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Amazon Music elevated Ryan Redington to general manager on Tuesday (July 18). The announcement was made by Steve Boom, who joined Amazon’s senior leadership team in December, where he now oversees not just Amazon Music but Audible, Wondery, Amp, Twitch and Amazon Games.
Redington has “played a number of critical leadership roles in Amazon Music’s journey to becoming one of the leading global streaming services today,” Boom wrote to staff in an email. “… He’s earned trust with the industry across dozens of artist partnerships, finding new ways to scale their new releases through global concerts and festival livestreams. Amazon Music already pays rightsholders billions annually, and under Ryan’s leadership we will continue to build a foundation to help artists scale and monetize their fanbases in new ways.”
Redington is a 15-year veteran of Amazon, starting on the video team and then moving over to the physical sales side of the organization, focusing on CDs and vinyl. He subsequently shifted to digital and was part of the team that launched Amazon Music back in 2014.
In his wide-ranging current role, he oversees artist and genre marketing, label and artist relations, playlisting and programming, livestreams and editorial content, physical merchandise, and artist analytics.
Last year, Amazon Music Unlimited raised its price for Prime subscribers and expanded its ad-free offering for Prime members from 2 million songs to more than 100 million songs. Prime members can only listen to all that music on shuffle, unless they upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited.
“We need to think about a streaming service as not just being a catalog of recorded music, but being a host of services that connect artists and fans together,” Boom told The Verge in November. “… When you get into areas like merch, there are unlimited amounts that people are willing to spend to connect with their favorite artist and to represent their fandom. Obviously, Amazon has a position as a pretty big global retailer that is good at e-commerce and logistics, and it is a brand that people really trust as a place to spend money. I think that sets us up really well for the future.”
In January, Amazon announced that it was upping prices again for U.S. and U.K. subscribers. Amazon Music Unlimited went from $9.99 to $10.99 for individual subscribers in the U.S. and increased from $4.99 to $5.99 for subscribers to the student plan.
In a presentation at the Music Biz conference in Nashville on Wednesday (May 17), MIDiA Research’s Tatiana Cirisano revealed the company’s predictions about the future of music streaming. Namely, the firm suspects that music streaming revenue growth, which has been in the double digits for years, will slow to the single digits, eventually cooling off from about 10% growth in 2024 to 3% growth in 2029.
“We’re in a crazy time for competing for consumer attention,” said Cirisano during the presentation, titled Where Does Streaming Go From Here? She noted that after the pandemic subsided, content providers of all kinds — from music to gaming to video — have had to accept that more traditional, in-person activities are absorbing large amounts of time for consumers once again. “The era of build it and they will come is starting to come to a close,” she continued. “You need to give people reasons to spend time on your platform.”
As part of the return to in-person experiences, MIDiA Research has found that background consumption of entertainment is on the rise, with 18.1 hours of background consumption in the first quarter of 2021 having escalated to 20.6 hours in the second quarter of 2022.
Traditional streaming services — Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and other competitors — also face competition for users’ attention from “non-[digital service provider] streaming,” or platforms where music is part of the experience but not its sole focus, such as Peloton and TikTok. “We are starting to learn that non-DSP streaming is not just additive, it might actually also diminish the cultural capital of [traditional] streaming,” said Cirisano.
While the cultural capital of streaming reached a fever pitch as Spotify editorial playlists, like Rap Caviar and New Music Friday, became many listener’s go-to source for music suggestions, MIDiA’s data suggests that that “soft power” is starting to wane, giving way to sites like TikTok which promote what Cirisano called “lean-through” music consumption.
This can be a positive thing, she explained. While “lean back,” or background, consumption — such as pre-programmed playlists and radio play — is on the rise, young people are also more likely than ever to not just “lean forward” (meaning they program what music they listen to themselves) but to “lean through,” which Cirisano defined as creating social content, curating content and re-creating content with music. MIDiA has found that the average 16 to 19-year-old spends 3.7 hours per week creating content as of the fourth quarter of 2022. More than ever, young people want to be actively playful and interactive with their music, not just listen to static playlists on streaming — though that form of listening will still surely persist.
