NEW YORK, Dec. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The music
discovery and curation team at SiriusXM announced today its "Future Five" artists for 2019 and the "Class of 2018."
The "Future Five" for 2019 consists of five new artists that SiriusXM predicts will breakthrough in 2019.
The "Class of 2018" is comprised of artists that were played first on SiriusXM and subsequently went on to have a major
breakthrough year.
SiriusXM's selection of the "Future Five" for 2018 featuring Alice Merton, Morgan Evans, Two Feet, Rich The Kid and Sofi Tukker, all had breakthrough years with number one songs,
millions of streams and performances at major festivals across the nation.
"2018 shaped up to be another great year in music discovery for SiriusXM," said Steve Blatter, Senior Vice President and
General Manager, Music Programming, SiriusXM. "We were thrilled to see all of our 'Future Five for 2018' selections graduate
to our 'Class of 2018.' As we move into 2019, our team continues to strive to bring our subscribers even more new
music from a wide range of developing artists across all genres."
SiriusXM's "Future Five" for 2019
Alec Benjamin: Not long after playing parking lot shows outside of Shawn Mendes and Troye Sivan concerts and before signing to Atlantic Records,
24-year-old singer/songwriter Alec Benjamin made his national radio debut on SiriusXM Chill (ch.
53) in June 2018. His track "Let Me Down Slowly" was featured as a "Chill Trending Track,"
SiriusXM's partnership with YouTube. Benjamin has gone on to be streamed over 75 million times. Alec's SiriusXM exclusive session
version of "Let Me Down Slowly" was added to The Coffee House (ch.14) in August, with the original also being added to Hits 1
(ch. 2) in October and The Pulse (ch.15) in November prior to the release of his debut full length album Narrated For
You.
Ice Nine Kills: Ice Nine Kills received the first radio play of their career in early September when Octane (ch. 37)
world premiered "A Grave Mistake" and featured the song on their weekly new music show Test Drive prior to it being
released. In the following weeks, Octane also identified the song as an "Octane Accelerator" when it was the first national
outlet to add the song into rotation. Song went on to have 10k downloads and over 1M streams in 4 weeks of Octane's exclusive airplay. Album, The Silver Scream (Fearless
Records) sold 16K albums release week, the biggest of their career, additionally the song has
been on Octane's Big Uns Top 15 weekly countdown for more than 8 consecutive weeks.
Dominic Fike: The Florida native, who recently signed to Columbia Records, got his first
national airplay on Alt Nation (ch. 36) on October 18 when his song "3 Nights" was played on Alt
Nation's new music show Advanced Placement just days after the release of his Don't Forget About Me, Demos (EP). Alt
Nation went on to be first to commit to regularly support the song on November 20. National sales
and streams have increased in each of the weeks since Alt Nation first began exposing the song. Dominic
Fike will be releasing more new music in 2019.
Joyner Lucas: Shade 45 (ch. 45) and Hip Hop Nation (ch. 44) were the first outlets in
America to regularly expose Lucas through his guest appearance on Eminem's track "Lucky You." Hip Hop Nation world premiered his
single "I Love" on October 17 and has since led the country in airplay. The song has received more
than 26 million streams since debuting on SiriusXM. Joyner Lucas plans on releasing his album
ADHD (Atlantic Records) in 2019.
Ryan Hurd: The Highway (ch. 56) has supported "Diamonds Or Twine" since the day of its
release back in March and has since lead the country in support, by a significant margin, with over 1160 spins. During that time,
the song has been streamed more than 11 million times and sold over 30k downloads. The Highway was
the first national platform to commit support to Hurd's follow up single "To a T" and again has lead the nation in spins to date
by a significate margin. In 2019 Hurd will perform "Highway Presents" shows in NYC, Chicago and
Nashville.
SiriusXM's Class of 2018
Alice Merton: Since being named a SiriusXM "Future Five" for 2018, her song "No Roots"
went on to reach #1 on Triple A in January charts and #1 on Alternative charts in February. The song has been streamed 63 million
times. Merton went on to perform at multiple 2018 music festivals and in February performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy
Fallon. Her debut EP No Roots was released in April with her full length album, Mint due out January 2019.
Morgan Evans: After being named a SiriusXM "Future Five" for 2018, his song "Kiss
Somebody" went on to reach #1 on the Country charts in August and has been streamed more than 67 million times to date. The
Highway (ch. 56) went on to be first to commit airplay to "Day Drunk" and has lead the nation in airplay since. Morgan's album
Things That We Drink To was released on October 12.
Two Feet: After being first in nation to play his music as an Alt Nation Critical Cut in November 2017, SiriusXM named Two Feet a "Future Five" for 2018. His song "I Feel Like I'm Drowning" went on to
reach #1 on the Alternative Rock chart in July and has received more than 46 million streams. Alt Nation (ch. 36) went on to be
the first to commit airplay to his single "Hurt People" and world debuted "Back Of My Mind" prior to the release of his debut
full length album A 20 Something F**k on October 5.
Rich The Kid: Since being named a SiriusXM "Future Five" for 2018 based on Hip Hop Nation's early support of his song
"New Freezer" the channel continued its support of his music by being the first to add "Plug Walk" on February 2 with Shade 45 also committing early support prior to the release of his album The World Is
Yours on March 30. The album has been certified gold and "Plug Walk" has gone on to be
certified platinum twice.
