Tanya Tucker [NO LONGER PLAYING]

Damn!  Tucker just announced an emergency hip surgery and the cancellation of all shows for the rest of the year.  That super sucks.

One Liner: She's a classic country star, but I don't recognize much of this.

Wikipedia Genre: Country, outlaw country, country rock

Home:  Nashville (or maybe Malibu, CA?)

Poster Position: Line 9
Weekend One Only.

Friday at 5pm on the T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  You know what is fascinating?  When I hear the name Tanya Tucker, I'm immediately like "yeah, okay, sure.  Tanya Tucker.  Classic star for sure.  She's like Reba or, uh, like, uh, Wynona?  Right?"  And then if I try to name a single song that the woman sings, my brain looks like a goldfish struggling for air after it just jumped out of the fishbowl.  I have absolutely heard her name for years, but have I ever heard a song she sings?

Here's the deal though, until college, about as far into country as I ever strayed was Willie, Robert Earl, and Jerry Jeff.  And in college I pretty much just added George Strait, Pat Green, Ray Wylie, David Allan Coe, and a few random tracks from pop-country weirdos like Brooks & Dunn.  Oh, and I loved Alison Krauss because of camp.  But the deep cut world of real country that is depicted here?  I never waded that deep.  I dabbled in the Texas stuff and the outlaw stuff, and just enough to keep me relevant when trying to dance at the one bar in my tiny college town, but knowing what Travis Tritt or Tanya Tucker sang was way outside of my lane.  It was way later when I dug deeper and learned about the goods available with folks like Don Williams, Chris LeDoux, or Waylon Jennings.  And accepted that Garth Brooks and Clint Black and Dolly Parton were actually fun.  But Tucker never came onto my radar before right this minute.

Her most popular song - "Delta Dawn" - doesn't even sound like country music.  Sounds more like something Janis Joplin would have sung in the 60's.  I've certainly never heard it before now.  Then the second-most popular track - "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane" - sounds like some easy listening ass shit.  I have literally never heard either of these songs.  Oh, I've heard "Texas (When I Die)," but I don't think I knew it was her singing it.  4.3 million streams.

Shooting up those longhorns!  Also, her voice is so rough and rugged in comparison to her look.  Look at those waiters walking through the crowd with mugs of beer on a tray!  Awesome.  I'd pay at least a nickel to have that happen at ACL while me and a bunch of cool kids clapped along to this song for 5 minutes.  Her dancing is freaking cracking me up.  She looks very uncomfortable trying to move, like a straight-up mom trying to dance along with the newest dance craze.  That video is amazing.

Oh wait, I've heard "Strong Enough to Bend" before.  That's a good tune.

Digging into her history now, and that first hit with "Delta Dawn" came when she was freaking 13 years old, in 1972.  So no wonder it doesn't ring a bell, I wasn't even alive.  But I have to say, it's pretty amazing to listen to that song right now and imagine it being sung by a child.  I never would have suspected.  Most streamed at 26.1 million listens.

She was born in Seminole, Texas, which is the county seat of Gaines County, way out in the western panhandle up against New Mexico.  But she then moved all about the west and lived in Nashville after becoming famous, so she's "from" all over.  Wikipedia also says she hooked up with Merle Haggard, Don Johnson, and Andy Gibb, so she's into all sorts of dudes.  She performed the half time of Super Bowl 28!  That's pretty crazy, that was in 1994!  I probably watched that Super Bowl - Cowboys over Bills.

Sounds like she was highly popular back in the 70's, but then fell off the radar a little in the late 70's and early 80's.  In 1988, her family got her into Betty Ford and she got some things straightened out.  By the late 1980's, she was back into the Top 40 with a bunch of songs I don't know, but also "Strong Enough to Bend."  1.4 million streams.  She is apparently not much of a streaming artist!

Freaking amazing that the top video on YouTube of that song is some bootleg ass version recorded onto VHS from CMT and then uploaded.  Really?  We can't get the actual video uploaded?  Why does the world work like that sometimes?  But, that is an enjoyable song.

"Love Me Like You Used To" is pretty great.  Some classic country gold right there.  "Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone)" is one I recognize, but only because that is by David Allan Coe and has also been covered by Willie and Johnny Cash.  "It's a Little Too Late (to do the Right Thing Now)" also sounds familiar.  She covers/mashes "I'm on Fire" and "Ring of Fire" in the same song on a live album and it's pretty great.  "San Antonio Stroll" is entirely new to me, but I dig it.  She definitely sounds like a child here.  More footage from that sweet ass concert!

