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- #53 - Swimming in Delaware 🌞
#53 - Swimming in Delaware 🌞
Your Weekly Music Round-Up: Snow Angel album review, Braunexit, Fyre Fest 2 sells out, BMI potential sale, Jack Antonoff Dirty Hit venture, Del Water Gap.
Chris Xu & Donya Bayrami
August 27th, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes
Happy Sunlighter Sunday! We went swimming in the deep end this week. Don’t worry, it’s not with Billy McFarland, though we are currently on the waitlist for Fyre Fest 2. We also heard your responses from our poll last week. We’re back in the lab, experimenting with alternate newsletter styles, so stay tuned.
Here's what we have queued up this week:
🌶️ Review of Snow Angel by Reneé Rapp.
💿 This Week in Music: Braunexit, Fyre Fest 2 sells out, BMI potential sale.
📈 Weekly Charts: Oliver, Olivia, and Karol.
🎙️ Del Water Gap is our artist of the week.
Rating Rationale: You may know multifaceted talent, Reneé Rapp, as “Regina George” from Broadway’s Mean Girls or as “Leighton” from Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls. Today, we’re evaluating her budding music career. Snow Angel is Reneé’s debut album, and one thing is clear: she provides a very strong and versatile vocal performance, reminiscent of her peer, Olivia Rodrigo. However, we have an atypical critique for some of the songs on the album, which might speak more to the production of the album (led by music artist, Alexander 23) than the stylistic approach. At times, the crescendos can be startling and abrupt (like in “Snow Angel”), making it feel like Reneé is… yelling. It’s likely done with purposeful provocation, but we think it can be done in slightly better taste. Regardless, there are certainly high-quality songs on the album, including “So What Now,” “Pretty Girls,” and “Poison Poison.”
❌ Braunexit: Since J Balvin’s exit in May and Justin Bieber’s rumored split last week, Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Idina Menzel have all shared in the last week that they are no longer being managed by Scooter Braun. What’s going on at SBP? Is this just Scooter’s way of saying he’s no longer in his management era or is there a bigger rift causing the separation?
💥 Dirty Hit: Grammy award-winning producer, singer, and songwriter, Jack Antonoff (fun., Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey, Lorde), announced a joint venture with Jamie Oborne of Dirty Hit Records (The 1975, Rina Sawayama). Through the new partnership, he and his band, Bleachers, will be signed to Dirty Hit and managed by Oborne himself.
😬 Fyre Fest 2 Sells Out: Somehow, pre-sale tickets for Fyre Fest 2 launched and sold out in a matter of days, still without a location or lineup. We’ll keep you posted if we get off the waitlist…
💰 Fight for Songwriter Rights: Earlier this week, rumors circulated that BMI, one of the leading music rights collection organizations, was considering a sale to private equity firm, New Mountain Capital, for a reported $1.7 billion. The nature of this sale and BMI’s new for-profit business leaves songwriters asking, “What happens to our royalties?” For reference, BMI and ASCAP collectively make up 90% of music licensing revenues in the United States.
💪🏼 Girl Power: This marked a historic week for women in music, with six female solo artists taking over the top spots in the UK charts for the first time: Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and Peggy Gou. Olivia Rodrigo also becomes the youngest recipient of the BRIT Billion Award, a recognition for reaching 1 billion streams in the UK, at age 20.
📺 You Gotta Watch This: deadmau5 gets very real with his thoughts on pre-recorded DJ sets and the dead giveaways when a DJ is using one:
🤖 AI is Still Trending: YouTube is working on a number of AI projects, including one with Universal Music Group to develop a set of AI tools protecting artists and rights holders (supported by Ryan Tedder, Anitta, d4vd, etc.), and a search feature to help you discover new songs by just “humming” into the search engine. Through their recent partnership, Lemonaide and Beatstars launched “Seeds” to help artists through the early stages of song creation.
✏️ Bob Dylan Fellowship: Starting May 2024, two lucky songwriters will be selected each year to receive a $40,000 stipend along with recording time at The Church Studio in Tulsa, among other opportunities.
🖼️ You Ain’t Gotta Flaunt For Me: Following in Swizz Beats’ footsteps, Timbaland takes a stake in a lifestyle and vinyl brand 12on12, commemorating his own limited edition vinyl with 12 songs that have inspired him and his artistic work.
