I think the reason Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber didn’t ever headline R&L 10-20 years ago was because their music was firmly situated in pop. Anyone into alternative music didn’t have a real interest in them. Contrast that to pop acts today (Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish) in a world where the genre pop has become more blurred. They all incorporate elements of alternative music into their pop music (be it pop punk, hip hop, rock), and you can see people who are into alternative music are now taking an interest into the new pop acts and actually want to see them. The death of V Festival may also play a part with R&L now able to fill some of that void so has expanded what it books. I honestly don’t understand your outrage Chad, times change.
4 years ago on this forum everyone sh*t the bed because all the acts were solo men with guitars, and there was no rock or indie, and that it was the death of the festival.
3 years ago Disclosure, Post Malone and Stormzy were named as headliners and everybody cried that it was turning into V festival with the mainstream radio pop bookings.
2 years ago we were overjoyed they had Rage and then cried when they replaced them with 1975.
Last year everyone bemoaned the festival was BBC Radio 2s future Sunday drive playlist.
This year we were ecstatic at such an insane lineup going back to the golden days with acts like Blink, LG doing the Oasis album in full, Fred Again..
But now we've all suddenly convinced ourselves that V fest pop is in now and we all need to see it. In the same thread where we're willing classic R&L acts like BMTH, Linkin Park etc to manifest.
Anyway, let's play "guess 10 non-headline acts who will be announced" to get away from this chat:
Doechii, English Teacher, Sammy Virji, Soft Play, Bob Vylan, Wunderhorse, Gracie Abrams, JADE, Twin Atlantic, Architects