Wait, that intro sounded like the intro to Austin City Limits?  Weird.  Anyway, I dig that oompah ass backbeat going on there, and now I'm planning to annoy my family to death the next time we go walking in San Antonio by loudly singing this song over and over.

She's got some other Texas-centric tunes to make sure to cash in on this whole thing - "The Pecos Promenade" is one of those that just name-checks a bunch of locations in Texas.  I'm expecting that she does this for big effect at a show to get the Amarillo nerds to try to out-holler the dorks from Corpus.

A good bit of this sounds more like easy listening than anything else.  "Soon" just came on as I was writing the above, and it made me think that I don't love alot of this music.  A good bit of it is enjoyable, classic country stuff.  But then the schmaltz kicks in and I'm turned off.  Also in that zone is the breathy ass "Your Love Amazes Me."  Blech.  Like, "Rainbow Rider" has some of the cool pieces of "Amarillo by Morning" or "Hooked on an Eight Second Ride," about being a real-deal cowboy chasing his dreams, but then its like also super lame at the same time.  [as an aside, Rainbow Rider is also the name of a public transit system in part of Minnesota.  Which is very funny and weird.  The term is also, per Urban Dictionary, slang for a guy who hooks up with a dude but maintains he is straight.]

Twenty Five total albums, spread out over a million years.  The new one is actually really pretty good, even if her voice is worn in a way it didn't used to be.  She covers one of the Highwomen covers, called "Wheels of Laredo," and opens it up in a really nice way.  I think the Highwomen might be the background singers on there in fact.  Probably so, because this album was co-produced by Brandi Carlile.  And she won the Best Country Album Grammy with this disc.

Yeah, I might go watch this.  I'm not on fire about it, but it seems like she'd be a pretty lively show.  I hope she wears that thing from the Orlando shows above and dances like Elaine some more.

Lane 8

One Liner: Perfectly acceptable EDM

Wikipedia Genre: Deep house, house, progressive house (sounds like a sequel to Goodnight moon that just talks about the whole house instead of the items in the kid's room)

Home:  Denver

Poster Position: Line 6
Sunday of Weekend One at 6:30 on the Tito's Stage.

Friday of Weekend Two at 6 on the Tito's Stage.

Thoughts:  With that name, I was kind of hoping for some sort of Americana thing that would sound like R.E.M.'s "Driver 8" covered by Son Volt.  Instead, I get relatively generic electronic dance music.  I've said this many times - I am not a great judge of this style of music.  This guy may be breaking all the rules and using some sort of style that blows the minds of the Electric Daisy Carnival crowd, but to my ears, this is just more of the same danceable beat stuff with a generic lady singer piping up every once in a while. He has personally described his own music as "dreamy back rub house," which makes me want to die.

His real name is Daniel Goldstein, so the moniker isn't some clever play on his name.  Where did it come from?  Wikipedia says it originated from making garage rock with his sibling when they were kids.  Which is NOT HELPFUL.  But Reddit just came through for me with a story that I actually like - a self-depreciating reason!  "I used to be on a swim team with my sister when I was really young. In a swim race, the slowest guy or girl is put in lane eight, which is the outside lane. And we had a really terrible garage band with another friend of ours from the same team and we did Nirvana covers and stuff, and we were called Lane 8. The name always just kind of stuck with me.”  Actually kinda clever!

The albums - 2015's Rise, 2018's Little by Little, and 2020's Brightest Lights.  I can't tell much of a difference between the three albums to say whether or not one of them is superior to the others, its just a bunch of dreamy back rub songs that blend together.  "Fingerprint," a 2016 non-album single, tops his streaming numbers with 20.8 million streams.

I like the build from a tiny little beat up to the multilayered thing that ends around 2 minutes in.  But overall, that is pretty uninteresting.  No real bass either, the beat is mid-range and not deep.  I kept hoping that something cool would happen, but that is just 6:44 of building and shifting and building, but remaining with the relatively generic same little synth riff and midrange thump throughout.  I guess I need to eat some mind-expanding substances first.

"Neon Jungle" sounds like something the people of Zion danced to in the Matrix (2? 3? I dunno).  "The Flood" is so insistent with its repeated synth notes that I just had to pause the music, shake my body out, and breath deeply.  I don't comprehend how people listen to this music unless they are partying.  "Run" very much has the melody of some other song I've heard before, but also makes me think it would work in a Grand Theft Auto game.  Much of this sounds like something that would quietly play in the background of a commercial meant to inspire you to buy stuff with a Visa or something.  

