One Liner: EDM, just like you've heard so many times before.
Poster Position: TOP Quarter - Line 2
Both Weekends.
Day and Time.
[location]
Thoughts: Last here in 2016. Which sort of surprised me. I guess when you sound just like everyone else, there is no reason to have them back? When they were last here, I had predicted that they would be on the poster, but I believed they would be in the small type. I was very wrong, as they were also on line 2 ten years ago. Which is sort of weird.
A few weeks ago, a commenter I don't know (always so exciting when a stranger comments on the blog!) linked this performance from Ultra, saying that "After this you will understand why they are a big get."It's a whole hour, so gird your loins if you plan to actually observe. Four observations from the first three minutes: (1) this is Skrillex except with two J. Crew models hired to act like they are "making" the music; (2) the crowd shots of that Festival make me want to die and take anyone younger than 25 with me; (3) do not go watch Chainsmokers live if you have epilepsy; and (4) they really should invest in small stepladders if they are going to each crawl up on their console every 30 seconds so that they can scream "FUCK YEAH MIAMI!!!" and throw their hands in the air before climbing back down to twiddle a knob. Their backs really will thank them later. Two things about that are the worst. One, that these dudes can't say anything to the crowd without including a "FUCK" or "FUCKING" in the sentence. Come on, man. Two, the children in the crowd spend the entire time waiting for the camera to be on them so they can incorrectly lipsync the lyrics and throw their hands up in fake gang signs.
With that in mind, and after listening to the rest of the concert and watching portions of it, I think I get it. This music would (and does) annoy the living hell out of me if I just sat here and listened to it for any extended period of time. It is derivative and predictable and annoying. However, like the Griz show I loved last year at ACL, it looks like they just steal the best bits from other people's tracks ("Under the Bridge," "Antidote," or "Shut Up and Dance With Me," they are equal opportunity gankers) and make it into a huge, really fun dance party of drop after drop after drop. You just need to go there and let it all out. For example, I'd never purposefully listen to a generic techno remix of Blink 182's "Miss You," but when its among 10,000 sweaty, drug-addled teenagers, you'll just want to let go and party along. Some of works: the drop at 1:56 (or 49:56 or 51:50) would send you into shakes and shivers while you jump as hard as humanly possible; then some of it craps the bed: the drop at 13:29 to end "Panda" is terrible. He did tell people not to support Donald Trump, so he might be smarter than I thought.
I'm also genuinely curious about what the two bros are doing up there. Other than screaming "FUCK!" and climbing onto the console over and over. They both touch knobs and little sliders repeatedly as though that is changing the music. They have like 8 little fake turntable things up there that I don't recall them touching. They both repeatedly put on and then almost immediately take off big earphones around their necks. Do they actually need to be there? I think not.
How about just the studio tunes? Pretty generic. I definitely think the live tunes you can hear up there are significantly better than the stuff they have available to hear on Spotify. No real albums, just a bunch of singles and remixes of those singles. By the way, they have a song called "#SELFIE." I think they should legally be required to light themselves on fire for creating that track. Here is their most popular track (with a mind-boggling 342.2 million streams on Spotify) called "Roses." [BTW, up to 1.443 BILLION streams in 2026]I like that girl's voice, but the song is a yawner. They have another song with 238.3 million streams ("Don't Let Me Down") [now up to 2.462 BILLION streams in 2026, holy hell!], then one with 46.1 million ("Kanye") [only up to 123 million in 2026] but then everything else is down lower in number of streams. Still though, that is a crapton of streams, showing that they are insanely popular with the kids who stream things. And just so you have to suffer through this same thing, here is #SELFIE [282.1 million streams in 2026]:Death to Smoochie. So, then the question is, would I go see them play live. I think the answer is probably yes. Their live show looks like a lot of fun. I still don't see them as a big "get," as I think any number of similar artists could create that same vibe of a show, but if I learned anything from last year's ACL, it is that despite not understanding EDM music or its popularity, if you just go in the middle of the kids and jump around and have some fun, it is contagiously awesome. Now, I'm not going to skip most other headliners to go watch this, but if they are up against Kygo or LCD, I may go fire it up.
So, since that take up above, these guys have continued to churn out MASSIVELY popular singles. Their top five most popular songs on Spotify all have more than a billion streams. Which is nuts. That is Drake and Taylor Swift type numbers. In addition to those songs noted above, you would also have "Closer," featuring Halsey, with 3.8 BILLION, "Something Just Like This," with Coldplay, with 3.7 BILLION, and then "Paris" with 1.5 billion. I ran through those, and now am running through the newer tunes in their catalog, and it is still just as uninspiring as it was ten years ago. Somewhat hilariously, to me at least, they have a three-track single of "The Fate of Ophelia" that includes a Chainsmoker's remix, the original, and then an acoustic version, and while the original has 1.5 billion streams, the remix (ostensibly the reason for this single to exist) has only 20 million listens. That is funny.
I never dug into who the guys were way back when. This is Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, although originally it was Pall and another DJ named Rhett Bixler. Too bad for Bixler that he missed out on the money train! They started out just remixing other people's songs, and then started making their own crap, and by now they have won a Grammy and a bunch of other jenkier awards like the iHeart Radio awards or American Music Awards. In 2019, they were the highest paid DJs in the world. When asked about the name: "Pall replied that, "At the time of conception, it was... it was totally just like I was in college. You know I enjoyed smoking weed and you know it was just like such a 'yeah the domain's open'. I don't have to have any, like, underscores." Taggart added "It's just a name."" Shows how much he cares.
The 2026 EP called Love is Kind, which features something called Oaks (which I guess is the woman singing?), is very generic and no song breaks ten million streams.
Normally, I'd obviously be a hard no to see EDM, but this year, you really don't have a choice unless you want big gaps in your day. Dunno, man.
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