To Mark Mulligan, MIDiA’s founder, this is a repeat of history, said Cirisano. Prior to recorded music, live bands’ music would be impacted by the audience in front of them. Now, this has taken on a new form in the age of social media, AI and at-home recording technology, signaling a return to interactivity present throughout the long history of music — and marking a change in appetite from the “isolating” and “hyper-personalized” nature of today’s popular music streaming services. “This new generation wants to be more actively involved in music… I think you’re going to have an advantage if you’re an artist that is comfortable engaging with your fans,” said Cirisano.
MIDiA Research has also found that with the emergence of hyper-personalized algorithms on streaming and social platforms, listenership fragments significantly. This leads to superstars having less of an impact, making it harder for that class of artists to earn a fruitful living from just streaming alone. In tandem with creating content and forging brand partnerships, however, these bigger names can capitalize on their fandom. This atomization of the mainstream is also pushing DSPs to differentiate themselves by, for example, focusing on genre, like Apple Music Classical, or targeting audiophile listeners, like Tidal.
In the future, MIDiA’s data suggests that next-generation platforms will create three-sided marketplaces that operate as self-contained virtuous circles. Audiences will consume music, some fans in the audience will also create using the music, and that consumption and participation will signal the algorithm and distribute the music to new fans.
UPDATE: This story was updated May 17 at 7:59 p.m. ET to note that music streaming revenue growth — not music streaming subscription growth, as incorrectly stated in a previous version of the story — is expected to fall to 3% by 2029. It was also updated to note that background consumption of all entertainment, not just music, is on the rise.
Amazon is currently offering an amazing streaming deal that won’t last long, so if you’ve been thinking of joining Amazon Music Unlimited, this limited promo might be too good to pass up.
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On Tuesday (May 2), Amazon launched a promo that lets new subscribers enjoy three months of free Amazon Unlimited Music by watching a featurette for The Little Mermaid on Prime Video.
The featurette is available on the Amazon Fire TV homepage, but also might be accessible through Amazon Fire Stick and Prime Video. After you watch the featurette, a three-month free trial subscription link will be emailed to your account. This limited offer runs from now until May 16.
The Amazon Music Unlimited subscription includes HD streaming and spatial audio at no extra cost, plus unlimited access to 100 million on-demand and commercial-free songs, thousands of stations and top playlists, along with millions of podcast episodes.
Traveling soon? Amazon Music Unlimited lets you stay connected even when you’re flying the friendly skies. Listen offline with unlimited skips or hands-free with an Alexa or Bluetooth device.
After the three-month free trial ends, Amazon Music Unlimited will be billed at $10.99/month ($9.99 a month for Prime members. Click here to launch your free trial). Your subscription will automatically renew after the first three months unless you cancel.
How else can you get a free trial to Amazon Music? If you join Amazon Music Unlimited without The Little Mermaid promo you can still snag a free trial for the first month.
Amazon Music Unlimited
$10.99/month after 30-day free trial
Amazon Music offers individual plans to stream anywhere, anytime but you can also get a family plan ($15.99 a month) which lets you stream on up to six devices simultaneously and block songs with explicit lyrics. There’s also a single device plan ($4.99 a month) to stream from a single Echo device or Fire TV. Lastly, the student plan cuts your Amazon Music monthly membership from $9.99 to $1 per month. However, Amazon’s three-month promo only applies to the Amazon Music Unlimited individual plan.
If you’re already an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Music is included in your membership, but you can only access two million songs (versus 100 million) along with thousands of playlists in addition to discounted pricing, free two-day shipping, the entire Prime Video streaming library and lots of other perks.
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Lil Durk is giving back through a new partnership with Amazon Music creating an endowment for students to receive scholarships to HBCUs, including Howard University.
