But while Lolla—in all of its glory—receives most of the spotlight, the commonly overshadowed and severely underrated festival just a little over an hour north is out to challenge all that Chicago’s biggest party has to offer. Milwaukee’s annual Summerfest has been a common venture for those within traveling distance with a desire of a low-key live music experience that has just enough festival pizazz. However, with their recent line-up release, this underdog event is offering itself up to be a strong competitor for the concertgoer’s full and undivided attention.

Pulling ahead in headliners

Lollapalooza has become more and more reliant on its big name headliners, and these artists’ current fashionable relevance to the popular music scene. This year, Lolla will be strutting “big” names on their largest stages that include Muse, Wiz Khalifa, DJ Snake, The XX, Arcade Fire, and Big Sean, to name a few. While the festival will still be sporting well-respected names such as The Killers, Blink-182, Chance the Rapper and Lorde, the aforementioned bunch are comparatively less than satisfactory in sharing an equal platform.

When it comes to Summerfest’s line-up, the attention to proper stage recognition is awarded to both the headliners and small-but-mighty artists. Getting the amphitheater treatment this year will be iconic and noteworthy names, such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sheryl Crow Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Bob Dylan. Summerfest has that added timelessness and emblematic agency to their headliner roster that is severely lacked in what Lollapalooza has rounded up this year. Not only that, but Summerfest seems to have swept the board when it comes to recognizing the best of the best in the lesser-known musician categories. A fault Lollapalooza commonly possesses is the booking of bands that are almost too small to gain the recognition they deserve in the context of a larger-than-life festival atmosphere. Lolla should be focusing on the Walk The Moon’s, The Bleachers’, The Misterwives’, and the Vinyl Theatre’s of the music world, in order to draw the appropriate crowds. Instead, Summerfest snatched these names, gaining another in the win column.

Finance friendly

Unless you’ve been proactively and efficiently saving up since last year’s Lollapalooza closed its gates, chances are you scraped up every last dime to your name in order to snatch a 4-day pass to this year’s festival. Access to the full weekend of music will undoubtedly cost you a pretty penny, let alone a pass to one day of festivities. But we do it anyway, of course. The dozens of artists you love, the other dozen you’re going to fall in love with, and the one-of-a-kind electric atmosphere are all wrapped up in the hearty price. There’s absolutely nothing like it. Special as it may be, Lollapalooza can’t compete with Summerfest’s much more affordable ticket pricing. There is no denying that the Lollapalooza experience can’t be replicated, but when it comes to equal caliber quality music that won’t set you back hundreds of dollars, Summerfest takes a clear win.

When it comes down to it, there’s not necessarily any need to choose one over the other. Offering 10 days of its outdoor concert experience, Summerfest spans from the end of June through the first week of July, while Lollapalooza festivities are a jam-packed four-day experience at the end of July. Both bring more than enough to the table and combine to exceed any music lover’s expectations of what can be adventured through the indescribable nature of festival affairs. Ultimately, come August, it will be up to you to decide—who did it best?

The post Summerfest to Reign Supreme over Lollapalooza? appeared first on Red Roll.

Alternative Pop
Oh Wonder, “Ultralife”

Harmonic delicacy like no other, this duo consistently delivers on their soft-and-sweet presence within the alternative pop vein. This single is no exception – and almost a step up from what can be heard on their self-titled debut album from two years ago. A tightened melodic structure serves as a beneficial accompaniment to this group’s blossoming sound.

Pop Punk
State Champs, “Slow Burn”

The only thing that could make State Champs’ last album release better is more of it—and that’s exactly what they did. “Slow Burn” is a continuation of Around The World and Back, performing as an additive onto its vamped up deluxe edition. The band is prolific as ever in the lyrical department, and its aggressively passionate and precise guitar flows seamlessly with the atmosphere of the rest of the previously released piece.

Indie Pop
Bleachers, “Don’t Take The Money”

Synth has a mind and a voice of its own where Jack Antonoff is
concerned. This band obtains undeniably one of the more inexplicably captivating ones, as intensity is somehow utilized as a tangible essence through the power in its well-crafted melodies. Here is music that “steals the air out of my lungs, you make me feel it,” as the song suggests.

Dance-Indie Pop
Misterwives, “Oh Love”

You can’t go wrong with a firecracker of a lead singer, who showcases powerful vocal wrath, and hard-hitting instrumental groove to balance. Misterwives are a bewitching bunch, bearing a hearty wholeness in every department of dance-indie pop. This time around, they amp up the ferocity and ultimately achieve a new level of vigor that leaves anyone lit and fiery from within.

The post New Release Round-Up: The Hidden Gems of Pop Music appeared first on Red Roll.

