREATHE 3
Switchfoot 4
The lineup is full of heavy hitters in the world of Christian music. All of the artists up for this award earned nominations in multiple categories. The Casting Crowns notched two nominations, NEEDTOBREATHE earned three, Switchfoot and Lecrae received four each and Mandisa and Hillsong United lead the pack with five.
Hillsong United have to be considered the favorite in this category. Their smash hit “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” earned nominations in the categories of Song of the Year, Worship Song of the Year, Contemporary Christian Performance of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year, and it is the favorite to take home most of them.
“Oceans” and the band in general have been everywhere this year, so I would not be surprised if they ended up going home with a wheelbarrow full of trophies.
Switchfoot, NEEDTOBREATHE and Casting Crowns are always formidable foes when it comes to Chrsitian music awards, but I do not think they can stop the momentum Hillsong has built up.
Mandisa is another strong opponent. Her song “Overcomer” was nominated for four awards as well. Keep her in mind as a potential dark horse candidate if she begins to pick up awards throughout the show.
However, I think the true threat to Hillsong’s night of dominance will be the man whose album Anomaly debuted atop the Billboard charts less than a month ago. Lecrae has been nominated for Artist of the Year for three years running and it looks like this may be the year he finally takes home the prize.
If anyone can upset Hillsong United, it will be Lecrae, and I think he deserves the award for the huge impact he has had on Gospel music, and just music in general, in the last year.