CMAs Snub Bey, Abel's Ready For Tomorrow & Spain Breaks Records.

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He Couldn’t Feel His Face, But Now He’s Ready for Tomorrow 

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, is back – already getting rave reviews just for the cover artwork. The Weeknd has always been known for his striking visuals, and as we know from the release of The Idol, he doesn’t shy away from confronting imagery.  

Here is what you need to know about “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” It is the third installment of a trilogy that he began in 2020 with “After Hours,” with “Dawn FM” in 2022. True to his style, he released the cover art himself on his own social media. Along with the artwork was a link to preorder in his bio.  

Since The Weeknd is one of the biggest global artists, consistently topping daily play charts, this album will undoubtedly draw some serious streams.  

So, what makes this album's artwork special? There are no effects, no fake blood, no colored contacts—nothing. The artwork is stripped back and simple. It lays Abel bare, and as they say, the eyes are the window to the soul— this captures that to perfection.  

Over the last couple of days, fans have been drip-fed information. On the 4th, a visual teaser and a press release went out.  

Here is what the release told us:

“the creative apex of the project, serving as the third and final chapter crafted with existential and self-referential themes as seen with the latest visionary teasers that have set fans ablaze with anticipation for this concluding installment.” 

On the 7^th we got the album cover and a livestream from São Paulo.  

In Abel’s own words:

“There is always pressure to surpass my last project. Growth is important. Sometimes it may not be what people want to hear from me at the moment, but when the body of work is complete, I hope they can appreciate what I have been trying to achieve. I have been working on this discography for a long time. It was all planned.” 

The release date for the lead single “Dancing in the Flames” is September 13^th, so the album should follow soon.  

And a cool piece of information is that the entire “Dancing in Flames” music video was filmed on an iPhone 16.

Celebrated, But Not Nominated

The internet and the Beyhive are ablaze right now with the indignation of Beyoncé not getting a single nomination for the CMA awards. Now you might think – why does this matter? “Cowboy Carter” was an easy Billboard Hot 100 No.1. It went viral across all social media, artwork, imagery, and the music itself.  

Some country music fans believe that the album, while good, isn't a country music album. But if it sounds and looks like a country album, then it is a country album.  

The discourse around the topic right now is steeped in American history and the ability to erase and exclude artists of color. To quote Rolling Stone: 

“The musician was shut out of nominations at this year’s CMA Awards, the same ceremony that made her feel so unwelcome in 2016 that she was compelled to create a thesis-level country album of her own”. 

Cowboy Carter was an answer to a night that left Bey feeling unwanted and unwelcome.  

Here is what she said on the matter:

“It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” she wrote. “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me.” 

This album, a unique collaboration of Post Malone, Shaboozey, Tanner Adell, and others, has opened the doors for a diverse range of artists to flood into the Country Music genre and breathe new life into it. As we reported several weeks ago, the genre is on the rise, and we attribute much of that success to Beyoncé and Post Malone.  

Let’s not forget that Post Malone is up for four awards for his recent "I Had Some Help” release with Morgan Wallen.  

Despite the lack of nominations for Bey, we were delighted to see one of our Song of the Summer picks, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” get nominated twice AND put a tweet out thanking Beyoncé for opening the door.

 Record Music Revenue for Spain 

Promusicae, the trade body representing the recorded music industry, has stated that Spain generated a huge €249.8 million (USD $269m) in H1 2024, up 16.6% YoY. 

Breaking down the figures, audio streaming made up 83.5% of the total streaming revenue, coming in at €185.22m. The rest was video streaming, at 16.5% and €36.64m. 

It’s not just streaming that is seeing great growth in Spain right now. The physical music market has seen a 0.03% YoY increase and reached €25.7 million in H1. 

While the figures are great, Spanish-language music dominated the 2023 charts, there was a serious lack of artists from Spain. An interesting thing to note is that Spain shares a market with Latin America and the stars from Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Argentina.  

The President of Promusicae, Antonio Guisasola stated there are a couple of challenges in the industry in Spain. Most notably, it wasn't easy to: 

“get the public to make a decided commitment to consuming music through [paid] subscriptions as it happens in our [neighboring markets].” 

He later added:

“Streaming is obviously the main way in which we consume recorded music and the greatest economic support of recording market, but the public is still demanding physical products such as vinyl, which sales steadily grow and is most valued by consumers.” 

Promusicae says the Spanish market has about 68% of people with a music streaming subscription as ad-supported users. Spain’s recorded music revenues could increase drastically if some of those users were to convert to a paid subscription.

Crossword Time

We're giving you extra time for our personalized crossword. Test your skills and see if you read last newstories carefully. Get it? Newsletter - stories?

Let's see if you can crack the code! 🫵🏼

Give your answers in the comment section at the very bottom ⬇️

1. Singer of Short n’ Sweet.
2. Megan Thee Stallion's new song with RM. 
3. The Official Megan Thee Stallion x RM hashtag. 
4. Charli XCX recently announced it was the end of ____ summer.
5. Which famous rapper's co-publisher was involved in a Spotify lawsuit?
6. Charli XCX sent out a remix sample from _________ Mac.
7. Who was Megan Thee Stallion's last collab with?

Music + Social = Hangout  

You might wonder if there is room for more social platforms. According to Turntable Labs and Hangout, the answer is a firm yes. They’ve just emerged from a seed round that secured a massive $8.2 million.  

So, what is Hangout? A(nother) new social-cross-music platform. The short is that it will let communities, co-workers, and fans gather (virtually) and DJ together. The inspiration for the platform comes from “the social and emotional impact of listening to music with others.”  

Some features are tipped to include mobile apps, voice chat, and social listening. Florian Leibert of 468 Capital says that Hangout is at the forefront of a revolution in how we experience music online.  

You can sign up for the invite-only beta; the full public launch is set for later in the year. Of course, we’ve joined up and checked out the Discord channel.

And the big question – where do they get their music from?

Right now, there are around 500 members, and when we investigated, 98 were online. More people are joining, and conversations and sharing are happening already. Could this be the best place for people who don’t love the rest of the social media at their disposal and want something different? It might be!  

The Discord welcome note provides more information about what they are doing on Discord, beta links, and how you can add Hangout FM to your servers.

daylist – the-ever-evolving playlist

The daylist – the capital-letter-free playlist from Spotify is now rolling out in more regions for those who haven’t even checked to see if they have one. You can type daylist in the search bar on the app on desktop, mobile, or web player. And your strangely titled personalized playlist will appear.  

The daylist is cooler than some other playlists because it updates multiple times per day based on your listening habits.  

Typically, what we listen to throughout the day changes based on activity and mood. When you open your daylist, you can see the next update time.  

Your daylist will be made up of around 50 songs, and have playlist titles like: "90s rave rainforest late night” or “modern folk banjo afternoon”.  

The much-coveted daylist is now available globally to all free and paid listeners. Premium users will have the list in the following languages: Arabic, Catalan, French for Canada and France, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish for Spain and Mexico, and Turkish.  

Spotify said the product team, in a testament to our respect for diversity, worked closely with local culture and music experts to get the daylist right in all languages.  

Giving users something that resonates - afrofuturisme funk moderne du mercredi après-midi (modern funk afrofuturism wednesday afternoon), or pazartesi sabah etiyopya caz enstrümantal funk (ethiopian jazz instrumental funk monday morning), for example! And yes, always without a capital letter in sight.  

Let us know in the comments if you got it right. ⬇️

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