I'll give you one more - the most recent single is called "Is This Our Earth?" and has 848k streams so far.

I can see dancing and grooving to this - I definitely think it is better than "Fingerprint," mainly because it has more energy and some pauses that I think make it more interesting.  And while it keeps echoing the same little weird riff thing, at least it isn't constant, which makes it seem more like an interesting song than just a background beat.  Actually, I'm listening to this track again and I am digging it.

But the generalized response is the same.  I've been hearing this music for about 5 hours of this workday and I'm very much ready to not hear it anymore.  I couldn't recall any single bit of it as standing out over the rest, and I would not choose to go see this live.

Gracie Abrams

One Liner: Lo-fi bedroom pop of confessional lyrics from JJ Abrams daughter

Wikipedia Genre: Pop

Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Line 10
Both Weekends.

Saturday at 3:20 on the VRBO Stage.

Thoughts:  After listening for a while, and being genuinely curious how this girl made it onto the ACL poster, I dig into her story and find out exactly why.  This is the daughter of J.J. Abrams - the guy who directed Lost and Mission Impossible 38 and Star Wars 174 and a bunch of other stuff.  So, no big surprise that she got to play Jimmy Kimmel and The Tonight Show after she released her debut EP.

"Unlearn" feels like I'm snooping in the diary of a 16 year old girl who somehow writes in autotune.  The lyrics are so confessional it makes me uncomfortable.  "Stay" is pretty similar - she barely uses any instrumentation, so it's just her voice and extremely vulnerable lyrics right there in your ears.  After about the fifth song, it gets very old - the music is just so spare and her voice is so to the forefront.  I wish she'd just throw one of these low key sad girl song into the mix, but among other types of songs.  Actually makes me think of some of the Billie Eilish tracks, where she slows down the beats and just showcases her voice.  But almost every song here is that note, instead of it being a refreshing break from the pummeling, its just a low ebb the entire time.  And sad ass lyrics.  "you had no problem leavin', now I'm the one to feel it" is a good mission statement for everything here.  "every time we touch it's like the last time, holding onto something when it's not right, tell me to my face that you are all mine, you don't know what I'm feelin'."  So much whispering, and so much of that indie girl voice that sort of semi-whiny, very nasal, very manufactured sounding - I know I've written about that voice before...

No actual albums, just one EP - 2020's minor - and a handful of singles.  "I miss you, I'm sorry" is the top streamer at 47.3 million spins on Spotify.

How did she not get her dad to direct the videos?  What a miss!  Instead, it's just grainy footage of her in her bedroom being sad and wearing multiple hoodies.  Sounds like she's trying to do a Phoebe Bridgers thing in this one.  I'm physically uncomfortable with the video.  Seriously feels like I'm snooping on my daughter's phone and just found some video of one of her buddies rolling around in her bedroom while confessing about love.

Her second-most streamed is "Stay," but I figured I should give you her most recent single to see if we can get some variety here.  This is "Mess it up."  2.4 million streams.

Okay, yeah, that's better.  There is at least a tempo and a beat to it.  For sure the best of these songs.  Maybe she is about to release a new album that combines her sad ass lyrics with real instrumentation and takes the world by storm.

One thing I like?  Most of these songs are pretty short!  The majority of her top ten are under three minutes and the longest is only 3:38.  I will definitely not be going to see this show.  Feels like it is going to be entirely populated by sub-16-year-old girls holding their phones up and crying about an unrequited crush.

Hinds

One Liner: Spanish lo-fi rocker ladies.

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, lo-fi, garage rock

Home: Madrid

Poster Position: Line 11

Weekend Two Only.

Friday at 3:15 on the VRBO Stage.

Thoughts: I could have sworn that I had reviewed this band before, for some other ACL in the past, but I can't find anything.  There can't be that many all lady Spanish bands out there, but maybe I'm thinking of the Aces.  The band started out being called Deers, but had to change it once someone in a similarly named band threatened suit.

I am having to listen to them on my phone, because my work is being a jerk and blocking Spotify right now, and I have to say, their raw-ness and almost scream-y vocals is really making me unhappy.  At first, I thought that I was digging it, but I think the semi-yelling vocals, brought to me by the tinny iPhone speakers, is not great.  And I just had a laugh - Spotify apparently got to the end of all of the music Hinds has on the service, and they started playing other similar items.  But I didn't know that, and I was like, "oh, okay, they've made some pretty good stuff once I get down to this album!"  I picked up the phone to see which song it was, and it was actually Soccer Mommy.  Doh.

