The Glastonbury headliner rumour mill never lets up. Each name is more ridiculous and unlikely than the next – if you believed the whispers, this year’s festival was to be topped by Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, Madonna, Beyoncé, Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls. This morning’s official announcement features – surprise, surprise – none of them. Instead, we’ve got Dua Lipa, SZA, Shania Twain and… Coldplay. Again.
There’s nothing original in moaning about a dull Glastonbury line-up. And anyone who’s been to the world’s greatest festival will tell you the long weekend is about so much more than who is on the Pyramid Stage every night. But this year does feel uninspired – as if multiple artists turned down the once career-defining spot. As if organiser Emily Eavis was scrabbling around for someone to fill the gaps. Which – given the lateness of the announcement – is probably what happened.
Chris Martin and co will become the first band to top the line-up for the fifth time. The first was in 2002, when they replaced The Strokes and only had one album to their name. It’s hard not to imagine something similar happened behind the scenes this year. Coldplay’s ubiquity at Glastonbury has become a running joke and, as the band’s mainstream popularity has risen to superstardom, they’ve developed a reputation as safe, even boring. It makes sense – they appeal to the widest audience, both at the festival and watching on the BBC at home. Still, it’s hardly exciting, is it?
Neither, really, is Dua Lipa, who is the Friday night headliner this year. She’s a perfect pop star: bland, likeable, with just enough faux edge to be cool but her live act is notoriously underwhelming and she’s yet to achieve world domination. It’s neither surprising nor daring for her to top the Glastonbury bill. Especially since she has a new album out in May (more on this later).
The most adventurous and exhilarating headline act on the 2024 line-up is SZA. Unknown to the masses but beloved by her fans, she’s somewhat of an enigma. An R&B singer with exquisite lyricism and only two albums, SZA stays mostly out of the spotlight (unless she’s picking up Grammys – she won three at this year’s ceremony). But she is more than deserving of a headline slot at Glastonbury. She rarely plays live in the UK and tickets to her first and only British arena tour last year were like gold dust. She will also be the first black woman to headline since Beyoncé in 2011.
To its credit, this year’s headline choices are an important correction to last year’s pale, male and stale line-up of Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John. Still, it’s hard not to see the three headliners as indulging in self-serving promo rather than revelling in being a part of the festival’s history – Lipa has a new album to sell, SZA will headline Hyde Park days before she plays the Pyramid Stage and Coldplay are never not on tour (their Glastonbury slot is sandwiched between gigs in Lyon and Rome).
Headlining Glastonbury is all about risk-taking, one-offs, special guests; creating a show that has never been seen before and will never be performed again. Think Stormzy’s powerful 2019 act, Paul McCartney singing with Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen in 2022, Beyoncé belting out Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” merged with “Sex on Fire”.
It’s incredibly disappointing when an artist underestimates the importance of a headline slot on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage and just settles for their usual travelling circus. In 2022, Billie Eilish – the youngest ever headliner – performed the exact same arena show she’d already done countless times on her Happier Than Ever world tour. Last year, Arctic Monkeys rolled out the exact same set as they had around the country (bar a couple of crowd-pleasing oldies that Turner obviously took little pleasure in singing).
I imagine Dua Lipa is in danger of pulling the same stunt. She’ll put on a great show – which will look particularly good on TV – and has enough hits (“New Rules”, “Don’t Start Now”, “One Kiss”) to keep the crowd buoyed. But with a new album announced just last night and surely a new tour to go with it, it’s impossible not to feel like Glastonbury is just another tour stop, another chance to promote herself to the masses. Shania Twain is already headlining BST Hyde Park – let’s hope her Sunday afternoon legends’ slot set will be something different.
The line-up is never going to please everybody. We can’t go back to the days of having only old white blokes with guitars headlining every year. But Glastonbury needs to feel special. This is different to every other festival. After 54 years, it’s become a showcase of the world’s best music, promoting the most invigorating musicians and centring the UK as the beating heart of pop culture in the process. It’s not just another promotional opportunity and it’s not just another show.
I’m not without hope. Coldplay, as dull as their booking is, know how to crowd-please and will send us into sensory overload with their fireworks and special guests; London-raised Dua Lipa will have grown up watching and listening to the festival and will likely pull a few tricks out from her bedazzled leotard; Shania Twain is an old hand and a camp icon.
Without the headliners themselves understanding its gravitas, Glastonbury will lose relevance – you might as well go to the overstuffed marketing exercise that is America’s dismal equivalent, Coachella. At least Coldplay have only headlined that once.