The Chicago native announced last Friday (April 14th) that he has created the Durk Banks Endowment Fund in partnership with his Neighborhood Heroes 501(c)(3)non-profit group which he founded and Rotation, the HIp-Hop & R&B brand from Amazon Music. He let his fans know through social media. “I’m the voice this the part they don’t show, I appreciate all the kids who struggling to finish school and needed this blessing,” he wrote.
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The fund awarded a $50,000 scholarship to two students from Chicago who’re set to enroll in Howard University in Washington D.C. this fall. “I feel it’s my responsibility to reach back to the kids—especially those that are growing up in my community,” says the rapper in a press release. “These kids have to be our biggest investment as they’re our future leaders. They are destined for greatness and I’m encouraging others to join my team’s efforts to help pave their way.”
In addition to the scholarships, Lil Durk also donated $250,000 directly to Chicago-area students who are receiving Howard’s Graduation Retention Access to Continued Excellence (GRACE) Grant. This fund is to assist students with financial support to alleviate financial burdens so they can stay in school and graduate on time. “For me to boost them up and get them to the next level, it was like a no-brainer,” he stated in an interview with Billboard. “And this scholarship was a super-no-brainer for me. For me and my team, having my own scholarship is like a Grammy.”
The “Hellcats and Trackstars” artist also was the headliner for Howard’s Springfest over the past weekend and paid $100,000 towards a trip taken by 20 high school students from his hometown to visit the university. “We are incredibly grateful to be the recipients of such generous support from Lil Durk, the Neighborhood Heroes Foundation, and Amazon Music,” adds Cynthia Evers, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Affairs at Howard University in the press release. “Not only did they lend their support to the premier event run by and for Howard University students, but they also left a lasting impression by offering a gift that will continue to benefit Howard students for a long time to come.”
As the music industry becomes increasingly conscious of — and vocal about — the challenges of the streaming model, fraudulent streams have become a source of growing frustration. “Every penny that goes to a fraudulent stream is a penny that doesn’t go to a legitimate stream,” says Richard Burgess, president and CEO of the American Association of Independent Music. “Fraudulently increased stream counts can affect recording budgets, licensing deals, catalog valuations and can result in the misallocation of marketing budgets.”
The French government, which recently published the results of a months-long, country-wide investigation into streaming fraud, portrayed understanding the impacts of this activity as an imperative. “The stakes are high in our country as well as in the rest of the world: the development of music services, which can be free and financed by advertising, or paid through subscriptions, as individual or family plans, constitutes a tremendous opportunity for the music sector, after years of a long crisis,” the report asserted. “…Such growth whets the appetites and stimulates the creativity of those who seek to abuse the system.”
“The multiplication of fake streams, that is to say the processes allowing [bad actors] to artificially boost play counts or views to generate an income, is nothing short of theft,” the report continued.
The French study, conducted without data from YouTube, Apple Music, or Amazon Music, found that 1% to 3% of plays were fraudulent, while also noting somberly that “the reality of fake streams goes beyond what is detected.” BeatDapp, a Vancouver-based company that creates fraud detection software for labels, publishers, distributors and streaming services, believes the global level of fraud is higher. “In 2020, estimates were 3 to 10% of all streaming activity was fraud,” the company wrote in 2022. “Today, we confidently say it’s at least 10%, and more in some regions. That equals ~$2B in potentially misallocated streaming revenues this year, and will be ~$7.5B by 2030 if left unchecked.”
So what forms does streaming fraud take? According to Burgess, the practice “covers a multitude of techniques used to increase stream counts or impressions by other than legitimate means.”
Here are three of the most common:
Bots
Discussion of streaming fraud often turns quickly to bots, which Burgess defines as “automated software that can be used to generate views, streams or interactions.” To detect bot activity and prevent it from affecting royalty payouts, companies build models that trawl streaming data and look for listening patterns that appear anomalous: BeatDapp likes to discuss an example of finding tens of thousands of accounts all streaming the same 63 songs.
“If I’m trying to push numbers up, I’m going to do it across streaming services in a subtle fashion this way,” BeatDapp co-CEO Andrew Batey says. “Spread it across a lot of accounts and multiple platforms, and you can drive a significant number of plays with no one looking.”