Their cover of "Spanish Bombs" is pretty fun.  "Davey Crockett" grabs the tune from Neil Young's "Farmer John," which I randomly sing all the time for no known reason.  I also really like the instrumental "Solar Gap," nothing particularly special about it, but it's very pretty.  "Riding Solo" is good.  Makes me think of M.I.A. in a good way.

Three albums - 2015's Leave Me Alone, 2017's I Don't Run, and 2020's The Prettiest Curse. I think that middle album is my favorite of the three. That new album has a cleaner sound that I like - less of the yelled vocals that I was complaining about up above.  (and yes, I know this all makes me sound very old and crotchety).  The top track from that new album is "Good Bad Times," with 2.6 million streams.

Part Spanish, part English, and set to a deliciously terrible video featuring a literal Nazi with super-powers.  Fine song.  Kind of plodding.

The most streamed song overall is called "Bamboo," and is from that first album.  5.3 million streams for that one.

This is the stuff that is making my brain curl up into a ball and request freedom from these sounds.  I know crap-all about producing music, but was this just made with a Fisher-Price microphone or something?  The shorter one sounds like an evil muppet everytime she sings.  Which makes me like the new album much better (although that same tone comes back here and there, such as in "Come Back and Love Me <3").

I doubt I'd go watch this show.  We'll see - I need to find some good stuff before I start crossing the maybe stuff off the list!

Surfaces

One Liner: Feel good pop heavy on steel drum and with that Sunday Best song.

Wikipedia Genre: Soul, pop, reggae, jazz, calypso

Home: College Station, Texas (whaaa?!?!)

Poster Position: Line 7
Both Weekends.

Saturday at 2:20 on the Honda Stage

Thoughts: Oh, wait!  I know these guys!  I had no clue that this group was called Surfaces, but my middle kid came home from camp one year and played "Sunday Best" no less than 38 times an hour.  She still jams it here and there.  It is a purely wonderful song.  And it looks like the rest of the world agrees, as the track has 650 MILLION streams!  That is wild.

Also, I had no clue this was two fratty-looking white dudes.  I 100% thought this was a Chance the Rapper looking dude.  Instead, those two guys look like cute, furry puppies wagging their tails furiously as they try to coax a treat from their owner.  Love it.  

Now the rest of their stuff?  Not quite up to the same level.  Kind of a island vibe, 311-making-pop sort of thing.  "24 / 7/ 365" straight up bites "The Girl from Ipanema" for a breezy beach track. (and is their second most streamed with 65.3 million streams).  "Wave of You" makes me think of the bad country songs on the radio right now that sound like they might be R&B, but because their sung by a country artist (and probably involve lyrics about trucks and red dirt and cold beer), people consider them country.  I don't like that one at all.  The back end of "Heaven Falls/ Fall on Me" is heavy on the steel drum, and "Good Day" uses it as well (while also kind of interpolating "Girl from Ipanema" again?  They love that song!).  Those songs are pretty alright.

They have a track with Elton John!  Really?  That is a totally unexpected collaboration, and fascinatingly, "Learn to Fly" isn't even in their top five streaming tracks despite the presence of Sir Elton.  I'm guessing the kids don't even know who he is, so they aren't all that impressed.  Honestly, its also not a great track.

And now reading up on them - an Aggie and a Baylor Bear walk into a reggae bar.  Literally, one of these guys was an Aggie, who uploaded some solo music online, and the other guy, a recent Baylor graduate, found his music and hit him up to collaborate.  Kind of crazy, but now that I look at that video again, I would absolutely peg those two dudes as guys who went to Baylor and thought it would be fun to make music that sounded vaguely reggae-ish.

Three albums - 2017's Surf, 2019's Where the Light Is, and 2020's Horizons.  Their most recent single is one called "Next Thing (Loverboy)."

Not great.  Also, why did he break out a video camera in that video?  It looked like they just met when she came to buy some succulents, and then suddenly the nursery worker has a huge camera and is filming her tucking her hair behind her ears?  What are we doing?  Don't care for that song much at all.

You know, I don't see myself going out of my way to go to this show, despite the fact that it would be fun to have a huge "Sunday Best" singalong.  But I'm probably good.

KennyHoopla

One Liner: Blink182-ish pop punk guy.

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, pop punk.
Home: Cleveland

Poster Position: 15
Both Weekends.

