Yup. All of their releases seem to be from earlier this decade when record labels were holding back tracks. Their Christmas album is from 2011.

 

Finally the record labels got cornered so agreed to do oaos, thankfully.

Who knew that in 2019 Amazon would be the savior of irrelevant’s like Ellie and John Legend and give them a #1 and #9 hit :kink: Will be interesting who they wheel out next - I hope this is not the start of Apple/Spotify/Deezer etc., ‘exclusives’ - will make it a pain to not be able to access a song due to it being an exclusive on a platform you are not a paid subscriber of.

Britney needs to get in touch with Amazon tbh.

I'd be surprised if Amazon exclusives (or any other platform exclusives) become any more of a pervasive thing in the charts beyond maybe a couple of Christmas songs each year. They've done well this time because they're on Alexa's go-to playlists for people putting on Christmas music, surely a normal song at any other time of year is not going to have near the same impact. It wasn't a thing at all between 'Cozy Little Christmas' and 'River' for example.

Simon Cowell needs to do a deal with Amazon. X Factor winner gets an “Amazon exclusive”.

Who knew that in 2019 Amazon would be the savior of irrelevant’s like Ellie and John Legend and give them a #1 and #9 hit :kink: Will be interesting who they wheel out next - I hope this is not the start of Apple/Spotify/Deezer etc., ‘exclusives’ - will make it a pain to not be able to access a song due to it being an exclusive on a platform you are not a paid subscriber of.

 

Jojo had one too which has done absolutely nothing so there's no guarantee

Why was River released as an Amazon exclusive? So Ellie Goulding's label went to Amazon and asked for it to be an exclusive or how does it work? What's the big advantage of Amazon having this song as an exclusive? Ellie Goulding is hardly a massive star now and River is just a little cover. It's hardly Ed Sheeran's lead single now?

Why was River released as an Amazon exclusive? So Ellie Goulding's label went to Amazon and asked for it to be an exclusive or how does it work? What's the big advantage of Amazon having this song as an exclusive? Ellie Goulding is hardly a massive star now and River is just a little cover. It's hardly Ed Sheeran's lead single now?

'River' is part of an "Amazon Original" Christmas songs project

 

https://musically.com/2019/11/14/amazon-to-...hristmas-songs/

 

I'm assuming Amazon will have let labels, managers etc know through some sort of press release about the project and asked for acts to take part. I doubt Amazon would have randomly contacted the acts who have been part of the project.

 

I'd be surprised if Amazon exclusives (or any other platform exclusives) become any more of a pervasive thing in the charts beyond maybe a couple of Christmas songs each year. They've done well this time because they're on Alexa's go-to playlists for people putting on Christmas music, surely a normal song at any other time of year is not going to have near the same impact. It wasn't a thing at all between 'Cozy Little Christmas' and 'River' for example.

 

But CLC missed the Top 20 and River has gone to #1 - this will surely spoke the interest of labels and artist managers to give a platform an exclusive in exchange for playlist spamming? Putting a track high up on multiple playlists can/does have a huge impact.

I guess we'll see but I don't think the benefit of increased spamming on playlists from a certain platform is worth it not being available at all everywhere else with the exception of this particular case.

It also went to no1 because of when Xmas fell this year too.

But CLC missed the Top 20 and River has gone to #1 - this will surely spoke the interest of labels and artist managers to give a platform an exclusive in exchange for playlist spamming? Putting a track high up on multiple playlists can/does have a huge impact.

 

It would not work rest of the year as people's playlist requests will be more specific than 'Christmas music'. Alexa play 'uplifting music', Alexa play love songs etc is probably how most passive listen and you just couldn't fit a song into all those genres and specifics.

 

I'm pretty sure the OCC will do something about this, a new rule penalising playlist streams

I don't have Alexa (or any other smart speaker) so I have a question about how this works. If two people ask Alexa to play Christmas music at the same time, will they get the same songs in the same order? It is reasonably straightforward to identify (with a high degree of accuracy) where a Spotify user has simply played a playlist from beginning to end. Would the same be true for Alexa-type plays?

I don't have Alexa but I don't believe so.

My dad has Apple Music and he can ask Siri to play Christmas music (although usually I insist I put my Spotify playlist on) and it's more like a radio station than a playlist, it's never the same songs in the same order twice, although they'll always play the big hits like Mariah and Wham in the first few songs.

This whole mess is so confusing. Even if it is an error and they split Mariah’s Streams, why is she still only 13 and 19 when she should have a huge lead at #1.