The new year in music

 

OK, that’s about it: what we mentioned above is more or less what you need to remember from the last couple of days in music. But that’s already quite a good start for this new year of ours:

• Old and new chart-toppers: Christmas is typically seasonal, meaning a bunch of thematic songs will pop-up, old or new. And some artists, such as Wham! (with the classic “Last Christmas”) or more recently Michael Bublé, tend to reappear in the charts with their respective Christmas material. However, the Christmas queen for years now has obviously been Mariah Carey, who topped just about every chart this year again with “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. When there will be a new Christmas song that even gets near that level of lasting appeal we don’t know: for now, Mariah is it. Meanwhile, in England, a little known duo did manage to top the charts with a new Christmas tune of their own: that would be Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s “Merry Christmas“… Good on you, lads!
• Music business news: over the past few months, we heard about several giant catalog deals surrounding the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young. Now is the turn of another legend, although a departed one as it happens: the David Bowie estate reportedly sold the rights to its entire catalog to Warner Chappell for the lump sum of $250 million, cashing out like many others on the current streaming-lead catalog craze. While it is always hard, some might say downright impossible, to value music of the magnitude Mr. Bowie’s output had (and still has), all we can say is, this one is worth every penny!
• Release announcements: while people were still revelling in Christmas tunes, several major artists came out with big announcements to start off the year in style. Such is the case with Halsey, who surprise-launched an extended version of her latest album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Then came 21 Savage, who released two new songs to kick off this new year of ours: “No Debate” and “Big Smoke”…. thanks for the presents! Finally, the biggest piece of news of the year (so far) comes from The Weeknd, who is set to release a new full length album this Friday entitled Dawn FM. Christmas ain’t over, you guys!