SZA

[FuzzyDunlop]

2 minutes ago, Alvoram said:

My honest take on her music is that I don’t think it lends itself well to a headline slot. She has some decent songs, but the ones I listened to all had a very chilled out vibe. I disagree that the Pyramid stage was the wrong stage, she could have worked that stage well, but in an earlier slot, her music is the kind thing I’d love to stand and listen to during a nice sunny afternoon slot. 
 

I just don’t think it’s headline material, whether Pyramid stage, West Holts or Woodsies… And that’s nothing to do with popularity, she’s clearly massive with certain demographics, it’s a vibe thing. By that time in the evening, much of her usual demographic are well into party mode. 
 

Again though, to be clear, I only listened to her 5 or 6 most popular songs 2 or 3 times, along with the obvious SM viral ones countless times, so I’m basing my opinion on very little data. If she does have some more upbeat music in her catalogue I apologise. 

 

I hsve just listened to her album on the bus. I thought it was pleasant & if she was on WH in the afternoon or maybe the Pyramid & I was there - I wouldnt leave.

 

Headline? Esp on a sunday? Not for me.

[CaledonianGonzo]

CTRL a genuinely great record and SOS not far behind it.  She's better than a mid afternoon slot on the third stage.

[Alvoram]

2 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

CTRL a genuinely great record and SOS not far behind it.  She's better than a mid afternoon slot on the third stage.

Didn’t intend to imply she wasn’t ‘good enough’ or ‘popular enough.’ Just that I would have loved to have gone and seen her in an earlier slot, but chose not to in the HL slot, as her music is not what I’m looking for at that time of night. Wondering if others might have thought the same thing. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

Yeah in a lower down slot I'd absolutely have been there.

[The Nal]

This is what people want on a Sunday night

 

 

 

 

 

[Superscally]

This SZA booking could really hurt the festival. She's clearly hurt by it. 

Critically acclaimed, hugely popular in the US...

This won't go unnoticed by artists booking agents in the States when Glasto mentions the low fee/exposure see-saw...

Bloody shame, as scheduled correctly, would have really liked to have seen her, as would many, many more others.

[DeanoL]

15 hours ago, kugglaw said:

Probably a response to all the stuck in their ways men of a certain age who think that if *they* haven’t heard of something it must be awful. 

I dunno, for me it's the opposite. I'm a man of a certain age who thinks if I haven't heard of them but they're headlining Glastonbury they must be a leader in their field. Now I'm confused no-one went to see them.

[Crazyfool01]

32 minutes ago, Alvoram said:

My honest take on her music is that I don’t think it lends itself well to a headline slot. She has some decent songs, but the ones I listened to all had a very chilled out vibe. I disagree that the Pyramid stage was the wrong stage, she could have worked that stage well, but in an earlier slot, her music is the kind thing I’d love to stand and listen to during a nice sunny afternoon slot. 
 

I just don’t think it’s headline material, whether Pyramid stage, West Holts or Woodsies… And that’s nothing to do with popularity, she’s clearly massive with certain demographics, it’s a vibe thing. By that time in the evening, much of her usual demographic are well into party mode. 
 

Again though, to be clear, I only listened to her 5 or 6 most popular songs 2 or 3 times, along with the obvious SM viral ones countless times, so I’m basing my opinion on very little data. If she does have some more upbeat music in her catalogue I apologise. 

Yep totally agree . Tempo was totally wrong for headliner for me …. 3rd down maybe 4 th tbh just seemed a bit more chilled music when I had a listen to figure my choices pre festival 

[DeanoL]

14 hours ago, kugglaw said:

 

Sure, you've got a point. But this thread has spent 8 months predicting a performer's downfall. How long will it spend revelling in it? I don't really get the big hubub is. People who like it watched. People who didn't watched something else. People who had nothing else they wanted to watch went home. Case closed, surely?

It's a discussion forum, and this is an interesting thing to discuss. I don't think anyone is saying she's a bad act, or even that she performed badly (and some people *are* saying that about Dua Lipa) - just it was purely a failure in booking and positioning on the bill, which it absolutely was. I'd urge you to not see that as criticism of the artist.

13 hours ago, MEGABOWL said:

All getting a bit OTT TBH. Sometimes the festival takes a punt (they should do it more often IMO) and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The festival goes on.

