Greenlanders will receive complimentary access to Young’s online archive, which houses his studio albums, live recordings, concert films, and deep-cut ephemera that chart his career from Buffalo Springfield through his most recent releases. Typically a subscription service, the Archives are being opened up at no cost for at least a year, with Young signalling that access can be renewed as long as listeners remain in Greenland. It is a characteristically direct gesture from an artist who has never been shy about putting his music where his politics are. For listeners on the island, it is also an invitation into the full arc of Young’s work, from fragile folk to roaring electric epics.

The decision is explicitly linked to Neil Young’s criticism of President Donald Trump and what he portrays as aggressive U.S. posturing toward Greenland. In public comments, he has framed the gift as an act of peace and solidarity aimed at a small population caught in the crosshairs of geopolitical ambition. Young’s stance taps into long-running anxieties about the strategic value of the Arctic region, but stresses this concern through his songs that have, for decades, interrogated power, war, and environmental destruction.

At the same time, Young has doubled down on a very different kind of stance: a refusal to do business with Amazon. After previously announcing that his music would be pulled from the platform, he has urged fans to steer clear of the retail and streaming giant, arguing that its concentration of wealth and influence is bad for democracy, culture, and working musicians, extending his criticism to founder Jeff Bezos and the scale of corporate power that Amazon represents.

Amazon remains one of the top dogs in streaming services. But this is not Young’s first rodeo with streaming giants, having departed all his music from Spotify over misinformation concerns. Yet, taken together, his boycott of Amazon and his gift to Greenland sharpen the picture of an artist determined to use his catalogue as leverage: withdrawing it where he sees complicity, and offering it freely where he sees vulnerability. For fans, Young has served as a reminder that protest does not lie only within his songs, but within how they are distributed and listened to.

The ad itself shares a message of kindness, when a young woman is being overwhelmed by the noise of everyday life, her neighbour sends a gift to help her with the anxiety of an exceptionally loud world. The tag “Kindness. The greatest gift” closes the video. The ad seems to follow the same emotional beats as the song. Adele starts by singing “I swear to god I’m such a mess / The harder that I try, I regress,” and “Right now, I truly hate being me.”. But in the end comes back around to finish “Let time be patient / Let pain be gracious / Just hold on, just hold on / I will survive,”.

Prior to the tracks release, fans have also been treated to another song “Easy on Me” after a short teaser snippet was released on Adele’s social media accounts. Not long after the song and video were released, the singer also released a blooper clip from behind the scenes.

It’s all smoke and mirrors! Here’s all the bloopers from the Easy On Me video pic.twitter.com/UFVNcChgX6

— Adele (@Adele) November 4, 2021

Meanwhile, Adele continues to confirm her superstardom with an announcement for a massive show at American Express Presents BST Hyde Park 2022, and by breaking a Spotify record previously held by K-pop giants BTS.

In a list released by BBC Radio 2 on National Album Day, it was revealed that Adele’s sophomore album 21 was the UK’s best-selling album on the women in music themed list. With 5,007,000 sales in the UK Adele nabbed the top spot, her next album 25 landed on the list in 5^th place. 21 edged out the likes of Amy Winehouse, Madonna and Shania Twain for the top spot. Her debut 19 also made the list in 14^th position.

Last week, the tracklist for 30 was revealed to contain 12 songs with 3 bonus tracks. The album features tracks such as “I Drink Wine”, an Interlude called “All Night Parking” featuring Jazz pianist Erroll Garner and, a version of “Easy on Me” featuring Chris Stapleton.

The short documentaries are available now and feature the appearances of emerging artists Avelino, Mysie, Joy Crookes and Easy Life. Fraser commented on the docu-series: ‘The Amazon Music ‘Produced By’ format is such a revolutionary gift, to be able to show people the process of making the record whilst making the best EP I could possibly make. Bringing these artists together for this project has been an exciting and cathartic process. I chose four artists who are going to make a huge dent in 2021’.

The artists too are mesmerized by having worked with a Grammy winning producer. For instance, North London rapper Avelino said ‘This was an overdue link up with a creative and executive that I respect very highly’ and R&B English artist Mysie though that ‘Working with Fraser has been amazing. Through our mentorship, I’ve learned so much about myself – not only as a musician – but as a human’.

