#65 - Five Seconds Flat 🌞

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! It’s been a crazy week: Sam Altman is out at OpenAI (but might come back), Snoop Dogg is “giving up smoke,” Harry Styles shaved his head, Travis Scott wants to go learn architecture at Harvard, Diddy finally gets exposed. We’re glad it all happened this week because we’re on hiatus next week for turkey day.

Rating Rationale: The queen of 2-minute songs on TikTok has arrived with her debut studio album. After being accused of “quiet-quitting” her SXSW performance earlier this year, we weren’t sure what to expect from this project. Throughout Heaven knows, she breaks through the walls of the trademarked bedroom-pop sound she has solidified over the last three years by bringing on unique collaborators (Mura Masa, Oxlade, Greg Kurstin) that help extend and mature her sound. Our favorites include “Mosquito,” “Internet baby (interlude),” “Feel complete,” and “Feelings.”

Cassie accuses Diddy of abuse and rape but settles “amicably,” André 3000 embraces the flute, Drake drops Scary Hours III

On Thursday, singer Cassie Ventura dropped a bombshell lawsuit against ex-partner Diddy, alleging a decades-long history of rape, trafficking, assault and emotional abuse. Details from court documents reveal that Combs, “punched, beat, kicked, and stomped on Cassie,” as well as forced her to engage in sexual acts and coerced her into taking drugs like ecstasy and ketamine. Additionally, the filing mentions Combs’ manipulative control over Cassie, including the deletion of photo evidence of her bruises and paying off hotels to keep his abuse a secret. Cassie even alleges that Diddy was responsible for blowing up Kid Cudi’s car in 2012.

Diddy initially offered eight figures to keep Cassie from filing the lawsuit after Cassie demanded $30 million while threatening to write a book about their relationship. One day after the lawsuit filing, Cassie and Diddy came to a resolution and agreed to settle the lawsuit on amicable terms.

This week also saw a couple of surprise album releases. André 3000 released his debut solo album, New Blue Sun. After mentioning that constructing a rap album at the age of 48 would feel “inauthentic,” he concocted a surprising instrumental album filled with woodwinds, especially focusing on the Mayan flute you may have seen him sporting in random cities over the past four years. Separately, Drake dropped Scary Hours 3, which serves as a deluxe expansion of For All the Dogs. Although Drake mentioned that he would be on hiatus for the next year, it seems that he wanted to squeeze in six more songs (that he wrote in 5 days) before embarking on his joint tour with J. Cole.

The winners and the controversy of the Latin Grammy Awards

Earlier this week, the Latin Grammy Awards debuted its first year in Spain as part of a three-year government sponsorship deal with the Andalucía region of Spain. This uncanny move from Las Vegas has been fueled with controversy as Latin American artists have felt both ostracized by the distance as well as Spain’s contentious history with Latin America. As Rosalía has swept the awards in recent years, many contend that Spain is further whitewashing Latin American music and is ultimately becoming the greatest beneficiary of the commercial music interests of the Latin American diaspora.

This year’s Latin Grammys introduced three new award categories, including Best Songwriter of the Year, Best Singer-Songwriter Song, and Best Portuguese-Language Urban Performance. Record of the Year went to Natalia Lafourcade’s De Todas las Flores, Album of the Year went to Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito, and Song of the Year went to Shakira and Bizarrap for their collaborative effort on Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53. Édgar Barrera won both Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year.

The Regrettes are breaking up

After nine years of music, The Regrettes are breaking up after playing their farewell show on December 21st at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. The four-piece ensemble is parting ways to focus on other projects.

Lizzy McAlpine

Primer: Today, we’re spotlighting one of the leading female voices in the folk-pop space that’s been cosigned by Shawn Mendes and Phoebe Bridgers. Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Lizzy enjoyed songwriting so much that she decided to pursue it full-time while attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music. During her junior year, she dropped out to pursue music full-time.

Genre: Folk-pop

Influences: Dodie, John Mayer, H.E.R.

Current Label: After releasing her debut album independently and her sophomore album (the namesake of today’s newsletter) through Harbour Artists & Music/AWAL, A&R agent Liz Cohen brought Lizzy McAlpine to RCA Records this past spring.

