Ryan Beatty

One Liner: A BROCKHAMPTON collaborator making truly pretty indie folk and pop
Wikipedia Genre: Alternative R&B, alt-pop, indie pop, indie folk
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 12
Day: Saturday - WE1 @ 3:30; WE2 @ 5:30
Both Weekends.

Beatbox Stage

Thoughts:  Back when BROCKHAMPTON was a thing, I was pretty damn into those dudes.  When they came to ACL, I loved it, and really enjoyed some of the songs on those Saturation albums.  Still do.  Well, this dude was part of the party, but he was mainly part of the songs that got on my nerves.  Which is SO RUDE to write, but my honest opinion of Brockhampton was that the R&B singing songs couldn't hold a candle to the solid rap tracks.

So, he came up covering songs on YouTube, and got popular enough because of those videos that Ryan Seacrest premiered his debut music video in 2012 and then his debut EP was premiered on Radio Disney.  He was more of a clean-cut teen heart-throb, and was named to an AT&T commercial series to combat texting and driving.  He chafed at the boyish image and fired his management in 2013.  A few years later, when the Brockhampton crew moved from San Marcos, he started collaborating with them and was on a few of the Saturation album songs.  He also worked with Kevin Abstract and Tyler, The Creator during this time.

Interesting thing, he has four albums, but I swear I have been cruising through the catalog multiple times.  Either these songs are short or Spotify is messing with me.  His voice is lovely - like a Harry Styles-when-he-is-imitating-a-70's-crooner thing.  And some of the songs are genuinely pretty.  I just imagined what it would be like at the festival though - these are pretty ballad-type songs.  Heart-felt falsetto tinged tunes about love and loss.  Not sure what that will look like in a 100+ degree field full of drunk and high college kids excited to see Charlie XCX.  Whatever.  The most streamed song is from his post-teen-heartthrob album Boy in Jeans, from 2018, and is called "Haircut."  25.1 million streams.

That feels like the BROCKHAMPTON ear music where they concentrated on the visuals as well as the tunes.  His recent album is less dance-y pop, and more of the adult contemporary stuff.  "Secret Language" is the top track off of his 2026 album Sweet Fortune.  1.8 million streams.

Gone is the bleach-blonde, and the writhing around in a bed, and the synth backing, exchanged for natural hair, random jogging, and a gentle rock background.  But do you hear how damn pretty his voice is?  Beautiful.  And I dig that swaggery little guitar solo int he middle.  But it just feels like I am listening to 70's AM gold, not a guy who is going to get a crowd to go wild at a Festival.  "Phantom" is the album opener on that new disc and the piano sounds like an interpolation of "Mama I'm Comin' Home" and then the schmaltzy big band arrives.  Really nice album.

Spotify just transitioned me into a song by Jackie Evans, which sounds very much like this guy, and also like Carole King.  There is some really pretty music out there!

DeathByRomy

One Liner:  Unpleasantly dark pop after you get past her one hit

Wikipedia Genre:  Alternative pop, dark pop, alternative R&B, trap, rock

Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Recent addition, but she would be in the small type
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 12:10.

Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  I just made up the capitalization in the name of this band.  I hope that doesn't hurt their brand.  If you search "death" on Spotify, the first entry is "Cab For Cutie," a great band.  If you add "by" on then you get this gal.  After having just listened to Jess Glynne, I feel like I'm getting a petulant dime-store version of a power singer.

Romy Flores was born in L.A. in 1999 and began performing at age 15.  Her first big single continues to be her top track, mainly because of going viral on TikTok.  I absolutely thought she was singing about loving cocaine for the first few times I hear this song.  "Problems" is a Gen Alpha anthem about getting fucked up to ignore your issues.  66.5 million streams.

That eye makeup is very unsettling.  And the lady eating grapes looks like Billie Eilish.  Basic track, but pretty catchy.  I'll give her that.  She says her stage name comes from her past struggles with suicidal tendencies and is an attempt at claiming personal love.  I was listening to a podcast this morning, the only podcast I really listen to ever, and Rob Harvilla had a great line about people coopting the idea of self-love and self-help for bullshit reasons like selling soap.  That is what this sounds like to me.  She lists her influences as The Beatles, Bjork, and Bring Me the Horizon.  I really hope she was just looking at a list of B artists when she made that list, because otherwise she is failing miserably to copy her inspirations.