Sunday at 1:45 at the T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  Okay.  I kinda like some of this guy's business.  Real name is Kenneth La'ron, dude is from Cleveland, and his sound immediately made me think of Blink 182.  Which I was glad to hear, after lamenting the overall lack of rock and roll on the bill this year.  His vocals are pretty yelpy, quite a bit like ol' Mark Hoppus.  The top track right now is called "estella//" (all of his songs end with those weird double slashes, because ???), with 10.7 million streams.  A lot for something that sounds like warmed over Blink!

The opening guitars sound like Yellowcard, but once the track kicks in, it's pure Blink.  Oh, and that's Travis Barker in the car with him and on the drums for the track!  Thus, the Blink connection, I suppose.  That one absolutely makes me want to pogo around.  

The top track, and apparently his first single, is "how will i rest in peace if i'm buried by a highway," which has more of a Cure vibe going on in the opening.  14.6 million streams.

No Travis Barker!  That video is super shitty compared to the others here.  This was made all the way back in 2020, when he was young and working on his schtick.  He hadn't quite figured out how to be a Blink clone yet.  "lost cause//," also from back then, also has a different sound - almost R&B like The Weeknd.  He has several versions of the track.  Together, about 10 million streams.

The most recent one is "hollywood sucks//" which is back to sounding like Blink.  1.2 million streams.

That chorus is great.  "Hollywood sucks, can you please move your Prius, you are not fucking Jesus, he hates L.A."  Ah, Travis Barker is on that one too.  Why is Travis Barker always on this guy's songs?  Maybe he just hired this guy to replace Hoppus in Blink but they couldn't get the name rights to?

He's apparently about to go on tour with Machine Gun Kelly (also on the ACL poster) so maybe they'll have a collaboration that people will see who go see MGK suck his way through a set.

But I'd go give this a shot.  I'm not deeply in love with it, but I had fun listening to it a few times.

Payday

One Liner: Cringey teenage female rapper
Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia presence, I'll just say mediocre rap?

Home: Seattle

Poster Position: Line 18

Saturday of Weekend One at 12:05pm on the Miller Lite Stage

Sunday of Weekend Two at noon on the T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts: Seventeen year old rapper/singer who literally made my skin crawl during the first track.  I'm sure she's hot with the 13 year olds on TikTok, but this is causing me to wish I wasn't blogging the artists this year.  Not the best start for my listening experience!  She was something like 12 when she first started uploading her own songs onto Soundcloud.  She apparently likes Tyler, the Creator a lot - the one interview I just read has her calling him out repeatedly.

I have to make you listen to the "Dolphin" song now, so that you suffer though the same fate as my ears.  Inexplicably, this shit has 250k streams.  I want to die rather than listening to that again.

I mean.  Holy hell.  That is so freaking bad.  It's something a toddler would have come up with, and yet hundreds of thousands of people have subjected themselves to the experience of hearing it.  Maybe more than once!

The most popular track right now is better, but not much.  Sounds like she stole the beat from Kyle's "iSpy" and then leaned into her girl-ness, including rapping that "girls rule and boys drool" and then yelling "owwww!  That really really hurts!"

I tried listening through the rest of her top ten a few times, and I'm just not feeling any of it.  Maybe "Super Thicc" is alright, showing what she sounded like at first.  But then I keep looking at the Dolphin video again and I want to perish in a fire.  Or then I hear the "Whoopsy" song with Makonnen and I need a ear douche right away.  This is bad.

Billie Eilish (2021)

One Liner: Dark pop phenom at only 19 years old.

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, electropop, indie pop.
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 1
Both Weekends.

Saturday at 8:30 on the Lady Bird Stage.

Thoughts:  The nice thing for me is that she was just here in 2019, and she hasn't released much new music in the interim!  So I can pretty much just use the same post I did in 2019 and let that do the talking for me.  I'll update streaming numbers and maybe talk about a new track down below, but otherwise, welcome back to last ACL!

Major "pop" star, but with pop music that tends towards the dark, moody, emotional end of the spectrum instead of the "California Gurls" end of the performance world.  The first few times that I ever heard a song by her, I had no clue that it was a new artist, I thought "you should see me in a crown" was Lorde.

Even just the start of the track is cool, with that sliding sharpening of a knife sound.  AND THEN YOU SEE THE VIDEO AND YOU HATE EVERYTHING BECAUSE SPIDERS!!!  YUCK-O-RAMA.  That track has 576.8 million (up from 185.9 million in 2019) streams, which means it isn't even in her top five tracks overall on Spotify.

This article calls her a "generational icon," which I suppose is probably true.  She does this stuff semi-DIY, with her brother the only other listed collaborator on her whole album, which seems like a very Millennial way to do things, to eschew the hit producer and do your own badass thing.  And then seem totally surprised when its a big deal.

