"WOW" is a series of annual compilation albums featuring contemporary Christian music dating from 1995. Comprising songs submitted by each partner label, the annual WOW Hits releases are usually double CD sets. The series was officially cancelled in 2019. Throughout its run, the WOW franchise evolved into one of the most successful collections of Christian music.
The birth of the WOW record project can be traced to Grant Cunningham, A&R Director at Sparrow Records. In November 1994, Cunningham made a business trip to EMI Limited in London, which at the time was the parent company of Sparrow Records. There, he noticed that several British record labels were issuing an annual CD of top-rated songs, known as the NOW series, containing collections of pop songs. Cunningham brought the idea back to Sparrow. Sparrow executives suggested a similar project be developed for Christian pop music and he was assigned the task of getting the project off the ground.
Released in late 1995, WOW 1996 was the first in the WOW Series and the first recording put together by the three major Christian record companies of the time: Word Records (now Word Entertainment), Sparrow Records (formerly part of EMI Christian Music Group), and Reunion Records (now part of Sony's Provident Label Group). Still today, after each submitting label agrees to a reduced master royalty, the final decision on the tracks to be included is made by committee. Production, marketing, and distribution for the "WOW Hits" series was handled by EMI Christian Music Group, and from 2013, by Capitol Christian Music Group, which is now a Universal Music Group company.
In 1999, the annual WOW Worship series was launched. Rather than using the year, each release is identified by the color of the cover. The worship series and hits series are today among the best-selling members of the product brand. Beginning in 2008, WOW began releasing separate single-disc collections spread throughout each year, rather than a two-disc collection toward the end of each year. In addition to WOW Hits, which focuses on the most popular pop and pop-rock music, plans call for either single-disc WOW Rock Hits and WOW Pop Hits collections released twice a year.
WOW Series was the first and most successful series of WOW collections,[1] and contains the following albums:
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Christ | ||||
| WOW 1996 |
| 144 | 7 |
| |
| WOW 1997 |
| 71 | 1 |
| |
| WOW 1998 |
| 52 | 2 |
| |
| WOW 1999 |
| 51 | 2 |
| |
| WOW 2000 |
| 29 | 1 |
| |
In 2000, the WOW Series was rebranded to WOW Hits, forming the second and also the most successful series of WOW collections. In 2008, the WOW Series contemplated releasing three single discs per year instead of the annual double discs customers were used to. Only one single disc was ever released, WOW Hits 1. in the spring of 2008, before reverting to the annual format. It is not known why the publishers decided to return to the annual format instead of the new format, which was inspired by the Now That's What I Call Music! series, which releases three discs annually. It contains the following albums:
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Sales | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Christ | |||||
| WOW Hits 2001 |
| 36 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2002 |
| 52 | 2 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2003 |
| 34 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2004 |
| 51 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2005 |
| 39 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2006 |
| 42 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2007 |
| 38 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2008 |
| 56 | 2 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 1 |
| 99 | 4 | |||
| WOW Hits 2009 |
| 31 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2010 |
| 33 | 1 |
|
| |
| WOW Hits 2011 |
| 26 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2012 |
| 35 | 1 |
|
| |
| WOW Hits 2013 |
| 39 | 1 |
|
| |
| WOW Hits 2014 |
| 29 | 1 |
|
| |
| WOW Hits 2015 |
| 23 | 1 |
|
| |
| WOW Hits 2016 |
| 55 | 1 |
| ||
| WOW Hits 2017 |
| 64 | 1 | |||
| WOW Hits 2018 |
| 113 | 3 | |||
| WOW Hits 2019 |
| — | 5 | |||
WOW Gospel are released annually, beginning with WOW Gospel 1998. The focus of this series is gospel, and the compilation has been issued every year since 1998.[8] Since the release of WOW Gospel 2003, a major metropolitan city that has been influential in the field of gospel music has been honored on the album cover. For instance, New York, NY was honored due in part to the September 11, 2001 tragedy, and so on. The exception is WOW Gospel 2009 in which the United States of America was honored due to the previous year's election. Another exception was when Atlanta was honored twice - first in 2007 and 2013. However, for Wow Gospel 2014 and Wow Gospel 2015, they did not recognize a city, however used a different background for the cover. The series consists of the following albums:
The WOW Worship series was released annually beginning with WOW Worship Blue in 1999. The focus on this series is praise and worship. The first album features songs performed by the worship leaders who wrote them, including Darlene Zschech's "Shout to the Lord".It is a partnership between Integrity Music, Maranatha Music and Vineyard Music.[9] After several years, it switched to a contemporary Christian music format, where CCM recording artists perform praise and worship songs in their style. The series features ten albums.
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Christ | US Gospel | ||||
| 144 | 1 | - |
| |||
| 65 | 1 | - |
| ||
| 78 | 3 | - |
| ||
| WOW Worship: The Platinum Collection |
| - | - | - | ||
| 1 | - |
| |||
| 62 | 2 | - | |||
| 75 | 2 | - |
| ||
| 93 | 3 | - |
| ||
| WOW Gospel Worship |
| - | - | 16 | ||
| WOW Worship: Lime |
| 76 | 4 | - | ||
WOW Essentials was first released in August 2008. It contains twelve songs that are "essential to Christian music life." The first album features songs from Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, and many others. The focus of this series was to showcase favorite and well-known songs picked from the most recent years, and consists of the following albums:
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Christ | |||
| WOW Essentials | 13 | ||
| WOW Essentials 2 | 24 |
WOW Christmas is a series of compilation albums featuring Christmas music as recorded by contemporary Christian music artists.[10] The series is released sporadically, beginning in 2002, and consists of the following albums:
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Sales | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Christ | US Holiday | |||||
| 45 | 1 | 3 |
| |||
| 54 | 2 |
| ||||
| WOW Christmas: White |
| 61 | 2 | 3 |
| ||
| WOW Christmas: Blue |
| 49 | 2 | 3 | |||
| WOW Christmas: Gold |
| - | 12 | ||||
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Christ | ||||
| WOW #1s |
| 58 | 1 |
| |
| WOW #1s: Yellow |
| - | 9 | ||
From 1997 to 2012, excluding 2008, the WOW Hits series was accompanied with home video releases. The first of these, WOW 1997 the VIDEO, was a videocassette with nine music videos released in 1996. The sequel, WOW 1998, featured 16 videos. The WOW Gospel series also received home video releases. The final videocassette release was WOW Hits 2004, released in 2003.
Beginning in 2002 with the release of WOW Hits 2003, home videos were released in the DVD format. Prior releases were also reissued on DVD in 2002, with a few modifications. For instance, the 2000 and 2001 releases each had a Raze music video on videocassette, due to a sexual abuse scandal involving Raze frontman Ja'Marc Davis, these were omitted from the DVD releases. Additionally, the 1997 and 1998 releases were released on one DVD.
The final WOW Hits home video release was WOW Hits 2012 in 2011.[13] The final WOW Gospel home video release was WOW Gospel 2017 in 2017.
Spin-off DVDs include WOW British Gospel in 2004 and WOW Music Trivia Game in 2007.