The Marias (2024)

One Liner: dime store Billie Eilish bedroom pop with that "Hush" song.

Wikipedia Genre: indie pop, indie rock, alternative pop, psychedelic soul (really?)
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 3 (!?!)
Both Weekends.  

Friday at 7:30.

T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2022, and no new album since then, so that makes the review pretty darned easy!  Also, how are they on the third line?

Y'all have to give me time for a short detour here.  This will have nothing to do with the Marias, but my blog, my random detours.  My good friend Tate died about two years ago.  Which freaking sucks.  We met in college as freshmen in the same dorm who realized a lot in common, and since then have stayed in touch to share the ups and downs of the legal field, kids, trips, and everything else.  He discovered cancer, and was hoping he was going to beat it with many different treatments he tried over time, but that didn't work out.  Which is honestly devastating.  46 years old.  Wife and three kids at home.  And just snapped out of existence.  After the news came down, I spent hours scrolling google photos for all of the pics of him, and that was a good time to laugh and cry and process for a bit.  All of this ties together because we took a trip down to San Antonio a while back, and he mentioned that his middle kid really wanted to go to the Marias show that was coming up at the Paper Tiger.  He did not like that I called them "dime store Billie Eilish."  But in my defense, at the time, the only song I had heard was "Hush," which was all over the radio.  41.7 million streams.

I mean, right?  Like she's got the whispery delivery over kinda ominous synth beats?  And a vaguely disturbing video?  I'm right.  Every time this came on the radio, until I was informed that it was the Marias, I absolutely thought it was a new Eilish single.  But since that one, they actually have a bunch of tunes with much bigger stream counts.  Which is interesting to me.  But also, Tate had talked about coming to ACL in 2022 for his first time ever, when they were announced to the lineup, back when he was feeling better and treatments seemed to be working.  Cancer blows, man.

I'm surprised that these guys are an L.A. band.  Thought for sure they were from Spain or something, as multiple songs are in Spanish and they just kinda had that feel to me.  Europeans.  But nope.  The band is a Puerto Rican lead singer - Maria Zardoya - and a drummer named Josh Conway.  In their live shows, they apparently add in a full band of guitar, bass, keys, trumpet, etc.  Their background includes that Maria and Josh met at a bar and music venue where she was performing and he was managing the sound.  They subsequently started dating and writing music together.  They released a few EPs before that song up above, "Hush," popped up to the top of the Adult Alternative charts.

One album - CINEMA - from 2021.  Interestingly, it didn't do great streaming numbers.  The only track with big numbers was "Hush".  Otherwise, no song on there tops 25 million streams and most aren't even at 10 million.  Their most popular track right now is a collaboration with Bad Bunny, but they've got a handful of tracks up there over the 50 million stream mark.  "Care For You" definitely sounds like Eilish.  I don't mean to beat that comparison into the ground, but it just keeps popping up as another song starts.  Same thing with "We're The Lucky Ones."  But a top streamer is "I Don't Know You," from 2017's Superclean, Vol. 1.  112.3 million spins.

She's really beautiful.  Doesn't make me like the song, but it's hard to understate just how perfect her face is.  Just kind of a basic song - feels like some bedroom pop made by an unknown high schooler.

Slightly larger, their next EP in 2018, very excitingly named Superclean, Vol. 2, contains "Carino" with 136 million streams.

Kind of a cool vibe in that song - the guitar effects are cool.  Being in Spanish though is a negative on my end since I have no clue what she is vamping about in there.

None of this is truly terrible, but none of it really excites me much either.  I'm a little annoyed that they are so high on the poster, to be completely honest.  I guess they must have new music coming out that is going to knock our zapatos off.