It's the first time it's not worked with a headliner though. Obviously the festival goes on, but there was a theory that essentially it didn't matter who headlined the festival. They would always pull in a big crowd. Because they were headlining Glastonbury, so by definition they must be a big deal, so by default people would go and see them.

That's now been proven incorrect, which I think is really interesting.

Does it put the festival at risk? No I don't think so. But there's an adjacent belief that was next to "the headliner will always get a big crowd, regardless of who they are" which is "the festival will always sell out, regardless of who is on". I think this also challenges that assumption a little bit.

[MEGABOWL]

2 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

 

It's the first time it's not worked with a headliner though. Obviously the festival goes on, but there was a theory that essentially it didn't matter who headlined the festival. They would always pull in a big crowd. Because they were headlining Glastonbury, so by definition they must be a big deal, so by default people would go and see them.

That's now been proven incorrect, which I think is really interesting.

Does it put the festival at risk? No I don't think so. But there's an adjacent belief that was next to "the headliner will always get a big crowd, regardless of who they are" which is "the festival will always sell out, regardless of who is on". I think this also challenges that assumption a little bit.

There have been other headliners that got small crowds-Moby in 2003, Arcade Fire, Metallica, Radiohead in 2017 was surprisingly small, Kendrick wasn’t huge in 2022, there was an awful lot of space at Neil Young in 2009. This one didn’t work out and it really isn’t the end of the world. I doubt any perceived assumption made by whoever apparently made it that any headliner is guaranteed a huge crowd is part of the festivals thinking, nor any other unrelated perceived assumptions.

[MEGABOWL]

48 minutes ago, Alvoram said:

My honest take on her music is that I don’t think it lends itself well to a headline slot. She has some decent songs, but the ones I listened to all had a very chilled out vibe. I disagree that the Pyramid stage was the wrong stage, she could have worked that stage well, but in an earlier slot, her music is the kind thing I’d love to stand and listen to during a nice sunny afternoon slot. 
 

I just don’t think it’s headline material, whether Pyramid stage, West Holts or Woodsies… And that’s nothing to do with popularity, she’s clearly massive with certain demographics, it’s a vibe thing. By that time in the evening, much of her usual demographic are well into party mode. 
 

Again though, to be clear, I only listened to her 5 or 6 most popular songs 2 or 3 times, along with the obvious SM viral ones countless times, so I’m basing my opinion on very little data. If she does have some more upbeat music in her catalogue I apologise. 

I kind of agree. I would have gone to see her if she’d subbed which wouldn’t have been an unfair booking, I had no interest as a headliner.

[Nduja]

I caught the last 40 mins after legging it from the Park.

 

I enjoyed it overall - the sound issues from the first bit had been ironed out at this point and she sounded really good - but it was also clear that it was  most certainly a miss from the festival's pov and also from the artist too. It didn't feel like a headline festival set in any way.

 

The staging was pretty incredible but did contribute to it feeling more like an arena show grafted onto a festival rather than something tailored for the occasion. 

 

I think she was pretty nervous and there wasn't really a great deal to bring the casual audience onside, not much interaction or anything special for Glasto. It's definitely possible to make melancholy work on a big festival stage - see London Grammar for example - but this wasn't really done here.

 

I think more media in the run up to the festival could definitely have helped - the fact that there were the BBC interviews with Dua, Coldplay and Simz but not SZA for example set the tone - but instead it felt like the festival knew they'd made a mistake and let it sink. 

[M42]

26 minutes ago, Superscally said:

This SZA booking could really hurt the festival. She's clearly hurt by it. 

Critically acclaimed, hugely popular in the US...

This won't go unnoticed by artists booking agents in the States when Glasto mentions the low fee/exposure see-saw...

Bloody shame, as scheduled correctly, would have really liked to have seen her, as would many, many more others.

Yeah I’m really worried this gives too much ammunition to the “let’s just have Muse every single year” crowd. Please don’t turn into IOW or R&L. 

Edited July 2 by M42

[DeanoL]

9 hours ago, Deviceing said:

I know I'm a few pages late but I disagree with everyone saying it would've been fine if only she'd headlined the Friday instead. This bump-up would've failed regardless. Nobody knows who she is.

But on a Friday or Saturday, if I'm not that fussed about any of the other headliners, I might be intrigued enough to find out who she is. I mean, she's headlining Glastonbury, so must be a big deal, and I might as well right?

 

But on a Sunday, after five days of festival, and knowing I've no interest in the late night stuff (or substances that might keep me going a bit longer) I might instead choose to head home.

