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Coachella globalizes in step with international music trends
The 2023 edition of the massive desert festival is a showcase of global talent, with more than half of the performing artists hailing from outside the United States, including artists from Puerto Rico, South Korea, Belgium and Pakistan.
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(L-R) Jennie, Jisoo, Rosé, and Lisa of BLACKPINK perform at the Coachella Stage during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 15, 2023 in Indio, California. (AFP /Frazer Harrison)
T
he original 1999 Coachella lineup was decidedly oriented towards rock acts and full of white men, but today, the premier music festival's lineup is more diverse and international than ever.
The 2023 edition of the massive desert festival is a showcase of global talent, with more than half of the performing artists hailing from outside the United States, including artists from Puerto Rico, South Korea, Belgium and Pakistan.
The centering of genre-spanning music performed in a variety of languages highlights the US industry's evolving response to global tastes, as streaming and social media offer obvious metrics on what's popular, and profitable.
Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican reggaeton master and world's biggest star, headlined the weekend's opening night with an adrenaline-pumping performance that paid homage to Caribbean music's influential lineage and had his fans screaming with delight.
On Saturday night, the K-pop megastars BLACKPINK put on one of the weekend's buzziest shows -- and made history as the first Asian act to headline the festival -- with tens of thousands of revelers descending on the main stage for a bombastic set of pop bangers preceded by a mesmerizing, drone-powered light show and punctuated by pyrotechnics.
For CedarBough Saeji, a professor of Korean and East Asian studies who specializes in K-pop, the festival lineup emphasizing the hottest acts from across the globe is long overdue.
And when it comes to K-pop, "we've reached a point where the ongoing public demand for K-pop... is clear, even to people who may be watching the financial bottom line much more than they're watching trends," she said.
