Canada’s Tate McRae tops the Billboard Emerging Artists chart. Forever known as the pandemic artist, meaning her song You Broke Me First was released during lockdowns while gaining traction. Before signing with RCA she was dancing competitively. Moving into the artist world, she began posting songs she wrote on her YouTube channel. As destiny would have it, the songs went viral.
Tate says, “I was like, really mad, wrote this random song in 20 minutes and I was like, ‘Here we’re putting it online. My family hated it. I hated it. We were just like, ‘O.K., put it out there. But then something unexpected happened. It ended up going viral overnight and it was super weird,” says Tate. “So after it hit, like, 30 million views, I was like, ‘I should do this again!'”She laughs, “So I kept on writing songs every week and signed with RCA [Records] and the transition slowly started to happen.”

We are dealing with covid, but we can’t forget the climate. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin announced that the band will not be going on tour until they can offer carbon-neutral concerts.

Unfortunately, tours produce a sizable amount of carbon emissions with trucks moving people and equipment across the world.

Right now scientists are creating a model that will help touring artist reduce their contribution to climate change.

Things will ultimately change when everyone in the concert business demands a climate friendly concert. I’m a bit apprehensive as covid became the main focus and the climate has taken the backseat. As the pandemic ends, artists, managers, and agents will want to hit the road as fast as possible to pick up the lost revenue, but I’m nervous the climate will not be in mind and it will be business a usual.

Spotify jumped to $354.60 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, up 7% from Thursday. Spotify’s value rose to roughly $66.1 billion. Why has the stock prices increased? Mainly because of podcasts and the launch of the controversial Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Spotify might raise prices, expanding its profitability.

Rising artist WRENN found herself on the US Spotify Viral Charts this week after Blake Shelton tweeted her song.

The Los Angeles based artist grew a rapid following on TikTok after writing a song about her ex. In fact, she had audio of her ex admitting he was cheating on her.
Blake shouted her out over on Twitter. “So the band leader at @NBCTheVoice is a guy named @paulmirk. He’s really talented blah blah blah… you get it. Anyway, his daughter just released a song that is EXPLODING!!! Get in the train y’all! Listen!!” he wrote.

The Grammys scheduled to air on January 31st in Lost Angeles have been postponed over covid concerns. A new possible date is 3/14.

Harvey Mason Jr., CBS Jack Sussman and Executive Producer Ben Winston released the following statement.

After thoughtful conversations with health experts, our network partner, CBS, our host, and artists scheduled to appear, we have made the decision to postpone the 63rd GRAMMY Awards to March 14, 2021. The deteriorating COVID situation in Los Angeles, where hospital services have been overwhelmed and ICUs have reached capacity, and new guidance from state and local governments have led us to conclude that postponing our show was the right thing to do. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show.
We want to thank all of the talented artists, the staff, our vendors, and especially this year’s nominees for their understanding, patience, and willingness to work with us as we navigate these unprecedented times. The show will go on and we will unite and heal through music by celebrating excellence and saluting this year’s outstanding nominees.