2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Top Songs by Festival Artists

Following a ii-year, pandemic-induced hiatus, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will render this weekend for its 21st edition, with headliners Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, and the Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia. In apprehension, nosotros're looking at the outcome's history and the festival-industry landscape on Th and Friday. And check dorsum next calendar week for our coverage of Coachella 2022.

It's hard to remember a time when Coachella wasn't the lord's day at the middle of the N American festival solar system. But 23 years ago, the idea of a ii-weekend party in Indio, California, headlined by the biggest stars and attended by 100,000-plus people seemed nearly impossible to imagine. Cofounded by Goldenvoice's Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen, the October 1999 iteration was anchored by the likes of Beck, Tool, and Rage Against the Motorcar, plus a host of reliable down-poster alt and indie acts, from Modest Mouse to Jurassic v to Super Furry Animals. It was, in many means, a dream lineup for a certain grade of music fan of the era. It was non, withal, a money-maker: The inaugural edition famously lost $1 meg, and Goldenvoice declined to bring the festival dorsum the side by side year. In a dissimilar timeline, it doesn't ever render, and the music landscape—or at to the lowest degree the concert and large-upkeep festival ecosystem—looks totally different in 2022.

Just we live in this timeline, in which the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival not but came back, but thrived. Since its 2nd edition in 2001, it's been ane of the about profitable and talked-about events in all of popular culture. It's also come to represent many different things to many dissimilar types of music fans: the proving ground for breakout acts similar Arcade Fire, who delivered a transcendent performance in 2005; home to endless big-time reunions, starting with the Pixies in 2004 before bringing the likes of Outkast, Guns N' Roses, the Cure, and fifty-fifty Rage back together; the Big Bang of the EDM movement, and and then later on the host to the brightest names in the genre at its acme; the soft launch for controversial technology and the backdrop for at least one regrettable stunt. And more recently, it's been something that seemed like a nonstarter the first few years: a venue for pop stars similar Beyoncé and Kanye West to effort out their biggest and boldest ideas.

With the festival'due south render this weekend subsequently two pandemic-derailed years, we wanted to assess its evolution over the past 2 decades and try to answer a deceptively complex question: When was the absolute noon of Coachella? Which moment stands as the ultimate haven in the desert? In an attempt to pinpoint information technology to a specific set, there are a handful of factors to consider: the artistic merit of the functioning, of course, just also public interest, long-lasting influence, and uniqueness to the Coachella experience. To help us determine the answer to the overarching question, we brought in two nonofficial Coachella experts: Eric Renner Brown, a author who covers concerts for industry tracker Pollstar, and Jeff Weiss, a writer, editor, and Ringer contributor who has attended nearly every Coachella since 2003 and written about information technology for publications including The Fader and Vice (and, this yr, will write about it for The Ringer).

Below, you'll find six sets that could reasonably qualify as Summit Coachella. Let'south run through the cases for each and try to decide if one stands higher up the rest.

The Pixies Reunion (2004)

Other key performers that year: Radiohead, the Cure, the Flaming Lips, Kraftwerk

Why it mattered: Established Coachella as the place bands get to reunite; outset time Coachella broke through on a national level; first time the festival sold out

The Pixies weren't the beginning legendary band to reunite at Coachella; three years earlier, the festival booked Jane's Habit and kick-started Perry Farrell and Co.'southward 2nd act. But Kurt Cobain'due south favorite indie rockers were the first deed whose return became a major selling point for the weekend. Perhaps that'southward because the reunion was a bit shocking. Frontman Frank Black had famously quit the band via fax in 1993, and he and bassist Kim Deal had barely spoken over the previous decade. But so Tollett and Van Santen came calling. Afterward a fifteen-date warm-up tour that took them mostly through Canada and the Pacific Northwest, the quartet arrived at Indio as the well-nigh-hyped act at the festival to that point. They took the master phase around dusk on Saturday, and depending on whom you ask, nearly stole the show from headliners Radiohead.

2004 marked the then-two-day result'south starting time sellout, and while the band at the top of the affiche may accept played a office in that—Tollett told the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that "Once Radiohead gave you lot the postage of approval, you've arrived"—the undeath of the Pixies certainly brought cachet to a festival that about died subsequently its calamitous first yr. (It likewise produced a bang-up live album released just last yr.) The irony is that the tens of thousands of people watching the Pixies that day far exceeded what the ring had become accustomed to in its start life. Before their first breakup, the Pixies were more of a cult business concern, typically playing clubs and pocket-sized theaters outside of a run on U2'southward Zoo TV tour. But in the intervening years, that cult had grown immensely, thanks to obsession with all things Cobain, a central placement in Fight Club, and the indie-rock boom that was as indebted to them as whatever other forebear.

