#25 - GRAMMYs tonight 🌞

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! The biggest night in music is here, y’all. Today’s edition features our predictions for The GRAMMY’s four most coveted awards.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🌶️ Review of Phosphorescent by Gabrielle Aplin.

2. 🎹 Songs we're currently listening to.

3. 💿 Industry awards, music industry investments, and Google's Music AI algorithm.

4. 🎙️ Our predictions for tonight’s GRAMMY Awards.

5. 📈 Data on Spotify’s earnings.

6. 🎡 Two music festivals in Belgium, Beyoncé on tour, and more.

Donya: Before this album dropped last week, I’d only heard two songs from Gabrielle Aplin, but “Waking Up Slow” is forever a jam. Do yourself a favor and save that one now. Phosphorescent is Aplin’s fourth studio album, and the lead single, “Skylights,” ensures a hypnotizing start with an all-encompassing lullaby-esque production. Aplin showcases her piercingly clear tone in “Never Be The Same,” fun otherworldly production on “Take It Easy,” and piano skills on par with Sara Bareilles on “Call Me.” This one’s a fun listen if you’re looking for singer-songwriter, coffee shop vibes.

Chris: If you listen to just a few songs on Phosphorescent, you should be able to quickly pick up Gabrielle Aplin’s natural singer-songwriter talent. Her sound is authentically indie/folk; however, if you actually listened to her previous album, you’ll notice that she only recently retreated back to her indie roots, departing from a more synth-filled and faster-tempo, pop album of Dear Happy. While her sound makes more sense as an indie artist, I prefer the major keys and uptempo songs and tend to pass on the minor keys and downtempo ballads (indie in general tends to fall into this category). “Don’t Say” from this album fits my preference more than “Mariana Trench.”

The Sunlighter Playlist 🔀

Songs we’re currently listening to 🎹

Our GRAMMY Predictions 🎙️

Before we go into our predictions for the night’s four most coveted awards, here’s a breakdown of past winners over the last ten years, as well as a description of each category.

For reference, the eligibility criteria for nominations this year was any music released between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022.

Album of the Year: This award is dedicated to everyone involved in making the album: artist(s) and featured artist(s), songwriter(s) of new material, producer(s), recording engineer(s), mixer(s) and mastering engineer(s) credited with at least 33% playing time of the album, if other than the artist.

Our Pick: Harry’s House

While most artists find it difficult to repeat the success of previous albums, Harry’s House is his third studio album, and it feels like he’s…home. The album is the epitome of eclectic pop, from the leading single, “As It Was,” with 558 million streams last year alone to poignant, heartbreaking numbers like “Matilda.” While he’s coming into the show as a first-time nominee in this category, going against seasoned musicians like Beyoncé and Adele, Harry’s position reminds us of Kacey Musgraves in 2019 when she won Album of the Year for Golden Hour. He won “Best Pop Album” for Fine Line in 2021, so this would be a sweet victory.

Song of the Year: This award is dedicated to the songwriters who wrote and composed the song. This may or may not include the artist, depending on songwriting credits.

Our Pick: All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

Say what you will, but Taylor Swift is one of the best songwriters of our generation. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” started with Taylor riffing lyrics with her guitar and band surrounding her just hours before a show on her Speak Now World Tour. It’s the song Taylor claims she’s most proud of, and it finally got the spotlight it deserved. Liz Rose, an early collaborator on Taylor's music, which spanned from her self-titled debut to Fearless, is also a credited songwriter on this record, making it a sweet, full-circle moment.

Record of the Year: This award is dedicated to the technical team involved in creating the song: the artist, producers, recording engineers, mixers, and mastering engineers.

Our Pick: BREAK MY SOUL

Beyoncé is the leading artist going into tonight’s ceremony with 9 nominations. Whether you’re running to "BREAK MY SOUL" on a treadmill or watching James Corden dance to it between filming segments of The Late Late Show, there’s no denying this record was a 2022 anthem of power and resilience. The house musical elements are unlike any other previous Beyoncé record, and it’s the most unique nominee in the category. Fun fact: If Beyoncé wins at least 4 of her 9 nominations tonight, she’ll become the most decorated musician of all time.

Best New Artist: This award is dedicated to a breakthrough artist who has released at least five songs or an entire album during the eligibility period.

Our Pick: Måneskin

We’ve covered Måneskin plenty of times over the last six months for their impact on both the Italian and worldwide music scene, so their nomination for Best New Artist is no shocker. We think this is the only no-brainer nomination for the night.

Industry Updates 💿

🏆 Aside from the Grammys tonight, we’ve got a few other awards to announce: Missy Elliot became the first female hip-hop artist nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Drake became the first artist to surpass 75 billion streams. The Jonas Brothers revealed during the ceremony of receiving the 2,745th Hollywood Walk of Fame star that they are releasing a new album on May 5th titled, The Album. Drake presented Lil Wayne with the Global Impact Award during the Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective Event, acknowledging Weezy’s impact on hip-hop, including launching Drake’s career via Young Money. Finally, the upcoming Grammys will showcase tributes to Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Loretta Lynn, and Takeoff.