Her first hit single was "ocean eyes," which I have heard more times than I can count because my youngest daughter loves that song and wants to hear it all the time.  754.a million streams (up from 269 million in 2019) on Spotify.

So, she was freaking 14 when she made and uploaded that song.  Which is absolutely wild.  If you would have just played me the song without naming the artist, I would have guessed it was Lana Del Rey.  Has that same breathy, torchy singing style.

She put out an initial EP back in 2017, but finally released a full album in 2019.  I reviewed it and was surprised that it is actually better than I expected.  When all I had to go on was that EP (which I don't much like, other than "crown") I figured it would be more pretty poppy love song stuff like "ocean eyes," but I was very wrong.  Here is my review of the album.

Its a very weird album - you get bangers like "crown," then you get tender suicide balladry like "listen before i go," then you get kinda funny dance pop like "bad guy" (which shifts tempo near the end to become a totally different track made of trap beats), then you get weirdly funny stuff like "wish you were gay."  I have no clue how to actually pigeonhole this album or tell you what to expect.  I guess the thing to expect is something different from any other current pop album, and a lot of dark lyrics that can be a bummer, even while they sound lovely.

Wikipedia says her real name is "Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell," which I can't say I entirely believe.  But then this interview with her from the BBC agrees with the same, so I guess that is the word on the street.  Also, her brother Finneas, who wrote "ocean eyes" and produced her album, was an actor on Glee and I really wish I could remember who Alistar was on the show.  Nope - just went and watched some clips on YouTube, I definitely stopped watching Glee by the time those other new people came onto the show.  Did Glee keep going after everyone left for New York or whatever?  I guess so.  I, however, did not.

Her most streamed track is bad guy, with a whopping 1.7 billion streams.  That is insane.

Here's another creepy one - "when the party's over," with 1.1 billion (up from 364.1 million in 2019) streams.

It is apparently a thing with her to make her videos awful and horrible and disgusting.  Very pretty song, but that video is disturbing.  I know I said only one more, but let's do one more.  This is "bury a friend," which has 786 million (up from 252.7 million in 2019) streams.

I was going to say - oh good, she isn't putting something foul in her mouth!  A real video!  But no, she's still getting shoved and prodded and messed with and injected with 15 needles...  Radio has been playing this one, and it is truly a weird song to hear on the radio tucked next to The Black Keys and Imagine Dragons...

As far as the live show experience goes, I honestly hated the show in 2019.  My daughters were really excited to go see it, and I even went so far as to buy them little collapsible stools so that they could see the stage over the crowd.  It was packed like no other show I've been to in recent memory, but when the music kicked in, it was honestly boring.  She tried to hype of the crowd, and then she's sing some whispery ballad.  At one point she demanded that most pits be created, and the kids obeyed and made weak little mosh pits that ended after about 10 seconds. If you want to see for yourself, take a look (from I Heart Radio in 2019).

Mediocre sound on that video, but I will tell you that the crowd enjoyed singing along at top volume so it won't much matter.  Maybe she'll be releasing a new album before October?

She released a new song in 2021 "Your Power," that leaves behind the pop hardness and aims for gentle ballad (and a sad ass song about a broken relationship).  78 million streams.

Definitely trying for a different thing than "bad guy" or "crown."  Don't love it.  I don't have any interest in trying to see this show again.  Maybe my girls will and I'll be stuck in the mass of bodies again, but hopefully they'll have outgrown her and we can go to Stevie Nicks or Miley Cyrus.

Let's also throw this out there - Rainn Wilson, from the Office, doing a trivia interview with Billie Eilish.  Kind of funny (and she has a DEEP Office memory).

ACL 2021: The Lineup!

 Woohoo!  The lineup is here!

Two initial thoughts.  First, I am disappointed by the main people on this lineup.  George Strait is the freaking man, and I'd be pumped to finally see him play live.  But after that?  I wouldn't pay to see any of the other big names on the left-hand side.  I mean, I'll go see Badu out of curiosity, and probably be surprised into liking her, but if she were coming to the Erwin Center or something I wouldn't be shelling out for tickets.  

Second, who gives a shit?  Literally, if it were just DaBaby rapping for 10 hours each day, I'd still sign up to go.  I need my ACL!  I need my live music!  Like, literally, there will be some rad stuff on this poster that I just don't know yet.  cleopatrick last time.  Royal Blood one year.  Spanish Gold that one time.  While I was hoping for Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam and The Black Keys and My Morning Jacket and The Beths and Run the Jewels and Taylor Swift and Madonna and The Stones, in the end, we're gonna go have a good time.