Audience: 12.3 million Spotify listeners

What’s Next: Lizzy is set to headline the Out of the Blue Festival in Cancún, Mexico this January alongside Noah Kahan, Caamp, and Mt. Joy. Until then, check out her latest collaboration with Niall Horan and a live performance of “Never Gonna Be Alone” alongside Jacob Collier and John Mayer:

➕ Add to Music App: That’s the new feature TikTok launched this week, which allows users to save songs directly onto playlists on streaming services.

🧠 Lyria: In partnership with YouTube, DeepMind, Google’s AI lab, is transforming the future of music creation with their latest advanced music generation model. Along with their AI music generation model, they’re running two AI experiments focused on creativity: 1. Dream Track, an experiment in YouTube Shorts designed to deepen the artist-fan connection through music creation (Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, and others are collaborators on the experiment) and 2. Music AI Tools, tools designed for artists to improve their creative processes.

🎵 My Anthym: Anthym, an employee platform focused on connecting employees through music taste, has launched a new product that allows employees to create “JamTracks” so you now have an easier way to bond with your co-workers on your favorite music.

🌐 Web3 Updates: Blockchain-focused K-pop fan engagement platform, Modhaus, raised an $8 million Series A round led by immersive internet investment firm, Sfermion. Sound.xyz released a new functionality that allows for songs or playlists to be shared to web3 social platforms, Warpcast and Lens.

📹 VEVO DSCVR: Each year, VEVO releases a list of upcoming artists to watch. Here’s the list for 2024. Some artists we’re excited about are Chappell Roan, Fridayy, Libianca, Mae Stephens, Teezo Touchdown, and The Last Dinner Party.

🎤 UK+SK: K-Pop music entertainment company, SM Entertainment, is partnering with TV production company, Moon&Back, to debut a new British boy band.

🌎 Going Global: HYBE is making a push into the Latin music market with their recent acquisition of Exile Music, prompting the launch of HYBE Latin America. On the other side of the Atlantic, UMG is signing a deal with Sewasew, an Ethiopian streaming service to gain a stronger foothold in the African music market.

🤝 Other Partnerships: Music publishing arm of WMG, Warner Chappell Music, signs a new deal with Dido, while BMG extends their existing publishing partnership deals with both Pitbull and Riot Games. LiveNation partners with JYP Entertainment on a multi-year touring deal that allows LiveNation to produce tours for all of JYP’s K-Pop artists (TWICE, Stray Kids, TIZY, NMIXX, etc.). 10K Projects, a record label owned by Warner Music Group, announced a joint venture deal with Moneybagg Yo for his record label, Loaf Boyz Ventures. 

💰 Securing the Bag: CreateSafe, the technology studio that helped Grimes launch her AI project, raised $4.6 million in seed funding led by Polychain Capital. Baton, a music collaboration platform for unreleased material, raised $4.2 million led by BITKRAFT Ventures. Superfan monetization platform, We Are Giant, raised ~$8 million for their 150+ fan-led community events.

Jung Kook cashes in on Golden while The Beatles’ final song cracks the top 10

📈 Although Jung Kook doesn’t dethrone Taylor Swift from the #1 spot on the Billboard Charts, he does top all artists on both album sales and digital song sales for the week. This week also saw The Beatles land their first top-10 song since 1996. The Beatles now hold 35 top-ten songs (12 more than The Rolling Stones) which extends their lead on the charts as the most decorated group/band in history.

Introducing the Sunlighter Music Calendar 

📅 A month ago, we started developing a comprehensive music calendar so you could have all the upcoming music releases and tour updates in one place. While it continues to be a work in progress, today we’re officially flipping it live. You can find it here.

🚨 Surprise Drops:

1. Danny Brown, Quaranta

2. Torey Lanez, Alone At Prom (Deluxe)

⏩ Here are album releases to look out for this week: 

1. Busta Rhymes, BLOCKBUSTA

2. Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS: the secret tracks

3. Trippie Redd, SAINT MICHAEL V2

4. Fetty Wap, King Zoo

The Merch Table

• 🎛️ Let Me Upgrade U: The 12th edition of Ableton’s digital audio workstation is officially live with new synth and MIDI tools.

• 🩸 Paint the Town Red: Amazon Music is offering you exclusive access to Doja Cat’s Scarlet Tour merchandise. 

• 💎 boygenius bling: Newly Grammy-nominated group, boygenius, teams up with Catbird to release a jewelry collection (inspired by their signature matching tooth tattoos) that starts at $74.

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Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

Chris and Donya