🛍️ Music companies went shopping this week: Universal Music Group and Shamrock Holdings, a private equity firm, are looking to purchase Dr. Dre’s music assets for ~$250 Million. BandLab, an online digital audio workstation that has amassed over 60 million music creators on their platform, announced an acquisition of Airbit, a beat marketplace. MUSIC, a music investment holding company, made an investment north of $25 million in LVRN (Love Renaissance) Records (home to DRAM, afro-beats artist Davido, and R&B duo dvsn). Seeker Music expanded their music catalog by purchasing rights to the catalogs of Jon Bellion and John Ryan. Finally, Hume, a web3 record label, purchased Blocktones, a generative audio and visual NFT project.

Here’s everything else you missed:

• 🧠 Google’s Music AI Model: Google created an AI-based model known as MusicLM to generate high-fidelity music from text. Check out their abstract on GitHub.

• 💿 36 Tracks: The title represents the number of tracks Morgan Wallen is dropping as part of his new One Thing at a Time album.

• 🌙 Moon Music: Rejoice Coldplay fans! Coldplay’s new album, Moon Music, is almost finished.

• 🔊 This Is Why: You can get early access to Paramore’s upcoming album by joining one of their listening events across the globe.

• 🧱 Music on Roblox: This week, Warner Music Group launched “Rhythm City” on Roblox to introduce users to music and artists through social role-playing. As part of the announcement, Saweetie will be performing a virtual Super Bowl half-time show on Roblox.

Data 📈

💵 Spotify Q4 2022 Earnings: Spotify released their end-of-year fiscal earnings on Tuesday, and the general consensus is that music streaming is continuing its rapid growth within the global music listening market. Here are the highlights:

• 📈 Monthly Active Users grew 20% YoY to 489 million users and net user additions grew by 33 million, the largest ever number of users in Q4.

• 🎧 Premium subscribers grew by 14% YoY. The percentage sounds small, but it’s important to remember the size of Spotify’s current user base. It’s natural for smaller growth rates when converting much larger user bases. 14% actually beats their estimated growth guidance.

• 🤑 Total Revenue reached an all-time-high of €3.2 billion YoY. But don’t be fooled, Spotify is still operating at a loss.

• 🎁 The 8th year of their Spotify Wrapped campaign grew 30% YoY, drawing more than 150 million active users. Someone on the marketing team is doing it right!

Festivals & Tour Announcements 🎡

This week, we’re focused on Belgium, and no, we’re not talking about waffles or french fries (yes, French Fries were invented in Belgium).

🎛️ “Adscendo” Tomorrowland: A couple of weeks ago, Tomorrowland announced the stage hosts for their 2023 festival. Last Saturday, they announced the full lineup, which encompasses more than 600 artists across two weekends, ironically making all of the artists fine print on their poster (😂). Check out the full lineup for both weekends here.

🪨 Rock Werchter 2023: Rock Werchter is historic. It’s been around since 1974 and gradually changed from a one-day event to most recently, a 4-day event starting in 2003. In contrast, Lollapalooza became a 4-day event in 2016, a full 13 years later. This year’s lineup is probably one of the best we’ve seen, with more artists being announced soon.

Tour Announcements 🤘

• Queen Bey is embarking on the Renaissance World Tour, starting in Stockholm this May, and the new tour dates just keep on coming.

• Sparks are celebrating over 50 years in the music industry on a headlining tour later this year, with 11 dates in the United States.

• Chance the Rapper is potentially celebrating 10 years of Acid Rap with a live show.

• The Who is featuring an orchestra on each of their nine tour stops later this year.

• Luke Bryan is taking a break from American Idol to go on his Country On Tour, spotlighting eight rising country stars as his supporting acts.

• Chris Stapleton is going on his All-American Road Show starting this spring. Tickets go on sale this Friday, 2/10 at 10am PST.

• Lil Wayne is starting his Welcome To Tha Carter Tour this April and it spans 28 dates, ending in Los Angeles in May.

• The Kid LAROI is making 20 stops on his Bleed For You tour this summer.

• Fall Out Boy is kicking off their So Much For (Tour) Dust at the iconic Wrigley Field in June.

• Quinn XCII is taking his sophomore album on The People’s Tour this spring, with A R I Z O N A and Julia Wolf as special guests.

• Bryan Adams is going on his So Happy It Hurts Tour featuring Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

• Barenaked Ladies are going on their Last Summer on Earth tour in support of their 16th album.

• Hayley Kiyoko is traveling through Europe and the United States for The Panorama Tour, which starts this April in Glasgow.

• Björk is starting her Cornucopia European Tour this fall starting in Portugal.

• Lane 8 is exclusively playing 3 shows this year in Queens, San Francisco, and Denver.

Wrap Up 👏

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Chris and Donya