Well everybody, the day is finally here!
After much speculation and rumour the Splendour in the Grass 2019 lineup has arrived and of course, I have some serious thoughts about it.
This lineup, dominated by hip hop headliners, seems to have taken a leaf out of Coachella’s book and has decided to finally acknowledge the current climate of music.
If my Splendour history serves me correctly they usually have one or two ‘legend’ headliners followed by maybe one rap or hip hop act. This year however, it’s the other way around with Tame Impala the only headliner not apart of the hip hop community.
Splendour has also gone ahead and allocated the acts to their playing dates right away with Tame Impala headlining Friday, Childish Gambino on Saturday and Chance the Rapper and SZA (if we are counting her as a headliner but I will get to that soon) on Sunday.
I only managed to guess three of these artists right (Tame Impala, Foals and James Blake) because of this, I have some thoughts and questions about this lineup to put out to the universe and anyone else who is willing to listen. So let us begin…
WHERE ARE ALL THE GODDAMN FEMALE HEADLINERS?!
Three male headliners?! Really??
This just makes very little sense to me so I’m going to try and make some sense of it.
Childish Gambino:
Know we know why Childish Gambino is on this lineup. He is trying to make up for his cancelled Australian tour which was set to happen last year, but I feel like people would much prefer a headline tour not a shortened set….. at a festival….. in the winter.
Tame Impala:
Tame Impala makes sense too, new music is on the horizon and its been a minute since Kevin Parker has graced Australian stages.
Chance the Rapper:
This is the one I just can’t understand. I mean he is well loved over here but he has only dropped a bunch of singles since his last full project, Colouring Book in 2016. If you check his Wikipedia page it says a new project is set to release July 2019 so we’ll see what happens there.
Regardless of those reasonings above I don’t even want to try and justify why there are three male headliners for this festival. There are plenty of incredible female options that have would make a lot more sense on this lineup.
Janelle Monae:
She is one that instantly pops to mind. She is playing Fuji Rock the week after Splendour so she’s tour ready and has no other commitments during the dates. Her latest album Dirty Computer was nominated for album of the year at the Grammys and has been largely regarded as one of the best releases of the year. She is an epic live performer (check her Grammys performance) and still owes Australia since the ‘Golden Electric’ joint tour with Kimbra was cancelled in 2014 (I am still devastated that didn’t happen btw).
SIA:
She is an iconic Australian born pop superstar and is also headlining Fuji Rock (a festival that doesn’t seem to mind a female as one of their main acts). She would no doubt be warmly welcomed by her home audience and I think she would satisfy a more pop inclined audience.
I understand there ARE females quite high up on this lineup, SZA, Santigold, Courtney Barnett and Warpaint but I’ve decided that this is a basic requirement in representation so I’m not about to applaud Splendour for doing the bare minimum.
I feel like this lineup is starting to feel reminiscent of the 2018 Oscars wbu?
Also, I think it’s pretty sneaky how they have placed SZA as the fourth artist on this lineup in attempt to lump her in with the headline acts. It’s super transparent and seems like it’s merely a strategic move on Splendours behalf to try and claim diversity and gender equality when at the end of the day, those three men are the headliners.
As you can probably tell I’m a little upset with the Splendour lineup but it probably shouldn’t surprise me as we all know they love to regurgitate previous acts from past festivals around Australia.
Childish Gambino (Spilt Milk 2018 – Cancelled), Chance (Beyond the Valley 2018), James Blake (SITG 2016), Foals (Falls 2016), Santigold (SITG 2016), Catfish and the Bottlemen (Falls 2019) like honestly I could go on.
I understand there are probably agreements with artists and obviously Australia has been a country of great success for most of these artists but lets try switch it up every now and then yeah? I am in no rush to attend Splendour in the Grass this year but if you are let me know in the comments!
lifeofafangirl.video.blog 