The Chainsmokers

One Liner: EDM, just like you've heard so many times before.

Poster Position: 2

Thoughts:  In my epic wisdom, during my earliest notes about who might come to ACL, I did correctly guess that they would be here, but I stated that they would "make the small type portion of the poster."  Doh.  Instead, they are a line two, top 7 artist for the festival.  Of course.  So shows you what I know.  A few weeks ago, a commenter I don't know (always so exciting when a stranger comments on the blog!) linked this performance from Ultra, saying that "After this you will understand why they are a big get."

It's a whole hour, so gird your loins if you plan to actually observe.  Four observations from the first three minutes: (1) this is Skrillex except with two J. Crew models hired to act like they are "making" the music; (2) the crowd shots of that Festival make me want to die and take anyone younger than 25 with me; (3) do not go watch Chainsmokers live if you have epilepsy; and (4) they really should invest in small stepladders if they are going to each crawl up on their console every 30 seconds so that they can scream "FUCK YEAH MIAMI!!!" and throw their hands in the air before climbing back down to twiddle a knob.  Their backs really will thank them later.  Two things about that are the worst.  One, that these dudes can't say anything to the crowd without including a "FUCK" or "FUCKING" in the sentence. Come on, man.  Two, the children in the crowd spend the entire time waiting for the camera to be on them so they can incorrectly lipsync the lyrics and throw their hands up in fake gang signs.

With that in mind, and after listening to the rest of the concert and watching portions of it, I think I get it.  This music would (and does) annoy the living hell out of me if I just sat here and listened to it for any extended period of time.  It is derivative and predictable and annoying.  However, like the Griz show I loved last year at ACL, it looks like they just steal the best bits from other people's tracks ("Under the Bridge," "Antidote," or "Shut Up and Dance With Me," they are equal opportunity gankers) and make it into a huge, really fun dance party of drop after drop after drop.  You just need to go there and let it all out.  For example, I'd never purposefully listen to a generic techno remix of Blink 182's "Miss You," but when its among 10,000 sweaty, drug-addled teenagers, you'll just want to let go and party along. Some of works: the drop at 1:56 (or 49:56 or 51:50) would send you into shakes and shivers while you jump as hard as humanly possible; then some of it craps the bed: the drop at 13:29 to end "Panda" is terrible.  He did tell people not to support Donald Trump, so he might be smarter than I thought.

I'm also genuinely curious about what the two bros are doing up there.  Other than screaming "FUCK!" and climibing onto the console over and over.  They both touch knobs and little sliders repeatedly as thought that is changing the music. They have like 8 little fake turntable things up there that I don't recall them touching. They both repeatedly put on and then almost immediately take off big earphones around their necks.  Do they actually need to be there?  I think not.

How about just the studio tunes?  Pretty generic.  I definitely think the live tunes you can hear up there are significantly better than the stuff they have available to hear on Spotify. No real albums, just a bunch of singles and remixes of those singles.  By the way, they have a song called "#SELFIE." I think they should legally be required to light themselves on fire for creating that track.  Here is their most popular track (with a mind-boggling 342.2 million streams on Spotify) called "Roses."

I like that girl's voice, but the song is a yawner.  They have another song with 238.3 million streams ("Don't Let Me Down"), then one with 46.1 million ("Kanye") but then everything else is down lower in number of streams.  Still though, that is a crapton of streams, showing that they are insanely popular with the kids who stream things.  And just so you have to suffer through this same thing, here is #SELFIE:

Death to Smoochie.  So, then the question is, would I go see them play live.  I think the answer is probably yes.  Their live show looks like a lot of fun.  I still don't see them as a big "get," as I think any number of similar artists could create that same vibe of a show, but if I learned anything from last year's ACL, it is that despite not understanding EDM music or its popularity, if you just go in the middle of the kids and jump around and have some fun, it is contagiously awesome.  Now, I'm not going to skip most other headliners to go watch this, but if they are up against Kygo or LCD, I may go fire it up.