Click Farms
Streaming services are looking for suspicious play patterns that don’t reflect human behavior. Fraudsters are aware of this, so they try to camouflage their activity in ways that appear human. One method is to get actual humans to press Play through what are known as “click farms.”
Eric Drott, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin who has written about streaming fraud, describes these as “enterprises concentrating low-paid, precarious workers who are engaged to perform the sort of rote, repetitive tasks that keep the flows of digital capitalism moving: creating social media accounts, moderating content for platforms, clicking online ads, liking or rating items and, of course, generating plays on streaming services.” Accounts that stream music 24 hours a day or stem from a smartphone that never moves or dips below 100% power could be evidence of click-farm activity.
Imposters
A third prominent form of fraud identified by Burgess involves impersonating creators by uploading a version of their song to streaming services and illegally collecting creators’ legitimate royalties. This is a common problem faced by artists who are having a moment on TikTok, for example: Imposters post a version of the TikTok hit on streaming services under a slightly different name, aiming to divert some streams (and hopefully royalties) their way.
“It happens to every single viral artist,” says one manager who shepherded a viral act to a major-label deal last year. There are many distribution companies out there, and managers say that some of them have lax oversight of what’s being uploaded to the DSPs through their platforms. This means artists and their teams have to keep close watch on streaming platforms and issue takedowns when they find imposter versions.
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Source: Amazon / Amazon Music
Two new shows set to premiere later this month on Amazon Music will focus on Hip-Hop and Latin music along with pop culture from the Latin perspective.
According to reports, the streaming music platform will be launching two new flagship music series. The first, “Rotation Roundtable,” will be presented in a hybrid format utilizing a podcast-style experience and a Twitch live stream inspired by the platform’s “Rap Rotation” and “R&B Rotation” playlists. The hour-long show will be hosted by Power 105.1 host/ producer Nyla Symone, journalist and executive producer Speedy Morman, “On the Radar” creator Gabe P and veteran journalist Rob Markman.
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In a press release about “Roundtable,” Symone expressed her delight about being a part of it. “I’m super excited to finally have a safe space to speak candidly amongst people who actually know the culture. My point of view is that culture isn’t about the clout or politics, it’s just about the music.” The show will debut March 15 at 9 p.m. and air each Wednesday on Amazon Music’s Twitch channel. Episodes will be available as audio podcasts on Amazon Music and all major services.
“La Semanal Live” will cover the biggest releases in Latin music and the most-discussed topics in Latin pop culture. Puerto Rican journalist and podcast host Gio Rosado will host the show from Miami, Florida. “The show will have a lot of energy, humor and debate. My goal is to create a show so captivating and engaging that you’ll regret not having tuned in,” he said.
“La Semanal Live” will debut March 24 on the Amazon Music on Vivo Channel on Twitch. Clips from the show will be available in the Amazon Music app. It will then air every Friday at 9 p.m. Platino DJ Mode radio host Grecia Lopez will also be a recurring guest on the show, which will feature artist interviews and spotlight segments. A special slate of programming for Women’s History Month is in the works for the show, with an in-depth spotlight on Karol G to be included.
Source: Amazon / Amazon Music
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If you’re an artist who’s looking for a way to upgrade your merch game, Amazon Music for Artists is here to help. The service makes it easy for artists to connect with millions of music lovers around the world directly in Amazon Music as well as in the Artist Merch Shop.
What is the Amazon Music Artist Merch Shop? It’s a curated collection of official artist merch for fans to browse at amazon.com/artistmerchshop and in the Amazon Music app.
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As of November, Owners of Artist Teams can access Amazon Merch on Demand – the print-on-demand service from Amazon – by linking their Amazon Music for Artists account.
That means no more pre-paying bulk orders in advance and potentially running out of inventory when you need it most. By connecting their Amazon Music for Artists account, artists will get expedited approval to Merch on Demand, typically within a week, and can upload designs that will publish to Amazon retail sites within 48 hours.