Coachella clearly saw the potential of reunions in the aftermath of the Pixies' set up. Over the past xx years, seemingly every major broken-up deed you can think of—from Outkast to Guns N' Roses to the Replacements to Rage to LCD Soundsystem—has used the festival as a identify to rekindle the sometime flame. According to Dark-brown, that's a key differentiator between Coachella and other similar festivals, specially in the cases when the artists didn't tour immediately afterward. But why do bands tend to choose Coachella instead of other festivals? "Is it because they have deep pockets and are able to give really good offers to these acts?" Brown asks rhetorically. "Is this because Paul Tollett and Goldenvoice have some underground sauce that they really know how to go these groups to reunite? Who knows?"

Well, at least in the case of the Pixies, we seem to have an answer: "We all made lots of money," Frank Black said in Fool the Globe: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies. "I know everyone's made a lot of money because I'1000 privy to how much the checks are for. Anybody did good. For a little indie rock band, we did really good."

Was it the peak of Coachella? The Pixies going straight into Radiohead was certainly an early peak, but futurity iterations of the festival would far eclipse the 2004 version in terms of popularity. (That year saw 110,000 fans come out, while the 2017 edition—the last yr Goldenvoice offered numbers for—brought a record 250,000 people across two weekends and grossed $115 million.) The Pixies reunion also feels a little less special today, given that they've toured relentlessly in the years since—albeit without Kim Deal, which, now that we're thinking of it, could make for a pretty intriguing Coachella reunion.

Hologram Tupac (2012)

Other fundamental performers that year: The Black Keys, Radiohead, seemingly every notable EDM human activity of the era

Why it mattered: 1 of the most talked-about moments in the festival's history; still a meme to this twenty-four hour period; first time Coachella was held over two weekends

Admittedly, Google Trends isn't the almost scientific fashion to gauge interest in something, particularly a festival that began before the widespread use of social media. Simply it'south useful to see the peaks and valleys of interest over a long enough timeline. Expect at the graph below for searches of the give-and-take "Coachella":

You'll notice that the commencement major spike came in 2012. And surely at that place were many contributing factors: That yr marked the first year the event was held over two weekends; information technology was the 2nd year Coachella broadcasted a livestream of the event; Avicii, Swedish House Mafia, and the dubstep-industrial complex descended on the desert at the peak of the EDM era; Instagram had also just exploded in popularity and was helping turn the festival into an influencer oasis. Simply look what happens when nosotros also search for the word "Tupac," shown below in ruddy.

Now permit'due south also try the word "hologram," shown in gold here:

We call back yous'll find a pattern, merely in case yous didn't: The rough data seems to prove that interest in Coachella hit its so-all-fourth dimension loftier in 2012 cheers to a five-infinitesimal cameo in the middle of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's headlining set. The catch is the guest artist had been dead for 16 years and appeared courtesy an AI-generated hologram. It was an impressive technological feat, especially before the rise of deepfakes. It was also damn most the weirdest thing that's ever happened at a major festival.

While the Tupac resurrection gets all the headlines, information technology overshadowed what was an otherwise special performance. The Dre-and-Snoop collab marked just the third hip-hop headlining set in the festival'southward history, following Jay-Z in 2010 and Kanye West in 2011 (more than on the latter subsequently), and the commencement of those to tap into Coachella's Southern California roots. The skilful doctor and his understudy also brought out a number of their famous living friends, including Wiz Khalifa, 50 Cent and K-Unit, Eminem, and a pre–Practiced Kid, one thousand.A.A.d City Kendrick Lamar. Simply all anyone seems to call up is Holo 'Pac shouting, "What the fuck is up, Coachella?!?!"

"It was very controversial," says Brown. "I'k sure that people were like, 'It was really cool, because it was kind of the showtime large time that people were exposed to this concept of a hologram performance, which has cropped up in other ways since then … but it also manifestly got a lot of blowback and criticism, and has been kind of a dial line ever since."

Was it the top of Coachella? It'due south ane of the moments people almost closely associated with Coachella, only it'due south too creepy to be considered the apex of the result, especially considering it happened two weekends in a row. "What could jump the shark more than a hologram that you're bringing out for a second weekend?" Weiss says. "Y'all're not only exhuming the dead one weekend, y'all're exhuming it a second weekend."

