The fest proved to be a dizzying cocktail of running from stage to stage and dancing to the beat of beloved artists, trying to stay hydrated, resulting in a very unique experience: The Lollapalooza Hangover. Reliving the highlights and lowlights of the fest in the post-Lolla glow is making us feel tired. And old. But what a fantastic time it was.

Highlights:

Mix & Match Headliners: Clearly, the Lollapalooza folks know what they’re doing. Each year, the fest is curated to please a mass audience. If you don’t feel like going to Skrillex or Krewella (and we certainly didn’t), there’s a wide mix of tastes when it comes to the evening’s closing shows. Eminem pulled out the stops and brought Rihanna on stage, which was pretty damn cool. He’s 42 years old and maintains the same performance demeanor and energy from when he came on the scene at the end of the ‘90s. Personally, we were delighted by the offbeat indie choice of Cut/Copy at the Grove stage. The mesmerising light show paired with hazy dance tunes was a heavenly combination. Kings of Leon killed it and Arctic Monkeys played a strong set as well.

Fantastic Accents & Indie Power Pop: One of the highlights of Lollapalooza is the international talent it attracts. Acts from near and far who made a big splash over the past year find their way onto the lineup. Very adorable accents added to Lorde and CHVRCHES‘ upbeat, enjoyable sets. Hearing lead singer Lauren Mayberry discuss her tambourine purchase in her plucky Glasgow lilt was truly entertaining. Brit Pop’s presence loomed large at the festival, with acts like the Kooks, the 1975 and headliner Arctic Monkeys showcasing positively charming swagger in addition to musical performance chops.

Being an outdoor festival, Lolla is the perfect venue for high-energy acts. For example, we love Sigur Ros (Lolla 2012 performers), however, the space did not suit their style. That said, indie power-pop acts stole the show at this year’s festival. Fitz and the Tantrum’s midday set blew the lid off the place (metaphorically speaking). The set sparkled with personality — it didn’t hurt that the lead singer continually thanked Chicagoans for kick-starting their career. Other favorite sets included Spoon and Young the Giant.

Great Food & Festival Flair: Chicago…not the best winter city. While concerts and festivals abound all over the Chi in summertime, winter activities consist of pretty much one thing: eating at new restaurants. We’ve got to stay warm somehow. Lollapalooza’s Chow Town brings together great bites from all over town for everyone to enjoy, local or otherwise. Didn’t get a chance to try that new restaurant in the four degree weather in January? Pick up a quick bite while you are waiting to see your favorite band. With an insane variety of options at fair-ish prices by festival standards, the Lolla food is definitely a highlight.

We are very, totally over flower crowns and frat jerseys. Sorry festival chicks and bros, let’s go for a more original look next year. What did surprise and delight us were the variety of fun festival “identifiers” people took to carrying around; to help them stand out in the crowd, to find friends, to express their own personal ridiculousness. Our personal favorites? A cardboard cutout of Kevin Malone from The Office, and Gary Busey’s floating head — people were crazy creative.

The Lowlights

Too-Packed Shows: Going to Lollapalooza, expecting huge crowds at shows is normal. However, the Iggy Azalea show seemed on the verge of too packed. As we tried our best to inch toward Iggy-Iz herself at Perry’s Stage, the atmosphere felt sour. Tear-stained faces were spotted around the perimeter. Teenage girls had panic attacks due to the massive size of the crowd and elbowing. It’s probably due to the fact that she hadn’t yet exploded at the time of her booking last year. Still, it took a few deep breaths to fully recover. Iggy herself? A beast. A flurry of energy ripping across the stage.

Please. Please. Be Careful: We saw far too many people being carried off on stretchers — falling, or hurting themselves. The festival itself does a great job of making medical help readily available to all concert goers. Have fun, please! But if you cannot keep hydrated, keep your wits about you, or cannot keep yourself out of harm’s way, really think hard about drinking or ingesting anything before you throw yourself into a crowd of thousands in the summer heat. Please. Also — a note to very intoxicated people — please attempt a semblance of concert etiquette. If you’re smoking a cigarette in a huge crowd of people, you might burn someone. Be cool, seriously.

So that’s a wrap! Here’s to Lolla 2015; hope to see you there.

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There’s something about Barbie, and it’s that she raps. The similarity between the quintessential white girl and Iggy Azalea was striking beyond belief. The Australian rapper was in Vancouver this Wednesday night at the Commodore Ballroom, performing tracks off her two-years-in-the-making debut album, The New Classic. A show sold out a month in advance, her fans were nothing but devoted, and their passion paid off in a night that was full of sass and ass.

With the words “PUSSY” in blaringly pink light behind Azalea and her SWAT team of dancers, it was not a night of subtlety by a long shot. In fact, the lasting impression was that this was what it felt like to be fly like a G6 in 2014. The crowd was heavily invested in the visual novelty that made up Azalea’s marketing appeal. Set to a trap-influenced beat, Azalea walked the stage, bringing out the same slow-motion dance moves you’ve seen before in music videos such as “Work”, and, really, that you’ve observed in every girl that’s decided to dance in a sultry fashion because being sexy is cool. Watching Azalea swish her flimsy hips, and raise her hands up like a genie raising the roof, the sense that she was just another hot chick at a party hit an all-time high when she proceeded to make it rain. “Taste this kitty”, snarled Azalea, and it was no news flash that this kitty had no claws.