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Within just two days of creating your merch designs, artists will be able to put them in front of fans to see what resonates best. Artists will be able to make merch available to millions of Prime customers all around the world with a single click. And every order is managed by the global logistics teams at Amazon – including returns and customer service.
How to Get Started With Amazon Merch on Demand
Amazon Merch on Demand takes the stress (and inventory risk!) out of producing merch while adding another option to direct-to-consumer stores or merch sold in venues; it creates an additional revenue stream allowing artists to reach customers wherever they are.
The process is not only simple but also fun, because artists can pick and choose what works best for them. To get started, artists can select from a variety of base products, ranging from T-shirts and sweatshirts to throw pillows and phone accessories.
Base products are sourced from suppliers that meet the high bar for labor, health & safety, environment, and ethics at Amazon. Additionally, print facilities are operated by Amazon employees all over the world using water-based inks (read more details here). After selecting your base products, simply upload a PNG file or choose from the Adobe Photoshop templates in the Merch on Demand Creator dashboard.
Adjust the size and placement of your designs with the user-friendly, WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) tool. You can find a selection of best practices and design tips under the Resources tab to make sure your final product looks its best.
Courtesy of Amazon Music
After the design is created, select all the Amazon regional sites you’d like your product available on (i.e. Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Italy, Amazon Spain, Amazon France, and Amazon Japan) and recommended selling price in each local currency. Note: because Amazon covers post-sale operations, revenue splits may vary based on the product and pricing, the country where it’s sold in, and other factors. Amazon Merch on Demand provides example revenue splits (in dollars, pounds, euros, etc.) for a variety of products in the Resources hub. Once you start using the Merch on Demand Creator dashboard, you can experiment with selling prices above or below the examples offered, but you’ll want to be price sensitive so that you can reach more fans. And be sure to do your research on average pricing of similar products if it’s your first time selling merch in a particular country. Once your merch is up on Amazon.com, use the new merch curation tool to connect it to your Amazon Music profile directly from your Amazon Music for Artists account. This merch curation tool gives artists the opportunity to expand beyond print-on-demand to include physical music or merch you may have for sale through another Amazon selling channel.
Amazon Merch on Demand is the fastest way to start selling on Amazon. There are no upfront fees and no inventory risks since items are printed-to-order. Fans also have the benefit of Prime-eligible shipping, plus Amazon takes care of customer support, returns, and all post-sale operations. Visit artists.amazonmusic.com/merch for more details on how Amazon Music for Artists helps make selling merch easier, as well as details on becoming a seller and protecting your brand.
Want more resources? Check out the Amazon Music for Artists Pro Series on Music Ally for a free five-course video series to learn more about building a business with Amazon Music, including selling merch, reaching audiences on Alexa, livestreaming on Twitch and using in-app tools from Amazon Music for Artists.
Subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited in the U.S. and U.K. will have to pay a higher price for the on-demand streaming service starting in February. According to Amazon’s customer service pages in both countries, subscribers to both individual and student plans will begin paying more starting Feb. 21.
In the U.S., Amazon Music Unlimited will increase from $9.99 to $10.99 for individual subscribers and climb from $4.99 to $5.99 for subscribers to the student plan. Likewise, U.K. prices will increase from 9.99 pounds to 10.99 pounds for individual subscribers and from 4.99 pounds to 5.99 pounds for student subscribers.
The e-commerce giant’s decision follows Apple’s move in October to charge higher prices for Apple Music as well as other cloud-based entertainment platforms and services. Apple Music also raised individual subscriptions from $9.99 to $10.99 per month in the U.S. It also increased the price of family plans, which offers up to six accounts under a single subscription, from $14.99 to $16.99 per month. Deezer, a small player in the U.S., raised the price of individual plans to $10.99 per month in 2022.
In May 2022, Amazon raised the price of Amazon Music Unlimited for Prime subscribers from $7.99 to $8.99 per month, and from $79 to $89 annually.
Spotify, the largest music subscription service, could soon follow suit. On the heels of Apple’s announcement, CEO Daniel Ek said during the company’s Oct. 25 earnings call that a U.S. price increase “is one of the things we would like to do.” Spotify has not raised its standard price from $9.99 since launching in the U.S. in 2011.
