Forrest Frank on the ‘Invisible Market' That Turned ‘Your Way's Better' Into a Hot 100 Hit
Three years after initially earning a top 20 pop hit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 as part of the duo Surfaces, singer-songwriter Forrest Frank began to compile contemporary Christian music hits. He's become one of the genre's fastest-rising artists, melding elements of pop, hip-hop and gospel on songs such as 'No Longer Bound,' a collaboration with Hulvey, which cracked the top 20 on Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart. But it's the ebullient, summer-ready 'Your Way's Better' that becomes Frank's first solo Hot 100 entry — the hit has reached a No. 61 high on the chart and crowns Hot Christian Songs for the first time this week (charts dated May 24). Meanwhile, his recent team-up with country artist Thomas Rhett, 'Nothing Else,' resides at No. 4 on the same chart.
Frank originally released the pop-inflected 'Your Way's Better' in October 2024, but the song's success was spurred by TikTok momentum earlier this year, thanks to a viral TikTok dance that both resonated with fans — and took Frank, then on a social media hiatus, by surprise.
More from Billboard
Christian Music Is Surging on Billboard's Charts, Thanks to These Two Artists
Lady Gaga Wins 2025 Sports Emmy for 'Hold My Hand' Pre-Super Bowl Tribute to Disaster Victims
A$AP Rocky Teases New Song at Cannes During 'Highest 2 Lowest' Premiere
In the past year, Frank has released music at a dizzying speed, stoking fervor in the industry and his growing fan base. His July 2024 album, Child of God, was nominated for a Grammy for best contemporary Christian music album and nominated for top Christian album at the Billboard Music Awards. By that November, he returned with a deluxe version of the album; on May 9, he released its follow-up, Child of God II. The two installments currently hold Nos. 1 and 2 on Top Christian Albums, with his more recent project leading the chart.
'That's kind of a theme for me in my career,' Frank tells Billboard, calling while on the road during the second part of his sold-out Child of God tour. 'I love pushing the boundaries, and I feel like my career is busting myths.'
Below, Frank talks about 'Your Way's Better,' Child of God II and Christian music's current Hot 100 surge.
How did 'Your Way's Better' come about?
I was having a hard day and had gone for a drive. I remember pulling into my neighborhood and that chorus came spilling out. It was just a prayer that ended up having a melody with it. I recorded a voice memo of it on my phone and didn't do anything with it for a few months. Then, backstage at [Frank's 2024 Child of God tour], I pulled out my laptop and produced the beat for it. Then, my producer friend PERA came out to a session and we were jamming on this song and I said, 'What if you play something kind of somber?' He starts playing it, and I freestyled the melody [and] some of the words that ended up on the track.
You released 'Your Way's Better' last October, but a dance that went viral on TikTok and social media helped boost it. How did that happen?
It was my 12th- or 13th-highest streaming song at a daily rate — it was not making a big splash. There's a couple, David Myers and Bridgette [Nicole], and they post a new dance almost every day to different songs, and it was one they did [in February]. What's interesting is that I was taking a social media break — I had posted maybe three times in a four-month period. At first, I didn't really engage with it, but then I saw a significant jump in my streams. I'm seeing these kids doing the dance, and it's kind of like this vacation Bible school type thing, [learning] the dance to go with the song and do the hand motions and stuff. It is like that energy, but not in an enclosed church space. It just kind of feels like it's across the whole world.
You just released your new album, , on May 9, just 10 months after and six months after its deluxe edition. Why did you want to drop another full album so soon?
They say you have to upload a song about a month before it comes out to make sure that all the distributing partners have enough time to add it to playlists and can properly program. I remember a year or two ago thinking, 'Is that really the case?' So, I uploaded music closer to the deadline, like 48 hours before a release and it made it on [Spotify playlist] New Music Friday.
