Sofi Tucker (2026)

One Liner: Electronic dance music for the dumbing down of America

Wikipedia Genre: House, EDM
Home: NYC

Poster Position: 6
Both Weekends.  Sunday at 6:30.

AmEx Stage.

Thoughts: Last here in 2022, and before that in 2018, and I freaking hated everything about it.  Glad we apparently have a pact with them for an appearance every four years.  Like bad locusts from hell.  Here is what I said back then, with a few adjustments, and then we can talk about their new music too.

"I've got my rude britches on today or something.  Listen to this tune, "Batshit," with their third-most streams (11.5 million, now up to 49.9 million in 2026, and no longer #3 in their catalog), and let me know the words that involuntarily came out of your mouth at 0:45:

Because if you said "Oh Dear God, that sucks," then you and I are special spirit animals and you should Venmo me your money.  I get it, this isn't being made to challenge Bob Dylan for lyrical superiority, but it feels more like two kids were raised on nothing but Right Said Fred b-sides (not even the good shit) and grew up to make this song as their dance music anthem.  And don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that this stage will likely be packed with loads of Adderall-addled kiddies yelling the delicious curse word, but it doesn't mean I have to sign up for this shit.

She was born in Germany and went to college in Italy.  He was born in Massachusetts and went to Brown University to play basketball.  They met at Brown at an art show, where Tucker was DJing the show, and after that the mashed up group here was born.  During the COVID-19 outbreak, they plowed through hundreds of DJ performances from home, streaming on Twitch, Facebook, Dischord, and Instagram

A 2016 EP (Soft Animals), then a 2018 album Treehouse, with a million remixes and singles in the middle.  The band name comes from the two members' first names, Sophie and Tucker.  I'm gonna give you two more songs, because these each have something about them that is slightly interesting.  First, "Drinkee," was somehow nominated for a 2017 Grammy for Best Dance Recording.  Which is terrifying.  53.2 million streams.  158.6 million streams, somehow, in 2026.

Hard to imagine how I would like "Batshit" better than something else in their catalog, but its true.  Also, Wikipedia claims that this was "adapted from a poem written by the Brazilian poet, Chacal," and "sung sensually."  The video may be a little sensuous, with her handling of that guitar and dancing, but the singing is more like a jibberish rap by someone who is choking on a marble.  

Final track is called "Best Friend," and it was featured in an Apple commercial for the iPhone X.  47.9 million streams - now up to 154.4 million in 2026.

Yeah, OK, that sounds sorta familiar.  It was also featured in the 2018 version of the FIFA video game.  The best ever use of a song in a FIFA game was the one they had in like 1998 or so, where the intro to the game was Blur's "Song #2" and it made me want to chew through a steel girder with excitement.

Dance party?  Yes.  I can definitely see this show being a fun ass dance party.  Lyrically interesting?  Negative.  Nothing on here appears to be serious at all, just built for a good time.  Is that so wrong?"  Not at all, now let's see what they have done in the years since 2018.  2019 EP called DANCING ON THE PEOPLE, with "Purple Hat" as the hit from that one at 113 million streams [now up to 270.6 million in 2026, their top streamer overall].

Yeah, no.  Sounds like they have not advanced in any way since their prior stuff.  Still an inane chanted chorus and goofy shit made to get people dancing.  Makes me annoyed to see how big that crowd is. This is the kind of band where their laptop is going to break when they are playing and then they won't be able to play their set - wait, did that happen the last time they were here?  Or was that another bad group with a guy and a gal who don't really make music.  What is that one called?  Oh right, Sylvan Esso.  After that 2019 EP, they released loads of singles and remixes until 2022's WET TENNIS, which doesn't yet have any huge hits, but still has three tracks with over 50 million.  Here is "Sun Came Up" with 55.2 million streams.

It is still an EDM track, but I like it better than those other dumb tracks.  That James Bond-ish guitar lick and the buildup is kind of fun.  Still super don't want to waste my team watching this, but I get the attraction for those who want to snort mushrooms and then dance all over each other.

After that though, they came up with, if I am being entirely honest, a pretty funny tune.  A few months ago, I could tell that my 15 year old was trying to steal my Spotify connection to play music by the pool, and this was the song she was trying to jam - "Throw Some Ass" from the 2024 album BREAD, with 38.1 million streams.

She doesn't quite open her mouth enough when she sings.  Maybe that is just because she is lip synching in that video, but it looks odd.  Anyway, the lyrics of that one, while still very very stupid, at least made me grin.  I would not go watch this show.

DJ Cassandra

One Liner:  Remixes of other people's music

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, this is just going to be remixed music from other people

Home: Austin!

Poster Position: Late Addition

Weekend One Only.
Saturday at 2pm.

Tito's Tent.

Thoughts:  Ugh.  I have never knowingly listened to AI music on Spotify - like one of those artists who is just entirely fake with fake images of bandmembers and entirely AI-created tunes.  But it would not surprise me at all if this is that.  Just an entirely generic techno drivel thing with banging beats and generic English and other language singing over the top.  Very lame.

It feels like it will be a very weird experience for folks to be in the Tito's Tent at 2 in the afternoon, in the pure heat of the day, getting their faces bashed in by this aggressively European techno. 

WAIT.  Maybe I am listening to the wrong thing.  The "DJ Cassandra" on Spotify says the Composed is Luigi Iaccio and the Producer is Iaccio Luigi.  Maybe I really am listening to AI.  But when I just searched the web, I see that there is a young blonde lady, written in up in Tribeza of all places, who uses the same name and is "one of Austin's most sought-after DJs.  That is bound to be the correct person, right?  She doesn't seem to have any Spotify music though.

Cassie Shankman graduated from UT with a music composition major, began her career working in film on several Terrence Malick projects, and more recently got to open for Willie Nelson at the Austin City Limits 50th anniversary taping.  Which, quite frankly, sounds like a dream life.  Her Tribeza interview also has her saying that playing ACL Fest "was amazing" so I guess she already played here?  I don't have a review written about her, so not sure where I missed that.

I tried searching for her on YouTube, but I think the DJ things I found were all someone else, except for a short commercial for the Firehouse Hostel, which is just her remixing a little bit of Kendrick.

