crazy to me that Missy Elliott was not billed as headliner and loved when she was a car that became a person on stage. I watched clips of Meg who I like much more as a celeb/cultural figure than I do her music - I feel like her output the last two years has been mostly irrelevant, not unlike Doja Cat I consider her an artist heavily reliant on TikTok/shortform who has since floundered a bit.
The Twitter about face on Charli is SO funny to me - is wearing a sash that says Miss Shoulda Been Headliner not literally what brat was about? to me this is mostly reflective of people being embarrassed that they were into this whole thing last year but not this year. Crash > brat, imho
same re missy. and yes there are many covid celebs of which megan and doja are the biggest whose sparks just keep dwindling, and it’s depressing to watch. i like both of them and think their music is okay, but i think megan is satisfied being an influencer and not a rapper (fine) but that doja thinks she’s more famous than she is. i like her boyfriend
and yes. i think it’s just because of the kamala tweet honestly, but yeah i guess also because so much has happened culturally since brat and she’s still just on it. the way people reacted to the benny drama show was also cracking me up. i don’t have a prob w him and the show looks fine i guess and she seems fine in it. like no one has been more critical of the brat project than me but im like wow calm down
not the point of any of this ik but crash slipping away into a covid black hole is so sad bc it’s far better than brat but even sadder is that how i’m feeling now is far better than both :(
the thing about her is that i never really have big problems with the albums but i never remember them. crash is the only one i remember more than 2 songs from which makes it my fav i guess
Re: Goop’s relevancy - Perfume Genius did a Perfectly Imperfect (lol) today and recced the ‘Goop pizza.’ So #it lives on! For a certain west-coast vibe I guess.
i have such tenuous understandings of what perfectly imperfect and goop kitchen are that this comment and the ensuing research were really hard to follow. i figured it out though, and i believe the pizza is good. there are actually multiple pizzas with names: pepperoni potts, cheese and thank you, the goopfellas pizza. i like how only one of these has to do with gwyneth paltrow
Loved this dispatch because it means I didn’t have to look into anything related to Coachella besides this post also when I go back to Chicago, I feel it
i dont agree with everything you say but i find your opinion distinct and thoughtful. what i really gather is a culture exhaust when it comes to "who's who" and what's even fucking cool anymore. Maybe being a celebrity and an influencer is kind of becoming "chuegy". I feel like Coachella is tacky. The only person who I think has successfully transformed her career is Emma Chamberlain, mostly because she isn't afraid to be totally weird. Everyone else feels stiff and already done (im not talking about musicians but influencers).
Missy Elliot not headlining was so weird. And Lana’s performance last year was so bad it made me stop listening to her for a while because I was just so disappointed. Def feels like they don’t really value a “performance” moment like Beychella anymore.
yeah but i also feel like no one’s making crazy enough music to make a performance like that happen. like cowboy carter isn’t exciting. that’s why even if i don’t love it brat should have headlined. at least its loud
I’m mid age and want to understand what’s going on in the cultural world of music etc and your stack just informed me in the best of ways. You have a fantastic voice!
Was surprised to read through an excellent Clarenalysis of Coachella with no mention of Austin Butler...
Also: Stagecoach is the only music festival in ̷I̷n̷d̷i̷o̷ America that matters anymore. Real celebrities will go here and wear crazy themed things each day to listen to popular music. It has no less than three headliners for each night, plus special famous additions like T-Pain, Creed, the Backstreet Boys.
Interesting piece but I think a lot of your questions about who is headlining what festival and why can be answered simply by looking at streaming numbers and record sales, instead of what you are seeing on your own social media feed where things are being fed to you algorithmically.
For instance, Green Day and Olivia Rodrigo both sell more records and have higher streaming numbers than Charli xcx. Charli has had 7 albums and Brat was the first major mainstream breakthrough in terms of numbers. All of these festivals are booked waaay in advance, so booking agents go off of long term, macro-scale trends, not what has just been in the internet zeitgeist for the past 6-12 months.
i def should have talked about streaming here as i think it’s ultimately skewing “charts” in a way that doesn’t make sense to extrapolate in the same way as sales do, and in fact i think part of my point is… how much of streaming comes from tiktok, which is algorithmic and isn’t actually reflective of listenership or real recognition of the music itself? in doja cat’s case, i think a lot of her chart power comes from tracks that people don’t even know are by her or who she is because of say so and far more recent one offs that i can’t even name but that are just tiktok audios.
