Completely Ignored

Ignored 11: Setlists without prejudice

Bold statement: When a band plays a concert (ne: “gig”), more often than not, there is a template (in a broad sense) that is followed when the setlist is composed. This needs to be commented on.

Underrated website alert: http://www.setlist.fm/

Setlist.fm is an awesome resource for concert goers and although its Wiki-esque architecture doesn’t always lend itself to things like “accuracy”, it still is a wonderful online destination to revisit your favourite concert memories. Just recently, it allowed me to revisit the splendor that was this and this but not this.

Spend five minutes on the website and you’re liable to be struck by how similar a lot of concert setlists are. There is a cadence that bands tend to follow with respect to the energy and approach to setlist architecture. Sequencing is key, not unlike crafting a mix tape or planning a murder in cold blood.

In an effort to kill the guest work (and an excuse to create a PDF), here is the Completely Ignored Setlist Template (CIST) that bands can follow to help them craft exceeding predictable setlists. This is based on a 15-song setlist model (12 tunes in the regular set, three in the encore). Lots of variance in reality of course but nine times out of 10, you could plug and play and your fans would be none the wiser.

PDF Download: Completely Ignored Setlist Template

Song #1: The band’s second biggest hit (or equivalent)!!! This should be a recognizable, high energy number or if not high energy, at least something that builds momentum or anticipation or excitement. Bonus points if it works thematically, as was the case with Pulp’s comeback appearance at the 2011 Reading Festival. Similarly, we should seriously hope that the Smiths never reunite but if they do, is there any doubt that this song will be the opener of their first comeback gig?

Song #2: An exciting song!!! Easily the best baseball analogy of this entry, the #2 song needs to rival the #2 hitter in a batting order. Characteristics will include reliability, focus, grit, etc. This song/hitter is pivotal to keep momentum strong and can seriously thwart the setlist/batting order if it’s a proverbial “rally killer”. Typically an older song BTW.

Song #3: A strong song from the new album This is where we take a step back. Assumedly. Even if your favourite band’s new album is well received, chances are, a majority of the crowd will only have a cursory interest in hearing anything new aside from the track that is widely regarded as the best of the bunch. Everything else will be kind of… meh!!! Bands try to curb this by frontloading with one of their better new tracks. Probably won’t work.

Song #4: A less strong song from the new album See Song #3 and subtract 25 per cent in the interest column. The initial jolt of “hey, the concert has started” will have worn off and upwards of 30-40 per cent of the audience will become a bit antsy. This song probably doesn’t suck but again, the unfamiliarity will cause energy levels to flatten.

Song #5: A reasonably well-received older song By no means the band’s biggest hit but something that should have some level of recognition from the back catalogue. A reaction from a typical audience member would be “I’m glad this isn’t another new song… but this probably isn’t the song I’D choose!” Line-ups at the bar and washrooms will grow by 20-25 per cent during this track, depending on length (of song).

Song #6: New song / rest song / ZZZZZZZZZ The place in the show where half-soused couples start fighting. This song is probably slower and lets the band rest. Don’t be shocked or offended if a band member (or multiple band members) drink beer, juice, cocktails or water during this tune. It may happen.

Song #7: New song / rest song / ZZZZZZZZZ 2.0 The girl or guy walks out. If there’s going to be a fight in the crowd, NOW’S THE TIME!!!

Song #8: Older song with experimental “noodling” It’s true. A lot of bands will go all Grateful Dead at this point in the setlist, either to breathe life into something old or out of sheer tedium. The results could either be awesome or a complete train wreck. Sometimes, it’s both! A recent study shows that a band member will sneak offstage to smoke a cigarette in 20 per cent of concerts during this tune.

Song #9: Obscure B-side or deep album cut Definitely not for the sweethearts, this stage in the setlist is a bit of a “no man’s land” for all but the most diehard fans. It’s the place to slot in that random song from an earlier album that likely wasn’t that good to begin with but at least will give annoying pukes a chance to overemote in an effort to legitimize of their fandom (in their own eyes). It’s alright and OK.

