Considering the guy once hosted a super-spreader party at which he played the music of a well-documented racist, we don’t exactly count on Diplo for the most refined takes in music. Even so, his latest is a bit of a head-scratcher: He told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s unimpressed with Coachella, in part because he thinks the massive festival “might be having a hard time booking headliners.”
As a refresher, Frank Ocean, BLACKPINK, and Bad Bunny headlined the first weekend of Coachella 2023; after the former suffered an injury on festival grounds, the recently-reunited Blink-182 replaced him for Weekend 2. Forget the fact that this year marked the first time a Latin or Korean artist has ever headlined in the festival’s history — Diplo misses the white men!
“I think [Coachella] honestly might be having a hard time booking headliners,” Diplo — who added that he’s “not a huge fan” of Frank Ocean — told THR. “We kind of left the era of great superhero acts, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Daft Punk. Now they book acts like Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK, who are cool, but they’re just the most Top 40 there is. It’s almost like they’re stadium acts.” So, we must’ve just imagined all those stadium tours the Chili Peppers and Daft Punk each did.
“I think there’s not a lot of really culturally relevant new acts,” Diplo went on, the telltale sign of a guy who just doesn’t put a lot of effort into discovering new music. “I saw Labrinth. That was amazing. I think that represents real Coachella. He’s part of the zeitgeist. But the rest of it just felt like they had to scramble to find things that were cultural touchstones, but also could bring a big crowd in.”
To Diplo’s point, we can definitely see how he might think Coachella is less like a music festival and more like “Influencer Survivor.” But then again — he still went, didn’t he?
Some Coachella highlights Diplo might’ve missed: Dave Grohl screaming with Wet Leg, a surprise appearance from Zendaya, Björk and her army of drones, and much more that Consequence recapped earlier this month.