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- #44 - Not everything, everywhere. 🌞
#44 - Not everything, everywhere. 🌞
Your weekly music round-up: The Show album review, New Drake album, Spotify Hi-Fi, RIAA deepfake subpoena, nothing,nowhere.
Chris Xu & Donya Bayrami
June 25th, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Happy Sunlighter Sunday and Pride Month! We’ve got a few updates today: 1. Weekly Chart Data is now in the form of a simple graph. 2. We have a new summer playlist for you. 3. For those who’ve been rockin’ with us from the beginning, we’ll have some surprises for you in the near future.
Here's what we have queued up this week:
🌶️ Review of The Show by Niall Horan.
💿 This Week in Music: New Drake album, Spotify Hi-Fi, and RIAA deepfake subpoena.
🔀 Recommendation Station: Niall Horan, Noah Kahan, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Janelle Monae.
🎙️ nothing,nowhere. is our artist of the week.
Rating Rationale: Back at it again with another quality 30-minute album. The Show is Niall’s third studio album, and to us, it’s a well-deserved triumph, especially after his second album flew under the radar after its March 2020 release. When Niall dropped his first solo album, there was something special about the world he was creating with his music–infused with inspiration from his lifelong love of The Eagles, his songs are dependable easy listening, perfect timing for summer. His leading single “Heaven” introduces us to The Show with familiar “Slow Hands” percussive syncopation, “Meltdown” gives us the anthem bangers you can expect fans will sing at the top of their lungs during his 2024 tour, and “You Could Start A Cult” is a love song with a dynamic song title. Niall released an acoustic version stripped down to vocals, guitar, and harmonica, all played by him.
This Week in Music 🎶
🐕 For All The Dogs: Drake and his longtime collaborator, Kenza Samir, published a poetry book, Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness, along with a teaser for an upcoming album, For All The Dogs, to go along with it.
🎤 Jay-Z & Louis-V: Jay-Z surprised guests at the Louis Vuitton fashion show in Paris with a special performance in support of his friend and new creative director of the luxury brand, Pharrell Williams.
👌🏼 Three Cheers for 30: Consequence of Sound highlighted what they claim to be the top 30 songs of 2023 to date. Let’s see if you agree.
❌ Deepfake in Deep Trouble: The RIAA is not here for those deepfake covers, and they’ve issued a subpoena to Discord to reveal AI Hub server users for copyright infringement.
📺 You Gotta Watch This: ILLENIUM performed Colorado’s largest EDM event in history (nearly 5 hours long) and brought out The Chainsmokers and Carlie Hanson to debut their new single.
🏆 It’s Still Dre Day: Hip-hop’s revolutionary Dr. Dre was honored earlier this week as the inaugural recipient of the ASCAP Hip-Hop Icon Award for his efforts in building what became the foundation, culture, and legacy of hip-hop.
🎡 Glastonbury Updates Galore: Lana Del Rey showed up 30 minutes late and was cut off halfway through her performance, Jack Harlow joined Lil Nas X to perform “Industry Baby,” and headliner Elton John will perform for one final time in the UK (where he’s rumored to include four surprise guests).
✋Hi-Five, Spotify: After announcing its Hi-Fi vision in spring 2021, Spotify finally shares that fans will be able to subscribe to its most premium subscription model, with non-US subscribers getting first access later this year. Additionally, the streaming giant rolls out its new desktop app in order to better cater toward artist discovery.
🗣️ Come to Brazil: After Taylor Swift announced The Eras Tour would be coming to Brazil (then released even more concert dates in order to meet demand), the country proposed a “Taylor Swift Bill,” in order to increase the penalty for scalpers.
💰 Securing the Bag: Australian music credits database company, Jaxta, raised $2M USD through tech billionaire Richard White (WiseTech)’s share placement. This funding will go toward expansion and R&D.
🌐 Web3 Updates: Royal, Justin Blau’s rising web3 music company we covered in #18, launched a streaming calculator so artists can now forecast their royalty earning potential. As stated on their website, the calculator factors in historical streams, market trends, and industry decay curves to come up with a master streaming valuation estimate.
🎹 Queen of Keys: Alongside 20 tour stops this summer, Alicia Keys announced she will be releasing a five live album series recorded throughout her tour stops in South America.
🪕 Willie Nelson, Everybody: The legendary country music performer will be releasing a new album called Bluegrass, where he’s re-recording his classic songs with a bluegrass ensemble–banjo, fiddle, harmonica, and more.
👀 After a long hiatus from music, Normani is painting the world with candy with Bose in anticipation of her new album coming soon.
🚶♂️ Artists On Tour: Hozier, Kylie Minogue (with a potential Madonna collaboration), Fred again.., Yung Bleu, Kim Petras, Ty Dolla $ign, and Slowdive. Gorillaz cancel their fall US tour, and Taylor Swift invites fans around the world to see her Eras Tour through August 2024.
Recommendation Station 🔀
Sunlighter Playlists 🔁
We’ve updated Balanced Breakfast with Myke Towers, Austin Millz, Libianca, and Jain.
 A balance of genres to satisfy your music hunger. Listen to Balanced Breakfast. |  The SUN rules everything around me. Listen to Midsommar Solstice. |
Artist of the Week: nothing,nowhere. 🎙️
Primer: nothing,nowhere. has been releasing music professionally since 2015, and for what it’s worth, we first caught wind of his music after he released the prolific banger, “hammer” in 2018 (no pun intended). Reminiscent of blackbear or Machine Gun Kelly’s transition from their respective starting genres of alternative/R&B and hip-hop to punk rock, nothing,nowhere. showcases similar versatility.
The Beauty in Human Suffering: From growing up in Foxborough to now living in Vermont, Joe Mulherin has grown into the genre spectrum that has inspired him since childhood: emo and post-hardcore. His creativity and ethos draw from personal introspection and mental health struggles, which pushes him to create much of his music in his isolated studio while integrating a deeply vulnerable and individualistic approach for each song. Joe’s journey from his first full-length album until now illustrates an ever-changing character arc and musical approach of his grounded beliefs in the general Buddhist principle of viewing the beauty in human suffering.
Genre: Emo rap, but recently, he’s moved towards post-hardcore and heavier sonic elements; unpredictable and genre-fluid
Influences: Underoath, Alexisonfire, Senses Fail, American Football, Linkin Park, Silverstein, Taking Back Sunday, Blink-182, MF DOOM, Dashboard Confessional, Prince
Current Label: Fueled by Ramen (owned by Warner Music Group but distributed by 300 Elektra)
What’s Next?: Aside from seeking solitude in his Vermont escape, he continues to focus on what music he wants to make while also supporting tours through the end of the year. In the meantime, check out one of our favorite songs on his album Trauma Factory where he in clean electric with Fender’s Artists Check-Ins:
Wrap Up 👏
We're closing the newsletter this week with some Drake hypocrisy?
Who’s Burning? 🌡️
Drake.
How do you like our newsletter this week?We're all ears, click the number of 🔆 you think we deserve and feel free to drop a comment. |
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See ya next Sunday 😎
Chris and Donya
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