Song #10: Semi-recent hit that girls like and drunk people will get excited about This is where the set gears back up and salvages the concert for those who ain’t into noodling or “deep cuts”. The concert is likely around an hour in by this point. The end of the set is on the horizon. The band is rested and rejuvenated from their delicious water breaks or cigarette pauses. Overall, they’re ready to “bring this home” as they say in amateur sports and really lame boardrooms.

Song #11: Loud, high energy song A bit of a “table setter” for the closer, this song must ensure that lethargy has been cleared from the room (or outdoor space) so the outfit is primed to end things on a high note. This is also the best opportunity for some “random mosh pit” action which could be a fight or could just be some random lush being passed around into oblivion. Probably the best chance for personal injury to occur is during this song.

Song #12: The current single Ok, maybe not the current single but it’s the last song of the set proper and at very least, this should be a song for everybody. Ideally, this song lends itself to a disingenuous extended outro. I mean, everybody knows the encore is to follow but the band needs to act like it’s their last song. Because that’s just what is done.

Aside: Can we seriously ditch this little charade of “will they or won’t they come back out???” at concerts between the main setlist and the encore(s). I get that the band members need to pee or whatever but between the rhythmic applause, the hootin’, the hollering’, the lame chants and the like, it’s a piece of theatre we can do without. Ideally, the venue should include a little countdown clock on-stage a la New Year’s Eve or the TTC so you know the precise moment that the band will return. In short, attending a concert needs to be more like riding public transit.

Song #13: Underwhelming song Chalk this up to the fact the band was likely just in the bathroom and/or smoking dope but the first song of the encore is typically a bit of a letdown. Often, it’ll be some completely forgettable album cut from their new album and it’ll make the audience feel like all their whistling and rhythmic applause was for nothing! #buzzkill

Song #14: Well-received cover song That’s more like it! Hipsters and “serious” music fans loathe to admit it but everybody loves cover songs. File under “Hell, why not”.

Song #15 The band’s most famous song of all-time!!!!! Trite and predictable but often true.

Aside: Somebody went on setlist.fm and switched all these songs played during Sloan’s Twice Remove anniversary tour stop in Loretto, Ontario (?!?) to song titles that involve either cows, cattle or other farm-based themes. We clearly live in a Wiki-world.

Ignored 10: When adults mosh…

Bold statement: You would be hard pressed to find higher praise for an unknown/semi-unknown band than to have adults mosh at your concert.

SF-based garage punk goof Mikal Cronin just spent three nights dusting up the Silver Dollar as part of NXNE 2013. If his second of three shows was any indication, it would appear he is well positioned to join the late Jay Reatard and Wavves in the ranks of notable power pop artists who channel punk rock without playing punk rock in a literal sense.

Let’s finger early Lemonheads as the torch bearers and acknowledge that if played well and armed with decent songwriting plus the right/wrong ‘tude, this type of music will almost always translate well in the live setting. As was the case with Cronin who personally, I thought was pretty friggin’ fantastic.

So fantastic, he caused some grown-ass mans (and a few womans) to mosh.

You don’t see adults moshing all that often but it can be VERY exciting when you do. Here is a rough ingredient list for adult mosh pits…
1. Multiple pockets of drunk friends (“friends”?) who are starting to lose their proverbial “sea legs” as they wait for their heroes to come on-stage
2. Tight capacity
3. The heat… by Gawd, the heat!!!
4. A band on-stage that is either age-appropriate or at least VERY reminiscent of a like-minded, age-appropriate outfit (i.e. as mentioned, Mikal Cronin was not unlike Reatard or Wavves or early Lemonheads)

When the stars align, that’s when the magic happens. And by magic, I mean… uh, people shifting their weight and knocking into each other.

In short, I would argue there is no greater praise for a fledgling band than to have adults mosh at your shows.

Seeing teenagers, tweens and toddlers mosh is a given since at an all-ages show, kids are more inclined to mosh just for the sake of moshing. For example, I attended a free Pursuit of Happiness gig at Mel Lastman Square on August 16, 1996 and there was a smattering of moshing for music that was hardly mosh-worthy. The mosh pit composition of that concert was 80 per cent teenagers, 5-10 per cent vagrants and 10-15 per cent “other”. Those kids (and displaced people) were moshing for the sake of moshing. So while TPOH were in fine form (as always), they didn’t really INSPIRE the moshing per se. It was circumstantial.

