#50 - Don't worry Darling 🌞

Happy Sunlighter Sunday! Today, we’re excited to launch Countdown to Sundown, a brand-new video series based on our regularly scheduled Sunday programming. Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok to get it first.

Here's what we have queued up this week:

1. 🌶️ Review of UNHEALTHY by Anne-Marie.

2. 💿 This Week in Music: Lizzo under fire, possible Live Nation antitrust lawsuit, and Meta AudioCraft.

3. 📈 Weekly Charts: K-POP and K-pop.

4. 🔀 Recommendation Station: Balanced Breakfast updates to satisfy your music hunger.

5. 🎙️ Rosie Darling is our artist of the week.

Rating Rationale: Within a 40-minute album, Anne-Marie shows off her mezzo range, cheeky lyrics, and her continued reign as the queen of samples. In “OBSESSED,” she samples “I’d Do Anything” by Mark Horsey, and in the production between the choruses and verses of “PSYCHO” you hear a sound that’s reminiscent of Antonoff's production on “I Did Something Bad” by Taylor Swift. Hot take, but in a pop world that’s currently dominated by “sad girls,” it’s refreshing to hear an artist who thinks “it’s so last year being a SAD B!TCH.” Contrary to the album title track, Anne-Marie’s album emanates positivity and female empowerment through a tracklist of mainstream pop production and serene acoustic ballads. Her vocal performance shines on her solo tracks, and her duets with Aitch, Shania Twain, and Khalid perfectly complement the defiant nature of the album.

😬 It’s Bad B*tch O’Clock: Lizzo is under fire this week after being sued by former dancers due to sexual harassment and hostile work environment allegations. Fans accused Beyoncé of responding to the news while not mentioning Lizzo’s name during a performance on her RENAISSANCE Tour, but Mama Knowles quickly squashed that theory.

👋🏼 Trust Issues: There’s speculation that Live Nation and Ticketmaster will face an antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice later this year due to their monopolizing ticket sales in the entertainment industry.

🤖 AudioCraft > Minecraft: Meta continues its efforts in the music and AI space with the latest launch of AudioCraft. The AI toolkit includes three models to facilitate music, sound effects, and generative AI coding. Trained on over 400,000 recordings, Meta compares AudioCraft’s potential to transform the music industry to the early days of synthesizers. They may not be off track, as AI is becoming a more common element of the creative process and start-ups are looking to launch similar models to AudioCraft.

🎀 Barbie Can Do Anything: This week in the UK, the Barbie soundtrack broke records after six songs from the album were in the Top 40 of the UK singles chart, making it the first album to ever accomplish this feat.

🥇 Utopia Underdog: While he missed the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 this week, Travis Scott achieved the highest number of Spotify streams for an album released in 2023 with the release of Utopia.

📺 You Gotta Watch This: Eight years after Kobe Bryant gifted her a banner at Staples Center, Taylor Swift gifted her Red era hat to Kobe and Vanessa Bryant’s daughter, Bianka Bryant, while performing “22” during her SoFi Stadium debut performance in Los Angeles. We’re not crying, you’re crying.

🌊 Ripple Effect: We thought you might enjoy this opinion piece from Hypebot sharing how the launch of Ripple and TikTok Music might only be the beginning of ByteDance’s plan to develop the first fan-centric cultural graph for music recommendations.

🛑 Song, Stop, Shop: Songshare provides a one-stop shop for fans to find relevant information about their favorite artists’ upcoming events, music, and merch items. It’s powered by Songstats’ analytics, which helps artists track the success of the tool.

💰 Music PE Investments: Peep this list of the biggest investments in the rising music and technology space. A few notable companies include Ableton, BandLab, and Splice.

🤝 88rising x Honda: Earlier this week, the company representing the best Asian talent in America announced its partnership with Honda, starting with a stage at the Head In The Clouds Music and Art Festival in Pasadena, CA and an apparel line later this year.

🙏🏼 Love on Charity: Harry Styles’ Love On Tour contributed to 5 million fans donating $6.5 million to charity.

💰 Securing the Bag: Kits.AI, developed by Arpeggi Labs, received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, 3LAU, Steve Aoki, and Lionel Richie, among others. Anote Music, a royalty-investment platform headquartered in Luxembourg, raised €3.3 million, MasterExchange, a Stockholm and LA-based royalty investment platform, raised $2.7 million, and Ringo will continue working to modernize sync licensing with a pre-seed round of ~$385,000.

🌐 Web3 Updates: Roar Studios, a gaming and music firm, will be acquired by Yuga Labs (Bored Ape Yacht Club) in an effort to continue to build in the music Metaverse space.

🇬🇧 London Boys: Killer Mike plans an intimate show at King’s Cross in the UK while FINNEAS announces his debut UK headlining show at the London Electric Ballroom.

🍎 New York Minute: The New Yorker announced Japanese Breakfast, Paramore, and Weird Al Yankovic would perform at this year’s New Yorker festival. Tickets on sale now.

🐈 Doja Catwalk: Doja Cat teases new music as she’s slated to perform at this year’s Victoria’s Secret World Tour, now both a fashion show and a documentary set for release on Prime Video.

🎲 VeGAGAs: Lady Gaga will perform twelve shows on her “Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano” set in Vegas this August-October.

🇮🇹 Utopia Takes Italia: In lieu of his canceled performance in Egypt last week, Travis Scott will be performing his first Utopia show in the Eternal City of Rome this week.

👀 KAROL G surprises fans with Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season) due next Friday, Halsey is focused on making music that “hits home” for her upcoming album, Burna Boy shares the debut single “Big 7” from his upcoming album, I Told Them, Sia’s music has become the soundtrack to the U.S. Women’s World Cup and it includes a new song, Wilco will be dropping their eleventh studio album, Cousin, in September, Halle Bailey dropped her first solo single in nearly 3 years, Steph Curry hops on a verse on Tobe Nwigwe’s new song, and Chappell Roan will be debuting The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess in September.

🚶‍♂️ Artists On Tour: Taylor Swift announces more shows in North America as she continues her Eras Tour through 2024, Paul McCartney is headed on tour in Australia, Simple Plan embarks on a 2024 UK tour with State Champs and Mayday Parade, Young Fathers take on their UK tour this fall, Mac Sabbath, and Bad Religion.

📈 What’s Trending? Ironically, the song with the highest debut this week is Travis Scott’s “K-POP,” while the album with the highest debut is of course… a K-pop EP by NewJeans. The Barbie Soundtrack takes second place.

💿 Our Playlist Collection

1. 🍳 Balanced Breakfast: A balance of genres to satisfy your music hunger.

2. 🌊 Midsommar Solstice: Songs for your summer rotation.

3. 🤠 Austin City Limits: An annual music retreat to the land of tacos and cowboys. 2023 is a return to ACL's indie roots while showcasing talented upcoming British artists. We recommend shuffling.

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See ya next Sunday 😎

Chris and Donya