So, no clue what her set will be like, but I assume it will just be a mashup of other people's tunes to dance to in the heat of the afternoon.  I think I am good!

Parcels

One Liner:  70's indebted funky dance pop, but sounds like the live show may just be EDM

Wikipedia Genre:  Electropop, indietronica, nu-disco, funk, psychedelic pop, soul, alternative dance, indie pop

Home: Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Poster Position: TOP Quarter - Line 3
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 7:30

Miller Lite Stage

Thoughts:  I have to say I am confused how this is up here on line 3.  It is perfectly acceptable funkpopdiscosynth, but I would expect to have heard of the things that are up here on the third line.  Sort of has a Jungle vibe, but a little further towards synth-y disco.

Four of the members went to the same school growing up, and started sliding in and out of musical projects together as young as thirteen years old.  Wikipedia says that they experimented with everything from metal to bluegrass to folk before landing on white-guy-disco-funk as their final spot.  Two of them were the acoustic folk duo named Louie and Patrick.  Several of them were the roots music group The Sugar Spinners.  Some of them formed the rock group Lifeline.  They also formed something called Potato Potato.  Some of these bands got radio play and festival lineup spots.  But then in their final year of high school, Parcels formed, named after a sign maybe stolen from a train station, and the group then moved to Berlin.

Which seems like a weird move on it's own, and then this is the explanation as to why: "The band notes watching a video in high school of band The Whitest Boy Alive performing in a shop window in Mitte, Germany as influential to the move, saying that the "huge crowd on the street [...] was super cool".  Sure.  One show, by one completely non-memorable band, and you should just pick up stakes and move across the world to a place where you don't speak the language.  Fine.

But it worked out.  A French label liked their initial electronic EP, signed them, and then brought them to Paris for a show at a bar.  Daft Punk happened to be in the audience, and they invited these dudes to the studio to collaborate.  The band showed Daft Punk an early demo of "Overnight," and the robot fellas agreed to get to work with it.  Wikipedia says it took more than a year, with many studio trips and months in the studio.  Are you kidding me?  It is an entirely generic disco pop nugget that has a little of "Get Lucky" guitar swing in it.  215.1 million streams.

That took a full year and many studio visits?  I mean, its a nice little funky strut and all, but I feel like this could have been done in 30 minutes.  They didn't even make a video for it.  I feel like there has to be something more to this band, like one of the members is the son of the owner of Universal Music or something.

A couple singles and old EPs, followed by 2018's Parcels, 2021's Day/Night, and 2025's LOVED.  Strangely, none of their biggest tunes are on any of those albums.  Not sure what would make a band leave their biggest singles off of the next album, that doesn't seem to click for me.  So, their biggest streamer is a 2018 single called "Tieduprightnow," with 321.2 million streams, that was not then put onto the 2018 debut album for some reason (and same with "Overnight").  Odd.

Again, a perfectly acceptable little funk nugget to groove along to.  Also, I very much would like to go surf and hang out with those people on the beach.  That looks very chill and fun.  "Comedown" gets a little jammy, which I appreciate.  I think I need to ask my girls about this band and see if I can figure out what is going on here.  I like it well enough, I dig rock and funk and all of that, but this one is just striking me as odd.

But then, I fired up the more recent live album available on Spotify.  I think this is going to end up being another EDM-ish group once they are on stage.  Sounds very much like they are turning their disco funk into a rave.  It is much, much worse than just the regular studio music.  That is a bummer.

I asked the girls.  18 year old said she had never heard of it.  The 15 year old never responded.  Chef's kiss.

Levity

One Liner:  More dubstep EDM smush

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but dubstep, angry EDM

Home: Chicago

Poster Position: TOP Quarter - Line 4
Both Weekends.
Saturday at 7:15

Miller Lite Stage

Thoughts: FML.  I literally picked this one hoping that I would find a hidden gem that was not EDM, R&B, or pop.  And immediately, it sounds like I wandered into Skrillex's studio when he was trying out some of his less successful ideas before cutting them.  Why is this poster like this.  Don't answer that.  I already know.  I think I just wish that they would start a new festival that was all crappy stuff for children with TikTok brain, and then leave ACL to the people who want to hear real music.  Probably not profitable, but I wonder.

The second song is literally giving me a twitch beneath my eye.  Gotta hurry up and write this up to move on to the next crap.  Somehow, this is three DJs making these tunes together.  Which is definitely confusing.  Which of them is actually making the horrible sounds, and what are the other two doing during that time?  I found a post on Reddit from 2 years ago, with a guy asking what is the deal with this group blowing up when their music is extremely derivative and basic experimental bass.  The responses are pretty typical - someone calling them an industry plant because they had lots of camera angles at a popup show, someone saying one of the guys has a brother in Louis the Child, someone saying they have all gotten successful as solo guys who joined forces so they already knew the industry, someone says their sets are fuckin' fun and they are smart on social media, etc.

Not a ton of songs on Spotify, but they also claim to have removed a lot of the older stuff that they claim they don't connect with anymore.  The top single still out there is called "Flip It."  20.9 million streams.

Feels like something I have heard in a commercial.  Going to finish this one up now, their newest single is "Neon Soul" with 1 million streams.

I'm sure everyone who goes is going to have a blast bounding around and watching the pretty lasers as the drugs kick in and they lose their minds.  I have no clue what I will be watching on the other side of the park, so hell, maybe I'll be there with you.

Steve Aoki

One Liner:  Techno remix king

Wikipedia Genre:  EDM, electro house, big room house, Dutch house (huh?), trap, hardcore punk

Home: Newport Beach, CA

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 5
Both Weekends. 
Friday at 6:30

Tito's Tent (that sounds like fun)

Thoughts:  Another artist where I absolutely expected that he had already been here before.  But if he has, I didn't write it up!

The music listening experience is pretty damned weird, because you get techno-fied versions of all sort of things.  Like, EDM Hava Nagila, followed by a remixed version of the Pirates of the Caribbean song with a lady singing, right after REM's "Losing My Religion," right after a techno reggaeton song, right after a electro-trash version of the Goo Goo Dolls, after a remix of that Kid Kudi/MGMT track?  It's like I am not listening to one artist at all but just a mixtape of things that happen to involve beats.  I threw on his most recent album - Neon Future III - from 2018, and it is just terrible pop music.  Really bad stuff with famous collaborators like Blink 182, BTS, Lil Yachty, Lady Antebellum, and a fake Kesha called Bella Thorne.