Do you follow?

An even more extreme example comes from a friend who says he and approximately 100 teenage boys from across Ontario moshed to a cassette version of the first Rage Against the Machine album in the summer of 1994. This took place at a tree planting academy (or something) and the pit apparently contained related activities such as crowd surfing, fist fighting and bullying(!!)

Now, details are sketchy (I’d be concerned if they weren’t) but the point is, young people are just looking for an excuse to run into each other. They would mosh to Frank Mills if given the opportunity.

So anyway, the ingredients existed for moshing to ensue at the Mikal Cronin concert and ensue it did. There was pushing. There was shoving. A couple of girls got squished against the low-slung Silver Dollar stage (although they apparently enjoyed it since they both sported ear-to-ear grins).

Cronin and his band tore through tracks like “Weight” as the moshing grew playfully furious. On a violence scale, I’d give this mosh pit a 1.5 out of 10. It was largely good natured from my stage-right vantage point and to the credit of the Silver Dollar staff, they even allowed an adult to stagedive towards the end of the set (if you can call jumping off a two-foot stage stagediving).

Hopefully Cronin himself can mosh (in a metaphorical sense) into greater notoriety because obviously if you can get 19+ music fans in Toronto to get all visceral and stuff at a show, you’re doing something right.

Aside #1: The Wikipedia definition of “headbanging” is quite amazing and thankfully, linked from the “moshing” entry. Details below although unfortunately, this entry is a bit thin on its “windmill headbanging” definition.

There are various styles of headbanging. Various styles are often mixed according to taste and to the tempo and heaviness of the music. They can also be performed with eyes closed and/or in combination with hand gestures such as the sign of the horns, singing, yelling, and lip syncing. Headbangers’ bodies usually bang with the head, reducing the strain on the neck and making the body move in a serpentine, up-and-down fashion to the music. There are a number of different stances a headbanger can adopt, from a wide stance with one foot farther in front of the other to feet wide apart to either side. The stance chosen is usually determined to gain the best base for the headbanger to keep their balance and avoid falling over. Another popular style of headbanging is windmill headbanging.

Aside #2: Here is a “wall of death” mosh pit video that is very dusty and frankly, a bit disappointing.

Ignored 9: Go away… stay away… profit!!!

Bold statement: The most effective means of promoting music in 2013 is to stay invisible and authentically allow the fans to come to you.

Whack Scottish electro duo Boards of Canada haven’t released a full-length studio album in close to eight years. Until right now.

Tomorrow’s Harvest arrives amid a seismic wave of hype, at least compared to where this outfit left off in 2005. Boards of Canada were always popular, no doubt. But their woozy take on electronic music always seemed to be a bit more of a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”. Even their lauded 1998 debut Music Has the Right to Children is probably best positioned as background music if we’re being completely honest with ourselves. As us “serious” music fans typically aren’t.

Boards of Canada and their minders used a decidedly modern approach to hyping Tomorrow’s Harvest, “hiding” song snippets out-of-doors and across the Internetz and seeding various bloops and bleeps with tastemakers over at NPR. Seems and sounds pretty effective as it’s positioned the album as one of 2013’s most anticipated (until the next one) and really helped Boards of Canada jump a layer or two in terms of (perceived) notoriety. It remains to be seen if this is parlayed into lucrative live appearances (uh, Boards of Canada isn’t good at touring) and/or things of this nature.

… and yet while the Boards of Canada hype machine has been churning for much of the last few months, it was pretty much dormant for years upon years prior. Partially or entirely by design.

A great way to build buzz is to shut your goddam face and let your disciples come to you, let them pine for you, let them yearn in their hearts and their souls and their wallets.

No doubt, it’s chancy but it does speak to the fact that there are two exceedingly popular approaches for musicians to stay viable in 2013 and that we’re seeing each employed more and more.

