Diplo (Two Step Inn)

One Liner: Electronic kingpin with generally uninteresting songs

Wikipedia Genre: EDM, pop, moombahton
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: small type (which is funny, in that he was on line 2 of the ACL poster!)
Sunday.

Thoughts: He was just at ACL this year, so I'm just going to give you that review:

Could have sworn that this guy had already graced us with his presence at a prior ACL fest, but it looks like he only came through with his Major Lazer project in 2014 and 2016.  (I was not in love with that project, I have a feeling my sentiments will be similar for this thing!).  His real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, and his list of collaborative groups is actually longer than I knew.  He's got Major Lazer, LSD with Sia and Labrinth, Jack U with Skrillex, and Silk City with Marc Ronson.

He got his start with M.I.A., after she hunted him down and asked him to work with her on some of her music.  He worked with her on "Paper Planes," which is bound to be her top hit. My kids even know it.  Since then, he's produced stuff for everyone from Madonna, Beyonce, and Gwen Stefani to Snoop Dogg, Beiber, Bruno Mars, and Bad Bunny.  More interestingly, just because an electronic guy with a one word name feels like it should be a German or Swedish dude or something, he is originally from Mississippi and lived for a long time in Florida.  He attended the University of Central Florida for a bit, and then graduated from Temple University.  Which is such an odd background for a massively popular electro DJ.

The weird thing about all of that is that it seems like he isn't even really making his own music, he's just collaborating with other people and producing their music.  I guess that means he just does a DJ set of his own tunes?  Like, on his Spotify page, none of the music just lists his name.  They all have other names listed in the artist slot.  I think I found two songs without other collaborators, plus most of the instrumental 2020 album MMXX (which has super low streams).  So, it is weird to provide his "songs," because they're gonna seem like someone else's songs.  Oh well.  Top streamer with almost a billion is "Where Are U Now," with Justin Beiber and Skrillex.  This is the Jack U project.  964.3 million streams.

Just sounds like a Beiber joint.  And a deeply boring one at that.  The freaky little flute sound, which is probably Beiber's voice with modified pitch or something, is the only thing interesting in there.  Also, that video has over 1.2 BILLION streams.  Sheesh.  So, but if he plays that song at the fest, is her pretty much just going to play the song off the album so that the singing part is in it?  How does that work?  The 2018 song "Electricity" is the second biggest streamer with 522.3 million.  It features both Marc Ronson and Dua Lipa (which I guess means this is a Silk City song?):

Meh.  Yeah, another massive pop song with an EDM beat.

I've sat through a bunch of this by now, and it's just fine.  If you've read my previews in the past, then you know EDM is never my thing, really.  Like, "On My Mind" is playing right now, and it's not a terrible song, but it just feels like nothing special.  A throbbing beat and a woman repeating herself over the top for 3 minutes.  But that is his 6th most popular track right now.

Let's just try digging into the newest album - 2022's Diplo.  He's got guest verses from Leon Bridges and Busta Rhymes, which is interesting.  On the other hand, every song has someone on it, and I haven't heard of most of them.  Amtrac, RY X, andhim, Kareen Lomax, to name a few.  The opener, with Miguel, is a deeply generic EDM track that repeatedly exhorts me to not forget his love.  The Leon Bridges one is likewise a very uninteresting song, no matter how lovely his voice is on top of it.  "Promises" 100% sounds like something that you could convince me is a song from 2000 that was popular in London but didn't make it to the States until now.  Just nothing there.  The interesting thing about the Busta collab is that it doesn't even seem like Busta is involved.  His voice is either a sample loop or he is just sitting in a booth repeating the same phrase 3,005 times over two and a half minutes.  "Let You Go" is annoying because it uses the first half of the call/response thing in DJ Rob Bass' "It Takes 2," but never gives the pleasure and release of the second half that is supposed to be there.  That drives me mad.  The top track is one with something called "SIDEPIECE," with 195.7 million streams.

The weird talking over the top in that video is not in the real song.  Just FYI.  There was a great Tweet the other day saying: "dance music in the 90’s was incredible, just a woman putting her entire soul into a beat that had every cell in your body vibrating… then here comes some jacked baldhead dude with a deep voice rapping the stupidest shit you’ve ever heard.  You’d be in a trance at the skating ring having this out of body experience and then “(comically deep voice) it’s night time and my love is hot, I dance, you dance, we dance a lot”"  Hilarious.  I almost wish that these songs at least had that to lean on.  Instead, they are just uninteresting beats and singers.  I need the bad rapping.

Sincerely doubt I'd watch this.