So, I guess the hope is that he just remixes cool songs the whole time and avoids his own songs.  His Spotify is completely overwhelming - I can't think of another artist I have run through where their catalog appeared to be a billion songs.  It's like he just throws up another song every day, and so you get things like "LIES (Extended Mix)" from 2020 with 1,838 streams, in the midst of other songs with millions of streams.  Just see what clicks with the kiddies!

Aoki was born in Florida, but grew up in California.  This next set of facts just made me do a double-take.  His father was a former wrestler who founded the restaurant chain Benihana.  WHAT?  This dude was playing with Benihana money when he started making sick beats!?!  He played varsity badminton in high school, which is another funny anecdote.  Graduated from UC Santa Barbara, where he had been experimenting with music and throwing underground shows.  He formed his own label and started releasing music in 1996 as he cruised along, he has remixed famous songs by everyone.  In 2012, Pollstar designated Aoki as the highest-grossing electronic dance music artist in North America from tours.  He honestly seems like a likeable guy.

In a Statesman article, after this lineup was released, he even noted the overload of EDM.   "I would even say 40% to 50% of the artists are DJs,” Aoki said. “Rock bands have a harder time because DJs are com­ing up so strong now, so the tides have shif­ted a bit. It would be tough to be in a band at this point.”

Hard to even know how to present this to you, but I'll just go with the top thing, which is that Kid Kudi/MGMT/Temper Trap Extended Steve Aoki Remix thing.  743.7 million streams.

Did that "crush a bit" thing come from Schoolboy Q first, or did this dork do that first?  I was going to say I refuse to look it up, but now I kind of care.  Dangit.  Q sampled Kudi.  I wanted it to be the other way around...  Whatever, I can see that song being very fun to jump around to and be crazy in the mosh pit.  I get it.  His second-biggest streamer has BTS in there, which is smart.  397.2 million streams.

I like how they show Aoki look all badass as he turns that one knob and nothing changes in the song.  Also, those lyrics are freaking amazing - "I DO IT. I DO IT. You're a tasteless RATATOUILLE."  Hell yeah.  BUUUUURN!  Also, "Foot foot watch it your mouth mouth you watch it."  DAAAAMN!  That video makes me laugh.  Dancing super tough as they are asking me if I have seen their hella thick bag.

I can see that this show would likely be a lot of fun.  He is just going to play remixes of hit songs and make a big fat party over there at his stage.  What would be amazing is if this was in the Tito's Tent.  Likely will not go, but who knows.  This is better than some of the other EDM on this poster.

¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U

One Liner:  As far as I can tell, just a mixtape of other people's tunes

Wikipedia Genre:  EDM

Home: Japan

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 7

Both Weekends.
Saturday at 6:30pm

Tito's Tent (I can see that being a sick show)

Thoughts:  SO EDGY TO WRITE HIS NAME LIKE THAT!!!  He was born in Joto-ku, Osaka, Japan, and began DJing when he was almost 30.  WHy, you might ask, make that late-in-life move?  "Originally employed in construction, Yukimatsu was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2016, leading him to leave his job. After undergoing treatment and two surgeries, he shifted his focus entirely to DJing."  Sure!  Why not!  If you're gonna die, just go party down!  He was underground for a bit, and then got recognition on the Japanese club circuit.  He got discovered by DJ Nobu, who got him a spot at a party in Tokyo, and he was able to break out.

Here is the problem, as far as I see it.  He has no original music.  Or at least none on Spotify.  The only things available there when you search are playlists where people have compiled the songs that he uses in his sets - things you may have heard of like The Prodigy, 100 gecs, Skrillex, The Chemical Brothers, and things I have never heard of like Underworld, 3Phaz, or Overmono.  But they are just other people's songs.

Here is the video that apparently made him famous, and what many of those playlists are based upon.  Boiler Room: Tokyo.

But, like, that first song sounds just like the real 100 gecs song.  He is screwing around with those knobs and whatnot, and nothing is changing?  I also really dislike the young lady who is filming the whole first song.  Just jam it!  You'll be on YouTube!

Yeah, I guess if you want to go hear stressful songs played all in a row by a dude who used to mix concrete, kicked cancer's ass, and now wants to melt your face?  Go get 'em.

Snow Strippers

One Liner:  More regular ass EDM

Wikipedia Genre:  Electronic, EDM, electropop

Home: Detroit

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 5.
Both Weekends. 
Saturday at 5:15

Miller Lite Stage

Thoughts:  Sadness.  Another generic EDM thing.  Gotta hurry up and write something about this so that I can move on to something less depressing.

Formed in Detroit in 2021 with singer Tatiana Schwaninger and record producer Graham Perez.  Wikipedia says they were part of the "indie sleaze" movement in 2021, but I don't know why this music would be considered indie or sleaze.  Its just generic electronic crapola.  And yet its on the 5th line of the poster!!  They met on Tinder in 2018 and then moved together to Detroit.  Some of it sort of sounds like messed up video game music from the 8 bit days.

Top track is "Under Your Spell" with by far their most streams at 297.9 million.  Nothing else cracks 70 million.

They put as much effort into that video as they did into the song.  I don't get it at all.  Here is "Just Your Doll," with 67.8 million streams.

Another garbage video to go with a garbage song.  I feel like I am watching human trafficking happen in that video.  Hard no to seeing this dumb stuff in person.

BUNT.

One Liner:  EVEN MORE regular ass EDM

Wikipedia Genre:  Electronic folk, folk house, deep house, techno, garage house

Home: Stuttgart, Germany

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 6.
Both Weekends. 
Friday at 5:30

SnapChat Stage

Thoughts:  SON OF A GUN!  Is everything on this poster EDM?!?!?!  I can't take much more of this.  Never thought I would wish for Mumford to be on this poster again, but here we are.

