Labrinth (2026)

One Liner:  Squawky, glitchy R&B with infrequent forays into rap-ish squawks.  Squawk.

Wikipedia Genre:  R&B, hip hop, electronic, grime, soul, pop, rock, funk

Home: London

Poster Position: Top Quarter, Line 2 
Both Weekends.
Stage and time.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2023.  Has somehow released five albums in the three years since then, which seems either to show that he has an insane pace or that he just shoves out half-baked crap.  Unclear which.

Appears that he made the soundtrack for the HBO show Euphoria.  My middle kid watched that show long before she would have been allowed to watch that show, and in order to do so she would create a new login for HBO Max each day, watch a few episodes, and then delete that login.  I only discovered it because HBO kept telling me that the next episode for me to watch was named whatever.  So, I looked over at the wife, and was like, "are you watching the druggy teenagers boning show?" and she was like "what are you talking about."  So, we figured out that the kid was sneaky.  Since then, the younger kid has also watched it, so now my children probably know everything about everything.  Cool Cool.

Instant read on this is that this is horrible music.  This maybe going up against Geese and the Chainsmokers is like trying to pick whether it is better to get pooped on by a cat, a racoon, or a possum.  What even is this?  It feels like a joke - like someone is playing a joke on me by saying this is a headliner at ACL.  I'm listening to "Mount Everest" right now and the guy is just squawking for like a minute.  What is happening.  I'll give you the most popular tune first, this one was from Euphoria.  "Formula" with 1.1 BILLION streams.

Squeaky R&B is apparently what the people want.  Also, it feels like a partial song, like he was planning to flesh it out later and actually have a full song, but then forgot to slow down the lyrics and make it a full song and his manager just went ahead and uploaded it as incomplete.  So dumb.

I think it just has to be that he is associated with Euphoria, and it was a huge show for the young people.  I can't understand any other reason that this makes sense for this to almost be a headliner.

Wikipedia claims that he is a rapper, which I find interesting.  Maybe those are further down in his song list, because so far this feels like an SNL skit of someone trying to make fun of The Weeknd.  Real name is Tomothy Lee McKenzie.  In addition to releasing these songs on his own, he also made the supergroup LSD that included Sia and Diplo.  Again with the Diplo collaborators for ACL.  When he was young, he and his eight siblings formed a band called Mac 9.  I'm guessing that was unsuccessful.  He got his solo start by producing music for others, and even since making his own music he has still been getting credits with big names like Beyonce, Rihanna, Kanye West, Eminem, and The Weeknd.

His third biggest streamer is from a 2014 EP, and it is the best thing I have heard out of his discography so far.  No generic beat or weird, off-putting sounds, just a John Legend-ass piano track.  "Jealous," with 855.1 million streams.

That is lovely.  Literally a million times better than the newer crap he has released.  Really great voice.  That song is legit, but when you listen to the more recent stuff in the catalog, you can tell that he left the nice sounding stuff in the dust.  Oh Lordy, on "Forever," he is doing those same little squawks forever.  Why is that a thing for him?  Why isn't he actually a cool rapper?  So many times in his tracks he just yelps and squawks and makes weird noises.  Why?

Let's try the 2023 album - Ends and Begins - the top track on that one is called "Never Felt So Alone."  438.5 million streams. (and some that don't even crack 5 million on that disc?  Weird)

Sleepy track turns into blurted little words over the same sleepy beat.  I still just don't get why this is popular.  I'm trying to imagine the experience of standing in a huge crowd at the T-Mobile stage and just grooving along with this meandering thing while he stands by a laptop and yelps little blurted words at a crowd of kids.  My kids seem to think this is one of the big rap acts they'll get on the poster, but it just feels like they are going to be deeply disappointed if they are expecting a hype show.

Because I signed up for this crap, I need to check out some of the new discs too.  2025's Prelude is kind of EDM plus R&B?  Luckily it is only 15 minutes long.  2026's COSMIC OPERA ACT I caught me grooving a little bit to "IMPLOSION," another kind of R&B/rap thing, but with a pretty hard beat behind it.  ACT II didn't hit the same way.  I have no clue why this is a thing.  Welcome to ACL 2026.