#19 - Merry & Bright 🌟

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! *NSYNC says it best with frosted tips–Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! Today is also our last newsletter of the year, so we’re sending you all off with both a Christmas special and a Happy New Year.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🎄 Song recs for a classic Christmas.

2. 🎅🏻 Industry updates on virtual experiences and a Tory Lanez verdict.

3. 🎧 Christmas albums that withstood the test of time.

4. 🎁 Data on the most-viewed music videos and artists of 2022.

5. ☃ Tomorrowland Brasil, JACKPOT NYE, and Drake on tour?

Chris: Thomas Mars and company are back with their 7th studio album, Alpha Zulu, and although no Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, it still gets good marks in my book. There are plenty of upbeat synth articulations and renewed disco qualities referenced from Ti Amo that feel like a surprisingly natural transition from 2017 to 2022. It’s a sort of sonic reawakening if you will, and an easy, cheerful listen, especially their collab with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig on “Tonight.” Rashida Jones would probably agree.

Donya: Phoenix does a really unique thing with this album, combining elements of classic alternative rock with undertones of EDM. I love a 30-minute album, and this is a fun one that weaves together otherworldly production, creative lyrics (my favorite one was “praying all night to radio waves”), and syncopated rhythms that make you want to dance. The heart of the album is Phoenix at their best, with “After Midnight” all the way through “Artefact” as standout tracks.

The Sunlighter Playlist ❄️

Songs for a classic Christmas 🎄

Best Christmas Albums of All-Time 🎧

While your holiday parties over the last few weeks may have had an assortment of chart-topping holiday singles, there’s something soothing about playing an entire album from front to back by the fire (especially in this cold because we’re still not used to less than 10 degrees in NYC). In honor of the holiday, we’re highlighting our top Christmas albums. These are the ones we believe aged like fine wine. True classics.

White Christmas, Bing Crosby, 1945

Bing Crosby is the definition of a classic artist who not only influenced the stylings of fellow legends Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley but who invested in technology to catapult the recording industry into the 21st century. Crosby brought the title track to life on a Christmas Day radio broadcast in 1941 (wild when you think about how music drops now), and the Christmas album came five years later–which became his best-selling album of all time at over 2 million copies sold. You’ll hear the title track on his film of the same name, White Christmas, which you can watch on Netflix.

Elvis’ Christmas Album, Elvis Presley, 1957

Here it is, the best-selling Christmas album of all time from the King himself. Whether you’re here for the upbeat “Here Comes Santa Claus” that gets you in the holiday spirit or the iconic rendition of “Blue Christmas” that plays together beautifully with the bluesy chord progressions, this is a perfect Christmas album. It led to two Christmas specials, both in 1957 and his “comeback special” in 1958. This marked the first of Presley’s albums to achieve Diamond status, and it now has over 20 million copies sold.

Noël, Josh Groban, 2007

Noël is a beautifully done, traditional Christmas album from one of classical music’s most generation-defining artists. The album is filled with stunning musical arrangements by legendary gospel musician Kirk Franklin and 16-time Grammy-winning producer David Foster that make traditional Christmas songs unique by spotlighting Groban’s distinct voice. The album features the famous London Philharmonic Orchestra, American composer Bill Ross, and a rhythmic guitarist Groban found on YouTube named Andy McKee. Noël marked Groban’s fourth studio album, and it has since become 6x Platinum with over 6.32 million copies sold.

Christmas, Michael Bublé, 2011

Drawing influence from Bing Crosby himself, Michael Bublé created a timeless Christmas album filled with big-band numbers, pitch-perfect tone, and technical twists on classic songs like “White Christmas” and “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” The first turns Crosby’s lullaby-esque melody into an upbeat jazz duet with Shania Twain, and the latter turns a yuletide bop into a ballad. This is Bublé’s best-selling album of all time and one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century with over 12 million copies sold.

Industry Updates 🎅🏻

We’re wrapping up this year with less gift wrap and more music updates.

🖥️ Virtual experiences are continuing to gain popularity into 2023 (with the exception of the era-defining video game Rock Band which is shutting down 😢). NBA Youngboy is hosting a new show on Amp, Mariah Carey is performing a Winter Wonderland experience on Roblox’s Livetopia platform, 21 Savage will conclude Amazon’s live concert streaming series on Amazon Prime Video and Twitch, Gorillaz played dual augmented reality shows in NYC and London and Yuga Labs, known for their Bored Ape Yacht Club and Meebits NFTs, just released an AI-generated album, Meebits Turn On, in collaboration with WarpSound.

🎟️ Ticketmaster stays on the naughty list and can’t seem to stay out of trouble, this time prompting the President of Mexico to ask Bad Bunny to hold a free concert due to hundreds of fans receiving fake tickets and not being able to gain entry to his Mexico City show. Luckily, Taylor Swift’s team has come to the rescue, patching up some of Ticketmaster’s broken reputation by allowing certain eligible pre-sale fans a “limited opportunity” to purchase tickets to her upcoming Eras Tour. Truly a consolation prize for Ticketmaster as they’re facing a second class-action lawsuit. Recently, the US Senate has also been pushing the FTC to crack down on ticket bots.