1. Speak early, speak often and never, ever go away
There are a variety of approaches to stickin’ around, whether that’s guesting on other artist’s tracks, high-profile production gigs, touring when you don’t have anything active to promote (Courtney?), being a jerk, having somebody else be a jerk (or a-hole) to you or generally being around places where there are lots of cameras. The example of this approach are probably Rihanna, who literally has not left us for more than a couple of weeks at a time since 2005. Check her discography and you’ll see we’re entering into Cal Ripken Jr. territory: an individual who is consistently good-to-very-good on a daily basis and maintains this level of performance for years on end without any legit threats to the throne (Manny Alexander notwithstanding, obviously).

Yeah, “girlfriend” is on a sick run that is now approaching the decade mark and she doesn’t really show any signs of slowing down. Time will tell but the sheer magnitude of what Rihanna has done since 2005 quite trumps Whitney, Mariah, Beyonce, Diana Ross, etc. in terms of density AND volume. Big picture: she probably doesn’t get enough recognition considering. Ironically, Rihanna’s 2005 debut Music of the Sun (terrible album art BTW) was released August 12 of that year, a precise two months (well, two months and five days) prior to Boards of Canada’s last full-length The Campfire Headphase, which birthed of October 17. Full circle, dude!

2. Leave and be vague about when/if you’re coming back
Again, this is the approach Boards of Canada used when they went AWOL circa 2007-2012 and it has been employed by a variety of other artists in recent years with varying levels of success: David Bowie, Daft Punk, My Bloody Valentine, Kate Bush, D’Angelo, Guns N’ Roses, Portishead, even the Arcade Fire in a far more micro sense. The irony is in most or maybe all of these cases, the chasms between albums isn’t a marketing ploy at all. It’s more a product of disinterest or legal matters or substance abuse. Furthermore, I guarantee you in each instance, it’s largely a result of the artist not having anything new or interesting to say. That’s seriously not a bad thing: showing the restraint to stay away until you’re ready to speak when not spoken to.

It’s been well documented that the record industry itself is essentially flatlining but the community still bears pock marks from its “salad days”. The standard two year “record-album-tour-rinse-repeat” cycle is still very much a thing even though albums don’t mean very much at the moment and everything that isn’t nailed down or firewalled is ultimately lifted.

Take a band like the Strokes, who seemed like they might be encroaching on “so overrated, they’re underrated” territory when they released their kinda-fantastic 2005 effort First Impressions of Earth. That was their third full-length. What have we seen since? A couple of tepid follow-ups and a band that conveys a wild degree of disinterest, now paired with their stylized disinterest.

We’re now seeing the next generation of hipster-approved outfits hitting THAT phase in their discography including future Coachella headliners the National and Vampire Weekend. These bands have been steadily “around” for a while now (the National… much longer than a while but in terms of general consciousness, a while).

It appears their respective ascents are still in progress but given their active touring schedules and the ubiquity of their output in certain circles, it’ll be telling to see if people will start to lose interest some time soon. Possibly by the end of 2013?

There hasn’t really been a extended stretch where people had an opportunity (the pleasure?) to yearn for Vampire Weekend or the National since they’re always playing live or talking with Pitchfork or chumming around with Steve Buscemi or Hayden or whoever. So it’s tough to gauge whether they’re yearn-worthy at all. Boards of Canada have passed the yearn test. Time will tell with these other bands.

So what did Boards of Canada do during their hiatus? Not sure. What we do know is that their Reddit fans spend a lot of time sharing and speculating while various music blogs played their part in elevating the band into uncharted waters. Again, this pattern carried on for years and the result is an inflated sense of actuality that can allow ordinary bands to jump to soft-seater status and GOOD bands to effectively become legends (or headline festivals named after sauces).

This isn’t a comment at all on the quality of Boards of Canada’s music…. even though it totally is. It’s more a comment on the fact that perhaps the best hype-fuelling device in modern music is a complete swing of the pendulum to everything else happening in the industry.

If you ignore everything and everybody, it’ll only make people want you more.

It takes a certain calibre of artists to turn the trick but when you look at the reception that Boards of Canada, Bowie, MBV and Daft Punk have received in 2013, you’ve gotta imagine that more artists will be opting to STFU for prolonged stretches going forward.

Thankfully. There is way too much music as is.

Ignored 8: The mediums are dead or dying

It’s about three decades too late to be fishing for cred by quoting Marshall McLuhen, right?

