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Pitchfork Music Festival 2023: Sunday Preview Guide

What a weird, wild Sunday it will be at Pitchfork Music Festival 2023. Seriously, this is a perfect day for artistic outsiders who craft vital, world-bending music. You get the heavily experimental leanings of artists like Ariel Zetina, Rachika Nayar, Lucrecia Dalt, and Jockstrap to get things started. Then comes the heavy-hitters of noise and aggression as Soul Glo and JPEGMAFIA battle to see who will be louder and have the bigger mosh pit. Killer Mike will most assuredly slay too, because he always does. Then we get some fun pop-rock sort of acts courtesy of illuminati hotties and Hurray for the Riff Raff before things begin to cool down with Kelela and what should be a divine yet meditative set from Bon Iver. Of course Mdou Moctar is also in that mix to show off the incredible things that can be done with a guitar. I’m incredibly excited to see how it will all play out, and hope you are too! Let’s dive into the guide, shall we?

Previously:

A Pitchfork Music Festival Playlist

Friday Preview Guide

Saturday Preview Guide

Pitchfork Music Festival 2023: Saturday Preview Guide

Saturday at Pitchfork this year has the benefit of being one of the most balanced lineups I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s just heavy hitter after heavy hitter stretched across an entire day. There’s an unfortunate lack of hip hop (with the exception of 700 Bliss), but otherwise a solid amount of guitar-focused music rendered in interesting ways. Those who like a little experimentation in their rock can catch one of the final performances from the Philly band Palm, plus the unclassifiable Vagabon and the deeply moody melodies of King Krule. Black Belt Eagle Scout and MJ Lenderman do a ramshackle folk-adjacent thing, with a little more surging power later from Snail Mail and Julia Jacklin. You can also dance a bit thanks to Panda Bear & Sonic Boom as well as Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul. Then to cap off the night with Big Thief? Chef’s kiss. It’s a bit tough to single out some recommendations out of all these great sets, but somebody’s gotta do it. Read on, and try your best to plan out your day.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2023: Friday Preview Guide

One of the best things about the Friday lineup for the 2023 Pitchfork Music Festival is its unclassifiable nature. A lot of the artists on Friday don’t stick to a single genre or sound, and it’s exciting to have that unpredictability where you’re not entirely sure what you’ll be hearing from one moment to the next. A dose of R&B, rap, jazz-pop fusion, standard pop music, electronica, and lo-fi folk are all in the mix, and that’s just the first half of the day! If you need a little help navigating all of the various artists and time slot conflicts, read on. While I do have recommendations for every hour of the festival, please know the goal is to make picks that will hopefully result in the best overall experience throughout the day. You technically can’t go wrong checking out every artist on this lineup, but certain ones are better suited for an outdoor festival than others. If that’s how you think going into this weekend, you’ll end up in great shape. So without further ado, here’s the Friday preview guide.

In case you missed it: A Pitchfork Music Festival Playlist

Pitchfork Music Festival 2023: The Playlist

Welcome to what’s become an annual tradition here at Faronheit – a week’s worth of coverage surrounding Pitchfork Music Festival! For the uninitiated, Pitchfork Music Festival is a three-day music and culture extravaganza that takes place at Chicago’s Union Park. It’s a smaller festival focused on up-and-coming acts with a few legends thrown in for good measure. You show up because of the names you recognize, but you stick around because you’re just as likely to discover something new and great you’ve never heard before. It’s a whole lot of fun, and the crowds are really cool too. If you’ve never been, I strongly recommend you check it out. This year’s Pitchfork Music Festival takes place from July 21-23 aka this upcoming weekend.

For those planning to attend this year’s festival, or maybe even those who can’t make it but still want to learn a bit more about the lineup, I’m thrilled to help you prepare with a series of preview guides. The week of coverage always begins with a playlist. Reasonably speaking, that’s the best way to familiarize yourself with the lineup. Listen to a song or two from every artist set to perform, so you can gain a sense of what they sound like and the kind of energy they might bring to a festival stage.