Levi Wijk is a German "folk DJ."  The fuck is a "folk DJ"?  Trust me, he is not doing his sick beats using a banjo or something.  In German, bunt means "colorful."  So that is nice.  This used to be a duo, but Nico Crispin bailed in May 2021.  He left to run a tennis brand.  Sure.  Of course.  Never really understand DJ duos.  It only takes one person to program the computer and then act like the knobs do something.

I will admit, he has a track with Temper Trap remaking their big hit, and when it slows down the vocals a lot, that was kind of cool.  He also does a remix of Taylor Swift's "Opalite" that some how made that bad song even worse.  "Clouds" crushes the rest of his songs on stream count - nothing else touches 70 million, but this one has 427.4 million.

I like Levi's smile very much.  That is a genuine expression of happiness and I like it.  The song does nothing for me.  Let's get this over with.  "TRIPPIN" has 69.4 million streams.

I mean, yeah, that show looks awesome in a packed club full of knuckleheads there to dance and go crazy.  But the idea of just sitting here and listening to this music as I work or cook or read a book could not be further from something I would do.  Blurg.  Wish me luck with my next random selection of a band name.

Laszewo

One Liner:  Regular ass EDM with lots of covers/remixes

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but EDM

Home: Santa Barbara, CA

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 8.
Weekend Two Only. 
Saturday at 3:15

Miller Lite Stage

Thoughts:  Bummer.  Their top track is just a techno remix of Lola Young's "Messy."  Who cares?

Wikipedia has four entries for this word, and they are all locations in Poland.  Łaszewo, Brodnica County in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (north-central Poland); Łaszewo, Świecie County in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (north-central Poland); Łaszewo, Masovian Voivodeship (east-central Poland); Łaszewo, West Pomeranian Voivodeship (north-west Poland).  So there you have it.  Poland.  You pronounce it La-zay-woah.

In 2018, Justin De La Fuente overheard Keeva Bouley singing through her open apartment window with her sorority sisters, he immediately knocked on her door and the rest was history. Well, that's not creepy at all.   "Hey ladies, just wanted to meet that girl singing, I make sweet beats on my laptop."  Other funny thing, one of the two DJ guys said that "there's not really any other electro-pop music group doing what we do."  Reaaaaaally?  Listen to one song and it feels pretty much like any other generic EDM with a lady singer adding vocals.

Many, many singles, and then one album, 2024's In Color.  The album tracks have not been very popular - no track has more than 2 million streams.  The top one is "Headed Back Home (Life's In Color)" with 1.9 million.

Sorry, but that just sounds like generic EDM to me.  I hear nothing new or interesting or groundbreaking.  If you told me that was John Summit, or Diplo, or whatever other EDM guy you want to name, I'd be like, sure...

Top song other than Messy, which has 92.5 million streams BTW, is "HIGHJACK (right back)" which could also be a cover for all I know.  46.9 million streams.

Sure.  I could see people grooving to this in the Fest.  Completely uninteresting to me, but I know my girls will probably love it.

it's murph

One Liner:  Just in case you wanted more generic EDM, you are in luck!

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but this is EDM

Home: Nashville

Poster Position: TOP Quarter - Line 6
Both Weekends.
Saturday at 5:30

SnapChat Stage

Thoughts:  I thought for sure that this had already been here, but I guess I must be thinking of Jesse Murph.  But, to no one's surprise at all, this is more FLIPPING EDM.  And also guess what?  It sounds a lot like the other EDM!

His first solo single, "Food for the Soul" was released in 2023 and is still his most popular tune with 72 million streams.

Generic woman singing bits?  Check.  A build up to a bass-thump section?  Check.  Some woozy synth smears?  Check.  Feels like I have heard it many times before because it sounds like all of the other EDM pop?  You betcha!  If he is one of those dudes on the boat, then he is for sure a bro.  After high school, he went to the University of Southern California and DJ'ed at parties, so I bet my portrayal is correct.  Also, he created that song, his top hit, as his entry for a final exam while in school.  That is kind of cool.  He apparently graduated in Spring 2023, and has become a mainstay of the festival circuit when they need to fill another spot with some sick beats but not pay Flume prices.

Mostly all singles, with one 2025 album called Weightless.  He has one song with Khalid, but it still just sounds like the rest of this, it just happens to have a higher quality voice doing the singing.  His real name is Garrett Murphy, and he grew up doing music - piano lessons, school choir, etc. before seeing Porter Robinson in concert and deciding that EDM was cool.  Second-most streamed that is really his own song is the also very generic "High and I Like It" with 31.4 million streams.

Are all of his music videos just crappy home video footage of him and his bros partying?  Sounds pretty fun.  I want to not work and just go party with my bros and film it.  But, another song that sounds like a good party anthem to jump around to at the Fest (but absolutely will disappear from my mind after about eight minutes right now).

The Chainsmokers (2026)

One Liner:  EDM, just like you've heard so many times before.

Wikipedia Genre:  EDM, pop, electropop, future bass

Home: NYC

Poster Position: TOP Quarter - Line 2
Both Weekends.
Friday at 7:30

Snapchat Stage (not even one of the big stages?)

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.

Back then, I wrote the following:

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.

Left Lucid

One Liner:  More EDM stuff!  Woohoo!

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but this is EDM, house

Home: Austin

Poster Position: Bottom Quarter - Line 24
Weekend One Only.
Saturday at 12:45

Tito's Tent

Thoughts:  Lotsa Austin artists down here in the bottom dregs of the poster.  This is the alias of local DJ and producer Lucas Ogden.  HIs tiny bio says the following: "While he has been a musician since his early childhood, he began producing music in his college dorm room. He soon after ventured to Los Angeles to attend Icon Collective to continue to hone his craft. Drawing inspiration from the likes of ODESZA and Flume to name a few, he aims to create continuity and a recognizable sound from seemingly different sounding tracks."  I love that first bit - was he dropping sick beats as a toddler?  Or does this mean he got piano lessons like everyone else when he was young?

