Empress Of

One Liner:  EDM and Spanglish pop time

Wikipedia Genre:  Dream pop, alternative R&B, synth-pop, electronica, experimental

Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Recent addition
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 1:15.

AmEx Stage.

Thoughts:  Lorely Rodriguez has a surprisingly robust Wikipedia page, where most of the artists who get the noon spot on the poster will have nothing written about them (or very little).  She is originally from L.A., and received a degree in sound engineering from Berklee College of Music (which sounds so freaking cool - to go learn the real tools and tricks of the trade at a place like that, as your college experience!).  After that, she moved to New York and was in a band called Celestial Shore.  Strangely, I reviewed a Celestial Shore album years ago:

"Celestial Shore - Enter Ghost.  Interesting album.  I have listened to it a number of times, and just can't decide if I like it or not.  As I listen, it sounds good, kind of falsetto indie pop with classic rock/pop harmonies and organs and a 90's alternative overlay.  The thing is, when I'm done listening to it, nothing at all sticks in my mind.  It just melts right out of my brain as soon as the last note plays.

The start of this one sounds like it is an old Pixies B-Side you are hearing for the first time, but then the singing is entirely different.  "I Hide" is kind of cool too.  I like it well enough, but I just don't expect that I'll keep it around for good."

Her stage name is from a tarot card reading she did where the first card pulled was an Empress card.  In addition to the robust Wikipedia page, her discography is likewise much larger than expected.  Her first single was in 2012, and she has released four albums and a bunch of other stuff since.  Her top streamer features Khalid, so that seems unfair.  In fact, a lot of her songs have other folks on them.  She also does a lot of Spanish-language action.  But an early hit was "How Do You Do It," with 8.2 million streams and a spot on her 2015 debut album Me.

Feels weird to have a straight-up dance/electro thing happening at 1 on a Sunday - that feels like the stuff that should be later in the night, because otherwise you're going to have an artist trying to get the people hype to dance and whatnot when there are like 40 sweaty people kinda nodding their heads in a dusty field.  2018's Us features the next big track with "When I'm With Him," with 14.7 million streams.

Way poppier there, and split the lyrics up with English and Spanish.  Not sure, but I think I like the electronic dance music better than the pop.  After that, none of her songs that don't involve someone else get any higher on stream count.  I doubt I'll make it over to this one.