Monday, September 6, 2021

Finneas (2021)

One Liner: Billie Eilish's brother singing generic blue-eyed indie soulfully
Wikipedia Genre: alternative pop
Home: LA

Poster Position: 6
Both Weekends
Friday at 5pm on the VRBO Stage.

Thoughts: Yep, this guy was just here too.  I wonder if it is a condition of Billie getting a spot, that the bro needs a spot as well.  This time though, he's way up on the poster on line 6.  I wonder if he's made anything good recently?

"Thoughts:  Was kind of hoping this was going to be some sort of Phineas and Ferb tribute band or something.  My kids didn't entirely match up to that show in time, but my son watched enough of it to where I know the theme song pretty well, and it brings to mind this very odd propensity I have to insert either curse words and/or filthy lyrical re-writes into songs for cartoons.  For F&F, its pretty tame, but when the song starts jamming and says to "stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonnaaaaa, do ittttttt, allllllll!" I find myself singing (quietly under my breath) "so stick with us 'cause Phineas and Ferb are gonna fuckin' do it alllllll!!"  There is a perfect space right there, just waiting to be filled.  It feels very satisfying to include that one little rebellious extra nugget.
You should hear what I can do with the Thomas the Train song.  Anyway, this guy has nothing to do with that cartoon.  Or at least, I don't think he does.  Nothing on his Wikipedia mentions a tie-in to the cartoon.

But I just laughed out loud - but like a groaning laugh you would hear in a movie when the hero realizes how he is being screwed and isn't really laughing.  Yoo-hooo-ho-ho, ohh.  You know who this guy is?  Freaking Billie Eilish's brother.  I was wondering what this generic blue-eyed soul was doing up here on the 13th line of the poster when he doesn't even have an album out, and now we know.  Little sister got him a hook up to come play the Fest.  He also wrote and produced much of Eilish's work, so I'm sure he'll be over there helping out with her show as well.

He's also an actor, appearing in a few movies (Life Inside Out and Bad Teacher) and TV shows (a recurring role on Glee and Modern Family).  His time on Glee was after I gave up on that show.

These tunes sound like things created solely to appear on earnest TV dramas - lots of repeat piano chords and swelling synths.  Such as his most recent single, "I Lost a Friend," released on May 3, 2019.
Meh.  I mean, his voice is good, but I'm just not hearing anything particularly interesting or new.  It's just Snow Patrol with less instruments.  "New Girl" sounds like a showtune.

His top track actually has 10.3 million streams, so someone is choosing to listen to these tunes.  "Let's Fall in Love for the Night," a single released in 2018.  [by the way, that has jumped up to 265.8 freaking million streams by 2021!]
Yeah, again, its not a terrible song or anything, but feels like a filler tune taken from the Shawn Mendez album from two years ago.  Heavy hand claps, a tiny guitar lick, a few sprinkled cuss words to make him edgy, and a kick drum.  Meanwhile, my daughters probably know this song and love it and sing it in big groups of friends like its their love anthem.  The end sounds like he's trying to be Harry Connick Jr. or something.

I would not choose to see this guy."

Now, has he put out anything new and notable?  I mean, other than the fact that he just helped Billie release her big new album (which I still haven't brought myself around to listening to.  Just don't care, at least not based off of the two singles I've heard so far).

Looks like he released a 2020 album, that re-releases "Lost a Friend" and "Let's Fall in Love for the Night" again.  So probably new music tucked in there, but for the most part, its just a repackaging of the hits.  "Break My Heart Again" was released in 2018.  Let's throw this one on - "I Don't Miss You At All" - might be a new one.  41.1 million.
Sounds kind of like Chris Martin got stuck singing someone else's bad lyrics with an old Casio.  The ominous "I'm Billie's brother and so I'm going to use scary synths" thing made me grin about a minute in.

Same feeling holds - I don't need to go see this.  Tanya Tucker, here I come, I guess!

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