I went down a rabbit hole about the Icon Collective as well: "Icon Collective was a premier Los Angeles-based music production and artist development school, notable for shaping the careers of major electronic dance music (EDM) artists. Founded in 2005, the school operated a physical campus in Burbank/LA and offered online programs, focusing on "the artist mindset" rather than just technical audio engineering."  It was also apparently called the MIT of Bass Music.  Suuuuuure.  It closed suddenly in 2025 due to financial difficulties.  Because anyone could make these songs using Claude?

About ten total songs on Spotify - no albums, no EPs, just singles - and several of the early ones have very few streams.  But his 2025 single called "keeping u close" boasts an impressive 439k streams.

When he said he aims to create a recognizable sound, did he just mean that it would sound like every other house musician ever?  Because mission accomplished.  I'm being rude - I am sure that this set, in the little Tito's tent, would be a perfectly enjoyable and sweaty start to the day.

His other top streamer is "247" with 183k streams.

Man, those old school calculators with the printout feature were a good time when I was little.  Trying to get it to write amazingly cool stuff like 80085, and then leaving it behind for the owner to find it?  Height of hilarity.  But yeah, another EDM song that sounds like all the other EDM songs to me.  I would not go out of my way for this one.

Also, the noon show in the Tito's tent for some EDM is craaazy.  I wonder if they will have an uptick in exhaustion/overdose this year with all of the extra EDM plus this heat?

Skrillex (2026)

One Liner: Pretty damn terrible, aggro EDM
Wikipedia Genre: Dubstep, brostep, EDM, electro house, pop, post-hardcore, emo
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Headliner (ugh)
Day: Friday at 8:15
Weekend One Only.

T-Mobile Stage

Thoughts:  Last here in 2014.  I missed that show, but before I get into a more fulsome discussion and history, I was very entertained to read back over my recounting of seeing him play at Stubb's that year instead.  Enjoy.

"If you have been reading my other posts, you'll know that I have been excited about seeing Skrillex. I still couldn't tell you what the hell the difference is between dubstep and techno or EDM or whatever else name this stuff has been given, but I freaking love Bangarang. One more time!

However, I wanted to go see Eminem play the Saturday night of ACL 2014, so I knew I was going to have to miss out on Skrillex's show. Until my friend Joseph scored us a pair of tickets to go see him at Stubb's outdoor for the second weekend of ACL. Both of us were pretty pumped, and I spent a large part of that Friday playing the new album (Recess) to get myself all ready to go.

And it was lame. So lame. I think the underlying reason is that I just don't do the drugs like the kids these days. The only way that the people around me could have been as excited as they were by this concert is if they were doing the ecstasies or Molly or freebasing bathsalts or whatever. This concert consisted of Skrillex hitting buttons on his control panel to play songs, and then doing his best to pump up the crowd by pumping his fists or shooting finger guns or yelling super original things like "Whats up AUSTIN!?!" or "get your hands UP AUSTIN!!" Multiple times during the show he would step up onto his control console thing and try to hype us up or get us to clap together.

Also, his crowd was exceedingly aggro.  Just a bunch of 'roided up 20-year old dudes who wanted to ram into other people.  I hated that for sure.

In case you want to know, dubstep is defined as a genre of EDM that originated in South London and generally features syncopated drum and percussion with prominent sub bass frequencies. Reading about it hurts my head. The stylistic origins noted on Wikipedia are reggae, dub, grime, 2-step garage, drum and bass, and breakstep. Uh, reggae? I'm not a huge reggae guy or anything, but "No Woman No Cry" did not spawn Skrillex. And no one has ever heard of those other styles of music. Someone in their parent's basement in Cleveland just made that stuff up to confuse old people like me.

I was hopeful that Joseph was going to give me a glowing review of the show, because he was hammered with pre-show plans for a cab ride, and that would support my theory that I needed to be in a different mind-set to have enjoyed the show. No such luck. A random sampling of some of his texts from after the show:

"Not gonna lie... Awful"
"Unless you are high and 18"
"I'm going to eat some tacos and go home"
"It's much worse than you and I mixing a show" [which really can't be true. I wouldn't even have the first clue how to torture synthesizers and drum machines into making those noises]
"But serious. Wtf was that show?"
As well as some fun auto-correct entries like "Syrah" and "I marry."

Thinking back on the show, I think it had all of the pieces I was expecting. Ridiculously loud and deep bass (thank God I brought ear plugs. I am sooo old). Some of the popular songs I had heard before, plus a few other ones incorporating current rap hits that were kind of fun. A huge sweaty crowd, almost exclusively under 30, filming every second on their phone so they can watch it over and over again (I guess? Weirdos.). So I'm not really sure what my problem was, but I just didn't feel the hype or excitement once I was standing there among the crowd. Glad I gave it a shot. No need to try to see him again."

So, there you have it.  Maybe the worst show I can remember seeing at Stubb's.  And now he is a top headliner for ACL!  Despite having no popular releases for years unless he had Justin Beiber on the track.  Such a disappointment to see him on the poster at all, much less as #5 on the whole thing.

I guess the whole lineup has a lot more EDM than expected.  Cut out the rap and country and just go EDM and pop?

Anyway, this is Sonny John Moore, and if you have never seen him he looks like Corey Feldman.  He was originally the lead singer for a hardcore band called From First to Last, and then went out on his own to continue trying to make that same sort of music.  He was scheduled to record a debut album on his own, but that session was apparently cancelled, and in 2010 he fired out a dubstep album called My Name is Skrillex as a free download on MySpace.  His real debut was later that year, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, and it won him three freaking Grammy Awards - Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best Dance Recording, and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.  The title track was that winner, and it now has 238 million streams.

Does anyone else get stressed out by that song?  That being said, that song (with no actual video) has over 347 MILLION freaking views on YouTube. What the what? Maybe if you take ecstasy. I don’t know, it’s interesting? Not sure how to dance to it other than doing the Bernie. On the other hand, Bangarang is a ridiculous animal slice of badassery that I still don’t get enough of. If you have not heard it before, you need to click on the YouTube link way up above, turn it up very loud, stand up in an area where you won’t break anything valuable, and just do what you need to do for 3 minutes.

The build-up and release (a/k/a The Drop, as described in 9/10s of all Rolling Stone articles about EDM. I swear they'd say Creedence used bass drops if they published an article tomorrow) is freaking fantastic. This type of music is apparently derived from Dubstep, which is a thing in the UK. According to RS, people trying to insult Skrillex call is Brostep because it attracts bro-ey douches. I get that too - very true in my experience. 

