This week, YouTube's contract with SESAC is set to expire, and they still haven't agreed on renewal terms. SESAC, a century-old performance rights organization, licenses over 1.5 million songs on behalf of more than 15,000 songwriters. YouTube seems to be strong-arming SESAC into a new rights agreement by blocking some of the most popular music. If you try searching for tracks by artists including Kanye West, Nirvana, Britney Spears, Kendrick Lamar, Green Day, Bob Dylan, or Adele, you’ll likely encounter a “Video unavailable” error, if you can find the videos at all.

Click here for a Spotify playlist with the songs mentioned in this newsletter.

BIGGEST Songs of the Week 📈

Lady Gaga loves to play dress up. She bridged the gap between high fashion and music when she first disrupted the pop music scene in 2009. She wore a dress made of meat to the 2010 VMAs and arrived in an egg-shaped vessel at the 2011 Grammys. She became a modern Ella Fitzgerald on her jazz efforts, Cheek To Cheek and Love For Sale. She donned a pink cowboy hat and became a country-pop crooner on 2016’s Joanne and she became an intergalactic being on 2020’s Chromatica.