This year, a handful of new recordings beat long odds and were among the 50 most popular holiday tracks: Lizzo’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Someday at Christmas” and Lauren Spencer-Smith’s version of “Last Christmas” by Wham! ranked Nos. 39 and 47, respectively, in consumption – measuring track sales and streams – from Nov. 4 to Dec. 22, according to Luminate. Kane Brown’s version of “Blue Christmas,” made famous by Elvis Presley, ranked No. 48.
If historical trends persist, though, many of this year’s new holiday recordings won’t even survive the summer. Creating a holiday standard is one of the most difficult, unlikely tasks in all of songwriting.
Looking back over the last five years shows the slim odds a new recording faces in becoming an annual favorite. In 2017, 72 newly released tracks made the top 1,000 holiday recordings of the last two months of the year. Three of them — Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us” (No. 37), Pentatonix’s “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (No. 68) and Us the Duo’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (No. 98) — made the top 100. Gwen Stefani had eight of the 72 new recordings in the top 1,000. Hanson’s “Finally, It’s Christmas,” at No. 610, was an original song competing against new recordings of well-worn favorites like “Wonderful Christmastime” and “The Christmas Song.”
Five years later, only 30 recordings released in 2017 remained in the top 1,000. Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us” dropped from No. 37 to No. 171, while her song “Snowman” has risen to No. 53 to become the most popular recording of the class of 2017. Stefani had only three recordings from 2017 in the top 1,000, and her top-ranked holiday song, “You Make It Feel Like Christmas,” released in 2011, slipped to No. 42 from No. 18 five years earlier. Hanson was in the top 1,000 — with “What Christmas Means to Me,” originally recorded by Stevie Wonder in 1967, not its original song from five years earlier.
To become a holiday favorite, a new recording must prove itself by competing against popular holiday songs that have withstood decades-long wars of attrition. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a relatively young holiday standard at 28 years old. “Last Christmas” by Wham!, ranked No. 5 this holiday season, is 36. Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” (No. 7) and Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” (No. 8), just 8 and 12 years old, respectively, have beaten the odds to challenge established recordings like Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (No. 6), released in 1963 and often heard in advertisements and movie soundtracks.
That weeding-out process isn’t enough to deter songwriters from trying to create the next holiday hit and collect royalty checks year after year, though. This year, Chris Isaak, Backstreet Boys and Thomas Rhett released albums or EPs of Christmas songs. Sam Smith, Alanis Morissette, Dan + Shay, Joss Stone, Lukas Graham and Remi Wolf released individual tracks.
Even though the odds of writing a holiday standard are slim, the payoff is a lure, says Rhett Miller, singer for the alt-country band The Old 97’s. Miller and his musician friends have told “a probably apocryphal story” amongst themselves about musician Nick Lowe walking to his mailbox one day in a bath robe and finding a check for a million dollars not knowing that Curtis Stigers’ cover of his song “Peace, Love and Understanding” was featured on the soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard that would go on to sell 44 million copies worldwide.
“In the olden days, landing a song on a soundtrack like that was sort of the end all be all,” says Miller. “But, really, the Christmas song is the biggest dream of any songwriter — to have a song that connects and becomes a standard.” Miller acknowledges the long odds a holiday recording faces in becoming a recurring hit. Writing a holiday standard is like winning the lottery: A jackpot is exceedingly unlikely, but, as the saying goes, you can’t win if you don’t play. “I did have an idea that if we contributed an album of holiday songs to the conversation, we would at least be in the running for one of those songs that connected,” says Miller.
Miller has the benefit of having an influential company in his corner: Disney. James Gunn, writer and director of Marvel Comics’ Guardians of the Galaxy movie franchise, cast the Old 97’s for the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special that premiered on Disney+ video on-demand streaming service in November. The Old 97’s re-recorded their original song, “Here It Is Christmastime,” with actor-singer Kevin Bacon, and performed the song wearing prosthetic makeup. That helped “Here It Is Christmastime” debut at No. 7 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales and No. 27 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales charts for Dec. 10. Although the recording ranks only at No. 865 this holiday season, it will likely benefit from Marvel Comics fans viewing the special in the coming years.