But it was in 2015 that Skrillex really figured out his meal ticket.  He made an album with Diplo called Jack U that invited a bunch of famous collaborators to the mic - 2 Chainz, Missy Elliot, and crucially, Justin Beiber.

Skrillex and Diplo present Jack U. Kingpin EDM stuff, with some of these tunes bringing the pain while others are kind of bland. Best ones are the "Take U There" remix with Missy Elliott, "Beats Knockin'," (this is what I wanted his concert to sound like, instead of lame-o-rama), and "Febreze." The weakest one has Justin Beiber, which is not alone a reason for disliking it, but its just a boring crooner song. And of course, that is the track with over a BILLION stupid streams.  

But overall, it is not a good album.  I re-tried Recess, and it makes work way more stressful than it needs to be.  Just an unrelenting stream of aggressive beats and sounds.  I do have to make one more comment - I worked with the church youth group for like eight years, and some of the Senior knucklehead boys would repeatedly play a Skrillex song called "Devil's Den" because they thought it was funny how awful it sounds.  I hated it.

I very much doubt I will go watch this show.  I think he is pretty bad.

Rufus Du Sol (2026)

One Liner: Good dance house tunes from Sydney

Wikipedia Genre: alternative dance, deep house, electronica, house
Home: Sydney, Australia

Poster Position: Headliner
Both Weekends.

Saturday at 8:30

American Express Stage

Thoughts: Welp, back again.  They were here in 2017 and 2021.  In '17 they were down on the fifth line of the poster back, then became a top 5 headliner in '21, and now have graduated to the second spot on the poster.  All for something that I couldn't differentiate from any of the other techno bands that have played the Fest in the past.  Wheeee!

They were originally known as RUFUS, but in North America they had to go by Rufus du Sol because of some other band who already had Rufus.  Which seems weird, to have one name in one country and another name for the rest of the world.  I've said this before, but if I ask five random people on the street if a band name exists and none of them say yes, then you can't have copyright on it.  The most popular band should always win.

This is three guys making house music to dance to, not the more recently-big EDM sounding stuff, more like the fun house stuff that was big before the Skrillexes and DeadMau5es of the world took over.  They've won a few Australian music awards, including a "Best Dance Release" ARIA in 2015, for "You Were Right."  Their second-most streamed at 393.4 million.

Pretty good tune.  Here is the thing that confuses me - their Spotify bio says that they were formed in 2010 "when a rain-soaked vacation to Byron Bay turned into an impromptu jam session."  How do electronic artists enter into an impromptu jam session?  Was everyone sitting around with their macbooks on their lap, reading their twitter feeds, when suddenly one of them turned on a sick beat, the other starting throwing in some tight hand claps, and the third one sang a few insane bars about love and peace and the relativity of time?  I can see some guitar nerds having a jam sesh, but I'm not sure I can imagine it with machine music.  "oh, I just happened to have my Casio 9500 right here on the beach!  Y'all wanna collab?"

Their Spotify streaming totals are actually surprisingly low for a headliner.  No song over 500 million?  Only a few with more than 100 million?  I guess popularity isn't what they aim for with the EDM stuff, they just need a warm body for the kids to do drugs during.  I'd expect a bigger set of popular songs for a big print band.  Maybe their manager has naked photos of the Charleses from C3.  Their Wikipedia is a pretty boring recitation of albums and concerts from the past, not a lot about their background or history.

Three albums from these guys, 2014's Atlas, 2016's Bloom, 2018's Solace, 2021's Surrender, 2024's Inhale/Exhale, and a pile of singles and remixes.  That earlier one ("You Were Right") is on the same album as their top streamer - "Innerbloom" with 450.5 million streams and an unnecessary ten minute long runtime.

I don't know why the word that comes to mind for this song is "smart."  Something about the tune and clean tone of the music makes me think this is smart music.  Weird thing to think, but there you go.  And it makes no sense with most of this music, because these lyrics are dogshit.  "Music is better!  When we're together!  Music is better!  When we're together!"  or "There's no place I'd rather be!  Feel myself with you!  There's no place I'd rather be!  Feel myself with you!"  WOW.  Break out the Pulitzer.

In listening through the 2016 album, I keep getting snatches of Chris Martin/Coldplay in the singing, even if the music is nothing like traditional Coldplay music.  I like some of these tunes. Normally, I wouldn't say that I would go after dance music or electronica, but I've enjoyed listening to these albums for the past day. I guess I like "house" more than "EDM."

The 2018 and 2021 albums keep using this one BLATT of synth sound that reminds me of something from the Stranger Things opening music.  "On My Knees," from Surrender, is the most popular song and has the most streams, from those, with 245.5 million.  

Pretty dang catchy.  They actually won a Grammy for "Alive," off of that same album.  Which, hilariously, has 49 million streams.  The Best Dance/Electronic Recording of 2022 and no one even wants to hear it more than other songs on that same album.  Great job Grammy voters.

I have let this roll for the last day and a half, and it is pretty good when you need to crank out some work and just want something mindless to bounce along in the background.  Again, that doesn't mean I'd actually go spend the time to boogie around to this at the end of a night, but I could imagine that being a fun time.

John Summit

One Liner: EDM
Wikipedia Genre: EDM, house, techno, tech house
Home: Naperville, Illinois

Poster Position: Headliner!
Day: Sunday
Both Weekends.

T-Mobile Stage at 8:15 (and he only plays until 9:25?!?).

Thoughts:  I am grateful for his existence, because my girls went from being excited about Doja Cat to an acceptance that another DJ set was going to be good enough for them to have fun on Sunday night.  Previously, they had said that they would choose Doja, just because there were already too many DJ sets this year and they didn't need to see this one.  Which was somewhat validating for me, in that I keep saying that I can't tell the difference between this junk or why people would be excited for one over the other, and at least with a few teenage girls, they seem to think the same way.  I know you will be shocked to find out that this guy plays generic dance beats with a lady singing over the top.