Three albums - 2018's Monsters (relatively ignored on streaming), 2021's Songs for My Funeral (the only album with a record label, and featuring the smash hit above), and 2022's independent release Entropy.  Very few streams on the other tracks, and the ones in her catalog that fire up more streams feature other folks on them - Zed's Dead, Rezz, something called Jazmin Bean.  Just so you can suffer through one more, here is "No Mercy" from the 2022 album.  3 million streams.

I just had to scrunch up my face and say "please stop making that noise."  I'd listen to days of San Holo over hearing this ever again.  Just trying to shock by sounding miserable and nothing about it seems interesting or actually cool at all.  Definitely not watching this.

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.

Sisi

One Liner:  I don't know man, 3 songs that are definitely not my thing

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia - assuming I have the right one, she is alt-R&B?

Home: Austin

Poster Position: Not on the poster
Weekend Two Only.
Sunday at 1

Thoughts:  Sisi is a place in Crete, Greece.  Also, the nickname of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Franz Joseph I.  It is also the name of a Dutch fruit-flavored beverage.  For our purposes, this is a singer with only three songs available on Spotify, none of which have been noticed my many folks.  My impression after a few listens to her most streamed tune - "Good Time" (with 5,823 streams) is a poor-man's Maggie Rogers.

Well, I assume that to be true, because that gal is from Austin and so it would make sense for her to be the one on the poster.  But there is also a UK artist who goes by Sisi who is apparently "a true superstar in the making" who is receiving regular BBC radio support.  Assuming this is not that "incredibly versatile artist covering everything from Afropop to Garage."  Also, there is a Chinese-American alternative R&B singer-songwriter who moved to L.A. to pursue her sound, which is described as: "inspired by the vocal fluidity and raw introspection of alternative R&B artists like Drake, Frank Ocean, and The Weeknd while invoking images of femme fatale / female power in the vein of Rihanna & Beyonce."  Criminy, wait, there is another who is an Italian who sang on the X Factor TV show.  So, this name sucks for an artist, just FYI.  No good articles I can find about her online - they are almost all about the Brit.

Spotify bio says that she is Venezuelan-American, and that her debut single "taps into the generational goal of latina kids to want to find any way possible to make sure they can take care of their parents."  Her bio also claims that a full-length album is coming fall 2022.  Which doesn't seem to have worked out.  Here is that tune, called "Rich or Dead."  2,215 streams.

Don't care for it.  Feels like the drum beat is trying to steal some 80's song that I can't quite place.  Not much else to say about her since no one is writing about her out there.  I hope that she can use the $0.03 she made from her streaming numbers to take care of her folks.

BENEE

One Liner: More indie pop that sounds like lesser Billie Eilish

Wikipedia Genre: alternative pop, R&B
Home: Auckland, New Zealand

Poster Position: 11
Both Weekends.  Friday.

Thoughts: So, I guess this is a thing now.  I should have just made categories for all of the music on the poster this year.  Everything is either a Billie Eilish ripoff, a Machine Gun Kelly ripoff, a Daft Punk ripoff, an 80's ripoff, or its own thing.  This is another Eilish thing.  Whispery vocals, low-key music that could have been made in the bedroom by her brother.  There you go.

Real name is Stella Rose Bennett, and she's crushed it down in New Zealand.  In both 2019 and 2020 she won Single of the Year, Best Solo Artist, and Best Pop Artist at the New Zealand Music Awards.  Not too shabby, even if I can't currently think of another Kiwi musical artist.  Oh, duh, Lorde is from there.  The others in a top ten list I just reviewed are all mysteries to me, although I'd like for Fat Freddie's Drop to become a thing for sure.  I want my kids to talk about Fat Freddie's Drop.   When she was a kid, she momentarily dropped music to pursue a career in water polo.  That isn't something you hear every day.  She's 22.

She's got one ginormous song - "Supalonely" - from 2020's Hey u x, and featuring someone named Gus Dapperton.  TikTok hit, of course.  639.4 million streams.

At first, it starts off like a party song with disco leanings, but then when she's not singing the chorus it goes into sooooo muuuuuch AutoTune.  Catchy though, I don't hate it.  That bass line is funky.  "Glitter" is her second most streamed, with 160.9 million.