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2008 - Indio CA

Prince (2008)

Other key performers that year: Roger Waters, Portishead, Jack Johnson

Why information technology mattered: It's Prince

You'll find no trace of one of the most famous sets in Coachella's history on the original festival affiche from that yr. When the 2008 lineup came out, most of the buzz focused on Pink Floyd'due south Roger Waters, who was headlining the final night of the festival, and a freshly reunited Portishead, who were on the verge of releasing their hotly predictable improvement LP, Third. But a few weeks earlier the festival, Tollett got wind that someone else wanted to perform—or more accurately, he was told someone else was going to perform. He recounted the story to the Los Angeles Times in 2019:

"Three weeks earlier the bear witness. I get a phone call from a private number, and the guy says, 'My guy wants to talk to you.'" [Tollett] then heard Prince'south voice on the phone: "Do I have to split the T-shirt proceeds if I put the [Prince] symbol and 'Coachella' on a shirt?"

"I go, 'What are you talking virtually? Are you playing?' He says, 'I'grand playing the Sat dark.'"

So at the 11th 60 minutes, the Imperial One was added to the Saturday-night lineup, leapfrogging Portishead on the neb while reportedly commanding $5 million for his time. And as he did seemingly every time he graced us with his presence—from the Super Bowl halftime show to the Rock & Gyre Hall of Fame anniversary—he transcended the trappings of the event. Prince played a 24-vocal set heavy on the hits ("1999," "Little Red Corvette"), collaborations (both Sheila E. and Morris Day joined him on stage), and covers. The latter category gave Prince one of the most celebrated moments of his storied career: an eight-minute encompass of Radiohead'southward "Creep," in which he altered the lyrics slightly only significantly—"I wish I was special" became "I wish you lot were special"; "Yous're so fuckin' special" became "'Crusade I think y'all're special"—and delivered a guitar solo that rendered everything else that happened that weekend inadequate in comparison. You tell us this alone isn't worth $five million:

The functioning was something of a turning betoken for the event, says Dark-brown. "Prince felt like this huge moment in terms of pivoting away from what had previously been their wheelhouse of the big old rock, indie rock and saying we're going to embrace this bigger stone pop star," he said.

Was it the peak of Coachella? At its baseline, Prince's set represented the platonic version of what Weiss says Coachella did best—span generations. Other examples he points to include Paul McCartney in 2009, the Cure in 2004, and Gang of Iv in 2005. "Information technology was the kind of place where it provided a sort of musical pedagogy," Weiss says, adding that recent lineups feel like more than of "a streamingcore festival." The set also certainly has an air of exclusivity that few others in the festival'due south history have had—for years, Prince wouldn't allow any uploads of his "Pitter-patter" operation, though he relented in 2015. So, taking those factors into consideration, plus the fact that Prince may be pound-for-pound the nearly talented musician who e'er lived, we wouldn't fault anyone for calling this ready Coachella's peak. Withal, there'south a few that may trump it in terms of sheer impact.

Coachella Valley Music Festival 2011 - Day 3

Kanye West (2011)

Other key performers that year: Arcade Fire coming off their Grammy win, Kings of Leon, the Strokes

Why it mattered: Get-go hip-hop set to close the festival; reimagined festival sets equally high-concept performance art; commencement year of Coachella's livestream

Less than v months after Kanye Westward delivered his magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he took the phase for what was the most elaborate set Coachella—and possibly any modern music festival—had seen to that indicate. Running through a collection of his hits likely would've been plenty, simply instead, he enlisted coconspirator Mike Dean to reimagine some of his all-time-loved songs and designer Virgil Abloh to fine art-direct the performance. The end event was staggering: a massive replica of the Chantry of Zeus at Pergamon every bit a backdrop, dozens of ballerinas engulfing the phase, a stage lift once used by Michael Jackson for Kanye to hover far higher up the lxxx,000 fans watching him. Today, it feels like a preview of the legendary Yeezus and Saint Pablo tours he'd take on the route just a few years subsequently.