i also took too much for granted how i have written about charli xcx before, which has all been about how her popularity is entirely skewed by algorithm and that, like, kamala doing brat summer doesn’t make sense because no one ultimately knows what that is. but i guess my point is: if algorithm is driving streaming which is driving charts, the translation between phones and real life isn’t broadly legible, and the metrics we have for defining super stardom and popularity can’t really be applied in the same way sales could. the only performances to have any real fanfare this year were gaga’s as an idea (she’s back!) and viral clips of green day’s (one of which of billie wearing a brat hat). also, none of that explains how the 1975 is headlining glasto. it’s all kind of made up, like scotch taping old and new ways of understanding and measuring fame and marketability… so if we’re gonna make it up already, why don’t we just fully make it up and curate based on virality and cultural texture
if coachella is going to invest this much in influencers and then this year palpably lose their interest, they’re going to slip in relevance. they’ll never stop making money, but i do wonder as tickets everywhere go up if only influencers will be able to afford to go to any major concert like this, but they’ll get less and less into posting about it, so the entire model and purpose of it will change.
Saying that Olivia Rodrigo is just as famous as charli xcx is mind boggling to me. Olivia Rodrigo has more world-wide fame than charli ever did. Olivia Rodrigo sold out stadiums in Brazil and Mexico, she even sold out the biggest indoor arena in the entire world- located in the Philippines.
Charli could not reach half of the acclaim within the span of her entire career that Olivia has reached within the first few years of her. I think it's clear that you haven't been outside whatever first world country you're from, because Olivia is dominating world-wide and Charli only dominates X.com and TikTok at most.
You stated "Olivia Rodrigo might have way more commercial grit than Charli, who is second-billed at Glastonbury, but she’s not any more famous" Olivia is quite literally more famous but okay!
commercial grit = ability to sell, which charli doesn’t have. this post is about how coachella doesn’t attend to who’s actually famous but what’s going on on phones, so i argue that, following that asinine approach, charli should have headlined
crazy to me that Missy Elliott was not billed as headliner and loved when she was a car that became a person on stage. I watched clips of Meg who I like much more as a celeb/cultural figure than I do her music - I feel like her output the last two years has been mostly irrelevant, not unlike Doja Cat I consider her an artist heavily reliant on TikTok/shortform who has since floundered a bit.
The Twitter about face on Charli is SO funny to me - is wearing a sash that says Miss Shoulda Been Headliner not literally what brat was about? to me this is mostly reflective of people being embarrassed that they were into this whole thing last year but not this year. Crash > brat, imho
I LOVE APT.!!!!!!!!! reminds me of Ting Tings :D
same re missy. and yes there are many covid celebs of which megan and doja are the biggest whose sparks just keep dwindling, and it’s depressing to watch. i like both of them and think their music is okay, but i think megan is satisfied being an influencer and not a rapper (fine) but that doja thinks she’s more famous than she is. i like her boyfriend
and yes. i think it’s just because of the kamala tweet honestly, but yeah i guess also because so much has happened culturally since brat and she’s still just on it. the way people reacted to the benny drama show was also cracking me up. i don’t have a prob w him and the show looks fine i guess and she seems fine in it. like no one has been more critical of the brat project than me but im like wow calm down
I also literally forgot Harry Styles played Coachella until yesterday
i remember that lizzo was there every once in a while and wince
thank you for having actually nuanced cultural takes it's so astonishingly rare
thank u for reading <3
not the point of any of this ik but crash slipping away into a covid black hole is so sad bc it’s far better than brat but even sadder is that how i’m feeling now is far better than both :(
the thing about her is that i never really have big problems with the albums but i never remember them. crash is the only one i remember more than 2 songs from which makes it my fav i guess
lest us not forget the absolute MASTERPIECE of POP 2!!!
Re: Goop’s relevancy - Perfume Genius did a Perfectly Imperfect (lol) today and recced the ‘Goop pizza.’ So #it lives on! For a certain west-coast vibe I guess.
i have such tenuous understandings of what perfectly imperfect and goop kitchen are that this comment and the ensuing research were really hard to follow. i figured it out though, and i believe the pizza is good. there are actually multiple pizzas with names: pepperoni potts, cheese and thank you, the goopfellas pizza. i like how only one of these has to do with gwyneth paltrow
could read you on gaga forever tbh
good thing i’ve been talking about her since 2007
Loved this dispatch because it means I didn’t have to look into anything related to Coachella besides this post also when I go back to Chicago, I feel it
another person saved from learning that alex consani and gabbriette did the apple dance at coachella
when i go BACK to chicagoifeelit
i dont agree with everything you say but i find your opinion distinct and thoughtful. what i really gather is a culture exhaust when it comes to "who's who" and what's even fucking cool anymore. Maybe being a celebrity and an influencer is kind of becoming "chuegy". I feel like Coachella is tacky. The only person who I think has successfully transformed her career is Emma Chamberlain, mostly because she isn't afraid to be totally weird. Everyone else feels stiff and already done (im not talking about musicians but influencers).
