#12 - Big Sexy Pizza 🌞

Good morning and happy Sunlighter Sunday! Hope everyone appreciated this morning’s “fall back” and got a little more sleep from Daylight Savings. With all that extra energy, here’s a reminder that there’s a poll at the very bottom of every newsletter, so please share your feedback! We’d love to hear it.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🎹 Song recs for when you’re feeling nostalgic.

2. 💿 Industry updates, from the Midnights mastermind to the one who beat Shaq.

3. 🎙️ Lewis Capaldi is our artist of the week.

4. 📈 Data highlighting the accomplishments of Takeoff and Migos.

5. 🤘 Eras Tour and a lot of rock shows.

Rating Rationale: The Arctic Monkeys are back with their seventh studio album, The Car. If you’ve not familiar with this band, you’re living under a rock, so allow us to introduce you. From front to back, this album is 35 minutes of clear-cut, jazzy instrumentals with catchy harmonies–distinct qualities Donya loves in an album, hence the higher score. However, it’s difficult not to compare this album with AM, which gave us songs like “Do I Wanna Know?” and “Arabella.” Peaky Blinders fans will recognize those songs from the epic slow-motion scenes of the Shelby brothers walking the streets of Birmingham.

The Sunlighter Playlist 🔀

Songs for when you're feeling nostalgic 🎹 

Industry Updates 💿

• Midnights Mastermind: Taylor Swift owned the Top 10 on the Hot 100 with her 10th album, marking the first time in history that zero male artists charted in the Top 10.

• RIP AC: Aaron Carter, the late singer and younger brother of Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, passed away yesterday.

• Grammys 2023: The nominations will be announced next Tuesday, 11/15.

• American Music Awards 2022: The AMAs confirmed Imagine Dragons, JID, Carrie Underwood, P!nk, Wizkid, Tems, and Yola are all performing at this year’s ceremony. Stay tuned for announcements on more live performances, and check here for a full list of nominees.

• Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: In a first-of-its-kind milestone within the music industry, approximately 85 employees working for Secretly Group (an independent record label with artists such as Phoebe Bridgers, Japanese Breakfast, and Bon Iver) successfully secured a contract from the label’s management to collectively improve fair pay, improved diversity, and better work-life balance.

• Amp Layoffs: Due to broader cost-cutting initiatives, the team behind Amazon’s recently launched live radio app, Amp, is getting cut in half (150 employees).

• SXSW Round 1: The first round of showcasing music artists at SXSW 2023 includes Armani White, Edie Bens, and Balming Tiger (this collective is dope).

• License to Scale: Songtradr, a Santa Monica-based music licensing company released Smart Sync, a new technology platform to better track, manage, and monetize music catalogs, particularly in gaming and digital platforms.

• DSCVR Artists to Watch: Vevo dropped their DSCVR Artists to Watch List for 2022. Get to know these names.

• Artist Supernova: Splice and SoundCloud teamed up to launch Nova, a new artist development initiative.

• Eating Your Greens: Live Nation has taken an equity stake in the black-owned Washington D.C. metro hip-hop festival, Broccoli City Festival. Check out this year’s lineup.

• Triller Has Entered the Metaverse: Last month, Triller launched a metaverse platform, called (unoriginally) Metaverz - moving into a competitive territory currently controlled by Meta and other Web3-native apps.

• *BONUS: Remember SoundCloud Rap?: Earlier this month, XXL published rankings of SoundCloud rappers based on current impact, including catalog quality, commercial success, and accolades. What do you think?

Artist of the Week: Lewis Capaldi 🎙️ 

Lewis Capaldi is an artist who can bare his soul on a song, while simultaneously showcasing himself as a standup comedian. He’s authentically himself, without filter and without fail.

