Are Fontaines DC that big? I loved their first album and thought their second album was a bit meh. But they were still pretty niche. Have they blown up since then?
I think Glastonbury is basically suffering from the fact that the style of music they're most famous for (i.e. guitar bands) is dying a death. I think I heard that since 2020, a band has only reached number 1 three times. Twice was Little Mix, who aren't really a band in the Glastonbury sense, and one was The Beatles, who they've tried to book, but two of them aren't picking up.
So either Glastonbury has to either lean into what is popular with kids these days, become a greatest hits of old bands that 40 and 50 year olds remember, or accept smaller headline crowds but platform more niche, indie acts that might not be commercially as successful.
I could honestly see them booking one of the big K-Pop bands like BlackPink or BTS as the Sunday headliner. It's also worth mentioning that in the UK's most streamed artists on Spotify for 2024, there wasn't a single UK act (a lot of our biggest hitters didn't have albums out last year, to be fair). If you look at who from the list hasn't done Glastonbury, Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, Eminem, Rihanna, Sabrina Carpenter and Travis Scott have never performed there. There are clearly a fair few there that would draw a massive crowd, but none of them are bands. Noah Kahan was the 10th most streamed artist and he played the Pyramid Stage this year. I'm not sure what sort of crowd he drew. I can't say I've heard of him myself.
There's also a bit of an issue in the modern era with everyone having their own devices and listening to their own stuff. Everything becomes more polarized. The days of everyone knowing a pretty middling band are gone. You can have someone who's absolutely massive, but anyone who's not on a particular section of TikTok or Youtube has never heard of them. In the 90s, if someone was on Top of the Pops and Radio 1, the chances are everyone will have heard of it. I can honestly say, for example, that I've never knowingly listened to a Drake song, even though I know he's possibly the biggest artist in the world. But anyway, what this means is that there are fewer and fewer acts that can draw that kind of crowd at a festival where most of the crowd aren't going specifically to see them.