Feel like it’s been whack for a long, long time already haha.
Also Philip Anschutz blows.
Missy Elliot not headlining was so weird. And Lana’s performance last year was so bad it made me stop listening to her for a while because I was just so disappointed. Def feels like they don’t really value a “performance” moment like Beychella anymore.
yeah but i also feel like no one’s making crazy enough music to make a performance like that happen. like cowboy carter isn’t exciting. that’s why even if i don’t love it brat should have headlined. at least its loud
Yeah totally agree 😭 bring back the #fun
I’m mid age and want to understand what’s going on in the cultural world of music etc and your stack just informed me in the best of ways. You have a fantastic voice!
thank u!!
Crumbl cookies look so fucking disgusting...
for the most part they are, but sometimes they have one that is like the best cookie i've ever had. they have a cornbread one that is awesome
Was surprised to read through an excellent Clarenalysis of Coachella with no mention of Austin Butler...
Also: Stagecoach is the only music festival in ̷I̷n̷d̷i̷o̷ America that matters anymore. Real celebrities will go here and wear crazy themed things each day to listen to popular music. It has no less than three headliners for each night, plus special famous additions like T-Pain, Creed, the Backstreet Boys.
exactly
Interesting piece but I think a lot of your questions about who is headlining what festival and why can be answered simply by looking at streaming numbers and record sales, instead of what you are seeing on your own social media feed where things are being fed to you algorithmically.
For instance, Green Day and Olivia Rodrigo both sell more records and have higher streaming numbers than Charli xcx. Charli has had 7 albums and Brat was the first major mainstream breakthrough in terms of numbers. All of these festivals are booked waaay in advance, so booking agents go off of long term, macro-scale trends, not what has just been in the internet zeitgeist for the past 6-12 months.
i def should have talked about streaming here as i think it’s ultimately skewing “charts” in a way that doesn’t make sense to extrapolate in the same way as sales do, and in fact i think part of my point is… how much of streaming comes from tiktok, which is algorithmic and isn’t actually reflective of listenership or real recognition of the music itself? in doja cat’s case, i think a lot of her chart power comes from tracks that people don’t even know are by her or who she is because of say so and far more recent one offs that i can’t even name but that are just tiktok audios.
i also took too much for granted how i have written about charli xcx before, which has all been about how her popularity is entirely skewed by algorithm and that, like, kamala doing brat summer doesn’t make sense because no one ultimately knows what that is. but i guess my point is: if algorithm is driving streaming which is driving charts, the translation between phones and real life isn’t broadly legible, and the metrics we have for defining super stardom and popularity can’t really be applied in the same way sales could. the only performances to have any real fanfare this year were gaga’s as an idea (she’s back!) and viral clips of green day’s (one of which of billie wearing a brat hat). also, none of that explains how the 1975 is headlining glasto. it’s all kind of made up, like scotch taping old and new ways of understanding and measuring fame and marketability… so if we’re gonna make it up already, why don’t we just fully make it up and curate based on virality and cultural texture
if coachella is going to invest this much in influencers and then this year palpably lose their interest, they’re going to slip in relevance. they’ll never stop making money, but i do wonder as tickets everywhere go up if only influencers will be able to afford to go to any major concert like this, but they’ll get less and less into posting about it, so the entire model and purpose of it will change.
Saying that Olivia Rodrigo is just as famous as charli xcx is mind boggling to me. Olivia Rodrigo has more world-wide fame than charli ever did. Olivia Rodrigo sold out stadiums in Brazil and Mexico, she even sold out the biggest indoor arena in the entire world- located in the Philippines.
Charli could not reach half of the acclaim within the span of her entire career that Olivia has reached within the first few years of her. I think it's clear that you haven't been outside whatever first world country you're from, because Olivia is dominating world-wide and Charli only dominates X.com and TikTok at most.
thank you for your comment about olivia rodrigo. i say all of this in the text, but i still appreciate your doubling down
You stated "Olivia Rodrigo might have way more commercial grit than Charli, who is second-billed at Glastonbury, but she’s not any more famous" Olivia is quite literally more famous but okay!
commercial grit = ability to sell, which charli doesn’t have. this post is about how coachella doesn’t attend to who’s actually famous but what’s going on on phones, so i argue that, following that asinine approach, charli should have headlined
I feel old reading this