Cut Copy

One Liner: Extremely derivative early 80's synth pop that seems fun to dance along to.
Wikipedia Genre: Chillwave, Synthpop, indietronica, dance-punk, new wave, ambient
Spotify Says Similar To: The Presets and Hot Chip
Home: Melbourne, Australia

Poster Position: 5
Slot: ?

Thoughts:  Holy 80's reboot, Batman!  This hews so closely to the early 80's electronic new wave pop that grew out of disco I'd have pretty well guessed it was made back then for some of these songs.  Retro-rific.  I mean, how weird is this stuff?  Here is their second-most listened to track, the one that just got me geeked up by the retro-ness of this thing, called "Hearts on Fire" with 7 million streams.

Its like the Psychedelic Furs and the Scissor Sisters met up with the Cure and Chic and Wham and they all decided to see what they could put together.  Or like the World Aid people - the DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS? people - put out another album of tunes as soon as they were done working for the hungry kids.  Their most popular track (by a large margin) is "Lights and Music," also from their 2008 album In Ghost Colours, with 14.5 million streams.

That one is a touch more modern sounding, but not much, still has a lot of the retro-bend. Interesting thing, that both of those tracks (by far the most popular) are from that 2008 album, and then three more of their top ten are also from that album. 2011's Zonoscope then claims 3 of the top ten, with the remaining two spots taken up by one from 2013's Free Your Mind and one from 2016's January Tape. So the majority of their most popular tracks are from their significantly older albums, not the more recent things.

Huh, and then I listen to their most recent album 2016's January Tape, and I see why.  This is not anything like their old music, this is an entirely instrumental chillwave album of massively long, electronic tunes.  The most lively of them is the most popular of the five tracks, the nine and a half minute long "January Tape Part 3."

Kind of a happy tune, sunny sounding, if that makes sense?  Also kind of insistent, like an annoying robot who is programmed to demand that you go running with him when you are just chilling on your future-land couch.  LEAVE ME ALONE, RUNNING ROBOT!  I don't know if I've ever seen someone at a fest play a bunch of instrumental tunes, but I guess they could go with some of their new music in the fall and give everyone an interlude to go hit the head and grab a few more beers?
Oh, and "Take Me Over" steals so hard from Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere" it broke my brain for a few seconds of feverish brain-lock-downloading before I figured it out.

Yeah, this stuff isn't lighting my world on fire.  I can see it being pretty fun in a big crowd of people jamming out, but I certainly wouldn't prioritize this over many other things.

Recommend?  Probably not.