Wrrap Season
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Spotify Wrapped is out. Premium subscribers received personalized stories taking them through their 2020 listening data. The company also released its insights on what the world listens to. Bad Bunny was the most listened to artist with over 8.3 billion streams, while Billie Eilish was the most popular female artist. The Joe Rogan Experience took the spot of the most popular podcast. I’ve mentioned it before, but I truly love how Spotify uses the data it mines from subscribers to give each user the best, most personalized experience. So many of us turned to music to help us get through this crazy year, and seeing the songs and artists I listened to in 2020 felt much more meaningful than it did in years past.
Warner Brothers announced on Thursday that it is releasing its entire 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously on HBO Max. The films will be available on the platform for a month-long window at the same time that they’re released in theaters, and after that month the films will be taken off the platform for a period of time, while still running theatrically. The list of 2021 movies includes TOM & JERRY, DUNE, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, IN THE HEIGHTS, and more. The streaming service, which has a $14.99 monthly price tag, currently has 8.6 million subscribers. We’ll all be very curious to know what that number looks like at this time next year.
In more streaming news, on Wednesday, Hulu made Watch Party, its co-watching feature, available for all subscribers. The feature allows viewers to watch content with up to seven of their friends at the same time. Viewers can use the chat feature to communicate with their fellow watchers. Disney Plus is testing a similar feature in Canada, and Amazon rolled out their version for US users in June. With many people unable to spend holidays on the couch watching TV with their loved ones, I love that streaming services are giving us a digital alternative.
My TikTok recommendation this week is a full-fledged social musical. If you’re looking to lose yourself in something beautiful, check out the crowd-sourced RATATOUILLE MUSICAL. It started back in August when user Em Jaccs made a video with an original song dedicated to Remy himself with the lyrics, “Remy, the Ratatouille, the rat of all my dreams/ I praise you, oh Ratatouille, may the world remember your name.” The rest was history, and since then, singers, dancers, designers, chefs, and even Broadway stars contributed to the musical with videos. Fair warning that you will almost certainly wind up walking around your house belting out the lyrics to one of the original songs.
—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant
