5 Must-See Artists at the Panorama Music Festival 2017!

By: Staff –

Need help figuring out which artists to see? Check out our picks below for the five artists you need to check out at the Panorama 2017!

Tickets are now on sale on the Panorama website

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Solange
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A singer, songwriter, and producer, Solange Knowles debuted in the early 2000s with pop-oriented contemporary R&B material and grew into one of the more adventurous, expectation-defying artists of the late 2000s and 2010s. The younger sister of Beyoncé Knowles, Solange has quickly forged her own musical identity.

Her newest album, A Seat At The Table, arrived almost four years after the release of her 2012 True EP. Calmly cathartic and considerably at odds with mainstream R&B, the progressive set promoted healing and empowerment in response to racial oppression, and established Solange as one of the leading voices of R&B.

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A Tribe Called Quest 
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Without question the most intelligent, artistic rap group during the 1990s, A Tribe Called Quest jump-started and perfected the hip-hop alternative to hardcore and gangsta rap. In essence, they abandoned the macho posturing rap music had been constructed upon, and focused instead on abstract philosophy and message tracks. The “sucka MC” theme had never been completely ignored in hip-hop, but Tribe confronted numerous black issues — date rape, use of the word nigger, the trials and tribulations of the rap industry — all of which overpowered the occasional game of the dozens.

Sadly, Tribe co-founder Phife — suffering from diabetes for many years and the recipient of a liver transplant — died in March of 2016 at the age of 45. Later that year, Q-Tip announced that the group had finished a new album. The night of their Tonight Show appearance, the original four members of the group had decided to put aside their differences and start recording again. Sessions were held in Q-Tip’s well-appointed home studio, and the group welcomed guests like Busta Rhymes, Elton John, Kendrick Lamar, and André 3000 to contribute. Though Phife passed before the album was finished, Q-Tip was able to power through and complete it. The group released We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service in late 2016, topping the American charts and earning the group attention from a new generation of fans.

If you want to know what classic hip-hop sounds like, don’t miss A Tribe Called Quest at Panorama 2017!

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Vance Joy
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Think about it for a second: would you rather put off finishing a law degree… or play sweet indie-folk pop in front of 65,000 people. Yep. You only need a second, right? Because it turns out that being part of 2015’s biggest, most star-studded tour — playing in football stadiums, baseball parks and arenas all around the world — is a little more fun than learning about civil trial law.

Naturally, though, the Vance Joy story doesn’t begin with joining Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour, playing gigantic stadium stages as celebrities look on. Rather, the tale’s innocuous beginnings lie in playing open mics around his hometown of Melbourne, with Vance Joy trying make a name for himself with his gentle, heartfelt indie folk-pop and lovelorn lyricism.

With an unshakeable pop hook and an eminently relatable narrative, “Riptide” unexpectedly swept across the globe on a worldwide wave. And with the release of his debut full length album, Dream Your Life Away in September 2014, Vance Joy tells immensely relatable tales of love won and lost; of longing and heavy hearts, the beauty of love and an overwhelming humanness, all set to stirring, emotional indie folk-pop.

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Nine Inch Nails
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Nine Inch Nails are one of the most popular industrial groups ever and were largely responsible for bringing the music to a mass audience. It isn’t really accurate to call NIN a group; the only official member is singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor, who always remained solely responsible for NIN’s musical direction (he was, however, supported in concert by a regular backing band). Unlike the vast majority of industrial artists, Reznor wrote melodic, traditionally structured songs where lyrics were a focal point. His pop instincts not only made the harsh electronic beats of industrial music easier to digest, but also put a human face on a style that usually tried to sound as mechanical as possible. While Ministry crossed over to heavy metal audiences, NIN built up a large alternative rock fan base right around the time of Nirvana’s mainstream breakthrough. As a result, Reznor became a genuine star and his notoriously dark, brooding persona and provocateur instincts made him a Jim Morrison-esque sex symbol for the ’90s.

With a trilogy of EPs, including 2016’s Not The Actual Events, set for release sometime this year, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails sound as fresh as ever, and you’ll regret not catching them at Panorama 2017!

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Spoon
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With a heady blend of precision punk and serpentine classic rock (the band has drawn comparisons to everyone from the Pixies and Sonic Youth to Elvis Costello and Tom Petty), Texas-based indie outfit Spoon went from underground press darlings to one of the genre’s most critically acclaimed acts.

Late in 2016, Spoon released the song “I Ain’t the One”, which served as the first taste of the band’s ninth album, Hot Thoughts, which reunited the band with Fridmann and ranged from dance-rock to stripped-down ballads, was released via Matador in March 2017 and propelled Spoon back on top of the indie rock mountain.