While digging back through our recent CCM Magazine Cover Story session with Colton Dixon, we unearthed a bonus performance we hadn’t released, and this one was too much fun to leave on the cutting-room floor. “Up + Up” has racked up million of streams since its release, becoming one of Dixon’s biggest hits. But for this CCM Magazine performance, he completely reimagined it. Just Colton, keys, a drum pad and a pretty wild intro. Watch Dixon build the song live in the room gives “Up + Up” an entirely different energy. It’s stripped down without exactly being quiet, keeping the pulse of the original while showing just how much one guy can do…

Why are you still making new albums? The economics have changed. Album sales certainly aren’t what they once were. For a band with a catalog stretching back more than 40 years, there is a perfectly viable business model that involves getting on a bus, playing the songs everyone already knows, selling some shirts and going home. Stryper could absolutely do that. Instead, on September 25, they are releasing their 18th studio album, Throne of Thorns. After listening to the record and sitting down with brothers Michael and Robert Sweet, I think I understand why. They still love doing this. That sounds simple, but Throne of Thorns sounds remarkably uninterested in being a nostalgia…