Nevertheless, his “medium is the message” concept continues to ring true across all phases of society. And in the case of popular music, the mediums kinda suck when you think about it.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Whether you get squirrelly over vinyl, CDs, 8-tracks or cassette tapes (we’ve been hearing about this supposedly-pending cassette renaissance for forever), the reality is physical manifestations of music have always been mere vehicles. Accordingly, the message is the message and the medium is just something you store on your BENNO.

Now, this is the stage in the essay where vinyl purists tell me how music sounds “warmer” when played on a turntable. That’s fine. Have your moment….

(pause)

Ok. So speaking personally (and from the heart), the music lover in me has no issue whatsoever acknowledging the fact I haven’t purchased music in hard copy form for at least 3-4 years as of this writing. And really, I have no imminent plans to do so any time soon… or ever again.

Sure, I do miss trolling the stinky walkways of Sonic Boom or shoehorning visits to Amoeba Music during every California pit stop. However, progress is progress and I now revel in making iPod playlists and wondering where the (heck) all the MP3s are on my hard drive.

So I’m positioning this as a eulogy of sorts to every record, cassette and CD I ever owned. To effectively put bookends on an era lasting (ballpark) from 1984 to 2009, here are my best recollections as to my first and last albums in each medium and some self-inflicted nostalgia with regards to the ownership of each.

First vinyl record: Van Halen – “Jump” 7″
Purchase year and retailer: 1984, A&A Records at The Shops on Steeles and 404 (ne: Markham Place)
My family did enjoy deep cuts from Sandra Beech and Sharon, Lois & Bram back in the day (note: the former’s performance at German Mills Co-op Nursery School Play Day 1983 was worthy of an At Budokan-type box set) but I will always “Jump” as the first piece of recorded adult music I ever owned. Which is ironic since the lyrics to “Jump” are pretty juvenile (especially the “Go ahead jump/Might as well jump” part). More background: my sister was heavily into Cyndi Lauper at the time and requested a 7″ of the noted women empowerment anthem “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. As a means of keeping the peace for my folks, I was able to choose a record as well and opted for “Jump” for some reason. A curious choice because while I thought the tune was completely OK and was fairly impressed with David Lee Roth’s dexterity in its video, I don’t really remember being completely in love with the song. In hindsight, I perhaps should have opted for the Cars’ “You Might Think” although in fairness, that probably would’ve been largely based on the fact that Ric Ocasek turned into a lipstick during the video.

Last vinyl owned: Talking Heads – More Songs about Buildings and Food
Purchase year and retailer: 1999, Cheapies in downtown Hamilton
The vinyl resurgence hadn’t quite kicked into full force in the late 1990s and thusly, you could still get a ton of nicked-up old records for next to nothing during this time. I really wanted to own the song “Artists Only” so I picked up this album for less than $1, even though I didn’t own a record player. Years later, I splurged on the CD and gave this vinyl version to my friend Mike although I seem to remember this record and Teenage Head’s self-titled debut sitting in my office for at least a year. Beside some office supplies.

First cassette: Rick Astley – Whenever You Need Somebody
Purchase year and retailer: 1988, Columbia Record and Tape Club
I’m going to write a full essay or two about record and tape clubs someday. They were kind of ubiquitous at the time and no doubt were responsible for a bulk of the Spin Doctors’ records sold, in general terms. The 12-for-a-penny deal was tantalizing although obviously a bit of a scam that preyed upon the lazy and dim-witted, since you were on the hook to buy 8-12 more albums (at wildly inflated prices) over the next year. Letting your kids enter a record club was somewhat comparable to letting your kids own a pet: they would promise to do the legwork but ultimately, you’d end up with a whole lot of dog crap. Case in the point: the unexpected comedy of my Dad unsuspectingly receiving a cassette of Robert Palmer’s Heavy Nova on cassette plus a bill for $18.43. Oops! Me and my sister shared a club membership in 1988. Because she was a year and a half older, she got to choose all the cool records: Def Leppard’s Hysteria, INXS’ Kick, U2’s The Joshua Tree, Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, etc. From what I recall, I chose such gems as Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life (was this album about drugs BTW?!?), Steve Winwood’s Roll With It (could you imagine a 10-year old listening to this in 2013?!?… different times) plus Rick Astley’s blue-eyed soul masterstroke Whenever You Need Somebody. Not sure why I didn’t get Chicago 19 as one of my choices, as I quite enjoyed the power ballad “Look Away”. I still do, actually.