👨‍⚖️ Finally, Tory Lanez gets a stocking full of coal as he was found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion and could potentially serve up to 22 years in prison. Rex Orange County had assault allegations against him dropped after a woman in London originally claimed that the musician assaulted her six times over two days.

Here’s everything else you missed:

• 🥳 New Year's Eve with Miley: Miley Cyrus is hosting her second New Year’s Eve Party with her godmother Dolly Parton, which will include performances from Sia, Latto, FLETCHER, Rae Sremmurd, and others.

• 😵 Bieber Masters: The Biebs is negotiating a sale of his entire music catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Capital for approximately $200 million, so does it really matter if he lost ~95% of the value on his $1.3 million Bored Ape NFT?

• 🌚 Dark Side of the Moon: Pink Floyd releases 18 unreleased tracks from 1972, leading up to the legendary 1973 album release.

• 🎥 BTS in Theatres: While they’re on hiatus, BTS is giving fans a treat with a concert film from their sold-out performance in Busan, South Korea, set to premiere in February 2023.

• 🕎 Oh, Hanukkah!: Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin continue their third annual Hanukkah Sessions, where they celebrate each night of the holiday by covering a song from a Jewish artist.

• 🎄 Fallin’ for Christmas: Alicia Keys released a Christmas album called Santa Baby and celebrated the launch with a Holiday Masquerade Ball, where she did a mashup of her classic song “Fallin’” and “Ave Maria,” which aired on Apple Music and TikTok.

• 🆘 This is an SOS: SZA scores her first #1 album with her third album, SOS. Word is there’s a deluxe version of the album coming soon with more punk-rock-inspired songs and a duet with Lizzo.

• 🤖 Artificial Music: With OpenAI’s DALL-E and ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion’s latent text-to-image diffusion model gaining mainstream attraction, Riffusion is hoping to capitalize on an AI model that composes music based on image spectrograms created by Stable Diffusion.

• ✍️ Eurovision 2023: Ukraine submitted the artist who will be representing them at next summer’s Eurovision, an international songwriting competition, from a bomb shelter in Kyiv. Ukraine won last year’s competition and was set to be the host country for 2023, but due to unsafe war conditions, the event will be hosted in Liverpool.

Data 🎁

Vevo Most Viewed Music Videos of 2022: Karol G earns the top spot as the most-viewed artist globally and has the single most-viewed video of the year with her single, “PROVENZA,” reaching 546.9 million worldwide views. In total, she racked up 2.76 billion views across all of her videos in 2022 😮 The silver medal for the most-viewed video of 2022 goes to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno (From Encanto),” which amassed 503.4 million views globally, with close to half (240 million views) coming from the United States alone. If you ask us, that’s a pretty successful follow-up to Hamilton for Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Shakira comes in 2nd place behind Karol G as the most-viewed artist around the globe, likely driven by her single “Te Felicito.” Within the United States, Lil Baby took the top spot for the third year in a row, pulling in 674.7 million views, a ~12% decline of 770 million views from 2021. In general, aggregate video views have declined since 2021, does that mean attention spans are getting shorter!? Some notable artists who made the cut in the US include Luke Combs and Young Dolph (R.I.P.).

Festivals & Tour Announcements ☃

🏟️ Tomorrowland returns to Brazil after 7 years: After a 7-year hiatus, Tomorrowland is heading back to the Southern Hemisphere home base of Itu, São Paulo next October. Stay updated here.

🎰 Jackpot NYE: Las Vegas for NYE sounds like a bucket-list experience and this year, music events organizer and promoter RVLTN upped the stakes with an inaugural 2-day EDM music festival, JACKPOT NYE, headlined by Deadmau5, Porter Robinson, RL Grime, and Rezz.

Tour Announcements 🤘

• Drake, who recently made a bet (and lost it all) on Argentina winning the World Cup, confirmed in an interview with Stake that he will be on tour in 2023.

• Ari Lennox shocks fans by announcing her Age/Sex/Location tour will be her final tour.

• Ma$e, Cam’ron, and Jadakiss are taking over the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY for one night on January 28th.

• As part of his Las Vegas residency, Usher announced that he will be playing three additional nights at Dolby Live at Park MGM.

• Due to a viral infection, Billy Joel canceled his final MSG show of 2022 and postponed it for June 2023.

• Joywave is hitting the Express Wash next March to support their newest album.

• Mt. Joy will be back on tour for a quick 12-stop stint in 2023 to support their album Orange Blood.

• The Flaming Lips announced a short, 9-date North American tour in 2023.

• R&B icons New Edition are back on tour again in 2023, embarking on their Legacy Tour in March.

• Classic rock legends ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynryd are co-headlining The Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour, which kicks off in July 2023.

• The Interrupters and Frank Turner will be co-headlining a Spring 2023 tour that starts in April.

• K-Pop artist, J.Y. Park, will be playing two special performances in the United States next February, one in Brooklyn and one in Los Angeles.

Wrap Up 👏

We're closing the newsletter this week with one of our favorite Christmas duets.

Lyrical Genius ✍️

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See ya in 2023 🎉

Chris and Donya