💰 Securing the Bag: Anghami, the first legal music streaming platform in the Middle East and North Africa, received a $5 million investment from Saudi Research and Media Group. ThreeDee Music and TuneCore Germany established a partnership with Dolby Atmos, allowing independent artists to release their tracks through Apple Music (big for Spatial Audio). UK mobile ticketing platform DICE raised $65 million in its latest funding round led by investment company, MUSIC.
🌐 Web3 Updates: OpenSea makes it optional for music NFT investors to pay secondary royalties to creators (big mistake). Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist drop a surprise album exclusively available on-chain. spinamp launches “Releases For You,” allowing users to see a personalized feed of new music from artists they follow/collect.
🍁 Autumn is Coming: Bring out the pumpkin spice lattes (literally). Ed Sheeran announced Autumn Variations, his second album of the year and collaboration with producer Aaron Dessner. The album is inspired by Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” a composition focused on variations of a central theme with each variation being a “musical sketch” of one of his close friends.
🖤 Paint My Bedroom Black: The first artist Sunlighter ever covered, Holly Humberstone, announced five intimate shows in the UK in anticipation of her debut album. BRB, booking our tickets to London.
👀 Along with the empowerment anthem of being “Single Soon,” Selena Gomez and Fred again.. tease a new song together. Pharrell is working on his N.E.R.D. status. Black Pumas say no pressure, no diamonds for their sophomore album. Diddy reveals a trailer for his upcoming The Love Album: Off The Grid, which features Justin Bieber, 21 Savage, and The Weeknd. Soccer Mommy covers old-school Taylor Swift at Karaoke Night. Omar Apollo announces Live for Me EP along with a new single called “Ice Slippin.” Emeli Sandé asks How Were We To Know in her fifth studio album announcement. The Killers are teasing something.
🚶♂️ Artists On Tour: Lana Del Rey, Bob Dylan, Jai Paul, Arctic Monkeys, Lauryn Hill, Maisie Peters, Wynonna Judd, Aqua.
📈 What’s Trending? As expected, Oliver Anthony takes the charts by storm, followed by Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?.” Karol G, builds on her previous #1 album success with Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), a companion album to Mañana Será Bonito released back in February.
Primer: Sam Holden Jaffe, better known as Del Water Gap (derived from Sam seeing the name on a random white box truck), is yet another musician who hails from the lengthy, illustrious list of NYU musician alumni (Mark Ronson, Donald Glover, Lauv, FLETCHER, etc.). During his time there, he worked closely with classmate, Maggie Rogers, on the first iteration of Del Water Gap until it evolved into his current solo project.
Grandma’s Boy: As a Brooklynite, through and through, Sam can be predictably described in several ways: an introvert, a romantic, a fashion enthusiast, a self-taught music producer, and surprisingly, an Artichoke Pizza fanatic (there are much better options). However, Sam would probably say that the most surprising yet meaningful description of him may be “grandma’s boy.” Marked by his close relationship with his grandmother, Patricia, whose filmmaking skills distinguish her as the only other artist in his family, Sam and his grandma share an unbreakable bond that consists of her artistic influences on his life as well as a film club that brings them together weekly.
Genre: Indie-pop
Influences: Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Harry Nielsen, Joni Mitchell, Oasis, The Cure, The Doves, Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth
Current Label: Mom + Pop Music
What’s Next: His upcoming album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet (with features from Arlo Parks and Clairo), is set to be released next month, so stay tuned. You’ll likely see his name show up again in a future UV Index. For now, here’s the music video for his most recent single:
Wrap Up 👏
We're closing the newsletter this week with what is, statistically, the most likely scenario for Fyre Fest 2.
Who’s Burning? 🌡️
All the people who still bought tickets for Fyre Fest 2.
The Merch Table 💳
🔥 Fyre Fest 2: Want to be part of Billy’s redemption arc and head out to the Caribbean for the Fyre Fest redux? Join the waitlist here. Want a direct line to Billy and his team? Consider some PYRT merch.
🏟️ Trading Cards: The Jonas Brothers are commemorating their setlist at Yankee Stadium with a cool set of trading cards.
🫡 The Boss: ‘Bruce Springsteen: Portraits Of An American Music Icon’ will open as an exhibit at the Boston Museum on September 13th.
Sunlighter Playlist 🔀
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See ya next Sunday 😎
Chris and Donya
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