I Just Wanna Fly

From the beginning, Lewis has found ways to surprise his whole family, especially on the day of his birth, after his father claimed he had gotten a vasectomy 🤭. At the age of four, his family moved from his birthplace of Glasgow to Bathgate, where a young Lewis would discover his early musical influences. This was most evident during holidays, when the family would go on long road trips where they would listen to Fleetwood Mac, Adam Ant, Genesis, and Queen. He was particularly fascinated by Queen after finding their CD in a newspaper–it only had 2 songs on it, ”We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”–which he insisted the family play on repeat. A born attention seeker, Lewis went up on stage at his school’s yearly talent show and sang both songs, sparking his love for live performances.

As Lewis got older, he craved attention both on stage and at school. He was considered the class clown with a notable dry sense of humor, which ultimately led him to join the guitar club where he would meet his best friend, Aidan Beattie (now the bass player in his band). Together, Lewis and Aidan up-leveled their yearly talent show, both playing guitar and singing “Live Forever” by Oasis.

King of Slow & Sad

Outside of school, Lewis became a local legend with his frequent performances at The Grange, a local pub in Bathgate. They would host “jam nights” where anyone could go up on stage and perform, which gave Lewis a platform to practice and refine his songwriting. He would play here alongside Aidan and Adam Warrington (now YUNGBLUD’s guitarist) while simultaneously recording and publishing their songs on SoundCloud–this is where his manager eventually discovered him. Lewis characterizes his 9 years of performing at The Grange as a “practice run” for where he is now.

In 2017, Lewis released “Bruises,” which quickly rose to 28 million streams on Spotify, making him the fastest unsigned artist to reach that milestone. Later that year, he signed with Universal Music Group and began touring with artists such as Rag'n'Bone Man, Milky Chance, Niall Horan, Sam Smith, and Ed Sheeran. Since his debut album, Lewis’ most notable singles have all gone straight to #1: “Someone You Loved” (nominated for Song of the Year at the 2020 Grammys), “Before You Go,” and most recently, “Forget Me” – the first single from his sophomore album, Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent, out May 2023. Lewis says doing songs that are slow and sad is a comfortable place for him, so we can expect his sophomore album to have more of those soul-baring bangers.

Fun fact: Lewis found solace in sourdough during lockdown (honestly, same) and created “Lewis’ Big Sexy Pizza,” a frozen pizza brand now available in select UK stores.

Check out Lewis’ latest nostalgic cover video of a Britney Spears classic:

Data 📈

The Space Man: This week’s data segment honors Takeoff, the late Migos rapper who was tragically shot and killed earlier this week due to an altercation that occurred after a dice game. Though frequently overlooked as the third member of Migos, Takeoff was actually the initial catalyst of organizing the group, persuading the trio to begin rapping in 2008. Here are both personal accolades and RIAA achievements of the family affair.

• 💿 = RIAA Platinum Certification

• 📀 = RIAA Gold Certification

It was less than two weeks ago that Takeoff was on Drink Champs with Quavo promoting their recently released collaborative album Only Built for Infinity Links. During that interview, Takeoff mentions that “it’s time to get my flowers, I don’t want them laid on me when I’m not here.” RIP Takeoff.

Tour Announcements 🤘

• Taylor Swift announced her Eras Tour, where she’ll be performing songs from her self-titled debut album to her latest record-breaking album Midnights. Here’s a fun little commercial where you can relive all the eras while you wait in the Ticketmaster queue with everyone else.

• Paramore finally announced their highly anticipated North America 26-stop tour.

• Heavy metal legends, Pantera, are reuniting and their shows are quickly selling out. Stay tuned for their North American dates.

• Anthrax is extending its 40th Anniversary tour with Black Label Society through February of 2023. Get ready for some more thrashers.

• Australian metalcore band, Parkway Drive, will be checking their North America stops off the list, starting next January.

• Rebelution is making a couple of festival stops before going on tour next summer, starting with Austin, Texas.

• Colony House announced The Cannonballers Tour, which kicks off next February in Nashville.

Wrap Up 🚀

We're closing the newsletter this week with some lyrics from Quavo on “Two Infinity Links” that acknowledge the feud with Offset while simultaneously paying an eerie, retrospective tribute to Takeoff. Family > feud.

Lyrical Genius ✍️

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Chris and Donya