My youngest is now able to emulate that dumb oversinging, whiny sound that the pop singer girls do.  She called it singing in italics.  I thought that was funny.  When she does it, she pretty much sounds like she is singing "oy yoooy oy eyeee oy oy."  "Glitter" is from Benee's first EP, in 2019, called FIRE ON MARZZ.  She has another EP from the same year, called STELLA & STEVE, which is where "Supalonely" originally appeared.  Most of the rest of her songs and singles don't crack 10 million streams.  Finally, she has a 7 song album from 2022 called Lychee.  The top track from that one is called "Doesn't Matter," with 8 million streams.

The little warbles in her voice, and allowing the ends of lines to kind of tail off, that is some of the heavy Eilish copy thing.  That whole new album is heavy on that sound.  "Beach Boy" really sounds like she is saying "bitch boy."  Not in love with it by any means.  I'm kind of over the whole Eilish alt pop thing (if I was ever in it in the first place).  Still though, I like a good New Zealander.  GDAY KIWI!!!

Unusual Demont

One Liner: Chilled R&B with a good voice.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia but an Alternative R&B sort of thing
Home: Wisconsin

Poster Position: 19
Weekend One Only.

Friday at 1:45 on the Miller Lite Stage

Thoughts:  The guy has an exceedingly smooth voice, but I've never much cared for the R&B or alternative R&B worlds.  It's like easy listening for youth who grew up listening to trap music.  He doesn't have a Wikipedia to read, but the one interview I read with him cited Curtis Mayfield and Frank Ocean as his influences.  I've never understood the love for Ocean - I know that it is almost universal among critics, but I just don't care for it.

He says his friends tried to make an Odd Future-type group at one point, which they called Unusual Past.  He decided to keep the "Unusual" part and just tack that on to his name to make his band name.  Also, his grandfather toured with Curtis Mayfield as his drummer.

He only has six songs, and two of those are versions of the same song, so he's not quite on top of the world just yet.  But one of the singles has more than 10 million streams, which is pretty good.  This is "Amber."

Especially on the chorus, the dude has a really nice voice.  Smooth and bright and full.  I guess the tune is pretty catchy, but it just isn't my joint.  His second-most streamed track is "Pine," with 1.5 million streams.

I dig the funkier action underneath that one.  According to the interview I read, he pictured this one based in a roller rink, which makes sense.  Apparently all they could afford for the video shoot was a parking garage though.  He also said it has to do with jealousy, which is colored green, which is why the song is named "Pine."

Doubt I would do this one.  Great voice, not my jam.

Public Library Commute

One Liner: Alternative R&B dude making beats in his dorm room.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but alterative R&B, alternative hip hop
Home: North Jersey

Poster Position: Later Addition
Weekend One Only.

Sunday at 1:45 on the BMI Stage.

Thoughts:  Goes back and forth between a bedroom pop sort of thing, some R&B flavors, and a Post Malone ripoff.  Their top track sounded familiar, but it is because the track is actually a Surfaces song, that I already listened to when reviewing that band.  Stop mixing me up, bro.

The top streamer is the Post Malone copy, and it makes me cringe.  "Slalom" has 5.8 million streams.

I'm probably too harsh on this, but when he does the wavering tenor singing about midway through the track, it's just much for me.  Feels like he needs to stick to his own sound instead of trying to copy.

His real name is Conrad Hsiang, and according to one article I read about him he found some minor fame making beats for alternative hip hop artists I've never heard of like Healy and Felly.  Originally from New Jersey, he was in New York at a place called Hamilton College (but I assume he has graduated by now).  He called himself PLC at first, which he claims was intended to be like GZA and RZA as just a three initial, cool-sounding name.  His brother told him that he should then name each album a different acronym for PLC, so his first one ended up being Public Library Commute, because he used to work at the public library in his town.  And he just stuck with that weird ass name.

Two albums, 2018's Sienna 1999 and 2019's Over Grey Skies, and then a lot of singles.  Nothing from those albums is among his most popular tracks, so it looks like the newer stuff is making more of a mark.  His second-most streamed is "Summertime," a 2020 single, with 1.5 million streams.

Yeah, I'm just not the guy for a cutesy little R&B track like that.  His voice is nice, the music is perfectly inoffensive, but I don't need it at all.

In one crazy story, he ended up volunteering at a prison on the island of Nevis to teach young inmates how to use Abelton and other beat-making software, to try to give them something to do with themselves other than going back to crime.  Fascinating.

Don't want to see this one, but his stories are kind of endearing anyway.