One Liner: The Pumped Up Kicks guys, still making pop rock goodness.
Poster Position: 2
Both Weekends
Friday at 6:10.
Honda Stage.
Thoughts: Last here in 2017, with a 2014 appearance before that.
Pop rock for the masses. Unless you have been living under a rock or refuse to listen to normal radio or watch TV or otherwise exist in a regular, public arena with the rest of us, you have heard "Pumped Up Kicks" before. Likely more than a million times before. Because it has an insane 1.7 BILLION streams on Spotify. Holy Hannah.
This video has been seen over a BILLION freaking times. I mean, damn. It was a number one single, received a Grammy nomination, and generally took over the world in 2011. And despite the sunny little tune and happy sounding chorus, the whole thing is about a psychotic kid who is telling other kids that they'd better run when he starts shooting them. You would also probably recognize "Helena Beat," "Don't Stop," "I Would Do Anything For You," and "Houdini" from their first album. This video, for Houdini (from their first album) was up for a Grammy but did not win:
That original album (2011's Torches) ended up selling a ton because of "Pumped Up Kicks," and some of those other songs were pretty popular in their own right, especially "Don't Stop."
The next album was 2014's Supermodel. Had a few singles, nothing as world destroying as Kicks, but "Coming of Age" is a pretty catchy ditty. 77.9 million streams.
My preconceived thought is that I dislike these guys. "Pumped Up Kicks" got (and still gets) so much airplay that I'm annoyed by it. This seems like pop factory music made to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Without giving them a shot, I've got loads of that hipster-held-hatred garbage for something inauthentic. But if I toss all of that out the window and just enjoy "Coming of Age," its a damn fun jam. Supermodel is pretty good from front to back. Just enjoyable dance rock. It should set off some fun, even if it won't inspire the next Springsteen.
And I think Mark Foster is a great success story. He moved to L.A. from Ohio to pursue music and was going nowhere, working day jobs and just trying to get noticed, scuffled around for a few years, got heavily addicted to drugs, but then came up with "Pumped Up Kicks." Launched him into the stratosphere. I think that is cool. Well, not the drug addiction bit, but the old rising from the ashes bit.
As an aside, I had a weird moment, where I thought Spotify had messed up and started playing A$AP Rocky, because Foster the People's track "A Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon" actually samples A$AP Rocky's "LVL," which is an odd juxtaposition.
Weird, right?
After that, Sacred Hearts Club came out in 2017. It did not break much new ground for the band, they are still sticking to really danceable pop rock jams that are pretty fun to just jam out to. But they do extend more into electronics. The top song back when the album came out was "Doing It For the Money," now at 38.1 million streams.
This got some radio play back then and honestly, it isn't my favorite tune. I feel like they are trying too hard to court the electronic side of their demographic and leaving behind the fun party rock in favor of sounding kind of like a trap EDM track. And the album has other unfortunate examples of the same, like "Loyal Like Sid & Nancy," which is about a minute worth of EDM thumping that opens up a little but stays pretty lame. The more I hear that track the less I like this whole album. On the other hand, "Lotus Eater" is a good rock song that should be their yardstick for measuring good songs. But the big hit that erupted from the album ended up being "Sit Next To Me," which still gets radio play even today. 346.6 million streams.
Overall, I've enjoyed listening to that album all day - even with my reservations about going electro instead of sticking to their core sound. "SHC" is pretty solid. "Sit Next To Me" is tasty.
But after that 2017 album - no more albums. Curious what happened there. Some 2021 singles, a 2020 EP, and some remixes, but not much for like seven years. Wikipedia has nothing explaining that gap, it just sounds like they split from their record label and have been enjoying the freedom of releasing a single when they feel like it. Unfortunately, that makes it a little less interesting to see them live, when I've already seen them play the tunes from those three albums described above. Oh well. I can't be too choosy here, depending on the schedule, I'd probably go watch these guys do their thing. Maybe a new disc is just about to drop.
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