Do you remember artist feuds?  Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. It started when dancers left before Swift’s tour ended to join Perry on her Prismatic tour. Then you had controversies and quarrels between Madonna and Janet Jackson, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and Remy Ma vs Nicki Minaj.

The media landscape changed and the power shifted to influencers. The new media landscape has paved the way for political activists challenging artists. The new feud is Candace Owners vs Harry Styles.

On November 14th Candace Owens criticized Harry Styles for wearing a dress. She said he looked silly wearing a woman’s dress. She started a campaign “Bring back manly men”.

Harry Styles finally defended himself with a a picture of himself wearing a powder blue suit and ruffled shirt while eating a banana and a caption “Bring back manly men,”. “To not wear something because it’s females’ clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes,” says Styles.
Owens reiterated that she “inspires global conversation,” but pointed out that she actually likes Styles’ outfit in his shady post to her.
“He looks stupid, but he doesn’t look feminine,” she said in the video, referencing Styles’ blue suit and ruffled white shirt. “He kind of just looks like he’s in a different century and I think it looks good.”
Owens said, “He’s giving me Henry VIII meets Michael Jackson ‘You Are Not Alone’ vibes. I’m digging it. I would wear it, Harry. I love you.”

Spotify: would you like your gift wrapped?
Artist: yes..please!

Starting today, artists and their teams can access their 2020 Artist Wrapped, a personalized summary of your year on Spotify that will tell you how your music connected with fans around the world.
If you had more than three listeners before October 31st, a gift is waiting for you. If you couldn’t get your mom, dad, and your sister into your track, then send me an email and I can offer some quick advice.
So far, Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Russ, Kylie Minogue, Alan Walker, HRVY, and The Lumineers among others have share their wrapped cards.

New emerging artist that have quickly grown their following in 2020 are glaive, Mustafa, Jenevieve, and Emanuel. Germany’s Zoe Wees wrapped up 2020 with 95M streams, 18.3M listeners, in 92 countries.
The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights was streamed 1.6 billion times making it the biggest streamed song on Spotify.

Forbes releases the annual 30 under 30. The list includes Roddy Ricch, Lil Baby, Gabby Barrett, Doja Cat, Saweetie and Bea Miller. Who stuck out among the list? It’s Canada’s Tate McRae. She’s the youngest on the list. She’s the official quarantine artist, meaning, she managed to gain attention during the months when the world stopped. The single You Broke Me First has clocked more than 250 million streams and her performance on MTV along with her YouTube videos and radio play helped push her over the top.

David Ost releases a new track Fire In Alaska that I really like. It’s a  mid tempo song that takes you a journey. That’s why D. Ost has a become a Kings favorite. His songs are introspective and poetic and they pull you in.  Bouncing back and forth between Germany and Scotland, he now resides in Hamburg. The indie singer has garnered over 100k plays on Spotify while picking up streams in every single country. He’s working on a first album release in 2021. Check out the video here.

The Weeknd comes out on top with “Blinding Lights” which streamed almost 1.6 billion times in 2020. Following is “Dance Monkey” by Australian singer Tones and I. She wrote the song in 30 minutes. The third most-streamed track of 2020 was The Box by Roddy Ricch. The song largely benefited from TikTok. Fourth place comes “Roses – Imanbek Remix” by Imanbek and SAINt JHN – another track popularized by TikTok. Fifth is Dua Lipa with the mega smash “Don’t Start Now”.  You couldn’t turn on your radio this summer without hearing the track on the radio.