Born in England’s Buckinghamshire, the fifty-year-old producer started his career by performing in local pubs as a solo musician or with different bands. In the early 2000s, Smith decided to focus entirely on his songwriting and production skills. This choice brought him nominations and successes from Grammys and Brits Awards, with the productions he worked for winning from MOBO Awards’ Best Album to Latin Grammy Awards’ Record of the Year. During the COVID pandemic, he was the man behind the scene producing the viral version of Foo Fighters’ ‘Time Like These’, featuring many internationally acclaimed artists recording from their homes.

Amazon is currently working on a full documentary on Fraser T Smith, following his process step by step and featuring interventions of Craig David, Rita Ora and more. You can find ‘Produced By’ here.

The video’s retro styling which takes us back to the dusty days of paper, desks and telephones are a breath of fresh air in a music industry saturated with hypermodern cliches or equally gadget laden 80s throwbacks and gives us something to really think about. The gentle nostalgia evoked by the video combines perfectly with the simple yet emotive song which tugs at the heart strings in both its musicality and its lyrical content and marks Celeste once again as a master of combining music with the moving image, a skill she first demonstrated with her incredible song composed for the Waitrose & John Lewis Partnership’s Christmas advert 2020 ‘A Little Love.’

While the John Lewis Christmas ad showed Celeste’s talent for writing to a brief, the work she has done on ‘Love Is Back,’ is very much her own, with the laid back R&B style fitting perfectly to her dusty, emotive vocal style which is in all ways unique and incredibly powerful. The video comes just over a week before Celeste’s debut album ‘Not Your Muse,’ is due to be released a month earlier than planned, a surprise announcement which delighted and pleasantly surprised fans who will find their pre-ordered copies arriving much earlier than expected.

While the exact reason’s behind this decision are not known it is likely that the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the UK, which is now claiming more lives on a daily basis than during the peak of the first wave, which has been the cause of another national lockdown without a clear end in sight may have played a role in this decision. As music fans in the UK settle in for another few months without their beloved live music, Celeste has been kind enough to gift us with one of the most highly anticipated works of recorded music of the year so far, and indeed it was hotly awaited throughout 2020 as well when Celeste was becoming the UK’s newest rising star.

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A post shared by Celeste (@celeste)

Celeste’s debut album ‘Not Your Muse,’ releases on the 29th of January and is available to pre-order here, there are also exclusive bundles including hand drawn prints and alternative covers available from the official store, signed copies available from Amazon on CD or Vinyl. The album will also be available on all major streaming platforms from the 29th and can be pre-ordered as a digital download from the iTunes store. With Celeste already looking to be one of the biggest British artists of 2021 this is definitely one to get your hands on.

The artist hinted at the release last week, posting, “Yes guys, got something cooking from my live Brixton show on @AmazonMusicUK@AmazonMusic tomorrow. As we can’t get to gigs figured you guys will like this.” Sure enough, fans are loving the live recordings, especially of inspiring song ‘Not Giving In’, from debut album ‘What a Time To Be Alive’.

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Yes guys, got something cooking from my live Brixton show on @AmazonMusicUK @AmazonMusic tomorrow. As we can’t get to gigs figured you guys will like this  The memories! 

A post shared by Tom Walker (@iamtomwalker) on Aug 13, 2020 at 11:16am PDT

Live music performances have been few and far between since the Covid-19 pandemic made it difficult to ensure safety, so the sound of the crowd singing along to each song, as well as Walker’s emotional delivery, brings a different atmosphere from the studio recordings. Introducing his tracks, the singer gave a small speech about the idea behind each one; before ‘Leave a Light On’, he said, “Brixton, we love you,” bringing on a few screams from the audience. He went on to say, “I can’t tell you how emotional this is, it’s absolutely mental – thank you.”

Describing the song, he explained that it was written for one of his closest friends, “when he was going through a really tough time…mates don’t come around too often, especially the good ones and you’ve gotta look after them, for real.” Other songs included on the EP are ‘Just You and I’ and ‘Fly Away With Me’.

