#17 - Amp-azon 🌞

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! Today’s forecast is Stormzy with a chance of meatballs. If you don’t read anything else below, we at least urge you to open whatever you use to stream music and listen to his new album. Check out our ratings in today’s UV Index.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🎹 Song recs based on what we're listening to.

2. 🎧 Amp is our Sunlighter Spotlight of the week.

3. 💿 Industry updates from Apple Music karaoke to moves in the Web3 music space.

4. 📈 Data on worldwide engagement with music in 2022.

5. 🎡 Shaky Knees and some rock n’ roll tour announcements.

Chris: Yes, 10.0 is the right score. It’s Stormzy’s third record, and it’s a career-defining one. This isn’t just “another” sophisticated British grime album, even though you’ll inevitably hear those components at work in, “This is What I Mean” and “My Presidents Are Black.” He adds plenty of Afrobeats and jazz elements in “Need You” and “Hide & Seek,” while he shows off his diversity by pouring his soul into “Firebabe” and the diplomatically poetic “Please.” This is an emotion-moving album, and it’s undoubtedly setting the stage for him to surpass choir-sampling greats like Kanye West and Chance the Rapper. He’s a generational talent, and it’s time to recognize him. This is one of the best albums of 2022.

Donya: Stormzy’s third studio album embodies all the elements I look for when I listen to music: hauntingly captivating instrumentals, moving vocals, and soul-baring lyrics. Throughout the journey, Stormzy explores the ideas of freedom, bravery, and feeling in an all-encompassing album, and it’s sonically stunning from front to back. My favorites are “Bad Blood” and “I Got My Smile Back,” but I’ll have this entire album in rotation for a long time.

The Sunlighter Playlist 🔀

Songs we're currently listening to 🎹 

Sunlighter Spotlight: Amp 🎧

Radio-as-a-Service

Early this year, Amazon doubled down on its music streaming and podcast product offerings by launching an app that lets users host their own radio show (watch out Charlamagne and Zane Lowe 👀). At first glance, it feels like another competitor to Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Facebook Live Audio Rooms, or Spotify Greenroom with an obvious overlap in Amazon's podcasting market and Amp's potential network effects with Audible. However, if you take a deeper look, the true differentiator is Amp’s music-centric platform strategy, tapping into Amazon's deep catalog of licensed songs from their partnered record labels. Amp is positioned as an ambitious re-imagination of a legacy industry that hasn't experienced much innovation since the rise of SiriusXM's satellite radio and creative efforts from NPR Music and BBC Radio. Although the Amp division recently experienced layoffs as part of a strategic organizational effort to cut costs, we still think it has exciting potential.

A Music Creator Economy

As virtual concerts and music in the metaverse continue to gain traction, it's evident that many people are looking to experience music in different ways.

Amp provides users with many tools to create and schedule shows and foster and grow interactive communities on its platform. Since its beta in early March, Amp has continued to expand these native functionalities by improving playlists and the ability to save songs, creating “vibe” tags for more curated search, and integrating Amp with Alexa. Recently, they also released the Amp Creator Fund, which helps incentivize and reward creators on their platform by granting a monetary payout every month.

Whether you want to DJ your own silent disco or take music requests from live callers on your own personal radio show–you can do it through Amp.

Who’s on Amp?

We picked out a few featured shows below that we think you should follow and turn on notifications on for:

Industry Updates 💿

This week included a lot of new music drops in the music industry. Lana Del Rey announced her upcoming album on Wednesday, SZA dropped an S.O.S. with her second studio album in five years, and Paramore dropped a new single called, “The News” in anticipation of their new album in February. Caroline Polachek also announced her new album, which should debut on Valentine’s Day next year.

Here’s everything else you missed:

🎤 Apple Music Sing: On Tuesday, Apple announced that a new karaoke feature will be built into the Apple Music app, branded Apple Music Sing. And yes, you can do duets.

💿 Virtual Vinyls: Warner Music Group is teaming up with blockchain technology company Polygon to deliver you digital music collectibles and Web3 music on the go in the form of virtual vinyls. Look out for LGND Music in 2023.

