Kesha, Dasha & More to Welcome the Holidays With New Spotify Singles
Tick tock on the clock! The Halloween party isn’t going to stop just yet, but the Christmas season is coming early to Spotify. The music streamer is set to release five new Spotify Singles at the stroke of midnight local time on Tuesday (Oct. 15), including one by Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 chart-topper Kesha.
This year’s annual singles collection — which arrives a little earlier than usual this time — will feature four other artists and their covers of holiday tunes. The featured musicians and their yuletide songs are:
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“Holiday Road” by Kesha
“Driving Home for Christmas” by Dasha
“River” by Max Richter
“Run Rudolph Run” by Mark Ambor
“Emmanuel” by Miel San Marcos
“As you’ll hopefully hear, each single really showcases the personality and style of each artist — often reinventing holiday classics in an entirely new way,” Talia Kraines, Spotify’s senior editor of pop, tells Billboard.
“With ‘Holiday Road,’ Kesha has taken this really fun ’80s song – which wasn’t originally a holiday song – and brought it to the modern day. We just knew she would sound amazing singing it, and she does. Her vocals make me think of The Go-Gos or The Bangles here. It feels like a monumental year for Kesha, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it – she’s reclaiming her joy and owning her own voice,” she adds of the Grammy nominated artist. “It also seemed fitting to have Kesha make a holiday song with us because her music actually hits a high each year on Spotify during the holiday season. Tracks like ‘Tik Tok’ and ‘Timber’ have come to be known as New Year’s and celebration anthems.”
As for “Driving Home for Christmas,” Kraines notes that it’s “huge in the U.K. and Europe” if not the U.S. “We saw this as a great opportunity to give this holiday song a whole new audience in America while sharing a new version for countries where the song is already beloved,” she says of Dasha’s contribution.
Last year’s Spotify Singles’ holiday collection was announced during mid November, usually when the music streamer decks the speakers with holiday tunes. It featured Laufey’s interpretation of the classic “Winter Wonderland,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 and No. 80 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 charts; Kirk Franklin’s gospel take on “Joy to the World”; Ezra Collective’s cover of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”; and Musica Mexicana artist Panter Bélico offered his original tune “Un Vaquero En Navidad.”
Previous Spotify Singles for its Holiday Collection include Kurt Vile’s take of Bob Dylan’s version of holiday classic “Must Be Santa,” IVE’s holiday mix of its own “After LIKE” and more. The overall Holiday Collection playlist on Spotify also includes contributions from Miley Cyrus, DMX, Demi Lovato, Sam Smith, Liam Payne, John Legend, Fifth Harmony, Camilo, Black Pumas and many, many more.
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