A rapper by trade, Azalea more than flirts with pop hooks, what with her hit single “Fancy” solidifying her place as a dark horse in the running for the crown of pop princess, a seat up for grabs for whoever is trillest of them all. Pop stars often rely on selling sex since their music freely samples and takes from music genres that pick up traction like EDM, so when Azalea performs “Change Your Life” or “Flexin’ & Finessin”, she sells herself as an ambassador of that trend, and associates herself with what will be a new classic. Azalea, as a new permutation in the long line of female pop stars, is successful to judge by how on-board her fans are with her image. Bow down to rachet glory delivered in a Pilates-informed physique to the tune of bass drops and sugary sing-alongs.

It was surprising then, given the rich material Azalea had, that her on-stage presence was something less than magnetic. It was hard not to watch her perform, make no doubt about that, but it wasn’t for the right reasons. Azalea, dainty and feminine, exuded a strong sense of acting out an IDGAF persona that could have been owned up to more. The energy to match the dirty beats to her songs was lacking, and instead the decision was made to play conductor at a distance, with her riling up the crowd with the typical gestures to make more noise. Fans lost their minds over “Quicktime”, a song that built itself up just like “Black Widow”, not to mention the adrenaline-pumping encore, “Work”, but Azalea played it ice cold to the end.

The post Sass and Ass: Iggy Azalea Live at Commodore appeared first on Quip Magazine.

The struggle is real for white rappers and the narrative is forming around how hard it is for them to break into the hip hop scene. Struggle is a common thread in hip hop, you wouldn’t have the boastfulness of Jay-Z if it wasn’t for the struggle with selling dope that helped him dominate the game; Straight Outta Compton (N.W.A.) exploded on the scene because it was visceral and real; Kendrick Lamar’s successful mixtape Section.80 was a concept album detailing the socioeconomic conditions of living in slums. Even eventual commercially successful indie rap artist Macklemore has the “first successful independent release to make it to the top of iTunes…” story to accompany his game.

Iggy Azalea, a white female rapper, has already entertained the questions of how being white has made it harder for her to break into the scene, how being a female has led to violations at her concerts, and the inevitable talk about her “ass game”. She has latched onto race as her compelling narrative. Inside of her music, her lyrics mention (and in some cases pay homage to; “Fancy” begins with what has to be a reference to Nicki Minaj’s shocking opening verse on “Monster”) how difficult it has been to be white. Her answers to criticism are often times post-racial color blind phrases: “The narrative that I can tell, is not the narrative that someone like Angel Haze can, and I would never try to. I can do a video parodying Clueless and she can’t.” Angel Haze, a friend according to Azalea, has released a mixtape where she discusses being sexually abused as a child over Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet.”

“First things first, I’m the realest”, Iggy begins on “Fancy” in the call and response defensiveness that pervades hip hop. She has to signify that she’s not just a novelty as a white female rapper, she feels the need to defend her own perceived status as a minority within hip hop. We need the struggle and we need to be reminded that her struggle isn’t to be dismissed for her art to be more than mainstream. Focusing on the race issue though positions Iggy in a comparative position, her struggle must be held up against what she’s struggling against (“still stunting how you love that/got the whole world asking how I does that”) and what she’s struggling against is that a minority dominated genre is having difficulty accepting her.

This becomes her most common theme; space needs to be made so that more white rappers can successfully infiltrate the scene. It’s too hard for them right now. What Iggy doesn’t understand is that her race makes her more marketable and more palatable, her success is easier, not harder, because the target audience (what brings in money) is not hip hop purists who are going to bristle at her race, but the suburban kids who fuel consumption.

It’s hard to get a sense of what Iggy’s actual struggle to be successful was and whether that did include struggles with poverty, sexual abuse or situations beyond her control. The closest intimacy that’s given is the repeated lyrics “no money, no family/sixteen in the middle of Miami”, an allusion made in both “Don’t Need Y’all” and “Work” (quite possibly the most genuine song on The New Classic.) She scrubbed floors, worked three jobs to pay for a plane ticket to fly to Miami at the age of 16 after failing out of her schooling and when working on her albums had to sleep in the studio. This is the compelling struggle, not the allusions to how difficult the game is. Her attitude is rubbing against critics who will either never accept her narrative as compelling because she isn’t black or will only accept it when she stops pretending like being white made it hard for her to tell her story.

Iggy Azalea is talented though, and much of the criticism is leveled at the shame that her talent can’t be directed in a more socially conscientious fashion. Her music videos are filled with excellent examples of how it’s a struggle for females to make money, to achieve success, are filled with objectification and sexually compromising positions. Amanda Blank’s work with Spank Rock (and her lone solo album) are excellent examples of positive female charged sexuality, employed in a way that empowers females rather than continues the trope of objectification. Iggy Azalea should not need to answer questions, somewhat uncomfortably, about how her “ass game” has helped to soothe critics who don’t think she can be in rap or about her bedroom style and where she falls on the porn star spectrum.

Again it’s “Work” that begins with “walk a mile in these Louboutins/they don’t wear these shits where I’m from.” It’s an immediate illusion to her socioeconomic class (probably not wealthy) and the expectations heaped on her because of her gender. Her best line, “Valley girls giving blowjobs for Louboutins/What you call that?/Head over heels”, discusses the extreme desperation (and depravity) that women feel in order to achieve a certain material level. Iggy’s best lines are describing the ways in which women are pushed to commodify their bodies to achieve advancement or material gain.

Iggy Azalea clearly has promise with her heaps of talent. The problem of comparing narratives won’t prevent her from achieving sales or from people talking about how good she is or what she’s proving. It will make some listeners bristle, relegate her to the “guilty pleasure” pile of their music collection or turn them off completely because she reminds them of their own immaturity. After listening to her latest album The New Classic, I should not want to use the word “swag” ironically.

The post Iggy Azalea, “I’m a fancy bitch, but I’m ratchet.” appeared first on Quip Magazine.