Quadrophobia

How was my post agressive? I'm constantly getting sh*t here for weighing in on the discussions, when everyone preaches an "open" discussion, but that somehow doesn't seem to involve actually discussing likelihoods of artists that someone just wishes to be there. Remind me about that when the line up is out

three years is long enough to return after, i don't see a problem there. Typical Sonar material The Cure thing is what I'm talking about here constantly: It doesn't make sense to assign random probabilities to acts we know nothing about. Sure, The Cure were a general candidate, but y'all were sure they MUST be there (🔥🔥🔥🔥indicated like what, 80%?). Things just don't work like that and sometimes someone just decides he doesn't feel like festivals. So unless theres tourdates in Europe around PS or someone specifically said they'd be at PS, the reasonable thing is to assume nothing. Turns out my info was correct and those Twitter accounts were doing exactly what everyone here would not belive: Making things up on the internet, just because. Still, everyone discussed that as if there was any truth behind it. Every f***in year y'all build up stellar expectations by collectively daydreaming and every year people are disappointed when reality hits Just so you know, a newly created account on reddit said the line up will be out Tuesday, shall we discuss that for three pages?

Which really has ero indication for PS BCN. Roisin Murphy was the only bigger act from SAs 2023 Primaveras that made it to PS BCN 2024. Simply no connection there. And booking just doesn't work like that

I mean its a bit of an odd measure, because its been so long, but for their last album they played solo shows and then festivals on the tours second leg a years later. Might of course be completely different but still. Another thing is: It used to be relatively common to do arena shows with strewn in fests. This is much less a thing now, bc you essentially need two lines of production (tightly scheduled arena tours used to do this as well) and since the costs of touring exploded, the second line of production is not worth it anymore in relation to the money acts make on a handful of fests.

On the contrary, it has become less and less relevant to be a headline act somewhere. There were times when you had to make it to the top of the fest machine before you were arena ready but thats long gone. Primavera does have a good reputation, but even they can't keep up with the pace of star-making nowadays. Acts like The Cure do not need to play anything, they don't care too much about money and they sure don't need exposure. They particularly dislike playing festivals if the audience will just be there for the hits. Negotiating these things isn't a walk in the park and more often negotiations fail than succeed. I should really skip this thread until the actual line up releases the amount of certainty with which y'all predict things there is zero information available about ist just absurd. I'd love to have a reasonable discussion about the line up and that can of course include The Cure and any other act, but we are getting nowhere if everything here is based on gut feeling, dates some person on twitter made up and esoterical predictions about some act that has a new album out at some point in history

Primaveras USP is precisely being different from Mad Cool and co. I think the mistake that is being made here time and again, is taking the former edition as a blueprint, when 2019 was nothing like 2018, 2020/21/22 were nothing like 2019, 2023 was nothing like 2022 and 2024 was nothing like 2023. PS will curate the fest from whats available and what makes sense and if they cannot build a pop-column, they simply won't. There is nobody at PS who is like "oh we didn't check this or that box, so we need to book Sabrina Carpenter". There is a myriad of artist that'll appear on the scene that simply aren't on anyones radar here and PS will be fine without venturing into radio-territory. There is FKA Twigs, Olivia Rodrigo, Phoebe Bridgers nd so many more female pop (adjacent) headline candidates that I don't understand, what the basis of this weird line of argument is, that there has to be a 1:1 lana counterpart, when all evidence of past years says that thats never been the case. It simply makes no sense modelling the 2025 expectations from 2024s line up

How come? Its hard to argue that they had enormous influence on the development of their genre. Charli brought hyperpop into the mainstream with Brat and Dua Lipa (who I personally don't care for btw) has succesfully fused the dance revival into arena-sized popsongs with Future Nostalgia. PS booked both of them at exactly the moment where they broke out into absolute stardom and has thus profited greatly from their cultural momentum.

The Cure is one of those acts where stuff is more or less openly discussed with the fanbase, they don't do the entire secrecy and Promo cycle thing. Asked for a tour, their management said they were not 100% sure when the album was gonna be released so they optioned dates in the "relatively distant future" (this waas in 2023), which the person reporting this took for independent dates, because you don't option festivals. As I said, it doesn't rule them out, but festivals might not be their focus. But why would PS book a textbook radio pop act? Her music is fine, but has nowhere near the cultural significance of a Lana, Charli or even Dua Lipa. Thats what PS is after, not simply big names

I think the headline will be far off from what we've discussed here. There is as of now little movement in the festival sphere and we will know more in the coming weeks. Afaik f.e. The Cure will do an extensive arena tour for the new record in 2025. Does not exclude festivals per se, but it might just be too optimistic to count on them for 25.

I do see hte overlap, I just think its too small to throw headline-level money out

Halsey in 2023 is smaller than Doja in 2025, also much PS-compratible alt-pop with her latest record. And then again, 2023 broke the rules, because the push into Madrid called for artists that weren't gonna be booked otherwise like Ghost, Maneskin, Calvin Harris and others. The Tame Impala comparison actually illustrates my point pretty well: They are expensive , BUT that pays off, because they are liked by both indie and pop audiences. Doja Cat is expensive and realtively limited to Rap audiences

JT, Rihanna and Madonna were names that came up recently. About Doja Cat: She is now a Coachella headline name. Not impossible for PS, but for the money they have to shell out for such a name, they need someone who at least most of the regular audience finds appealing. Doja Cat is no Lana Del who has important touch points to other audiences, whilst Doja Cat is straight up in Pop Rap that you wouldn't be able to sell to the Indie crowd. She would've worked in the undercard, but not as a headliner.

I'm kinda confused, when did we start discussing these mainstream names that so obviously don't fit PS or would be way too big? Like when has a booking like that ever happened? Why would Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Madonna or Doja Cat play PS? There is just no angle from which that makes sense.

This is so obviously someones wishlist 😄 The will to make believe in this thread is stounding me time and again... Although she is marketing herself in the popsphere charli and co inhibit, her music is just far too basic to headline PS. If she does EU fests, she'll be at Mad Cool with their far more mainstream oriented booking. Phoebe Bridgers would be an obvious choice, she has never been to PS since breaking out, but there is as of now zero indication she even has a new album ready in 2025, let alone tourdates. There was talk about taking time off after boygenius, too. On the other hand, its been 5 years since Punisher by PS next year and thats already very long for an album cycle in modern pop

Might as well go for Imagine Dragons. I wouldn't read anything into the Geoff Barrow statement, neither pro or contra future Portishead tours. However I think it should be clear that he is not planning on going back on tour immediately after citing health reasons for leaving Beak. Doesn't rule them out, but it sounds very unlikely for 2025