Bach was an ultimate nerd, adept in technology of his generation. He knew about organ construction like few did and he earned an income as consultant from pipe organ construction projects that required much risk taking and investment. One has to be technical enough to know a lot about the physics of sound producing, metallurgy (look into the tin/copper content of the pipes to make sure the builder hasn't taken shortcuts etc. ), inspect bellows, air controllers, and suggest design changes, etc.
To the ordinary towns people this might have looked like Moog synthesizer or Hillsong innovations of today. Lets not forget that Bach faced significant career threatening opposition on the musical structure of these very Cantatas that were composed when he was Cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig where he taught music. His music was too new for most of them too...
Meanwhile Hillsong is repackaged millennial pop/country/hints-of-EDM with all rough edges sanded down to a glossy frictionless finish. It's slick and corporate and essentially parasitic on popular music stylings, visual imagery, and performance tropes.
There's nothing nerdy or edgy about it (unless you include some of the criminal allegations that surround Hillsong - which everyone probably should).
So I think comparing it to the output of a technical genius like Bach is pushing the truth envelope a little too far to be completely convincing.
"Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven" by John Eliot Gardiner. He is a reliable source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eliot_Gardiner
A detailed comparison with modern music comes from a recent author whose name slips my mind. He taught at Columbia University, a journalist, his entire book is on the relationship of Bach with all kinds of recorded music in digital age.
People that converted without a high-church context gravitate toward a more modern style of worship.
The downside of so much hillsong influence is that it dominates a culture and drowns out other modern styles. I feel like all hillsong songs sound the same.
For instance, a major component of the Protestant Reformation was encouraging congregational singing, and (particularly Calvanist) church composers of the era brought the music of the church much closer to the contemporary "popular" music of the day.
Definitely, but we also need to consider that before the industrial revolution, Christians were limited in their options (most folks were very poor by modern standards, there isn't much diversity in music in general, and there is a comparatively narrow [and at various times, more corrupt] group of people making decisions on theology and music). So we need to consider history, but we don't weight all history evenly--there is such a thing as 'progress', after all.
That's a bold claim that too many people accept without question and about which too few actually consider the implications.
Progress is improvement. It's moving forward. The notion requires accepting the idea that you were at one point behind where you are now or not as developed/complete/refined. That's fine if you are talking about technology or some other mundane topic, but to make that claim in the context of Christianity - a religion ENTIRELY dependent upon the veracity and completeness of the stories and traditions it is based upon - is to call into question the entire faith.
But to imply that from the BEGINNING Christians were incorrect on something as important as sacramental theology and the role of music in sacramental theology is a completely separate claim with severe implications, as I described above.
I realise this is a very personal perspective, but I find a lot of "secular" music better for worship: Hendrix, Led Zep, Guns 'N' Roses, Soundgarden, Hybrid, She, Pendulum, and of course plenty of orchestral and ensemble music from earlier eras. This stuff stirs my soul.
I'm honestly not trying to be edgy here, and I'm well aware that this isn't going to be everyone's (or even the majority's) bag, and I'm definitely not suggesting that Christian music needs to change for my benefit (it really doesn't). That's all totally OK: it's just me saying that after 22 years of being a Christian I know who I am.
We forget that people are extremely varied, there is room for everybody. An infinite God probably doesn't create only ~3 "right" ways of worshipping, living, serving, teaching, etc.
One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.
Counterpoint: Lots of people, especially those who had not-great experiences growing up in the church, tend to go hard in a different direction when they grow up.
In "Blue Like Jazz", Donald Miller talks about how he thinks it would be super cool to belong to a relatively obscure (in the US) denomination like the Greek Orthodox --- that is, unless he had grown up Greek Orthodox. Then he thinks it would be totally lame and predictable.
For those interested in this sort of thing, Minnesota Public Radio's app has an entire streaming channel of choral music.
I expect that history will look back and see Hillsong as an example of sacred music from this time period.
The Hillsong song still is very pop chord-cyclic. Much of the song is dominated by a variation of a C minor - E flat major - B flat major - A flat style cycle -- essentially, I would call it vi I IV V (to my ears at first listen the song's "home base" is E flat at least). The chord pattern shifts a little bit from time to time and there is some occasional variation in chord choice -- for instance, later in the song the A flat gets substituted with a F minor (ii) -- and some chord order variation. But Hillsong (like a lot of modern pop music) more relies on texture and instrument density (or lack thereof) for their expression . (Here the repetitive nature itself also can be thought of as an element of expression I'm sure, repetitive chant is a well known element of various religious cultures.)
Bach's tunes were written in the counterpoint style, which is an entirely different way of composing (very much a voice leading dominated style, with a clearly defined function for various chords -- tonics, dominants, etc.). The Bach cantatas honestly are not comparable to Hillsong in some ways as I think they were more meant to be performed, not sung along with by the entire church. But the older unison singalong hymns also did not tend to lean on chord loops like modern pop.
Take Adolphe Adam's "O Holy Night" aka Cantique de Noel (link to a French choral-orchestral version found on Youtube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNCFvg5M-yA). It "loops", but like most older hymns the loop is more verse-chorus oriented. You can have simple tunes with this structure ("Silent Night" is just three chords), but "O Holy Night" IMHO has a fair bit more complex chord progressions while still retaining enough simplicity to be a sing-along. Just to give one example, instead of repeating the chords at the end of the first part of the verse (I-V-I), the second part ends with a iii-VII7-iii so it can transition to the next section (in the Youtube version which appears to be in Eb major, that would be G minor - D7 major - G minor). The chorus goes through another set of chords entirely.
Personally, too often I find the Hillsong style of composing (which actually is very typical of modern secular pop as well) too repetitive for my personal taste, and lean more toward the older style. But this obviously is just my opinion. Hillsong is obviously popular, as is the modern pop style that they are written in.