TIME TO GET TO WORK!  You're first, Q-Payday!

ACL 2021 Preview: Nevermind!

Whelp, I can pretty much just delete those posts I had started where I wrote about things I thought might be on this year's ACL lineup poster, because they're gonna announce the line up tomorrow at 10am!

Yeehaw!

Obviously loads to come tomorrow, and for the next 4 months, but in the interim, I'll just say that my fingers are crossed so hard they look like Twizzlers that our lineup will be significantly different than the Lollapalooza lineup.  Having Tyler the Creator, Post Malone, Miley Cyrus, DaBaby, Roddy Rich, Megan Thee Stallion, Marshmallo, and Illenium as eight of your top ten artists is a hard no from me.

See you tomorrow morning!

Quick Hits., Vol. 282 (Kings of Leon, Paerish, Greta Van Fleet, Dirty Honey)

Saw the lineup for Firefly Festival the other day, and I need to work through some things to think about ACL's prospective lineup.  Firefly wasn't very interesting - mostly things that ACL has already had recently - Billie Eilish, The Killers, Tame Impala, Lizzo - feels like we just did those.  I'm hopeful that ours says Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, and R.E.M., instead.

Kings of Leon - When You See Yourself.  Oh, my sweet brothers of rock and roll.  So glad you are back and not doing anything weird or techno-ey or whatever.  This is the straight-forward business that sounds just like it should.  Slightly whiny vocals, rock solid drumming, slightly funky bass lines, soaring guitars, all wrapped up in that unmistakably KOL sound.  "The Bandit" is a great tune - catchy and hits on all cylinders.  God, why does "Sex on Fire" have so many streams.  715 million freaking streams for that dumb ass song...  Anyway, "The Bandit" is winning the stream wars on this album for now with 14.2 million.

The introductory music just sounds so quintessentially like this band.  Super good.  "Must catch the bandit!"  The lyrics make no sense to me, but the feel of the track is right on.  "Golden Restless Age" keeps sticking it to me as well.  As you can see from this review, I'm not talking about any new, groundbreaking direction, but that's not I want from these guys anyway.  Loving it.

Paerish - Fixed It All.  I'm not sure if their last album was my album of the year when it came out, but I will absolutely cop to being relatively obsessed with it for a good long while.  Semi Finalists from 2016 is a purely badass blast of crunchy, fun, catchy rock.  "Undone" was dope, "Winona Ryder" is great, and I just loved the whole thing.  This five year gap in new tunes is lame, but I don't really know how French bands work.  They may have needed to go serve in the Foreign Legion for 4 years before they could make new music.  I dunno.  But, for the most part, this album sticks in the same zone.  There are a few moments I could do without where they go the Linkin Park scream-o route (looking at you, "You & I"), but otherwise this is good stuff.  The title album is the top streamer, but I want you to hear the second place one - "Violet."  252k streams.

Sounds like a song I should run to.  The confusing bit to me is that the song is called "Violet," and yet the lyric about half-way through says "Hey Charlotte, how are things for you?"  They never say the name Violet.  Are they trying to mess with me?  And with the video, that lady is super good at roller skating but what does that have to do with anything?  If I was that car at 1:55, waiting at the bridge for her to stop her interpretative skate dancing, I would have been super pissed.  Unless the band was there and like shook my hand or something, because these dudes rule at their job and that would be worth getting stuck at a bridge while a skinny lady goes full Napoleon Dynamite on skates.

Greta Van Fleet - The Battle at Garden's Gate.  I know some people will make fun of me for loving these guys, but this album is great.  Look, I understand the three basic issues with their music:

They are derivative.  I know they are stealing the schtick of someone who came before them.  But so what?  I can love Led Zeppelin and Wolfmother.  I can love The Struts and Queen.  I can love early Tame Impala and the Beatles.  I can love Gary Clark Jr. and Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can love Lenny Kravitz and Jimi Hendrix.  I can love old Coldplay and old Radiohead.  I can love Royal Blood and cleopatrick.  The Black Keys have made a killing off of yanking old blues riffs and classic 60's guitar rock sounds into the modern age without apology.  I don't understand the vitriol for trying to make new music that sounds like something classic.  More importantly for me, personally, the instrumentation on these tracks is fucking rock solid.  If you are a fan of the basic guitar, bass, drums setup of classic rock, then these guys are doing the damn thing.