With Child of God, I had a song with Connor Price called 'Up!' and that splashed and two weeks later, we released 'Good Day,' which became the next biggest one. We kept dropping songs every two weeks because that's the pace I was writing music. Rather than hold back music for months, why not just put everything out there and see what happens? I feel like life is short: My time and moment is finite to a degree, so if I'm excited about these songs and the fans are excited, why would I hold stuff back?
There are a lot of crossover efforts between contemporary Christian music and country happening now, such as your collaboration with Thomas Rhett on 'Nothing Else.' Why do you think that's the case?
I think including God is pretty common in country music, [but] I've noticed that transition in my heart and the fullness I get to experience in praising God specifically. I think the country space is starting to feel that as well. I could see in the next year or two, a lot of the A-list country artists just making straight-up Christian worship songs.
With Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll's 'Hard Fought Hallelujah' also on the Hot 100, what's your take on the surge in Christian music's popularity?
I think it's just the people. Yes, it's the artists who are expressing their genuine love for God, but also, it's the consumers that are supporting it and championing it. With my tour, there's this family thing going on: We didn't expect for families to come to the show, but 'Your Way's Better' has become the music for the car ride, the music on the way to school. It was like an invisible market. I knew that there was kind of a starving family market, but here it is.
A version of this story appears in the May 17, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Best of Billboard
Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1
Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits
H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
37 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Devotees Defy Rowdy Mobs and Long Odds to Feed Their Addiction to Creepy Dolls
Creepy little trolls started popping up on Shannon Goodwin's TikTok feed in March. Before she knew it, she had plunged deep into their world. She is now storing dozens of keychain versions of the 'ugly little critters,' also known as Labubus, in a closet alongside her Louis Vuitton bags to avoid being judged by her teenage daughter.
Fast Company
an hour ago
- Fast Company
How ‘Subway Surfers' has dominated mobile gaming for over a decade
For 13 years, Subway Surfers ' download rate has been consistent: about one million new installs every single day. Half of those downloads come from users upgrading to new devices. The other half comes from children aging into phone usage, and users in less developed countries reaching a level of affluence that allows them to purchase their first smartphones. This steady influx of players has made Subway Surfers the most downloaded mobile game of all time, with 4.5 billion lifetime downloads. Recently, however, Subway Surfers' traffic has arrived in more dramatic waves. In 2020, the app saw a surge of new users after TikTokers discovered a way to 'hack' the game. In 2022, a 10th anniversary social media campaign—combined with a TikTok-viral 'no coin' challenge—once again sent downloads soaring. Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of Subway Surfers' parent company SYBO, understands the vital role social media plays in the game's continued growth. Many of its early competitors have vanished: Draw Something and Zombie Farm are no longer on the app store, and Temple Run (which once inspired Subway Surfers) has stagnated. Through TikTok, though, Subway Surfers has kept its edge. 'The fact that TikTok loves us means we're also being rewarded by Apple and Google, because their algorithms see what trends on other platforms,' Nørvig says. 'It's a flywheel of activation.' Subway Surfers ' social media dominance TikTok is crowded with so-called ' brain rot ' content. These posts typically layer two unrelated videos: one showing a TV show or narrated Reddit post, the other featuring a video game. Also called 'sludge content,' the videos lull the doomscrolling brain into a passive state, watching and listening as the parallel feeds play. It's like 'Cocomelon' for teenagers. Nørvig takes a much sunnier view of these videos, saying they 'give you a moment of zen.' They also frequently feature Subway Surfers, repeatedly bringing TikTok users back to SYBO's IP. There's no clear evidence that these 'brain rot' videos drive viewers to the App Store, but they certainly do keep Subway Surfers in the conversation. '[TikTokers] know we're not going to go after them for posting our content,' Nørvig says. 