Every week, my robots scour the biggest nine New Music Friday playlists in the world to see whose getting backed hard by the big green machine. This week:
🏆 The Champ: Ed Sheeran
The biggest of the big sat contentedly atop the big nine playlists this week, as Ed Sheeran launched “Celestial” out into the world. I can’t figure out whether this collaboration – for real – with the actual Pokémon Company is deranged genius, corporate greed, or the perfect illustration of a world gone completely and deliriously sideways.
🚀 The Challenger: Leah Kate
There were a lot less artists appearing on all nine of the biggest New Music Fridays this week (and not one with less than 2m followers), but Leah Kate’s “Monster” roared onto eight of them. At time of release, this artist was sitting on 116k followers, but you can expect that to jump a bit on the back of this level of support.
💡 The New Threat: Aluna
Aluna’s collab with MK bagged slots on seven of the big lists, with “Kiss It Better“. While still on the starting rungs in terms of Spotify followers for this solo project, with her impeccable back catalogue as one half of AlunaGeorge and this sort of serious backing, that’s going to change soon.
💣 Exploding Into View: Man-Made Sunshine
The solo project from Nothing But Thieves’ Conor Mason debuted this week in the shape of “Life’s Gonna Kill You (If You Let It)“, moving away from the bombast of his parent act, and towards a far more delicate sensibility. It’s lovely stuff, and being picked up across the UK, France, and Sweden’s NMFs certainly won’t do it any harm.