Kygo [updated]

One Liner: Insanely popular but generic EDM

Poster Level: 2

Thoughts: So, this guy was on Line 6 of the 2015 Lollapalooza poster, and I noticed that year that I had never heard of any of the artists that were on that line of the poster.  So, of course, I went and listened to them and wrote about it.  Needless to say, I am not a fan. Even a year later, he still has no actual album available to hear on Spotify.  Maybe EDM mega-stars don't do albums anymore because that is passe and for old people.  But he has 12-ish tracks on Spotify, so that is likely enough to give you a feel for what he is up to.  He is up to some generic EDM shenanigans.

I say that, and yet this guy might be the most listened-to artist of any of the headliners we got.  "Stay" has 214 million listens, "Stole the Show" has 374 million, "Firestone" has 400 million, and then the rest of his current top ten on Spotify has 328 million between them. He's got another 18 million total views on YouTube.  That is coming up on platinum status for a dude with no freaking album.  So, you would be hard pressed to argue that the guy isn't a headliner, even if I don't care for him.

On to the music.  The big hit is "Firestone," with 400 million streams.

I think I summed it up well last year.  Generic ringtone EDM all about being in love and going higher with each other.  Our hearts are firestones, man.  And when they strike, man, we light up the world, bro.  Heavy, man.  He also has three newer songs all released in 2016 ("I'm in Love," "Raging," and "Fragile"), of which, "Raging" is currently the highest rated in his Spotify page, and has been played 23 million times.

The video says that it features Kodaline, which is pretty cool.  Too bad the song still sounds stupid. Honestly, I've become more sanguine about these major EDM artists being main headliners at the 'fest, because this means that a bunch of the young kids will hopefully F right off during Mumford or Radiohead or Kendrick and go to the Butt Light stage to rage with Kygo.  More of the good music for me.

[update 5/17/16]  Kygo finally released that debut album, called Cloud Nine, on May 13.  I've gone through it twice, and I'm still not sold.  I read a review saying that this music is considered "tropical house," which I think is a terrible sounding genre.  I hear it when I listen to "Firestone," but it just doesn't do a thing for me.  It's like we found a lost hard drive of Moby B-sides from a 1993 trip he took to the Caribbean.