A few weeks ago, the band released “Dirty Laundry”, a single that introduced their newest album through a heavy and somber tone. This time around, a more upbeat and heartier sound of “Last Young Renegade” picks up the slack of its previous single counterpart, while simultaneously better capturing what the foursome wants to accomplish with this album.

Lead singer and rhythm guitar player Alex Gaskarth explains the way that “Last Young Renegade” is an over-arching theme that is present in this overall work, and the band’s desire to relay a more relatable and genuine connection through this album.

The band evokes this factor of familiarity and relatability through the song’s accompanying music video. The scene is set in the humble confines of a small and intimate performance venue and also capturing the spontaneous antics of a young couple. It is here where the band hugs that close and personal vibe.

While the atmospheric intention is of All Time Low’s small beginnings, the music itself is certainly a continuation of their last album release, Future Hearts. In 2015, the pop-punkers showcased an evolution of sound when taking the far more sugary angle on their genre in their sixth studio album’s release.

“Last Young Renegade” gives a similar feel: a sweetly melodic tune that’s a little rough around the edges. If the full album is anything like its preview singles, you can expect a satisfactory and quality perpetuation of the band’s evolving pop punk sound.

The post All Time Low Reveal Depth of Upcoming Album with New Single appeared first on Red Roll.

Love, above, and beyond

Whether it’s hopeless devotion or heartbreak, Ed hits the nail on the head. A manipulation of language like no other is the unique way Divide touches on all aspects of the deep and personal subject in order to make it communally and tangibly understood. The careful lyricism of “Hearts Don’t Break Around Here” and “Castle on the Hill” capture detailed accounts of emotional intimacy with others in order to make exclusive moments inclusive through the relatability of a song. This specificity is particularly loveable in upbeat numbers like “Galway Girl” and “Barcelona”, which serve as an instant transport to the emotion of the moment in their lyrical authenticity. A track like “Perfect” would sound cheesy and too sweet if it weren’t for Ed’s ability to use storytelling poetics in a way that makes a love too good to be true feel believable on all levels.

In a similar vein is Ed’s tendency to tap into the painful sphere of loss and relay that particular realm of heavy emptiness. In his first album, this was narrowed in on the sadness of the loss of an unborn child “Small Bump”, and in his second album it was “Afire Love” and the life of an elder withering away. This time around, Ed gifts his audience with the heart-wrenching reality of the grieving process in “Supermarket Flowers”. Effective as the delicate instrumentals may be in provoking mournfulness in the song, the technique of specificity and angelic diction is what pulls your heart into your gut when he sings of the loss of a mother.

Hard-hitting introspective realities

Not only is Ed capable of zeroing in on the many angles of love, Divide tackles the privatized territory of self-worth and moral purpose. Every lyric of the album’s opening song “Eraser”, about the grave dangers a person’s character faces when surrounded by the corruptive temptations of the fame industry, is saturated with intent and honesty. There is a similar nakedness and raw exploitation of one’s vulnerability in “Save Myself” that rings so loud and clear to its larger audience. Leaving the album on a resonating note of “before I love someone else, I’ve got to love myself” is what leaves such a lasting ache.

To say Ed Sheeran is skilled in the formulation of addictive and impactful verse is an understatement, and Divide is just the third installment to prove that. While many artists that fall into the popular music sphere can fall susceptible to sacrificing quality for radio play, Ed continues to inspire with the hard-hitting lyrics he began with.

Amongst his poetic words that imprint on anyone who lends an ear, he sings “love can change the world in a moment, but what do I know?” And to answer that: perhaps how to formulate a relatable connection with a broad audience in the most unconventional, but simplistic of ways. Or how to evoke a memory someone never experienced through the authenticity in your words. Or how to repurpose the beauty of the anciently pure poet in the emotional context of the 21^st century. Or how to command the attention of the world through lyrical prominence.

But what do I know?

The post Ed Sheeran’s New Album “Divide” Showcases Elite Lyricism appeared first on Red Roll.

Lead singer Asa Taccone’s voice has a distinct, velvet smooth flare to its sharp delivery, and is the rooting element that takes each song to the next level. In songs like “Glorious Warrier” and “Back & Forth” where the beat plays a backbone role, Taccone’s vocals are what give the songs such intricate and impressionable textures.

An undeniable standout of the album is their 2016 single release, “Dear To Me”, appearing fourth on the tracklist. This song is tightly packed with an authenticity unlike anything else on the album, and threads a certain empathetic soul throughout it’s sweet and sincere lyrics.

“Sarah” carries a similar vibe to “Dear To Me”, but approaches sentimentality on a more personal level. Its affectionate vocals are serenade-like and the light and sugary combination of beats tug at the same heartstring.