Last cassette owned: The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
Purchase year and retailer: 1998, Cheapies in downtown Hamilton
As mentioned, Cheapies had a ton of cheap vinyl and it also had a bin (some would call it a garbage can) full of orphaned cassette tapes that were missing their liner notes, cases or both. These retailed from anywhere between $0.10 and $0.50 although I bet if you asked REALLY nicely, you probably could’ve had them for free. I managed to fish the incredible debut from the Jesus and Mary Chain out of this rubbish pile and to this day, it remains in my Top 10 albums of all-time True story: I once listened to this cassette on a speeding motorboat. Please email me for the extended version of THAT extended version of that exciting story.

First CD: Sonic Youth – Washing Machine
Purchase year and retailer: 1995, Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street, downtown Toronto
I was fairly late to the CD game but I did eventually get a five-disc changer in advance of Sonic Youth’s 1995 show at the Warehouse in Toronto. I purchased Washing Machine alongside Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral (fairly cool) and Sponge’s Rotting Piñata (uncool) to christen the device. The album was pretty solid and the concert was great. Helium opened, much moshing ensued and me and my buddies chatted briefly with Brendan Canning (then of hHead, later of Broken Social Scene).

Last CD: The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir – Shyfolk
Purchase year and retailer: 2009, eBay
Early 1990s CanCon indie is a weird black hole in the Internet. Some cool YouTube videos have surfaced but there is a ton of cool music from that era that now seems wildly obscure considering it was fairly popular at the time. Ergo, the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir. These guys’ good-to-great albums lapsed out-of-print rather quickly so their music is a bit challenging to track down in hard copy form. I’ve managed to acquire three of these (1992’s Superior Cackling Hen, 1995’s Shyfolk and 2000’s best-of/rarities set 1985-1995). Shyfolk was the last of the three I purchased, on eBay for around $4.95 and quite possibly the last piece of physical music I ever own. Bye.

Ignored 7: The ascendants

Bold Statement: Headlining the Coachella Festival has become arguably the single greatest means of confirming your superstar status in the modern musical climate.

The official Coachella Festival “Rumors/Gossip/Wish List” forum is a great website to visit if you like to talk about posters on the Internet. With the 2013 version of the festival now in the books, the forum is already in crap-talking overload, speculating about 2014 and beyond.

Its patrons display seriously obsessiveness tendencies and much of this discussion revolves around the iconic Coachella poster. Specifically, there is much talk about where certain bands reside on the poster in terms of position and most importantly, in terms of font-sized. Basically if you get a thick, dense font goin’, you’ve made it!!

It’s a unique counterweight to an event that has veered widely from being about music in recent years and into becoming an exercise in fashion, branding and other things.

…. and yet, Dead Can Dance still gets booked.

Here is a sampling of the poster fervour (P.F.) you can find on this website:
– icedKeg: Low billing [for Purity Ring] on the poster doesn’t necessarily mean a daytime spot.
– Bumblebee: Some versions of the poster have Blur first and some have Stone Roses. Wonder if they will swap final spot between weekends.
– HeavensWeep: What the [heck] is Kurt [Vile] doing so low on the poster in such teeny-weeny font size?
– jayrizzo: Stoked to see [Wild Belle] on poster!

It’s an interesting and slightly nerdy subculture that seems more akin to fantasy baseball (which is awesome BTW) than musical fandom since it’s all about predicting and positioning and the like. However, in 2013, headlining the Coachella festival (or getting big-ass poster font, in the forum’s pig latin) is a great indicator that you have hit a new strata of stardom as an artist. In year’s past, being on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine or appearing on Saturday Night Live was perhaps this indicator. No longer. Or not so much.

