It’s been 5 years since Adele released an album and the world has changed.

Adele created her capital in the pre-streaming era. Social media was barely a thing. The UK singer was known for selling large amounts of CD’s and downloads. Adele’s ’25’ sold more copies than any other album in 2016.

Will Adele have the same impact? That’s the unknown keeping execs awake at night. We’ve entered into a different atmosphere where TikTok dominates with a distracted public.

To keep the public engaged, the execs need to sell Adele around the clock. They’ll have to sell the data to tell the Adele story- “Adele opens up with biggest streaming numbers of 2021”. “The first female artist to…”

The world has changed and there is a whole generation that never heard of Adele. Rap is the dominant genre, TikTok has dominated the music space, and… politics.

“It’s easier for her to look like a failure,” says Mark Mulligan, music-industry analyst at Midia Research.

I’m not sure what failure would look like today. If it’s dropping out of Spotify’s top 10 within a week or so, the label will make sure that doesn’t happen. Maybe failure today is not reaching world domination status which Olivia Rodrigo has right now. If that’s the benchmark of success, Adele may come up short.

While Adele generated massive amount of talk in the 2010’s, that environment doesn’t exist today. As popular as Olivia Rodrigo is now, she hasn’t generated the same mindshare as Adele at her peak.

Adele is known for her big sappy ballads. A teen today twerking to WAP on TikTok is conditioned for a two minute beat, not a 3 minute piano ballad.

Although top 40 radio likes uptempo tunes, they’ll play Adele. She has brand power and radio won’t resist her despite what some critics say.

Adele could create a much needed change to the music landscape. A fresh of breath air that will inspire a new crop of artists.

Sea Girls have dropped their new video for the single Sick. The track comes off the new album Homesick out January via Polydor. Not much to say here other than it’s a good song and a good video and the band delivers.

As far as the song..“It’s just basically me listing everything I’m pissed off with at the time. It’s anything from shit that isn’t good for me through to things I used to love, like being sick of The Beatles. It was like a ‘Fuck, I’m at the end of my tether’ kind of thing.” says Camamile.

The band will kick off their rescheduled UK Academy tour dates in Leicester on October 7th, and will perform a sold-out Brixton Academy on October 15th.

Spotify adds 4 new artists to its Fresh Finds Programs – Doss, Araya, TOLEDO, and Pom Pom Squad.

These artists will get extra support from Spotify including credits to use on its paid tools like ‘marquee’ ads, marketing support, and will be paired up with producers and songwriters to record Spotify Singles.

Toledo willbe paired with producer Gabe Wax, Pom Pom Squad will collaborate with producer Sarah Tudzin (aka Illuminati Hotties), Araya will work with producer Mindchatter, and Doss will work with songwriter Cecilia Gault. All four artists are based in New York.

Fresh Finds which combs through music blogs has always been my favorite Spotify Playlist. It’s the flagship playlist for the streaming company.

Since its launch, Fresh Finds has featured more than 25,000 artists, like Clairo, Omar Apollo, and 100 gecs. Spotify data shows that artists featured on Fresh Finds see their average monthly listeners increase by 108% in the 28 days following their addition to the playlist.

Hailing from Kentucky, Kyle Hume dropped his latest track If I Would Have Known. The 22 year old takes cues from Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, The Chainsmokers, James Arthur, and Lewis Capaldi.

“A lot of people have lost someone special over the last year in one way or another. Even just a year ago I lost a friend that I had grown up with since I was in elementary school. I made this song originally in response to a TikTok comment and the video blew up. The sound now has over 50,000 videos made to it and I get hundreds of DM’s a week asking when it will be released” said Kyle. Check out the video here.

The singer and producer first made waves with “Those Nights” that made it’s way into blogs like The Lowdown Magazine, Digital High, LA On Lock, Hype Machine and Talk About Pop Music.

Look out for 26 year old singer songwriter Sandy Marie and the track Heavy Hearted. Her debut single is reminiscent to early Jessie J. The mid tempo sad song could find a home on Apple’s Heartbreak Pop Playlist.

“Heavy Hearted brought many suppressed emotions to the surface. Mentally, it was hard to find the right words to express the heartache I was reliving though the creation of Heavy Hearted. Emotionally, this song brings me back to some of the toughest times in my life. However, I truly believe there’s something so beautiful and empowering to be able to find a speck of light when you feel like you’re in complete darkness” says Sandy Marie.

Stream the track on KOAR’s Indie Invaders Playlist.