Monotony can be an obstacle that electronic artists need to overcome in order to produce a compelling and unique compilation of songs that are still classifiable as a single entity. There is a certain struggle that exists in finding an artist that identifies electronically but who can deliver rhythmic modesty in a nuanced manner. “Zero” opens the album with piano, while a song like “My Omen” carries an acoustic vibe.

Every song on Plural holds a distinctness that brings a different element to the table. Electric Guest demonstrates their innate ability to add a dynamic intricacy to simplistic rhythms, formulating songs in a way that elevates an electronic-classified group to give it irresistibility on another dimension.

The post In Review: Electric Guest New Album, Plural appeared first on Red Roll.

During this weekend’s Grammys, Twenty One Pilots received their first Grammy for their single “Stressed Out”. This song is an integral part of their most recent album, Blurryface, which serves as an embodiment of self-awareness, insecurities, and the conquering of those insecurities.

At the end of this show, Adele was awarded Album of the Year, using her acceptance speech to acknowledge Beyoncé for deserving it more. She stood on the Grammy stage and the post-show interview platform and expressed the societal value Lemonade holds, including its honesty, empowering voice, and its cultural relevance.

It is not difficult to find an artist we relate to and connect with on a personal, authentic level. In fact, that’s how we develop the relationship we do with our own individual music tastes. But for almost every artist out there, it’s about more than putting out a song for radio play because their music is representative of a part of them.

When we hear a song or an album we feel on a deeper level, we hear the genre, the artist, the instruments, and all the other aural aspects of the song. We also hear the more intensely embedded message: “you are not alone”.

It’s not all the time that we have to experience the pain or struggle that our favorite artists experience. Angelakos openly discusses his struggle with bipolar disorder, but speaks to a broader audience than just those dealing with mental illness, because the power of vocalizing hardships is dignifying. Adele properly and elegantly demonstrates solidarity with Beyoncé and the messages portrayed by the minority community because, although she can’t relate on a personal level, she and others can understand and embrace courage in adversity.

Topics that touch on the political, the mental, the emotional, and the like are overwhelmingly broad and difficult to harness within the confines of so many words. Nonetheless, music is the universal language we can turn to in order to convey the hardest things to articulate.

You say your music speaks to you. So, how are you going to respond?

The post Are You Actually Listening to Your Favorite Artists? appeared first on Red Roll.

These past few weeks have proven to be wildly busy in the world of alternative rock group, The Maine. They celebrated their 10-year anniversary as a band at their very own 8123 Fest, issued their first of many new songs to come, “Bad Behavior”, off their upcoming album Lovely, Little, Lonely, and released dates and tickets for their upcoming world tour this spring. An exhaustively exciting string of news for lovers of the group. Something else to get on board with? The unique appreciation The Maine are eager to show their fans.

During their several stops on the Vans Warped Tour this past summer, The Maine put their own unique spin on the meet and greet process. They set up a tent that read, “Why would you pay money to meet a human being?” at each tour stop, allowing fans to meet them at no cost. While fans of other bands arrived to the festival grounds early to pay for meet and greet access, fans of The Maine lined up at the band’s booth for free pictures and conversation. It proved to be a popular motion, as the turn out for their meet-up’s pulled in a line that was usually over an hour long. Nonetheless, the guys did their best at every venue to talk with as many fans as time permitted.

As the band revealed the dates for their upcoming headlining tour, they obtain these same principles by announcing that there will be no meet and greet packages for sale. The Maine is promising similar efforts to meet the fans after shows for free as they did during Warped.

It’s tremendously commendable for a band to display this kind of attitude during this day and age, where artists globally are charging egregious amounts of money to have a picture with them. Sure, this quirky little alternative group is not selling out Madison Square Garden or achieving the kind of epic fame that many artists who rake it in through VIP packages do. But a mentality like this is a stepping stone to a humble future. The Maine stay grounded through their small-scale success, and they love knowing who they owe it to.

The post The Maine: New Music, New Tour, Same Values appeared first on Red Roll.

The Summer Set did NOT break up.

— Stephen Gomez (@stephen_james) January 25, 2017

During their set at 8123 Fest, a 10-year celebration of fellow Arizona-based band The Maine, The Summer Set are calling it quits as a fivesome after their own 10 years as a band. Rumors had been softly circulating for a couple of weeks that the The Summer Set were going to announce a break-up, and in the midst of festival excitement, several sources relayed that the group declared this particular performance as their last.

The Summer Set have spent the last year performing live on a fan-formulated tour called the Made For You Tour, showcasing their recently released album, Stories For Monday. Personalized tour components featured a fan voted setlist and even fan voted tour destinations, resulting in a unique live collaboration between artist and fanbase.

