ACL 2022 Lineup Reaction
disastrous
Lets just get into it. This is a bonafide disaster. What the hell happened man? I had some low expectations but I guess the good people over at C3 presents wanted to just shatter that with what is quite possible the worst ACL Lineup in a long time. Seeing the headliners, and your heart sinks practically immediately. But lets examine why.
Right off the bat we have Red Hot Chili Peppers and P!nk headlining. RHCP makes sense as a legacy band that has some legendary jams, but at the same time their new material was just not it for me. I know John is back and its a great time to be a RHCP fan, but this is just instantly underwhelming. But thats not the worst part, the worst part is P!NK. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea for this festival. It seems almost insulting honestly. No disrespect to P!nk, but this is just not up to the par of previous headlining artists at this festival or at other high tier festivals. This seriously downgrades ACL into a bottom tier that I hadn’t personally placed them in since 2014 or 2015. ACL had some pretty bad years, but I thought they had cleaned it up with smart booking and having a finger on the pulse. Generally speaking, last year’s lineup wasn’t terrible but it was underwhelming, but damn this year makes last year look amazing.
What bothers me is not just that I don’t feel like they’re headliner material, but ACL has gotten much bigger artists previously in both respective genres! I can give RHCP a pass if we had another similarly big sized rock band, but honestly we don’t even have that. With P!nk its like, who is this for exactly. Who is the P!nk fan in 2022. Is this for an older generation? Is this a nostalgia play? I’m not exactly sure who this is for. Whereas Miley headlined last year and that felt weird, it still felt a bit relevant with how she’s been received the last few years and her music has been on the upswing. Same with Billie Eillish, it just felt relevant. P!nk headlining feels incredibly irrelevant. I’m sure her fans are stoked, but wow they totally missed the mark for everyone else I feel.
Lastly, I’m not really a fan of The Chicks (FKA Dixie Chicks). I’m just not a fan of their music generally or of the country genre. It does feel like the success of last year with George Strait opened these doors though.
The final 5 headliners are all over the place in terms of how big these artists are. I love all these artists, but SZA is headlining off one album, Kacey’s last album was not as good as Golden Hour but I understand why shes here, Flume is just huge now for sure, but Paramore and Lil Nas X headlining? I mean don’t get me wrong I love both of these artists but damn I didn’t really expect them up here. But since we have such lower tier of headliners, I guess its an early graduation into the headlining space. Lil Nas X is definitely on the higher tier of pop right now though that is for sure. And Paramore is having success even without dropping anything as their old old emo sound is back en vogue.
Moving into the mid card:
And one thing has become extremely clear. They have booked much more “chill” artists than previous years and there is a general shift in vibe. To get it out of the way the only big name rappers so far are Lil Nas X and Lil Durk. Lil Nas X, I think most people would place in a pop category. I actually do enjoy his rapping a lot and its gonna be extremely needed here but I feel like not being able to book another marquee big rapper, was a huge and short sighted mistake on ACL’s part. Their recent success with booking great rappers has finally come to an end.
Lil Durk is only playing one weekend. The other rapper on here is Tobe Nwigwe, and no hate to him, but its hard to get excited for that. Phoenix and Spoon are the last of the rock and roll guard here while James Blake covers the indie/electronic vibes and The War on Drugs is also generally pretty chill. Outside of this, the only other pick for me here is Jazmine Sullivan, which signifies there will be more R&B at this festival thanks to SZA headlining, which is always a good thing. The rest though is just extremely uninteresting. You got some of the most generic house/electronic music on here. Again I am not a country guy so some of these artists are just not it for me as well. But also like for example Sofi Tukker, like no dude I am sorry but this is not Tulum (lol). Wallows is a band that’s been randomly getting a ton of attention but I don’t know from where. What I do know is that the guy from 13 reasons why is the main singer so that explain some of that.
The weekend only artists do make a blow to the lineup. For example I would have loved to see James Blake, Lil Durk and Carly Rae Jepsen, but I can’t for now since I have weekend 2 tickets. By this point in the lineup, this is just not a festival generally for someone like me. But your boy makes do.
Going down the mid card we got the incredible CRJ but for only one weekend as previously mentioned. I’m heavily considering getting a single day ticket to see her and hoping the other artists are on the same day. Japanese Breakfast is a band I do like and have tried so many times to get really into, but at the end of the day its just nice chill music. Omar Apollo, honestly, I have never really gotten into and to be honest nothing he’s done has excited me at all. If I do catch him, it’ll have to be because there is nothing else playing. I’ve heard great stuff about the Marias and Princess Nokia. Princess Nokia is going to be sorely needed as well considering the small amount of rap here. Larry June is another rapper, but honestly I don’t know anything from them and its not like its really exciting either. From there Purple Disco Machine has been making waves amongst the House/EDM latinos around here. Not exactly sure where this dude came from or how this rise even happened but I like his mixes for the most part and its the closest thing outside of flume I’ll probably see in terms of dance music at ACL.
Pinkpantheress is someone I’ve talked about on this newsletter already and I’m very excited to see. The Midnight should be a fun time with their faux 80s synth wave nostalgia shtick. I’ve seen Faye Webster open for HAIM and it was chill and Wet Leg is a band I’ve been meaning to listen to more. But we are now essentially getting to the end of the mid card. While some of these artists can possibly blow me away, there’s just nothing that is really standing out to me. There needs to be some sort of X Factor to tie it all together. Sadly I think their choices in rock and rap genres really hurt the festival. I saw some kids complain about there being no mosh music, and I’m sure they’re probably spooked at by what happened last year in AstroWorld fest at Houston. Still though, you can’t help but feel underwhelmed.
Rounding out the mid card, there isn’t much. My picks here are L’imperatrice, Genesis Owusu (so good), Teezo Touchdown, and Ibeyi (but only because I’ve heard about them and haven’t listened to them yet. Slayyyter would be fun to watch I suppose but that’s weekend 1. In general this is a much more chilled out festival compared to what I am used to. Thankfully being able to break down the festival into these smaller sections makes it easier to find the diamonds in the rough. And its pretty fucking rough out there!
The lower card has a bunch of bands and artists I don’t really know but one that I do know about is Pleasure Venom who are an awesome punk band and will for sure kill it. Its gonna be needed.
So there it is! ACL 2022 posted what I consider to be such a poor lineup. Like I don’t really know what happened, but when you break it down it makes sense. They upped the number of country, pop, EDM / House (generic or otherwise), Indie pop and R&B but neglected the Rock and Rap genres. The rock artists they do have are generally much more chill or just not as exciting in the mid to lower card. Like look at the Riot Fest lineup and then look at ACL and you will notice that there is some serious star power missing. And its a shame. As of this writing, only weekend 1 tickets have sold out while Weekend 2 tickets still seem to be easily purchasable from the website. Oh well there is always 2023. Hopefully ACL / C3 presents can book a better festival, this time actually for everyone.
