Milky Chance

One Liner: German combo of singer/songwriter with pop electronica that works well.
Wikipedia Genre: Alternative rock, electronic, reggae, folk Indie (Reggae?  Really?)
Spotify Says Similar To: The Griswolds and Vance Joy
Home: Kassel, Germany

Poster Position: 4
Slot: Sunday, 4:15

Thoughts: Huh.  I thought for sure that these guys had already played ACL in the past few years, but apparently I'm losing my memory in my advanced age.  I reviewed their debut album, 2014's Sadnecessary, a while back, and I wouldn't say I was in love with it.  You've heard of these guys, or at least you've heard one of their songs, unless you've been living under a rock.  "Stolen Dance" is their big hit, and even years after its release, the alternative rock station here in Austin continues to play the damn thing, over and over again.

Definitely catchy tune, don't get me wrong, but it just seems odd that it is still in constant rotation when Sugar have been relegated to the poppy rock dustbin of history. Tragic.  But, that tune has 346 million streams on Spotify, and another 328 million views of that video on YouTube, so it is a true and legitimate hit.  Two other tunes from that older album break the 50 million stream mark, "Flashed Junk Mind" and "Down by the River," both of which are also nice little pop rock numbers, but nothing too terribly memorable.  They all use some acoustic guitar picking over the top of electronic beat machines.

Which I suppose makes sense, since the band is made up of two guitarists and a DJ.  They are from Germany, which was also kind of a surprise to me.  But the combination makes it sound like you have a kind of regular sounding singer/songwriter who is playing lovely little acoustic tunes with his guitar, but then someone remixed those with electronic beats. Wait, that is just wait this sounds like - remixes.  Check out the most popular track from the new album, with 74.1 million streams, this is "Cocoon."

So, what the hell is up with that video?  Weird people in white clothes live and work (?) in an abandoned factory in the woods, and one of them finds a passed out girl, who ends up being able to transform scarves into baller gold chains while she sleeps, so the head factory worker guy eats an apple like a zombie with a fresh liver, and then gets a crapton of scarves, so then the girl throws up a handful of teeth (? they might also be diced onions?), but then goes ahead and converts all the new scarves to gangster gold, which the factory people turn into golden tuna cans, but the girl is real sad and barfs some more teeth, and the apple guy now has a shitton of apples that he is in love with, but now one of the workers feels sad about tooth barfing girl, so he goes to free her, and she's turned into non-gold and non-onion rocks.  So, there you have it.  The story of the golden rock goose girl and the apple man.

Just out of curiosity, I also looked up what was up with their name.  Here is a great interview of their first time in America, where they got to watch Jets football fans tailgate and explain their name.  And the story of how they came up with the name is extremely boring.  

Clemens: I came up with some artists names when I was younger just for fun. When we started making music, I just went with that one.

And now you have to live with it forever.

Philipp: Yeah, I'm not sure, maybe we should change it.

Clemens: Yeah…

Philipp: I don't think we care that much about names, but Milky Chance is not the best name.

So there you have it.  Made up by a child and neither of them actually like it.  PERFECT!  I think its actually about jizz, they're just scared to mention it now that they've become big time.

After running through their two albums a few times while writing this, I've come around on them.  This really is catchy pop music that sounds pretty good.  It's just such an odd juxtaposition: the heartfelt, singer/songwriter, lyrical, acoustic music, set to electronic beats and boops.  Some of the new album kind of reminds me of the direction that Coldplay has taken recently, where they use a rock song's basic structure but then add a dance party of electronica underneath.  For example, see "Clouds."

Doesn't that sound like something Chris Martin and company would be bouncing around the stage to right now in a video?  I think so.

Overall, I've enjoyed listening to these guys more, and would consider checking them out in the fall.  They're up against Dram and Skip Marley, so I suspect that I'll be checking them out in person.