It’s often said that there’s an audience for everything. In our very online age, previously niche pursuits seem to gain recognition at an unprecedented rate. One nineteen-year-old has amassed a following of 140,000 people by attempting to lift a large log over his head each day for almost a year; he has never succeeded. Another young man became an overnight sensation for his enthusiastic trainspotting videos; he has now gained over three million followers on TikTok, along with a modelling gig with Gucci and a Channel 4 documentary series. It is not uncommon for individuals to become well-known for unusual things. What is uncommon, however, is when the unusual interest itself becomes popular.
Out of all the cultural pursuits one might have guessed may have a resurgence in popularity in modern times, Gregorian chanting would not have been top of my list. However, it seems that this ancient and unorthodox (get it?) musical form has now acquired a new and surprising popularity.
For those unaware, Gregorian chant is the main form of unaccompanied sacred song practiced by the Catholic Church. It is monophonic, meaning there are no chords or harmonies other than the main tune, and it is sung in either Latin or, occasionally, Greek. It developed widely throughout Western and Central Europe in the latter part of the 9th century. In the increasingly secularised Europe of today, where the population of Catholics decreased by almost half a million people in 2022 alone, why is this old, seemingly anachronistic musical tradition coming back to the forefront? And why is it cool?
A lot of it is to do with electronic dance music. Michael Cretu, a classically-trained musician born in the Socialist Republic of Romania, became a renowned figure in pop music in West Germany during the 1970s and 80s. At the behest of prog-rock frontman Mike Oldfield he embarked on a new project based on music he enjoyed personally, much of it stemming from his earlier days as a classical musician.
This led to the creation of his musical project Enigma, which released its first single Sadeness (Part I) in 1990. The song, a new-age dance music beat sampling a traditional Gregorian chant juxtaposed with lyrics questioning the sexual desires of the Marquis de Sade, was an immediate hit — with its German release reaching the number-one chart spot quicker than any new release before it. It also topped the charts in the UK, Ireland and eleven other European countries, selling well over a million units globally.
Religious traditions are being eroded quicker than an unwanted tarmac driveway
Whilst this initial example of Gregorian chant in modern popular culture was shocking for its controversial nature in a song about sex, it soon fell by the wayside, with electronic musicians becoming much more creative in their sampling as modern popular culture took hold on the world.
The advent of social media, however, is beginning to turn this on its head. Whilst most digital creators now are vying for attention, with content finely-tuned to what algorithms are looking for rather than what people might actually like to see or hear, some musicians are very much holding their own.
One of these is the musical project Gregotechno which, as its name suggests, is a blend of Gregorian chant and pulsating electronic dance music. Whilst clearly inspired by the music of Enigma, Gregotechno challenges this by instead placing the focus of the music on the lyrics of the chant itself rather than any desire to juxtapose religion with sexual promiscuity. The vocalist of the project, Spanish musician Marc Vilajuana, often performs in a monk’s habit in the ruins of monasteries and cavernous ancient chapels, hearkening back to settings where the chant would have first been heard.
The music itself is captivating — a blend of tradition and modernity so perfect that one could imagine Vatican II wishing it had come up with it. The project now has several hundred thousand followers across social media platforms, and tens of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify. A documentary about the making of their first album will soon be released, named Inania, roughly Emptiness in Latin, a reference to the acoustically beneficial locations they sing in, as well as to the void which modernity often leaves people with.
The people behind Gregotechno are not the only ones utilising social media to promote Gregorian chant, either. Far from it. Bruno de Labriolle, a cantor at the Church of Saint Bruno in Lyon, has created the École Grégorienne, an online community where people can learn Gregorian chant in its simplest form. On social media, it is not uncommon for Bruno’s short videos of him singing verses from chants to rack up over a million views, exposing people around the world to forms of praise and worship which they otherwise may never have encountered.
It is clearly having an impact, too. Many of the modern musical recordings of Gregorian chant come from monks at abbeys who practice this form of singing on a daily basis; they have noticed a sharp rise in the number of people listening to their recordings on music streaming services. The monks at Stift Heiligenkreuz, a Cistercian abbey in the forested highlands west of Vienna, Austria, have around fifty thousand monthly listeners on Spotify; the Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Quebec have around sixty thousand.
This growing popularity of Gregorian chant tracks with the increasing amount of young Catholics who are drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass as a mode of worship. In an increasingly fractured and segmented world, especially one in which religious traditions are being eroded quicker than an unwanted tarmac driveway, young people look towards the past for some forms of stability.
It’s a view built on nostalgia and a feeling that things used to be better and, for many young people, that’s true. It’s why the trad wife memes took off so much, it’s why people are growing more disenchanted with big cities and it’s why right-wing political parties are having a global resurgence. Young people want stability, so they look at what life was like the last time there appeared to be stability, and they seek to emulate it.
Whether this renewed focus on traditional worship will lead to many converts to Christianity remains to be seen; it’ll be hard to buck the trends of growing secularisation and individualism with a few Instagram accounts and a Spotify playlist. People are listening, however. Whilst this alone may not change much, it could well prove to be one more small yet much-needed push of the Overton window back towards tradition.