The lead singer sounds like a dying rabbit.  Yeah, I get that some people may dislike the lead singer's voice.  He uses registers that few dare to leap to.  But not everyone was a fan of Robert Plant (or hell, Geddy Lee, or Axl Rose, or Michael Stipe, or Jack White, or Willie Damn Nelson) - and as I listen, I'm actually mentally comparing him more to Lee than Plant.  But when I think about replacing his vocal fireworks with something less interesting, I don't see the band being as interesting.  Like, the thought of Bob Dylan taking over and muddling through the lyrics in an atonal whine - just doesn't work.  And if the lyrics were all song in an entirely understandable way within a common range, how much fun would that be?  I just don't see how anyone can quibble with the tunes going on behind them.  These dudes are legit on their respective instruments and are making a great classic rock sound.  

The lyrics are pretentious.  The other issue people have is with the lyrics.  And again, man, you're talking about a genre with massive hits that have outrageously silly lyrics, but that take themselves seriously.  Obviously, "Yellow Submarine" or "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" are intentionally silly.  But Zeppelin singing some shit about Lord of the Rings?  The entirety of Creed's lyrics?  Van Halen as a whole?  Train?  311 singing that "amber is the color of your energy?"  Sting just punting the chorus on behalf of the Police for "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da?"  Steve Miller mentioning that some people call him "Maurice?"  Muse?  "Jack & Diane?"  "You Get What You Give?"  "Dust in the Wind?"  Oh, freaking "The Trees" from Rush?  "There is trouble in the forest, and the creatures all have fled! As the maples scream oppression, and the oaks just shake their heads."  Pretension abounds in rock lyrics.  So, if these guys need to sing some clunkers like “There are so many people. Some are much younger people and some are so old.” "And the planet is still turning, And the faces are still burning, And the mothers with their children, Search for the rain." or "God machine, Malfunctioned as it grew, And the circuits blew, Falling down on you, Now you're free, Unplug from the source, No more underscores, Open up the doors."  Mmmkay.  BUT, that last actual track, for "Age of Machine" sounds dope as hell!  

I noted the other day that one of these tracks - "My Way, Soon" actually sounds like the instrumental for a Pearl Jam song that would have been at home on Vs.  Of course, it starts with that first line, an observation about the fact that humans have ages.  The streaming hit is "Age of Machine," so here you go.  5.3 million streams.

Like, if the lead singer's weird ass wail wasn't slowly added to the mix in the opening portion, would it even be the same song?  Or just a Soundgarden dirge about suicide?  Actually, that's a good comp here - Chris Cornell used to wail like a crazy person, over the top of heavy rock instrumentation, and yet he was well-loved (I think?).  I think this is just what the internet does now - needlessly hypes one thing (looking at you Drake) into oblivion, and then snarks the next thing to death.  And so, while I get that some people may think this sounds goofy, and dated, and copycattish, but I will stand by the fact that if you just let yourself enjoy something instead of being a prick, you'll find so much pleasure in the world.

Dirty Honey - Dirty Honey.  Fascinating band.  Never heard of them before, I literally listened to the album because the cover looked cool.  They made big, juicy, 70's-ass lips out of dripping honey that also spells their band name.  Speaking of my conversation above about being derivative, these guys sound kind of like Guns N' Roses met up with the Black Crowes for a jam session.  Which sounds kinda awesome, right?  The big hit is "California Dreamin'" and, without even seeing the video yet, I feel like there is no way that it isn't shots of them cruising Sunset Strip in a convertible with models and then playing the tune in a sun-dappled warehouse.   This one is the most GNR of them all, and has 659k streams.

Okay, muscle car instead of convertible, and eighty random locations in CA instead of just Sunset, but the model is there!  And they're jamming the song in a junk yard that is definitely sun-dappled!  Guitarist on the sand dunes - didn't Slash have a scene like that in a video?  Pretty solid riffage right there.  I'd abso-damn-lutely pump my fist and yell those lyrics into a crowd at ACL in a few months.  (even if, on further inspection as I sang this song while walking the dog, WTF do these lyrics mean?  "I'm California dreamin', and it's tearing us apart, It's paranoia season, it's in our mind and our hearts."  So, if California Dreamin' a bad thing to do?  Is your girlfriend mad about it or something?  Is she actually paranoid about your dreams of CA?  This makes no sense.)

"Take My Hand" sounds like an Audioslave ripoff.  "Gypsy" sounds like Appetite-era GNR.  The guitar riffs in chorus portion of "The Morning" sound like the Van Halen song "Finish What You Started."  "Another Last Time" is the most Black Crowes-y of them all.  Whatever man, I dig it.