👾 PIXELYNX: Animoca Brands, which recently announced a plan to raise a $2 billion metaverse fund, acquired a majority stake in Web3 music metaverse and gaming platform, PIXELYNX, which was founded by music industry vets, Deadmau5 and Plastikman.

🎥 TikTok Top Artist: Lizzo takes the top spot for most video views for a music artist on TikTok. “Sunroof” by Nicky Youre was the #1 trending song in the U.S. this year.

💼 More Music Industry Layoffs: In the last couple of weeks, both Utopia Music and more recently, SiriusXM, have announced layoffs.

🔑 SoundCloud JV: SoundCloud and Atlanta-based Third & Hayden are working on a joint venture label. One of their first signees is a Sunlighter favorite, KEY!.

🗓️ *BONUS: If you missed Record Store Day, which typically occurs on Black Friday every year, don’t worry. The next Record Store Day is on April 15th and we’ll set a reminder.

Data 📈

The Worldwide Recording Industry: Each year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) releases its detailed “Engaging with Music” report on how people worldwide engage with music. It is the world's most extensive music study; responses come from 44,000 listeners across 22 countries. Here are some of the most important highlights from the report released last month:

• ⏱ People are spending more time listening to music: Average weekly time listening to music increased from 18.4 hours in 2021 to 20.1 hours in 2022.

• 👑 Streaming services are king: 46% of listeners have used subscription audio streaming services.

• ⚕️ People use music as a source of mental and physical wellness: 69% of people say music is important to their mental health and when they exercise

• 🎥 A variety of ways to engage with music: 76% of people surveyed enjoy music in multiple formats, the highest on record. On average, more than 6 different methods are used to engage with music, the highest ones being: video streaming (82%), audio streaming (74%), radio (71%), and short-form video (68%).

• 🎮 Livestreaming and virtual concerts are still popular: 44% of gamers have watched a virtual music concert in the last three months, and 32% of people have watched a music livestream in the last month

• 🎶 Music genres across the globe continue to be diverse: People listen to an average of 8 genres of music, with the top five genres of music being: pop, rock, hip-hop, electronic/dance, and latin music.

• 📻 Yup, people still listen to the radio: 73% of people say that they listen to the radio primarily for music.

• 🚫 Unlicensed or illegal access to music is still an issue: Approximately three out of every ten people (30%) use an unlicensed method to listen to or download music.

Festivals & Tour Announcements 🎡

Last week, Shaky Knees dropped their 10-year anniversary lineup, announcing a return to Atlanta’s Central Park in 2023. The festival, orignially founded by Tim Sweetwood (formerly of C3 and Bowery Presents), was initially organized in an effort to introduce more indie music to Atlanta. In doing so, the name of the festival was also inspired by a song of one of Tim’s favorite bands, “Steam Engine” by My Morning Jacket. In recent years, the festival has gained popularity, prompting the expansion of the two-day festival to three days (similar expansions seen by Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits). However, Tim intends to focus on maintaining the festival’s intimate setting so festivalgoers can continue to enjoy the original Shaky Knees experience.

Tour Announcements 🤘

• In an emotional Instagram video, Celine Dion announced that she will be cancelling her Summer 2023 tour dates and rescheduling her Spring 2023 tour dates to 2024 due to her struggles with a rare neurological condition known as Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS). It affects approximately 1 out of 1 million people.

• Both Pitbull and the Jonas Brothers announced free tickets to their performance during the College Football Playoffs at Banc of California Stadium on January 7-8, 2023.

• Legendary rockstars Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, along with special guest Alice Cooper will be embarking on The WORLD Tour, starting next August.

• The Red Hot Chili Peppers are hitting the road (and festival circuit) again next year with their 2023 global tour.

• Bret Michaels announced his 2023 Parti-Gras Tour, a limited-run, 12-city tour with celebrity guests.

• Due to overwhelming demand, Shania Twain has added a second leg to her Queen of Me Tour.

• NAV will be kicking off his Never Sleep ‘23 Tour next February and will be ending his tour in his hometown of Toronto with special guest, Bryson Tiller.

Wrap Up 👏

We're closing the newsletter this week with a line that we think will foreshadow Stormzy’s rise to fame. His third album is an ace.

Lyrical Genius ✍️

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Chris and Donya