Alison Wonderland (2021)

One Liner: Massive EDM dance booms from an Aussie lady DJ
Wikipedia Genre: EDM, electropop, trap, chillwave, future bass 

Home: Sydney

Poster Position: 5
Both Weekends

Saturday at 7:20 on the T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  Wonderland was last here in 2017, so it wasn't a surprise this time to hear her bumping electronica despite her name sounding like she'd be a folk artist.  Real name is Alexandra Sholler.  Wikipedia says she is the "highest billed female DJ in Coachella history," which doesn't really seem like much of an accomplishment?  Maybe I'm just blind to the plight of EDM women and the fonts of festival posters.  I wonder if she wins the prize for ACL to by being on the 5th line now?  I just did a search for best female DJ, and because I've never heard of any of them, I'm going to say that none of them have ever been higher than the 5th row on the ACL poster.  As such, Alison now also holds that revered record.

I like the genre name "future bass," "described as music that "takes the ecstatic drops of dubstep or trap, but provides a warm bounce rather than a lumbering bruteness."  I like that description.  I'll say this is intricate bass and layered electronic sounds to create pretty cool rhythm tracks.  For the most part, I like this stuff pretty well.  What I have found I like less, and this is a good sign, are all of the myriad remixes of the original songs. It seems like I like the real stuff better than the reinterpretations by others.

Two albums, 2015's Run and 2018's Awake, and then a mess of singles and remixes and other garbage. The top track overall is from that first album, with 47.1 million streams, called "I Want U," and comes off more as a Skrillex-style banger than a dance tune.

Creepy Shining ass video.  And according to comments on that video, the track is apparently featured on NBA2k17 video game, which for some reason makes a bunch of people go to YouTube, listen to the song, and then comment that they came there because of NBA2k17. Why do people do that?  What is the purpose of commenting on a YouTube video about why you found and streamed that video?  Such a weird thing to go do (says the guy writing 4,000,000 words about ACL bands for eight people to read).  :)

She also has a track on that first album that features Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips.  This is "U Don't Know," with 14.9 million streams.

McLovin'!  Munchin' a donut! (that he apparently drops without finishing so that he can beat himself in the head).  Oh noes!  He's a mean kidnapper guy who yells like Wayne Coyne sings!  Interestingly, when he stands at the back of the car, and she is thrashing about with all her might, that sweet ass old school station wagon just doesn't even rock.  That thing was made for sexytime.  Ain't no rockin' when McLovin' comes a knockin'!  Wait, where did those scissors come from?  Nobody runs with scissors in the pocket of their jeans.  Well, maybe psychopaths.  Nevermind.  Aw, young love!  Oh noes!  We suck again!

The top track from the 2018 album is a little more of a pop song that happens to have electronic music behind it - less of a dance track, more focused on her voice.  "Church" has 31.1 million streams.

I think I prefer the earlier stuff that is more focused on dancepartytime.  Less singing, more banging!

OK, here is an hour long video of her doing a live DJ set at some thing in L.A., and man, DJ'ing is so lame.

Go to like 1:58, and you can see her reach up for a knob near the top of her board, and she does absolutely nothing to that knob (maybe tweaks it by 1/1,000th of a centimeter) and then does it again a little bit later.  JEAH!  Wait, even better is 3:24.  Multiple knob touches! DJ FEVER!  I mean, screw me, right?  I couldn't make these songs in the first place, but can we all just agree that there is no reason for that tiny crowd to actually watch her DJ?  They should just be dancing and ignoring what she is doing, and she should just have programmed all of the noises in to her laptop so that she didn't even need to fake turn knobs by tiny fractions in the first place.  She could be out there in the audience, dancing her ass off as well and enjoying a beverage or three.  The whole thing is silly.  And awkward. That crowd seems weird just standing there and kind of nervously bobbing.  I made it about 6 minutes and decided that was enough.  

After all of those complaints, I think her music sounds like a good time, and I bet the show at ACL will be pretty fun for those that go over there.