John Walter Schuster was called the hottest name in dance music by Rolling Stone in 2024.  I don't know why, unless his agent gave Rolling Stone some money.  He attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.  he started DJing and playing local venues, and then started at Ernst & Young after college, before leaving to chase his dream of making more beeps and boops.  Such a great BRO background - frat guy, investment banker, EDM DJ.  The dream for every bro wearing long basketball shorts, a backwards ballcap, and a single gold chain.

His original singles appear to have been relatively ignored, with only 155k streams for his 2017 debut single, and under 40k streams for each song on his first EP in 2018.  His first single with any appreciable number of streams was a 2020 single called "Deep End."  With 56.1 million streams.  But his 2023 single "Where You Are" was the bigger breakthrough, and still his top streamer with 244.5 million spins.

There are those vacuous lyrics.  "do you dream alone under the moon?" "mixed emotions hearts still open though we're far apart."  Deep, bro.  I bet he wrote those while running spreadsheets at E&Y.  Completely generic.  He finally released an album in 2024 - Comfort in Chaos - which included that song up above and another larger track with that same singer (HAYLA).  I'll go with a different one for his other song for you to hear, just because it has a different singer.  This is "Go Back," featuring Julia Church, with 95.1 million streams.

If you love hearing someone sing "go back" over and over, then this is the generic jam for you!  Although, I have to show you this - YouTube search brought up imagery from his show at the Sphere in Vegas.  If anyone could make the Sphere seem jenky, it is apparently this dude.

The people in the crowd, filming him as he just stands at his little standup desk aren't even dancing.  Why are they even there?  What a weird thing to see.  At about 2:25, you can see a person in dancing down to the right near the lights, but otherwise it is like the whole crowd is just stunned and staring.

Definitely not my thing.  If it is yours, may you find so much joy in blankly staring at him as he twirls knobs and slides switches and the ladies sing pablum into your ears.

Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso

One Liner: Argentinian Spanish TrapPop
Wikipedia Genre: Latin trap, EDM, hip house, Latin pop
Home: Buenos Aires

Poster Position: Third Quarter - Line 16
Day: Sunday. 
Both Weekends.

5:30 pm on the Tito's Stage.

Thoughts: This is going to sound sort of weird, but after three songs, I sort of feel like this is Spanish K-Pop.  And I know little to nothing about K-Pop, but these guys sound like they are making cutesy little pop nuggets and rap tracks over generic trap and pop tunes, just like I felt when I listened to Riize from Saturday.  I definitely hate this.

Catriel Guerreiro and Ulises Guerriero make up the group, and I'm still weirded out by the fact that they are not siblings and spell their last names just one letter differently.  They met in elementary school when a teacher mistook them for brothers and started collaborating in 2010.  Why did they make up the Paco Amoroso name?  What is going on here?  The first one - makes sense, I guess, to replace the "t" with a 7, and the name Catriel has Indigenous Mapuche origins in Argentina and means "the one who cuts" or "small cutter," a reference to someone sharp and capable. Something I found on the Internet tried to explain the other name and it makes less sense: "The stage name "Paco" is a common Spanish diminutive for Francisco."  Sure, okay.  But the dude's name is Ulises?  Why are we talking about Francisco?  "The surname "Amoroso" means "amorous" or "loving" in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. While it's a play on his real last name, Guerriero, his chosen stage surname is a reference to a much-loved or affectionate person."  How is that a play on his real last name?  WTF are you talking about?

They apparently did a Tiny Desk in 2024 that went viral and helped them gain global recognition.  They will be opening for Kendrick Lamar - which really seems like a bummer for the audience who wants to see Kendrick rap and then have to sit through this mess instead?

Okay, actually, that is pretty enjoyable.  Even if I have no idea what they are singing about, the Tiny Desk, muted vibe is much better than the normal stuff.  Especially when the band goes wild with those horns and whatnot.

Years of singles, followed finally by 2024's Baño Maria.  I thought a bano was a bathroom, which made me think that they were calling poor Maria a bathroom with that album title.  But Google Translate is telling me it means "double boiler"?  Really?  Weird.  Their 2025 album named PAPOTA has four regular songs and then five recorded from that Tiny Desk show.  Trying to keep the NPR crowd in their streams!

Top track is "DUMBAI" from that 2024 album.  44.1 million streams.

Meh.  Not my thing at all.

Polo & Pan

One Liner: Very French electronic music
Wikipedia Genre: house, electronic, tropical house, deep house, world, synth-pop
Home: Paris

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 3 (!?!)
Day: Sunday
Both Weekends.

Miller Lite Stage at 7:15.

Thoughts:  You always wonder about the sliding doors of music.  Would Jay-Z have been a megastar if Biggie and Pac had lived?  Would Dave Grohl leave Nirvana to create the Foo Fighters without Kurt Cobain's death?  Would one of the bands sidelined by COVID at their inception have become the biggest band in the world?  What if a huge pile of folks had lived - Buddy Holly, SRV, Janis Joplin, Duane Allman, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, etc. etc.  It was the first of these that popped into my head this morning in the shower while listening to these guys, but that last name also brings up the same point that had me thinking.  Because if Jerry Garcia had lived, and the Dead kept churning out more of their signature sound, then would the legions of copycat artists floating in their wake have ever existed?  Interesting to think about.  

Anyway, this group sounds to me like what happens when Daft Punk refused to keep making music.  Daft Punk were a French electronica duo that quit in 2013 with their very-well-regarded Random Access Memories.  This group is a French electronica duo that released their first album (EP?) in 2014.  And, like Daft Punk, this is not the EDM of the majority of the artists on this poster, building towards a drop and thrumming with bass.  Instead, this is sort of sexy, sort of groovy, the kind of thing that a smart-dressed Parisian would be playing from their Vespa as they insouciantly weave through traffic with a cigarette smoldering in their mouth. That is not always true, some of these build and bounce like regular EDM, but I find the less generic ones infinitely more interesting.  "Canopee" is a good example of that, or "Peter Pan."  I always wonder about electronic duos though - what is the second dude doing while the first one is twisting the fake knobs and moving the little fake switches up and down.  Do they both act like they are doing something after they click play?  Or does one act like he is the one in charge while the other just does the "pump it up" gesture?

