X Ambassadors

One Liner: Sweepingly homogeneous alternative rock

Wikipedia Genre: Rock, alternative rock, indie rock
Home:  Ithaca, NY

Poster Position: 7
Day: Sunday at 4:00
Both Weekends

Thoughts: This is the kind of music where the lead singer is going to break out a drum in the middle of the set and beat it with intensity and meaning to show the depths of his powerful emotions.  He'll raise the mallet high above his head and strike the drum with passion as he eyes the audience.  HE WILL BE FEELING HIS ART!!!  This stuff reminds me of Imagine Dragons.  Which is not a compliment in my mind.

You probably know two of these songs.  One because it was on a Jeep commercial like 8 billion times.

Oh YEAH!  JEEP!  The real song has 27 million YouTube views and 296 million streams!!!  Damn!  That is like some Drake-sized stuff right there.  A Jeep commercial really touches the human nervous system or something.

Ah man, well now I feel bad for dogging on the song, since they integrate all those cool people overcoming their disabilities.  Dang!  Oh, and now I read that the pianist, who is also the brother of the lead singer, is blind.  Well then, I fully endorse their use of blind people to make me feel bad for wanting to hate on their song.

Then they have another tune you've heard many a time before.  A radio mainstay that went two times platinum in the US.  "Unsteady," with 201 million streams.

Can't you just see the singer drumming his ass off in front of the band after tenderly singing that opening?  hoooold on to me *drum strike of passion* hoooooooooold *mallet drop dripping with emotion* hooold on.  This song, and this band, are the kind of band that are featured on loads of TV shows.  Emotive enough while still being slightly rockin' to make the olds feel cool.  They've been features on Mr. Robot, The Blacklist, Lucifer, The Flash, and movies like Me Before You and Transformers: Megatron's Butthole 7.

Ah, and now I read on Wikipedia that they were first noticed by the lead singer from Imagine Dragons and have toured with them.  No wonder I hear similarities.  And one song on their album actually features Imagine Dragons.  Blurg.  Hold the fucking phone.  You know what else Wikipedia says?  "They referenced Incubus and the Red Hot Chili Peppers as heroes. These bands can be heard as influences on X Ambassadors' sound."  Uh, what?  You do not hear the Chilis when you are listening to this dreck.  Flea should beat all their asses for maligning his holy name.

Strange thing, in running through their stuff on Spotify, I thought maybe they had a tune with Disclosure.  "Don't Stay" leaves their guitar-driven sound behind and goes full synth-y soul and piles of falsetto.  Huh.  Just one full album, VHS, from 2015.  An EP in 2013 before that (although no songs from that EP show up on their most popular songs list).  Their third most popular track is a very bad combo with Machine Gun Kelly from the soundtrack for the Netflix/Will Smith movie Bright.  113 million streams?  What is wrong with people?  They've been nominated for a bunch of jenky awards (no Grammys): the IHeartRadio Music Awards, Billboard Awards, or Teen Choice Awards, and they haven't even won those jenky awards.

A new album is apparently on the way, to be called Joyful.  If I can remember and am done with everything else for this year's ACL, I'll come back and run through that one with some thoughts.  Until then, know that the only way I am going to see this show is if my friend Jason demands it.  Which he might.