#80 - Ok Love You Bye 🌞

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! While the weekend kept us busy listening to all of the new album drops, we also had a chance to watch The Greatest Night in Pop documentary on Netflix. It centers on the night that brought together the biggest voices of the ‘80s for a common good, and we highly recommend it.

Rating Rationale: Ariana Grande’s seventh studio album, eternal sunshine, is not just a title that’s on-brand for Sunlighter, but more thematically, it’s a nod to the plot of the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as a symbolic representation of her harrowing divorce from Dalton Gomez (and likely, her love of Jim Carrey). Primarily produced by Max Martin and ILYA, eternal sunshine is Ariana’s emotional exhale from the highs and lows of her previous relationship. The sequence and interrelated tracks of the album are cleverly structured, like “true story” informing “the boy is mine,” and the album radiates with raw emotion, particularly “eternal sunshine” and “i wish i hated you.”

Aging pop stars struggle, Meghan Trainor and Perrie Edwards announce albums, Dua Lipa embraces Radical Optimism

This year has seen an interesting progression in the dichotomy between new pop stars and aging pop stars. Interestingly, older pop stars are struggling—particularly Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez, who have released uninspiring new albums amidst an all-out-blitz PR effort that included Jennifer Lopez’s Super Bowl halftime commercial and JT’s recent visit to NPR’s Tiny Desk.

For more recent pop stars, the gears continue to grind. Meghan Trainor will be releasing her new album, Timeless, in June, while ex-Little Mix singer, Perrie Edwards, is planning to drop her first solo album later this year. Dua Lipa announced that the name of her upcoming album will reference the philosophical concept of Radical Optimism, and Olivia Rodrigo continues to prove that she has guts, even as her management was forced by political pressure to repeal the distribution of contraceptives during her Guts Tour.

Bon Jovi documentary and new album, Neil Young returns to Spotify, Tokyo Police Club bids farewell

Not only will Bon Jovi be releasing a four-part docuseries of the band’s 40-year history titled Thank you, Goodnight, but this week, they announced an upcoming album, Forever, that they consider a “return to joy.”

After two years of protesting Spotify’s continued support of Joe Rogan’s podcast amidst “spread of misinformation,” Neil Young has decided to bring back his catalog to Spotify as he states Apple Music and Amazon Music haven’t done any better.

Finally, Tokyo Police Club revealed their farewell tour dates as they have planned to go on hiatus indefinitely after their tour.

Glastonbury finally reveals lineup, Pitchfork returns to Chicago, and THING festival moves from Port Townsend to Carnation

After much anticipation, Glastonbury Festival has released its headliners for the upcoming 2024 festival: Dua Lipa, Coldplay, SZA, and Shania Twain. The festival tickets are already sold out, but you can still enter in the donation prize draw to win one of the 20 pairs of tickets.

Even with its recent absorption into GQ, Pitchfork is returning its annual festival to Chicago, headlined by the Black Pumas, Jamie xx, and Alanis Morissette.

Finally, the successor to the iconic Sasquatch festival, THING Festival, released a strong indie-forward lineup that includes St. Vincent, Toro Y Moi, and Black Pumas. However, this year, the location has moved from Port Townsend to Remlinger Farms in Carnation, WA.

Willie Nelson announces The Border, Zach Bryan debuts “Sandpaper”

Incredibly, Willie Nelson is maintaining a productive music career, even at the age of 90. Fresh off the heels of his carefully curated Luck Reunion Festival, Willie will be releasing his 75th solo album, The Border, a month after his 91st birthday. Separately, fellow outlaw country artist, Zach Bryan, debuted a new song called “Sandpaper” as part of his ongoing tour.

OIivia Dean

Primer: If your karaoke song is also “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, you’ll like this week’s artist. Born to an English father and Jamaican-Guyanese mother who filled their house with music, Olivia naturally began singing at age 8, debuting her voice during a performance of “Tomorrow” from Annie at a school talent show. She enrolled in the renowned BRIT school, where she focused on songwriting. By age 17, she secured an audition and spot to perform alongside Rudimental.

You may recognize Olivia from her collaborations with Rudimental and Leon Bridges, but her solo work stands above and beyond. With a Motown-inspired sound supported by effervescent production and jazz cadences, her deeply introspective debut album, Messy, is cohesively strong and anything but its namesake. 

Genre: Neo-soul, Pop

Influences: Lauryn Hill (Olivia’s parents were such big fans, they made “Lauryn” her middle name), The Supremes, Carole King, Amy Winehouse

Current Label: AMF Records

Audience: ~3.38 million monthly listeners on Spotify

What’s Next: Before kicking off her 14-date UK tour in April, Olivia will play at Weekend 2 of Coachella’s Empire Polo Club.

💥 Spotify Fires Shots: Primarily at YouTube. This week, Spotify began rolling out music videos for its Premium users in 11 countries, challenging the status quo set by Vevo and YouTube. 

🔮 Song Psychic: If you haven’t already tried it, Spotify launched a new feature called “Song Psychic” that allows users to ask Spotify questions and receive insightful answers informed by Spotify’s immense amount of music data. Spotify GPT, anyone?

💸 Pandora Royalty Changes: As Pandora’s business model has evolved over the years, music labels, specifically Universal Music Group, have exploited these changes that have resulted in artists receiving $135 million less in royalties due to the reclassification of royalty payouts from SoundExchange to UMG.

⭕ Circles: That’s the name of TIDAL’s new feature that enables artist-to-artist forum discussions, further augmenting artist community-building on the platform.

🇪🇺 Music Tech Europe: 10 European Union members formed a new music consortium known as “Music Tech Europe” to improve the development and innovation of music technology within Europe.

🌐 Web3 Updates: Sound added two new channels to their mobile app.

🌮 Live Más: Taco Bell’s highly practical “Feed The Beat” program, which helps fans discover new artists while feeding touring musicians with $500 in Taco Bell gift cards, is expanding to the United Kingdom and will feature British artists including MISOGI (whose album we ranked #2 in our Top 10 of 2023) High Vis, Neck Deep, and Felixthe1st.

🎶 MusicWatch Study: The annual audio and music purchasing and listening study was published by MusicWatch earlier this week. This year’s data shows a continued trend in record-setting paid subscriptions for streaming platforms along with hip-hop finally overtaking classic rock as the most popular genre in the United States.

🤝🏼 Industry Partnerships: SPIN Magazine is partnering with Greater Than Distribution (Virgin Music Group) to launch an in-house record label, SPIN Records. Big Loud Records is partnering with Mercury Records (Republic Records) to expand their label’s distribution efforts. Finally, video game music technology company, Recreational Music, signed licensing deals with Cherry Red Records and Hopeless Records to access their catalogs on its platform.

💰 Securing the Bag: Canadian digital audio workstation startup, BeatConnect, raised a $1.67 million funding round, including participation from Sfermion. AI music generation platform, SOUNDRAW, raised $3 million in funding to continue scaling its user growth.

Tyla to release her debut album next Friday

📅 For upcoming albums, tours, and festivals access our comprehensive music calendar here.

📣 Album Announcements: NPR compiled a list of 50 albums coming this spring, including Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.

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

1. Tyla, TYLA

2. Shakira, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran

3. Metro Boomin & Future, We Don’t Trust You

4. Empress Of, For Your Consideration

5. FLETCHER, In Search of the Antidote

6. Adrianne Lenker, Bright Future

7. Joyner Lucas, Not Now, I’m Busy

8. Gary Clark Jr., JPEG RAW

9. The Veronicas, GOTHIC SUMMER

10. Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood

11. SiR, HEAVY

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Donya and Chris