I make fun, but I have actually enjoyed this more than the other EDM on this poster.  They do a cover of Pilot's track "Magic" that is great, even if the commercials for Ozempic have now ruined that song for me.  Four albums - 2014's Dorothy, 2017's Caravelle, 2021's Cyclorama, and 2025's 22:22.  The top tracks are both from the 2017 album, with the #1 song being "Canopee" with 146.9 million streams.

Le Honhonhon!  Je temps le pommes de terre!  Je danse nue pour toi et ton petit champignon grandit et explose avec ta fleur brillante mais ensuite un arbre t'a mangé et j'étais déconcerté!  In other exciting news, canopee means canopy.  Was hoping for so much more...

I won't do the #2 song, since it comes from that same disc.  Let's go to #3, which uses native American chanting for some reason, and is from the 2021 album.  "Ani Kuni" has 62.5 million streams (well, that is for the edit, the full version has another 52.6 million itself).  I believe this is the edit.

A Native American hymn originating from the Arapahoe tribes living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming, according to Wikipedia.  Righteous.  I bet those native homies didn't know how to add a sick ass beat that sort of sounds like that one Madonna song!  This was their top hit on the charts, rising to #10 in France and charting on something in Belgium called Ultrapop Wallonia chart.

Probably a no for this show, but if they had a 2pm show I could go just lounge to while waiting for friends to show up, I would wear my beret and sip red wine while lounging in the splendor.

Disco Lines

One Liner: EDM

Wikipedia Genre: Future bass, deep house, trap
Home: Boulder, CO

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 8
Both Weekends.

Sunday at 5:15 on the Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  I am hopeful that the stage name here is about cocaine.  That feels like it tracks, right?  I am a big fan of his Wikipedia entry though, because it contains a total of about 50 words.  Which also seems correct - generic EDM guy that no one will remember in a year?  Sure, why write a lot about him?

Thadeus Francis Labuszewski was raised in Colorado and attended CU Boulder.  He started making EDM in high school after hearing a Skrillex album.  He appears to have a ton of songs on his Spotify, but I am 90% sure I have been listening to the same one for the past few hours.  First single was 2019's Honey.  Biggest early hit was a remix/cover of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" with something called Cassidi singing.  Biggest hit overall is the 2022 single "Baby Girl" with 204.7 million streams.

Sure.  I could groove to that.  No albums, just singles.  Also no other song with more than 100 million streams.  Closest one is a 2025 single called "No Broke Boys."  92.5 million streams.

Features something called Tinashe.  I suspect that is the lady in the forefront of that image above, who needs a new t-shirt.  Google's jenky AI agreed with my idea that this stage name is likely a play on the act of consuming lines of cocaine.

Also, and of course because I am about to cite Reddit, who knows if there is any truth here, but apparently this guy doesn't even really do anything on stage.  "Last week I saw a DJ who’s been blowing up on social media, namely TikTok and Instagram. His name is Disco Lines and he’s gotten a ton of traction on a few of his remixes and songs and was playing a party I went to.  Dude gets on stage and straight up plays 4 songs in a row that the opener had played 30 minutes before him. Just your generic EDM hits, like pepas, pursuit of happiness steve aoki, you know the drill.  I go up near him and I see that sync is on his controller. I ask him if he plays his sets with sync on and he’s like yeah and laughs."

So that I could understand, the "sync" button is apparently a feature in DJ software that automatically synchronizes the tempo and beat of two tracks, so that you can create a seamless transition between the two.  Many folks see that as cheating because you are not showing any DJ skill - the machine is doing it all.  

Not that any of this really matters - people aren't going to these EDM shows because they want to see a guy creating something.  They just want to watch a guy or gal pump their fist in the air, act like they are tweaking knobs on a sound board, and get the crowd hype.  He's probably great at it!

Sammy Virji

One Liner: EDM
Wikipedia Genre: UK garage, dubstep, bassline
Home: London

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 3 (!?!)
Day: Saturday
Weekend One Only.

Miller Lite at 7:15.

Thoughts:  I fully expected techno, and I was rewarded.  Some of this is deeply annoying, where he does the generic thing with a woman repeating the same inane line over and over into awful infinity.  But sometimes it is like he brought on a rapper and provided him with the background beat, and those can be kind of fun.

Born in London, he attended Newcastle University before he dropped out to pursue his music career.  In a very strange wrinkle in the fabric of the music industry, his father played trombone on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.  That is a dope ass record, and a really cool bragging right.  Although when I think of it, I cannot recall where trombone was used in that album.  According to the googs, the trombone was featured on the track "Final Hour" and was played by Fayyaz Virti [sic].  Learn something new every day!  He started making his own music on GarageBand and then Logic Pro, before getting excited about dubstep and bassline.  His sold out 2023 headlining tour was named Like a Virjin.  Good shit.

Loads of music on Spotify.  His first EP was from 2017, is called Chips N Gravy, and has a gross photo on the front of french fries with brown gravy on them.  Lots of singles, and then 2020's Spice Up My Life was his first real album.  None of the songs are especially huge.  Lots more singles after that - seems like the EDM dudes don't do albums much.  Top track, "If U Need It," was a 2023 single.  87.9 million streams.

As with many of these songs, sure.  If you wanted to go groove around and dance your ass off, this would absolutely turn any willing participant into a sweaty wiggle-machine.  Is it good?  I have no clue.  Feels like I have probably heard that exact beat many times before, but I'm sure a real EDM-head would correct me and explain how groundbreaking this one is.  "Hot in Here," which grinds a classic cheerleader chant into your brain with relentlessness, is pretty okay.

Surprisingly low streams, to be honest.  After that one up above, he has two with 35 million-ish and then a few in the 10-20 range, but very few that are massive streamers.  I am guessing he makes his coin on the road and not through streaming.  Here is 2024 single "Summertime Blues" with 36.4 million streams.

Yep, sure.  A comment on the video says "YOOO, the Key change on the second drooop!!! You almost never see that these days. Sick!!"  Totally.  Can't believe I didn't notice that.  Or care.  Y'all have fun snorting stuff and boogieing.  I will be just about anywhere else.