Sofi Tukker: After Alt Nation (ch. 36) was first in the nation to regularly play "Best Friend." This NYC based duo was
named a SiriusXM "Future Five" for 2018. The song has gone on to be streamed 50 million times, while Alt Nation continued its
support by being the first to support "Baby, I'm A Queen" in March. The band toured extensively in 2018 behind the release of
their album, including TV appearances and festival performances. Their album Treehouse is now Grammy nominated in the Best
Dance/Electronic Album category.
Flipp Dinero: Hip Hop Nation (ch. 44) was the first national platform to play and in September commit airplay to "Leave
Me Alone." To date, the channel has played more than twice the amount of airplay than any other station in country, the song has
held the #1 spot for multiple weeks on the channel's weekly countdown show and is currently in the top 15 on the Urban charts.
Song is currently RIAA certified gold and has been streamed more than 112 million times to date.
Juice Wrld: Hip Hop Nation (ch. 44) was the first outlet in the country to regularly play. The song has gone on to be
streamed over 965 million times and reached #1 on the Rhythmic charts and top 10 on both the Urban and Top 40 charts.
Rex Orange County: "Loving Is Easy" received first national airplay on Alt Nation's
Advanced Placement and its first commitment to airplay from XMU (ch. 35). SiriusXM's support of the song continued on The
Spectrum (ch. 28) and additional support came when both XMU and Alt Nation (ch. 36) were the first two, and only, channels in the
country to commit airplay to his song "Sunflower." To date, the song has been streamed over 47 million times and sold more than
28k.
Bad Wolves: Octane (ch. 37) was first national radio outlet to play "Zombie" and immediately committed airplay to the
song. Within two weeks of airplay the song reached #1 on the channel's weekly countdown show and remained there for 8 weeks. The
song reached #1 on the Active Rock chart in May and also received playlist commitment from Hits 1 (ch. 2) and The Pulse (ch. 15).
To date the song has been streamed 172 million and has sold over 500k times.
Morgan Wallen: After leading the nation in support of his 2016 song "The Way I Talk,"
The Highway (ch. 56) was the first to commit national airplay to "Up Down ft. Florida Georgia
Line" in October 2017. The song went on to reach #1 on the Country charts and has sold
342k to date while streaming over 184 million. The channel continued its support of the artist by
adding "Little Rain" in April and "Whiskey Glasses" in October.
About SiriusXM
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is the world's largest radio company measured by revenue and has approximately 33.7
million subscribers. SiriusXM creates and offers commercial-free music; premier sports talk and live events; comedy; news;
exclusive talk and entertainment, and a wide-range of Latin music, sports and talk programming. SiriusXM is available in vehicles
from every major car company and on smartphones and other connected devices as well as online at siriusxm.com. SiriusXM
radios and accessories are available from retailers nationwide and online at SiriusXM. SiriusXM also provides premium traffic,
weather, data and information services for subscribers through SiriusXM Traffic™, SiriusXM Travel Link, NavTraffic®, NavWeather™.
SiriusXM delivers weather, data and information services to aircraft and boats through SiriusXM Aviation™ and SiriusXM Marine™.
In addition, SiriusXM Music for Business provides commercial-free music to a variety of businesses. SiriusXM holds a minority
interest in SiriusXM Canada which has approximately 2.7 million subscribers. SiriusXM is also a leading provider of connected
vehicles services, giving customers access to a suite of safety, security, and convenience services including automatic crash
notification, stolen vehicle recovery assistance, enhanced roadside assistance and turn-by-turn navigation.
To download SiriusXM logos and artwork, visit http://www.siriusxm.com/LogosAndPhotos.
This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results, our plans,
objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; and other statements identified
by words such as "will likely result," "are expected to," "will continue," "is anticipated," "estimated," "believe," "intend,"
"plan," "projection," "outlook" or words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs
and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and
contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond our control. Actual results and the timing of events
may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results and the timing of events to differ materially from the
anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements: our substantial competition, which is
likely to increase over time; our ability to attract and retain subscribers, which is uncertain; interference to our service from
wireless operations; consumer protection laws and their enforcement; unfavorable outcomes of pending or future litigation; the
market for music rights, which is changing and subject to uncertainties; our dependence upon the auto industry; general economic
conditions; the security of the personal information about our customers; existing or future government laws and regulations
could harm our business; failure of our satellites would significantly damage our business; the interruption or failure of our
information technology and communications systems; our failure to realize benefits of acquisitions or other strategic
initiatives; rapid technological and industry changes; failure of third parties to perform; our failure to comply with FCC
requirements; modifications to our business plan; our indebtedness; our principal stockholder has significant influence over our
affairs and over actions requiring stockholder approval and its interests may differ from interests of other holders of our
common stock; impairment of our business by third-party intellectual property rights; and changes to our dividend policies which
could occur at any time. Additional factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31,
2017, which is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and available at the SEC's Internet site
(http://www.sec.gov). The information set forth herein speaks only as of the date hereof, and we
disclaim any intention or obligation to update any forward looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the
date of this communication.
Source: SiriusXM
Media contact:
Carolina Dubon
Carolina.dubon@siriusxm.com
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/siriusxm-reveals-future-five-for-2019-and-welcomes-class-of-2018-in-music-300762554.html
SOURCE Sirius XM Holdings Inc.