Martin Garrix

One Liner: Supremely bland EDM
Wikipedia Genre: Progressive house, big room house, electro house, future bass 
Spotify Says Similar To: Tiesto and 3LAU
Home: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Poster Position: 2
Slot: ?

Thoughts: Every year, ACL is required to bring some sort of EDM artist here, in order to satisfy the annoying children of the 'Fest.  While always disappointing that this slot isn't filled by some other amazing band who is going to do more than a light show and hit play on their laptop, I've come around on some of these artists.  First, because some of them make pretty fun music you can see yourself dancing along with.  See Griz in 2016.  Second, because for every headliner who sucks, there is more room for me at the good headliner stage and I don't have to make any hard decisions about who to see.  In my opinion, this guy falls into that second category. But please, all fans, take all of your little friends with you and go jam out.  Leave the Chili Peppers to me and we're good.

This dude, no lie, looks like he is 15.  Like he is really hoping that he is going to get his license so that he can drive his Dad's old Volvo for that prom date next year.  He also has a cool sounding real name (because all Dutch people get to buy extra consonants when they make up names), with Martijn Garritsen.  No real albums unless you include the 7 song EP that was released in 2016, but a shit ton of singles before then.  One of those singles is his massive hit, "In the Name of Love," and I do mean massive, with 521 million freaking streams on Spotify.  I mean, that is ridiculous.

Another 174 million YouTube views.  I mean, whatever, right?  I just can't imagine jamming out to this at the festival, just watching the kid hit the play button and hearing this exact track played by his laptop while everyone kind of violently sways back and forth and sings about stuff in the name of love?  I'm sure he'll remix it slightly or something to make it more interesting, but will it really be any better?  I doubt it.  The second most listened to track is another older single, called "Scared to be Lonely."

297 million streams for that one.  And shocker, its more generic electronic dance music under a pretty lady singer.  So surprising.  And then a crapton of remixes (and an "acoustic" version that is not actually acoustic) of that song as well.
I mean, the guy is obviously very popular, but it just does nothing for me.  Maybe his newest track is a little bit better because it sounds less like a sappy love song for robots, and more like a banger intended to make people fight to the death in a Matrix Revolutions dance scene.  Here is "Byte."

Only 5.9 million streams so far but I'm well aware that this will be some sort of massive summer hit and it'll have more listens than the entire Nirvana catalog by August.  Dammit. So, please go watch this guy - you'll love it!  Thxkbye.

Will I go watch this?  Negative!