It’s in the selecting of a music festival’s middle- to lower-tier acts that curators get to flex their adventurousness. This certainly is the case with Lollapalooza 2016. Even a cursory glance at the sprawling lineup churns up all manner of exotic treasures and cutting-edge hybrids. There’s gospel-fueled R&B (Sir the Baptist), cyborg folk-pop (Lewis Del Mar), darkwave-smeared post-hardcore (PVRIS), and brainy weirdo avant-rock (Autolux). Now, having said all that, this year’s installment still isn’t diverse enough. The last few years have been truly fertile ones for underground hip-hop and bedroom R&B, yet neither is sufficiently represented. Ditto for hard techno, which is thriving in adventurous clubs like New York’s The Bunker and Berlin’s Berghain. Clearly, crushing industrial beats don’t sell tickets quite like party-time EDM.