 

And this *is* partly the demographic argument again. Those that have been going for decades, that are now older men, that don't have the energy... it's not that they're insular and don't want to give any new acts a chance or discover new stuff. Just they might not want to do that as the last thing they see at the festival.

[CaledonianGonzo]

2 minutes ago, M42 said:

Yeah I’m really worried this gives too much ammunition to the “let’s just have Muse every single year” crowd. Please don’t turn IOW into R&L. 

Next year they should bump up Kneecap

[MEGABOWL]

SZA couldn’t do Saturday but it’s a shame that she didn’t do Friday. Either Coldplay or Dua were a much better fit for Sunday.

[Nduja]

I think the festival could have achieved much of what they intended to achieve and succeeded by bumping Simz rather than SZA (but maybe not on a Sunday night).

 

It has to be said that most of the metrics that people use to discuss suitability of acts would have pointed towards SZA being the right pick.

 

I think ultimately, it's unfortunate it didn't work but not an absolute disaster.

[Colorblindjames]

32 minutes ago, Superscally said:

This SZA booking could really hurt the festival. She's clearly hurt by it. 

Critically acclaimed, hugely popular in the US...

This won't go unnoticed by artists booking agents in the States when Glasto mentions the low fee/exposure see-saw...

Bloody shame, as scheduled correctly, would have really liked to have seen her, as would many, many more others.

This would be good IMO. This continuous race to book the biggest and best field fillers should end with artistic integrity always coming first. The festival is at its best when it’s taking risks. 

[MEGABOWL]

The festival was in a bit of a spot there. Assuming the stories about the other much bigger names they tried to get are true they were left needing to bump someone up. In previous years there’s been obvious options they could have turned to whether it be a big Sub or an Other headliner-Pet Shop Boys, Lizzo, Chemical Brothers, Liam Gallagher, even Biffy Clyro or George Ezra. There was no such act this year. The line up had incredible depth (it was an amazing year musically for me) but not at the top. So they took a punt for the younger crowd but this one didn’t pay off.

[The Nal]

Just now, MEGABOWL said:

The festival was in a bit of a spot there. Assuming the stories about the other much bigger names they tried to get are true they were left needing to bump someone up. In previous years there’s been obvious options they could have turned to whether it be a big Sub or an Other headliner-Pet Shop Boys, Lizzo, Chemical Brothers, Liam Gallagher, even Biffy Clyro or George Ezra. There was no such act this year. The line up had incredible depth (it was an amazing year musically for me) but not at the top. So they took a punt for the younger crowd but this one didn’t pay off.

 

I saw Liam last Monday and he could've easily headlined with the current setlist.

 

 

[CaledonianGonzo]

I think we have to consider Liam a when and not an if

[The 38 year old virgin]

Surely the festival taking a punt on a (relatively) new artist is a good thing for it in the long run. Sticking nostalgia artists headlining will please the absolute radio listeners attending but will not provide a long term future.

Sza from what I can gather didn't work, but that shouldn't mean that they should revert to tried and tested headliners.

[fraybentos1]

9 minutes ago, Nduja said:

bumping Simz rather than SZA

Good lord no! How would it help for a different artist who is even less popular and would get an even smaller crowd to be bumped up? Little Simz was already playing in an inflated position as it was

[fraybentos1]

6 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

The festival was in a bit of a spot there. Assuming the stories about the other much bigger names they tried to get are true they were left needing to bump someone up. In previous years there’s been obvious options they could have turned to whether it be a big Sub or an Other headliner-Pet Shop Boys, Lizzo, Chemical Brothers, Liam Gallagher, even Biffy Clyro or George Ezra. There was no such act this year. The line up had incredible depth (it was an amazing year musically for me) but not at the top. So they took a punt for the younger crowd but this one didn’t pay off.

They could defo have got someone else but they had self imposed a rule of them being female which cut down their options 

[The Nal]

2 minutes ago, The 38 year old virgin said:

Surely the festival taking a punt on a (relatively) new artist is a good thing for it in the long run. Sticking nostalgia artists headlining will please the absolute radio listeners attending but will not provide a long term future.

Sza from what I can gather didn't work, but that shouldn't mean that they should revert to tried and tested headliners.

 

Theres a balance though. This was a step too far.

 

Festival at the moment kinda reminds me of 07/08/09 in a way. Lots of good things going on with changes and a few missteps.