#58 - How often do you think about the Roman Empire? 🌞

Often. Happy Sunlighter Sunday! This week, we’re going where all roads don’t necessarily lead: No Rome. It’s another British artist, and as we’ve stated before, we’re currently in a British pop renaissance. The best music from the past two years has unequivocally come from across the pond.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🌶️ Review of Autumn Variations by Ed Sheeran.

2. 💿 This Week in Music: Justice for Tupac, opening night of U2 at The Sphere, Spotify Jam, and Afterparty raise.

3. 📈 Weekly Charts: Hip-hop back on top.

4. 🎙️ No Rome is our artist of the week.

Rating Rationale: Autumn Variations is Ed Sheeran’s first independent album release since he was 19, and this time, he’s done it through his own record label, Gingerbread Man Records, with distribution from WMG. Inspired by Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” Sheeran has written 14 songs about 14 of his friends, marking his second album of the year with producer Aaron Dessner. If you’re a fan of the early days of Ed Sheeran (think + or even earlier), you’ll love the percussive lyrical delivery and raw instrumentals. While he has every intention of creating more pop records, he coins this album as his favorite piece of creative work, solely created for his fans. Standout tracks for us are “Magical,” “Blue,” and “American Town.”

⚖️ Justice for Tupac: Almost 30 years since Tupac Shakur’s murder, new evidence has led Las Vegas police to arrest longtime suspect, Duane Davis. Authorities say he was the shot-caller for the group of individuals that committed the crime.

🛍️ On The Road Again: In partnership with Willie Nelson (though it’s not clear how Willie’s involved aside from the name of the “scheme”), Live Nation is foregoing its cut in artist merch at all operating venues through the end of 2023. This means artists will keep 100% of the profits made from merch sales. While on the surface it sounds like a beneficial move, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) says it squeezes out independent venues in the long run.

🔥 Burn, Ticketmaster: The IRS is laying down the hammer, requesting Ticketmaster, StubHub, and any resellers to report any resale tickets over $600, starting this year. This means that ticketing companies will have to file a 1099-K with the IRS, resulting in resellers receiving a copy to report on their returns. Here’s hoping this helps bring down exorbitant ticket resale prices.

✨ AMC Renaissance: Beyoncé is in talks with AMC to bring her Renaissance Tour to the cinema, allowing viewers to experience the creation and performance of the showstopping album.

📺 You Gotta Watch This: On Friday night, the highly anticipated Las Vegas Sphere opened its doors as U2 kicked off their residency. The spectacle of a venue is trailblazing the future of live entertainment, just see for yourself.

🍯 Jam Session: Continuing its efforts to make streaming more social, Spotify introduces “Jam,” a real-time, personalized listening experience for you and your friends. The service is available to Premium subscribers, and while anyone in your group can add songs to the queue, Spotify’s algorithm also provides the best songs to fit your vibe.

🌍 Digitizing Africa: Mdundo, a streaming company focused on distributing digital music to the African market, achieves 26.6M monthly active users, seeing a 239% increase in paid subscriptions YoY. For perspective, when we reported on Mdundo last October, they had 20.3M monthly active users.

🌌 Welcome to the SoundVerse: Former Spotify product manager, Sourabh Pateriya, founded SoundVerse, which he calls an “AI copilot for audio and music creation.” Powered by a digital “SoundVerse Assistant” and “AI Magic Tools,” the company’s mission is to redefine audio creation and accessibility using generative AI and AR. The product is currently invite-only and in beta testing.

🏕️ Epic Acquisition: Just 18 months post-acquisition, Epic Games decides to sell music distribution platform, Bandcamp, to music licensing platform, Songtradr. The acquisition is a natural fit for Songtradr as it will give artists “the ability and choice to have their music licensed to all forms of media.”

💰 Securing the Bag: Afterparty, an AI platform allowing artists to personalize and monetize their fan connections, secured $5M in their latest raise led by Blockchange Ventures.

🌐 Web3 Updates: Dreamus, the South Korean entertainment division of parent company, SK Planet, is providing NFT tickets through their OK Cashbag App for upcoming K-pop concerts. Sound.xyz has launched “Tiers” in an effort to allow fans to buy Forever or Limited Edition NFTs from their favorite artists.

🇳🇬 Afro Nation Nigeria Festival: Burna Boy and J Hus are confirmed as the headliners for the inaugural festival this December 19-20th in Lagos.

👋 Love It If They Made It: After announcing an “indefinite” hiatus will begin after At Their Very Best Tour wraps in 2024, Matty Healy assures fans they are never, ever, ever…splitting up.