In the streaming age, nothing helps posterity like a partnership with a giant multi-national entertainment platform. Lizzo, Spencer-Smith and Brown, the top of the Class of 2022, recorded their holiday tracks under exclusive partnership with Amazon Music. In earlier years, Amazon Music has released original holiday recordings by Katy Perry (“Cozy Little Christmas” in 2018), Carrie Underwood (an original song, “Favorite Time of the Year,” in 2020), John Legend (“Happy Christmas [War Is Over]” in 2019), Taylor Swift (“Christmas Tree Farm [Old Timey Version]” in 2019) and Camila Cabello (“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in 2021).
“Each year, we really look to work with artists that we know our customers love and who we think are going to be a good fit for our holiday listeners and really work with them to find the right track,” says Stephen Brower, global co-lead, artist relations at Amazon Music, “whether that’s a cover in the case of Lizzo doing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Someday at Christmas’ or in Katy and Carrie’s cases, having brand new songs.”
What holiday listeners seem to want every November and December is comfort music that harkens back to eras bygone. Even an original holiday song must have a classic, throwback sound that takes from late ’50s and early ’60s pop and rock. The rockabilly in Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” and Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” production in The Ronettes “Sleigh Ride” set a template that’s been closely followed by later artists. “Ever since Mariah, only songs that had that ’60s Spector feel seem to be getting any traction,” says Sean Ross, author of the Ross on Radio newsletter.
Christmas is no time to reinvent the wheel. Recreating the sounds of Christmas past gives Lizzo, Spencer-Smith and Brown the best chance at capturing an audience and maintaining momentum for the next five years. “Because the Christmas music season is typically only about six weeks, people don’t get tired of them,” Tom Poleman, chief programming officer for iHeartMedia, says in an email to Billboard. “As a result, there’s a huge supply of great songs to play, making it hard for new ones to cut through. The ones that do break through are usually well-made remakes of holiday classics by a big star like Kelly Clarkson.”
This holiday season, Clarkson’s covers of Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” (No. 103) and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (No. 238) were the first and second most popular versions of those songs after the originals. She also has popular versions of “My Favorite Things” (No. 282), “Please Come Home for Christmas” (No. 317) and “Silent Night” (No. 382). But Clarkson is the rare contemporary artist whose original songs are more popular than her covers. In a few years, “Under the Mistletoe” (No. 105) from 2020 and “Christmas Isn’t Canceled (You Are)” (No. 168) from 2021 could become the next “Underneath the Tree” (No. 8).
Miller is aware of the long odds that “Here It Is Christmastime” faces in the coming years – but he’s hopeful he can have a Clarkson-level hit one day. “It’s going to be something,” he says. “But will it be my Nick Lowe-in-a-bath robe moment? I don’t know. It would be great if something broke through.”
Amazon Music announced Wednesday (Dec. 14) that 21 Savage will perform on the upcoming season finale of Amazon Music Live.
The superstar rapper will take the stage on Dec. 29 for the new series’ final show of the year, which will be hosted as always by 2 Chainz following Amazon’s Thursday Night Football. According to a release, the Grammy winner is expected to perform songs from Her Loss, his new collaborative album with Drake, as well as debut new and unreleased tracks.
Premiering in October on both Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel, the inaugural season of the Thursday night concert series has also included performances by — and exclusive interviews with — Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, Kane Brown, Lil Wayne and Anuel AA. Plus, Anitta is slated to take over for this Thursday’s episode (Dec. 15) ahead of 21 Savage’s finale.
Her Loss debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spent four weeks atop the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart after its release in early November via OVO Sound and Republic Records.
Following his new album with Drake, Savage — who was named an honorable mention in Billboard‘s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022 — also collaborated with Nas on their fiery single “One Mic, One Gun.”