Dating back to the beginning of his career, Kanye has, of course, been no stranger to theatrics, but Brown suspects there may have been a game of one-upmanship at play with his 2011 set. The previous twelvemonth, Jay-Z became the kickoff rapper to always headline Coachella when he airtight out the Friday-night slate by turning the festival into a giant party. Kanye, who fabricated no bones at the fourth dimension about having a picayune-blood brother complex regarding his Watch the Throne collaborator, may have been looking to outdo his one-time mentor. "It wasn't simply, 'Oh, here'southward Kanye coming out and doing all his hits,'" Chocolate-brown says. "It was like, 'We're going to have this massive production, he's really bringing his ethos and grafting it onto Coachella in a style that was new for headliners.' Similar a lot of Kanye stuff, it really did transcend him equally a hip-hop headliner and remade what it meant to headline Coachella, period."

Was it the meridian of Coachella? We're getting close, but not quite. Kanye's 2011 gets docked a few points because he's a Coachella mainstay: West also performed in 2006, made a surprise advent during the Weeknd's set in 2015, and joined Kid Cudi on stage and later performed with his Sunday Service choir in 2019. He was set to return as the endmost headliner this year earlier pulling out only a calendar week ago and forcing Goldenvoice to tap Swedish Firm Mafia and the Weeknd as replacements. It's no Altar of Zeus, but it'll do.

2018 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival - Weekend 1 - Day 2

Beyoncé (2018)

Other central performers that yr: The Weeknd, Eminem

Why information technology mattered: Possibly the defining performance of Beyoncé'due south career; possibly the simply high-concept set to top Kanye'southward from 2011; likely the most searched and streamed Coachella moment ever; subject area of the Netflix documentary Homecoming

When Coachella began, Paul Tollett and Co. never anticipated hosting popular stars on their stage. In fact, when Goldenvoice got their biggest "get" to engagement in 2006 with Madonna, the promoters put her on the trip the light fantastic music stage in the Sahara Tent in an effort to connect her with society-child roots and maintain some credibility among the more indie-leaning festival goers. (That was not without some logistical problems, however: "At that place were 12 trillion people trying to see Madonna on a phase that was congenital for like 10,000 people," Weiss says. "The unabridged festival's in that location; you couldn't run across a thing.")

Maybe it was the rise of poptimism, perhaps it was the influx of celebs and influencers in later years, perhaps it was the need to sell tickets for 6 total days over two weekends—simply by the mid-2010s, Coachella had embraced pop music, full stop, with none of the caveats that the Madonna performance included. Tollett laid it out in the 2021 YouTube documentary Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert: "As the years go past, with all the dance music getting so big, and then hip-hop, then pop non being a bad discussion among the indie rock people anymore, it just started feeling like this is something that Coachella actually needs." He's certainly backed that quote upwardly: Contempo years have seen headliners such as Drake, Calvin Harris, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga. And and so at that place was the biggest 1 of them all, peradventure Goldenvoice's biggest "get" in the festival's history: Beyoncé.

Originally slated to headline the main phase in 2017 before her pregnancy with twins delayed her performance a year, Beyoncé closed out the 2018 Saturday-night slate with a three-act, 32-song set that reimagined her biggest hits and included a few inspired covers, all run through the lens of HBCU marching bands. She enlisted her husband, Jay-Z, plus her sister Solange, her former Destiny's Child partners, and about 100 backing dancers for support. There's a reason the functioning has earned the name Beychella—information technology was bigger than the festival itself. "What Beyoncé did was the ideal thing you could expect from a popular star at a music festival," Weiss says. "She reimagined the form in a way that I remember people hadn't seen since Prince. With Beyoncé, she managed to mistiness art, commerce, and spectacle in a really ingenious fashion."

Not only was the functioning an instant classic, it was too eastxtremely popular. Think the Google Trends graph from higher up? Look again and run across where the biggest fasten comes:

That would be Apr 2018, and it's difficult to imagine that came considering of the Weeknd's 2nd fix in iv years.

Was it the peak of Coachella? Depending on how you define "pinnacle," yes. It's certainly the most pop set in the event'south history. Plus, anytime Beyoncé does anything at that place's a reasonable chance information technology's going to be the apex of the class. But there's i more performance nosotros demand to discuss offset …

Daft Punk (2006)

Other key performers that year: Madonna, Depeche Mode, Tool, Massive Assail

Why it mattered: Aside from irresolute the trajectory of popular music in the 21st century, it wasn't that big of a deal.