Throughout lockdown, Walker has been very active online, releasing a new single, ‘Wait For You’, and lifting his followers’ spirits with his humorous Tweets and livestreams, in which he performs cover songs such as Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’.

Walker graduated from the London College of Creative Media and went on to sign with Relentless Records, releasing his debut album in early 2019. The album reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, while his single ‘Leave a Light On’ reached number 7 on the UK Singles Chart.

Jme – Grime MC

Spotify https://t.co/lLM1kXsAso

Apple https://t.co/t63h5Vz3dJ

Tidal https://t.co/CQE7Vio7Dd

Amazon https://t.co/Ke6FZZBwU4 pic.twitter.com/TShx0Hbmrv

— Jme (@JmeBBK) June 1, 2020

This follows numerous ‘Grime MC’ singles including ‘Nang‘ featuring older brother Skepta, released to all platforms earlier this year. So, why did the artist initially choose to keep his music limited to physical copies, and why has he changed his mind now? As he told SK Vibemaker in an interview, “If Youtube and Twitter and Spotify and all this stuff shut down I’m still gonna be spitting bars.”

Primarily, it seems that the reason for this change is that fans so desperately wanted JME’s album to be accessible in every way – especially after waiting four years for new music – and asked him for months. But the full album, uploaded 1st June, coincides with the riots and protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd and many other innocent African-American people at the hands of police. As JME is known for using his music to discuss current affairs and issues, perhaps he is now using it to highlight the social injustice taking place. JME took to Twitter after the tragedy, retweeting various posts and sharing a video of Phillip DeFranco explaining what happened.

Of the 18 tracks included on ‘Grime MC’, fan favourites appear to be ‘Nang‘ and ‘Issmad‘, which have both reached over 600,000 streams on Spotify. With half of the album’s songs being released as singles, all of these have been accompanied by a music video, most recently ‘Live‘ featuring Merky Ace, which shows JME and his collaborator hosting the news. In just over a week, the video has gained 150,000 views.

JME released his first LP ‘Famous’ in 2008 via his own record label Boy Better Know, having spent years in the music industry writing ringtones and working with Skepta. He is now an MC, songwriter, producer, and DJ and has collaborated with many different grime artists.

The album is set to come out today (November 20th) and yesterday, it overtook Take That’s first album as a trio III, Pink Floyd’s first album in 20 years “The Endless River” and One Directions Midnight Memories which means Adele has entered the Amazon Hall of Fame by having the most pre-ordered album in Amazon’s top ten most pre-ordered artists of all time (via mytechbits.com). The BRIT School former student has also overtook Iron Maiden, Blur and Muse in the top ten pre-ordered albums of 2015 chart.

Director of Amazon EU Digital Music, Steve Bernstein stated:

“With Hello in its third week at number one and breaking records as the fastest selling single in 18 years, Adele’s new album has now become the most pre-ordered album of all time on Amazon.co.uk. We’ve also made this album available with AutoRip, so Amazon customers can get a free MP3 version of this highly anticipated record when purchasing the album in CD or vinyl format.”

After you complete a purchase of an AutoRip CD, a free MP3 version of that album will be added to your Amazon Cloud Player library through a digital download and will be available on your PC/Mac, Kindle Fire, Android phone, iPhone & iPod Touch, and iPad. Prime members can get a hold of Prime eligible CD’s fast with next-day delivery.

Top 10 pre-ordered artist albums of all time

# Artist Album
1 Adele 25
2 Take That III
3 Pink Floyd The Endless River
4 One Direction Midnight Memories
5 Robbie Williams Swings Both Ways
6 Take That Progress
7 Susan Boyle I Dreamed a Dream
8 Coldplay Ghost Stories
9 David Bowie The Next Day
10 One Direction FOUR

Top 10 pre-ordered artist albums of 2015

# Artist Album
1 Adele 25
2 Iron Maiden The Book of Souls
3 Jeff Lynne’s ELO Alone In The Universe
4 Muse Drones
5 Blur The Magic Whip
6 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Chasing Yesterday
7 David Gilmour Rattle That Lock
8 Florence + The Machine How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
9 One Direction Made in the AM
10 Coldplay A Head Full of Dreams