Arlie

One Liner:  Bedroom indie pop guys from Nashville who make me think of the bad segment of Arctic Monkeys

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, going with indie pop
Home:  Nashville

Poster Position: Late Addition
Both Weekends.

Weekend One - Saturday at 1:35 on the T-Mobile Stage
Weekend Two - Saturday at 1:35 on the VRBO Stage.

Thoughts:  I'm just going to take you through my brain as I broke this one out.  I listened to it in the car, so I was able to give it a little closer listen than some of the other bands who I go through for this blog.  Here are my thoughts as we started the catalog:

First song: "didya think."  Oh, okay, this is Arctic Monkeys.  Singer sounds the same, seems like one of their chilled tunes.  Nice.  Hey, that little bit sounded like something the Beatles did fifty years ago with those stretchy guitar chords under the harmonic background singing of "aaaaahhhhs", and ended by the guitar lick from "Yer Blues" on the White Album.  So we're aiming for the Beatles.  Cool.

(It is first because it is slightly their most popular with just over 20 million streams.)

Second song: "big fat mouth."  Now this sounds like Cage the Elephant, but still like Arctic Monkeys.  But, like, the boring Arctic Monkeys songs.  Huh, what was that album they had that was about space hotels?

(14.9 million streams on Spotify)

Third song: "tossing and turning."  Oh God.  There is probably a slice of the world population who thinks that the Arctic Monkeys album about space hotels is their greatest work.  There are probably bands who have based their whole sound on the existence of that terrible album.  Is this band a Tranquility Base Hotel stan band?  Oooh, I hate this song.  Oooh, do I hate this band?

(only 3 million streams for this one)

Fourth song: "too long."  Yep.  This is a Worst-Album-in-Arctic-Monkeys catalog stan band.  Either that or they loved the bad slow songs that Jet put out 20 years ago.

In the end, I think "hate" is too strong, but the pleasures I found in the first track were quickly erased by the time I got to #3.  They have no real albums, only one 2018 EP and then a few singles.  Kind of a fun, playful sound, but also annoyingly twee at times.

The band is based out of Nashville, and is about to go out on tour supporting Dayglow as the opening act.  The band was originally a solo project by the lead singer, Nathaniel Banks, and was more of a bedroom pop sort of thing.  Since then he's added in three other members to round out the band.  The last puff piece I read about them made it sound like this was a huge change for the band and turned them into a totally different sound.  Can't say I really hear it.  The most recent single is "poppin," which has only 74k streams so far.

I like the roller skating!  I don't love the fact that this makes me think of the "Hotline Bling" song from Drake.  Also, the lead singer's look is very Andy Samberg in an SNL skit where he is making fun of pop stars.  I assume that is the goal here, but its just hard to tell.  I also dig the guitar solo in the midst of that one.  Still, I cannot shake the comparison to the damn space hotel album.  Which I haven't even heard in like 4 years, so its probably not even a fair comparison.  TOO BAD!  MY MIND IS MADE UP!!!