🐓 Clockenflap Music & Arts Festival: The Hong Kong-based festival announced it will be hosting top indie acts (and many of the ones we’ve covered) this December. From Joji, to Caroline Polachek, bbno$, d4vd, and Novo Amor, this lineup is stacked.

🖐️ 2023 BET Hip-Hop Awards: The world continues to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop at this year’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, with Offset, Ludacris, and Sexyy Red slated as the award night performers.

👀 What’s Coming Up: Guess who YUNGBLUD is collaborating with next? Ice Cube announces Man Down, his first solo album in five years. If you want drumless Random Access Memories, Daft Punk says you’re in luck. Billie Eilish has a “whole album of music” coming. In partnership with Medallion, Sigur Rós is providing special access of their new album to their exclusive fan community. Paramore and Wet Leg are teasing a collab. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard will be releasing their 25th album soon. boygenius says they’re “Afraid of Heights” in Boston. Sky Ferreira indicates sophomore album Masochism and a 2024 UK tour are on their way.

🚶‍♂️ Artists On Tour: Holly Humberstone announces 20 tour dates across the UK and Europe in support of her debut album, Morgan Wallen extends his 2024 tour with a few supporting dates by Lainey Wilson, Aerosmith postpones their Farewell Tour to 2024 due to Steven Tyler’s ongoing vocal injury, Take That announce they’ll be extending their tour through 2024 with Olly Murs, Two Door Cinema Club are “Sure Enough” going on tour, Arlo Parks will be touring a number of cities in 2024, Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Burna Boy, Stevie Nicks, Journey.

📈 What’s Trending? Album release season is here. This past week, hip-hop reclaimed the top spots for the highest charted song and album. Rod Wave scores his third #1 album and is the only other artist aside from Taylor Swift to have received a #1 album each of the last three years. Here are other album debuts that made the charts this week:

• The Love Album: Off The Grid - Diddy

• Bigger Houses - Dan + Shay

• Revamped - Demi Lovato (her pop songs in punk rock form)

• I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1) - Teddy Swims

• It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day - Thirty Seconds to Mars

• Silence Between Songs - Madison Beer

• Caves - NEEDTOBREATHE

• Stone - Baroness

• Brothers Osborne - Brothers Osborne

Primer: We’ve been listening to London-based Filipino artist, Guendoline Rome Viray Gomez, ever since he was introduced to labelmate, Matty Healy (The 1975) through their mutual friend and graphic designer, Sam Burgess-Johnson. His stage name, No Rome, is a subtle footnote to his haters who told him that he shouldn’t make music.

Mastering Production: Raised by a family in which music was a core part of the household, Rome was influenced at an early age by both his mother’s singing and his father’s avocation as a DJ. Now, as a professional, self-proclaimed “sound designer,” Rome has transcended to a point in his music career in which he’s comfortable focusing on the primacy of production detail and music longevity as opposed to making music that’s conveniently trendy (👏). From the release of his debut EP, RIP Indo Hisashi (an incredible, albeit short, body of work), a penchant for the late Japanese monochromatic artist, to his debut album, It’s All Smiles, made in collaboration with fellow producer, BJ Burton (Kanye West, Bon Iver, Charli XCX), Rome continues to take a master-of-his-craft approach to the quality of his music production.

Genre: Indie-pop, more specifically, “Shoegaze R&B”

Current Label: Dirty Hit

What’s Next: He dropped his second album, Blueboy Must Die, earlier this month, and we suggest that you give it a deep dive. For fans of The 1975, here’s a video of Rome’s collaboration with Matty Healy:

Wrap Up 👏

We're closing the newsletter this week with Kevin James and the debut of The Sphere.

Who’s Burning? 🌡️

My mom: Why are you going to Las Vegas?

Me:

The Merch Table 💳

• 🎧 CD-PLAYER: If you’re unfamiliar with the minimal, futuristic French luxury brand Coperni, here’s your official introduction. With the resurgence of Y2K fashion and 2000s angst music, Coperni just released the grail of the year, a CD-PLAYER Swipe Bag as part of their Spring-Summer 2024 collection, reminiscent of the Sony Walkman.

• 🐎 1017 ALYX 9SM: Streetwear fashion brand, 1017 ALYX 9SM, or simply ALYX, released a compilation album (feat. Kid Cudi, Lil Yachty, Ethel Cain, Fousheé, etc.) on Friday alongside exclusive merch.

• 🔊 OB-4: One of the most aesthetically pleasing and high-quality music hardware design labs, Teenage Engineering recently dropped additional colorways for their portable, high-fidelity Bluetooth speaker, OB-4.

Sunlighter Playlist 🔀

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Chris and Donya