Despite releasing a new album and touring, the Summer Set members have been exploring separate avenues as of late. Drummer Jess Bowen accompanied 3OH!3 on several dates of the Vans Warped Tour this past summer. Early this morning, the band’s bass guitarist Stephen Gomez tweeted “Our band is not in a good place. I hope we can turn it around. We shall see” before quickly deleting the sentiments.

The post The Summer Set Announce Break-Up appeared first on Red Roll.

A culmination of these changes is the make-up of the millennial, and through this overwhelming absorption of advancements comes a loud presence of ideas. And what better platform to exert these ideas than the classically powerful one of music. For one, the infiltration of many forms and genres—such as rap and hip-hop—into mainstream music is influenced by millennials.

It becomes no question that millennial energy is the driving force for modern alternative music. The face of that disembodied voice? British popular alternative band, The 1975.

This recent trend of questioning millennials and their lack of mobility, humility, and general understanding of the deeper working of the world lies like a gritty film over the vast majority of the culture today.

The 1975 serve as representative of the new age, and the artfully confused millennial spirit. There is a reason this band is so successful in cultivating fans of the younger generation, because they so strongly capture this ever-changing charisma of a millennial identity. Bridged throughout their two-album discography are the glooming pressures of existence and the “change of heart” required to barrel through.

Alternative rock music as a vehicle is already a freshly innovative one that is rooted in nuance and driven to the extreme by the most recent of drivers in this decade. When The 1975 get behind the wheel, the motivations are passionately entrenched in utilizing the understanding of intrinsic mechanics in order to understand the extrinsic. Transitions through songs like “Me”, “Heart Out”, and especially “The Ballad Of Me And My Brain” and “A Change Of Heart” exemplify the distraught complications of inner turmoil that are used to create a brighter future—an optimism that keeps the wheels of this millennial generation spinning.

The 1975’s knack for lyric-less compilations allows a space for contemplation. Unique melody builds and changes offer an embrasure of wave of thought—a way of thinking that is malleable and non-static based upon circumstance. The underlying doubt of spirituality and the overall function of existence in “If I Believe You” is the perfect example of this. An intertwining of the self-reflective and the self-doubtful is “Lostmyhead“, debatably one of the most intricate and poetic illumiations of emotional and soulful processiong. There is a philosophical urge embedded within all the musical breaks that mingle with strong and honest lyrics, resulting in discussion and reflection on so many topics both inwardly and outwardly.

Not only are the musical outlets a place to get a grip on a political voice the way, for example, rock and roll has in the past, it is a mode of escape and getting a grip on it in that sense. The way that rock and roll approached politics was much more directly aggressive than the way alternative and pop music does today, but they operate in the same stimulating fashion—through the embrace of representation, love, and change. “It’s our responsibility to be compassionate, to listen to everybody, to listen to their concerns, to move things forward,” lead singer Matty Healy states on behalf of themselves and their audience at their London O2 show before their nightly moving performance of “Loving Someone”. Regressive ideals and fear of progression is not something that is going to be tolerated when it comes to the positively charged motives of this generation and what it represents.

You can say what you want about Beatlemania and the colossal eruption it caused in sweeping the globe, but this generation is something of a greater magnitude when it comes to dedication and identification to the musical art form. This fusion of identity almost becomes a dependency on the artists that take the literal and metaphorical stage in order to be a voice for both their decrees and their concerns. It serves as more than an escape; it is a projection of the misunderstood, the troubled, and the hopeful parts of today’s youth.

In the words of Matty Healy, “Fuck politics. Let’s do some dancing.”

The post The 1975: The Voice of a Genre and a Generation appeared first on Red Roll.

Sheeran roused excitement of what could be when he resurfaced on social media on December 12, 2016 after exactly a year of being completely MIA from the public eye. It was practically a given that the enormously gifted and well-loved artist was stirring up greatness in the time he spent away. The two newest singles prove to be the farthest thing from underwhelming, and exemplify an intriguing mix of what is to come.

“Shape of You”

This upbeat track reintroduces the sounds of Sheeran’s first album, +. The low-key nature of its rhythmic addictiveness resembles the likes of “Drunk” and “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You”. Groovy instrumentals mixed with seductively enticing lyrics add a degree of hypnotism. If this catchy song is any indication of the vibe of this third studio album, its gripping and creative playfulness will be inescapable.

“Castle on the Hill”

The lingering power of nostalgia is the key element to this song’s function and resonating impact. Sheeran possesses a way of expanding the capacities of deeply personal songwriting in order to incorporate a feeling of versatility and relatability. Whether it’s a primary goal of this track or not, the need to replay and repeat the soulful intimacy of it all is a strong one.

What do you think of Ed Sheeran’s new singles? Let us know in the comments below.

The post New Ed Sheeran Singles Nothing Short of Extraordinary appeared first on Red Roll.