This 84-song playlist takes a little over five hours to listen from start to finish, and includes two tracks from every artist on the lineup. The order has been determined by the festival schedule, meaning the playlist begins with Nourished By Time who kick things off on Friday afternoon and it ends with Bon Iver who wrap things up on Sunday evening. Of course if you’d prefer to mix things up and let the chips fall where they may, shuffle is always an option. Also, apologies if you prefer to use a non-Spotify platform to stream your music. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to redo this playlist for additional streaming services.

All that said, please enjoy the playlist! I hope it inspires you to check out some performances you might have otherwise skipped. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a preview guide that digs a little further into all of the artists on the schedule for Friday, with recommendations on who you should see each hour of the day. Join me, won’t you?

Half A Degree Thru ’23

We’re officially six months into 2023, and you know what that means: time for a mid-year playlist! Feels like it’s been an exceptionally strong year for music so far, which is really heartening in a lot of ways. Not that the past couple were poor in any way, but sometimes it’s a bit of a struggle to fill an entire playlist and other times it’s a bit heartbreaking to make cuts and remove tracks because there are strict self-made “parameters” in place and you can’t go beyond them. When I say this playlist could easily have been 150 or 200 songs total, that hopefully gives you a sense of how challenging this was to assemble.

100 songs. All of them great in their own ways. You may not love every one of them because your tastes are likely different from mine, but that’s okay! There’s always some middle ground, and that’s what we’re searching for here. Are these the 100 best songs from the first half of 2023? I wouldn’t quite put that kind of label on it. They’re ordered primarily by style, so if you don’t hit the shuffle button you’ll get sections of rock, electronic, rap, pop, experimental, R&B, etc. Skip around if you’d like. Maybe find a song or artist you recognize, then listen to a song or two before and a song or two after. I may have imposed limits on what went into the playlist, but there are no limits in how you can listen to it.

You can listen to the playlist on Spotify and YouTube, plus each song can be heard individually by clicking on it below. Mostly I just hope you enjoy this, discover some new music, and maybe play it at a party or something to impress your friends.

Pick Your Poison: Monday 6-12-23

Flowers – Rewind (ft. Kah-Lo)

Forest Claudette – Two Years

KennyHoopla – YOU NEEDED A HIT//

Pick Your Poison: Thursday 6-8-23

Juice WRLD – Glo’d Up

KAYTRAMIN脡 – Rebuke

Liza Anne – Cheerleader

Pick Your Poison: Monday 6-5-23

Bishop Briggs – Baggage

Grouplove – Francine

Miya Folick – Cockroach

Pick Your Poison: Thursday 6-1-23

Monaleo – Ass Kickin’

Remi Wolf – Prescription

Rosa Linn – Hallelujah

Pick Your Poison: Thursday 5-25-23

MisterWives – Nosebleeds

Thirty Seconds to Mars – Stuck

yeule – sulky baby

Pick Your Poison: Monday 5-22-23

Bring Me The Horizon – LosT

The Dirty Nil – Celebration

underscores – Cops and robbers

Pick Your Poison: Thursday 5-18-23

Diplo & Lily Rose – Sad in the Summer

The Exploding Hearts – So Bored (2023 Mix)

Lola Brooke – Just Relax

Pick Your Poison: Monday 5-15-23

Crumb – Dust Bunny

K.Flay – Raw Raw

quinnie – fade

Pick Your Poison: Thursday 5-11-23

bludnymph – Watch Me

Goth Babe – Alone in the Mountains

Kim Dracula – Hysterics

Pick Your Poison: Monday 5-8-23

Chris Lake – Beggin’ (ft. Aluna)

Killer Mike – DON’T LET THE DEVIL (ft. El-P & thankugoodsir)

Vic Mensa – $WISH (ft. G-Eazy & Chance the Rapper)

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