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?