This is a complete list of outfits that have headlined Coachella (multiple time headliners shown in brackets):
– Beastie Boys
– Beck
– Bjork (2)
– Black Keys
– Blur
– Coldplay
– Depeche Mode
– Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg
– Gorillaz
– Jack Johnson
– Jane’s Addiction
– Jay-Z
– Kanye West
– Kings of Leon
– Muse
– Nine Inch Nails
– Oasis
– Paul McCartney
– Phoenix
– Prince
– Radiohead (2)
– Rage Against the Machine
– Red Hot Chili Peppers (3)
– Roger Waters
– Stone Roses
– The Arcade Fire
– The Cure (2)
– The Killers
– Tool (2)

In most cases, these headliners made sense from a dollars and draw perspective. However, especially in the last five years and perhaps in an effort to avoid repeat headliners, organizers have shown a willingness to push former small font-sters into headliner status and thusly, cement them as something in the hearts and minds of…. well, some random people on the Internet.

Phoenix in 2013 fit the bill and no doubt inspired a lot of “I had no idea they were THAT popular” discussions. You could also point to the Black Keys in 2012, Kings of Leon and the Arcade Fire in 2011, Muse in 2010 and Jack Johnson in 2008 as artists who made the leap.

I refer to these outfits as the ascendants.

Now, getting back to our friends in “Rumors/Gossip/Wish List” land, speculation on future ascendants is always rampant. Organizers seem willing to roll the dice on at least one fresh headliner each year. So based on the sample size of 2008-2013, we should continue to see a fresh yield of ascendants for the remainder of this decade.

Here is some speculation on 10 former Coachella small font-sters who could make the leap by 2019.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Purely from a draw perspective, both the Stone Roses and Blur headlining over the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on Day One 2013 was a bit of a head scratcher (which says nothing of quality since all three are quite fantastic). While they’re not quite at stadium status, aesthetically then YYYs seem like a bit of a bullseye for the Coachella crowd: visually interesting, immediate, based in NYC, etc. Still, they were plopped in a “big not that big” font size for 2013. Assumedly, they’ll be shucking their 5th full-length by the next go-round of consideration (assuming they don’t implode) so there is still time for a full ascension, one would think.

Sigur Ros: The Icelandic weirdos provide the kind of sweeping grandiose platitudes that hipsters and (really) everybody else loves and again, a wonder that Phoenix headlined over them already during Day Two 2013.

Mumford and Sons: Liam Gallagher’s thoughts aside, very surprising that these guys didn’t headline at one of the nights at Coachella 2013. Probably was because they were already dabbed to headline a pantload of other festivals across the globe in the coming months. I’m not sure that stylistically, these guys will have staying power as stadium fillers but anything is possible, I guess.

Deadmau5: He already headlined Lollapalooza so a Coachella headlining slot doesn’t seem farfetched at all. Could be a matter of whether Daft Punk beats him to the punch. He did kinda sorta morph their gimmick so either way…

Tiësto: One of those guys I know nothing about besides the fact he’s massively popular and plays large rooms. And stuff like this happens when he plays, which gets bigger reactions than the Stone Roses apparently.

Frank Ocean: What would Frank do? A bit of a contradiction because commercially and critically, Frank would seem to be on a fast track to headliner status. But he doesn’t seem too interested in playing live at the best of times so big picture, it’s hard to see him at this point developing those large font chops.

Florence + the Machine: Florence Welch is beloved and splashy. This much we know. Considering Coachella’s heavy fashion slant in recent years, the promise of MULTIPLE costume changes (!!!) could be an admission of sorts from organizers. The music would be completely fine as well.

Justice: See the pattern emerge: if there is not a bon afide “traditional” headliner available (i.e. guitars), just etch out a big name electronic act and create a veritable… super rave! The last Justice album was kinda loopy (i.e. sounded like Rush at times) but also kinda underrated in my opinion. The next one is shaping up to be a fork-in-the-road moment but these guys seem engaged enough to pull off something massive if needed.

Bon Iver: You could probably swap Bon Iver for Vampire Weekend or the National if needed as the potential next generation Phoenix-esque ascendants. They all play guitars and again, Coachella seems to prefer that its headliners play guitars. Objectively, Bon Iver seems like they’d be a bit of a soft touch as a headliner but there’s the Kanye bromance so maybe some surprise collabo could work.

David Guetta: See Tiësto and acknowledge Guetta’s insane YouTube view counts.