The robots took over the desert. This set has been written most advert nauseam—including by yours truly—but it's worth remembering the nuts: At a relatively dormant flow of their career, at a time when guitar music still ruled the twenty-four hour period, Daft Punk hopped atop a giant LED pyramid, reworked their catalog into a ready that showed the full potential of electronic music, and put on the best dance party of the young century; 40,000 people rushed the Sahara Tent (which, once more, could hold roughly 10,000 people), nearly collapsing the stage. From there came a tour, a live anthology, and an unabridged EDM ecosystem that may not have existed—or at least would've looked entirely unlike—without them. Kanye came calling. After, the duo enlisted Pharrell and Nile Rodgers for one the biggest songs of the 2010s. Along the manner, they stood next to Beyoncé at a TIDAL event. Daft Punk broke upward last year, but their influence looms large over the past decade-plus of music, and it can be largely traced back to this gear up.

A couple of Parisians in helmets upstaged anybody that weekend: Madonna, who took the Sahara Tent stage just a few hours before them; headliners Depeche Mode and Tool; anyone who doubted their genre as a worthwhile art form. In doing and then, they showed the power of Coachella while delivering the ready most closely associated with the festival. "It was this moment where all the stars aligned," says Brown, "and nosotros're like, 'Hither's this festival that can take this coveted group doing something completely new, both in terms of their music and their production, and present it in this manner—in the middle of the desert, in a place where people might not necessarily take previously thought that it might be happening.'"

Was it the tiptop of Coachella? It sits, quite literally, at the top of the behemothic, flashing pyramid.

Will This Twelvemonth's Lineup Offer Any Peaks?

This weekend, Coachella returns for the first time since 2019 later on COVID concerns caused Goldenvoice to cancel the past two years. In a vacuum, the headliners all have their strengths: Harry Styles, the male child-band member turned pop heartthrob, will make his only U.S. festival appearance this yr on Friday; Billie Eilish, by any metric one of the biggest pop stars in the globe, will return to Coachella on the main stage on Sat after announcing her arrival on the Outdoor Stage in 2019; the Weeknd and a reunited Swedish House Mafia will supplant Kanye equally the Lord's day nighttime hammer, which brings a certain kind of nostalgia.

Taken together, however, those three acts mark a sharp alter from the earlier years of the festival. While Rage Against the Machine was supposed to reunite (over again) for Coachellas 2020 and '21, they're nowhere to be found on the 2022 lineup. And where 2019 saw Tame Impala concord downwardly the Saturday slate, there aren't whatever similar newer rock acts doing the aforementioned this year. Perchance that'due south an indictment on the state of rock music—is at that place an Arcade Burn down equivalent that could take slotted in?—and Coachella is just following suit. "This simply kind of further cements their movement away from a real rock headliner, which is part of a bigger discussion about rock's identify in the music manufacture in the yr 2022," Brown says.

Simply this year'due south lineup likewise doesn't accept any of the splashy reunions of years past, unless you count Swedish House Mafia (who, all due respect, don't agree the same cachet as Rage or Outkast, or even the Replacements). Brownish suggests in that location may be an obvious reason for that: "Who else is left to reunite?" he asks. "It'due south like the Smiths and Talking Heads and the White Stripes—those are the large white whales." He pauses for a moment then offers one proper name that volition be familiar to Coachella goers: "Daft Punk, evidently."

The cease outcome, in Weiss'southward view, is a festival that lacks the specialness of years past, that feels very similar to its increasingly homogenized competitors. "Coachella and Lollapalooza were the alternative festivals, Bonnaroo was the jam festival," Weiss says. "At present they're completely indistinguishable from each other."

Maybe the sparks will come from down-affiche acts, like Turnstile, the Baltimore hardcore band that's currently breaking large on alternative radio and playing Saturday, or Denzel Curry, the dynamic South Florida rapper who but delivered 1 the yr's best albums in Cook My Eyez Run across Your Time to come. Maybe Doja Cat, fresh off the most charming pee pause in recent Boob tube history, will deliver a performance that pushes her career to another stratosphere (assuming she still wants a career). Maybe Phoebe Bridgers or Megan Thee Stallion or Jamie twenty emerge from the two weekends even bigger stars than they were heading into them. On the surface, this year's menu may not have an obvious contender for Top Coachella set, but it still offers enough if you're willing to wait for information technology.

"You have this for a value as a consumer if yous're willing to make the most of information technology," Brown says. "You can go up close and you can see a large range of acts. This is where Coachella is a cut in a higher place."

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Source: https://www.theringer.com/music/2022/4/14/23024051/best-coachella-sets-peak-beyonce-daft-punk-kanye-west

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