'We have a very different approach from other companies, where they do a lot more policing of social media.' Subway Surfers' in-house social media channels are led by Celia Zimmermann, SYBO's head of player experience. While the company produces plenty of its own content across platforms, the team also spends considerable time supporting the flow of organically created content. Zimmermann describes the game's openness as 'brave,' noting that many community managers at other gaming companies don't have the same speed for green-lighting. 'We have IP that we're able to be quite flexible with,' she says. This social momentum is especially important for Subway Surfers' young audience. Many tween players gather on platforms like TikTok. SYBO does not track younger players directly, but Nørvig estimates anecdotally that about half of the game's players are under 18. That figure does not account for the many kids playing on adult devices, which could push the percentage even higher. Of course, not all social media trends are positive. In New York City, a TikTok challenge recently encouraged some young people to try hopping between subway cars. At least six people died in 2024 attempting the stunt. Nørvig calls the trend 'unfortunate' and says SYBO would never repost or amplify dangerous content, though the company ultimately decided not to issue a public statement. 'Train surfing has been a thing that people are doing in New York, thankfully very seldom, but we haven't seen with our downloads that people think of it as something they can do in real life,' Nørvig says. 'It's clearly a game, and a silly game at that, and therefore we don't have any direct connection to it.' Can TikTok keep a 13-year-old game on top? Nørvig sees Subway Surfers as part of a standout group of Scandinavian mobile games. There's Angry Birds, launched in 2009, and Candy Crush, which debuted in 2012. Both remain strong performers, though Subway Surfers ' download rate now outpaces them by a sizable margin, according to analysts. It also stands out as the only game in the group embracing such a deeply TikTok-driven strategy—though it remains hard to say whether virality and revenue always go hand in hand. While SYBO declined to share exact revenue figures, Nørvig notes that 80 to 85% of the company's revenue comes from advertising, with the rest generated through in-app purchases. Monthly active users remain relatively steady—aside from viral spikes—at 100 to 150 million. With such a stable user base, revenue shifts at SYBO tend to follow fluctuations in the ad market. Analysts are split on Subway Surfers' future. Samuel Aune, a gaming insights analyst at Sensor Tower, supports Nørvig's view of long-term stability. He describes the game's 10-year download curve as 'really consistent,' especially when compared to its peers. 'Not a lot of games have lived 10-plus years,' he tells Fast Company. Ariel Michaeli, CEO of Appfigures, takes a more skeptical stance. Mobile game downloads have declined across the board on both the App Store and Google Play. 'But Subway Surfers has dropped a little bit more than everyone else,' he says, citing the company's internal tracking. 'It used to be number one for a very long time. Over the last few months, it started slowly going down [the ranking] . . . Subway Surfers has been around for so long that there's fatigue.' And what if TikTok disappeared? That seems unlikely in the U.S. for now, with President Donald Trump having extended the TikTok ban deadline for a third time. But in India, where TikTok is banned, Subway Surfers had to pivot. 'Facebook is their go-to, and so is YouTube, so that's the place where we go to engage with them,' Zimmermann says. For now, Subway Surfers holds its lead. Nørvig argues that among today's top-ranked mobile games, it is the only one growing organically. Its steady stream of downloads continues, driven by strong, recognizable IP and smart social media strategy—not by less transparent forces. 'We're still the most downloaded viral game,' Nørvig says. 'Everyone else has paid for their traffic to get on that list.'
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Chinese Makeup Brands Are Winning Over Global Consumers
As the US Supreme Court mulled a legal ban on TikTok in January, the effects on social media platforms were profound. Even before the judges ruled in favor of the ban—prompting the app to temporarily go dark in the US—an estimated 2 million TikTok users jumped ship to Chinese app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. For a number of beauty-conscious users, what they discovered was a revelation. 'I realized that RedNote had a lot of beauty secrets the United States wasn't using,' says Hailey Laine, a TikTok creator in Chicago who joined Xiaohongshu in January and continues to use both apps—RedNote for finding cosmetic inspiration, TikTok for posting about it. In January, Laine shared a video of herself using face powder and bright pink blush to re-create the monochromatic glow popular among Chinese beauty influencers, racking up 300,000 likes and 2.3 million views.
