Coachella: 5 Takeaways From the 2026 Lineup

Once upon a time, Coachella used to ring in a new year of festivals and live music by releasing its lineup in January. It arrived in this timeframe with such consistency that those first couple weeks of January were frustratingly slow for the festival’s devotees. But those days, apparently, are over. Following up on last year’s surprise November lineup drop, Coachella pushed the timeline up two months earlier and revealed its 2026 lineup on Monday, September 15th.

The extra early release suggests two things: that organizers would ideally like an even longer runway to sell tickets (not a bad idea), and they’re really confident in their 2026 lineup. When glancing at this upcoming year’s edition, it’s easy to see why. Sabrina Carpenter and Karol G will headline the festival as previously reported, anchoring Friday and Sunday night; Justin Bieber — perhaps the biggest name of the bunch, and the toughest to nail down — will take the reins on Saturday for his very first solo Coachella performance. Also, the Italian DJ and producer Anyma is back post-Sphere residency to debut his new show, Æden.

Get Coachella 2026 Tickets Here

Elsewhere on the lineup are sub-headlining performances from The xx, The Strokes, and Young Thug, plus Nine Inch Noize (Nine Inch Nails + Boys Noize), Turnstile, Disclosure, Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Interpol, Addison Rae, Dijon, Ethel Cain, Wet Leg, Laufey, BIGBANG, FKA twigs, DEVO, Moby, KATSEYE, Sombr, Alex G, and many more.

As festival lineups have been increasingly looking more and more random, it’s a bit challenging to assess the direction that big events like Coachella are taking. Last year’s lineup felt more millennial-coded than usual, and the same could be said about this year. At the same time, Coachella reprises the crucial strategy of nabbing as many ‘acts du jour’ as possible (see: sombr, Addison Rae, KATSEYE, Teddy Swims, and Laufey).

Read on for the five biggest takeaways from the Coachella 2026 lineup.

It All Depends on How You Feel About Justin Bieber

It was hardly 18 months ago when a still-burgeoning Sabrina Carpenter seized the main stage and casually debuted a little song called “espresso” at Coachella. Like her fellow Coachella 2024 breakout Chappell Roan, Carpenter’s rise has been stratospheric of late; she could have so easily taken the entirety of 2026 off following the success of Short ‘n Sweet, but instead she doubled down and put out a great new album, Man’s Best Friend. So, it was a no-brainer to get Carpenter back for next year’s Coachella. She’s at the peak of her powers, she’s got a whole lot of personality and charisma on stage, and her live vocals are excellent.

Karol G’s rise has been less ubiquitous but still undeniably big. The Colombian pop star performed a massively attended 2022 set (complete with a memorable celebration of Latin pop), became the first Latin artist to headline Lollapalooza in 2023, dropped her star-studded fifth album Tropicoqueta this summer, and recently headlined the halftime show for the São Paulo installment of the NFL’s International Series.

Then there’s Anyma, which… look, I’m sure his residency at the Sphere was visually spectacular. I can appreciate an artist who pays as much attention to the visual aspects of a live show as they do for the sonic aspects. But it’s hard to not see Anyma as the odd one out in this group of headliners. Is his music really worth such a prime slot? Not just his visuals, but the songs themselves? I imagine the SoCal electronic heads will have a lot more to say about his booking and performance than I do (though I also suspect that a huge portion of his audience are tech bros).

This brings us to the make or break headliner: Justin Bieber. 10 years ago, even with the rejuvenation he experienced with Purpose, it would have been unthinkable to book Bieber as a central headliner. A lot of the core Coachella crowd, who attended this festival in the first phase of its existence, might be deterred by the choice. But Swag, his latest album, has been a summer hit, and many of the fans who grew up with Bieber are engaging with him again out of nostalgia and because of his “It’s not clocking to you” persona.

Perhaps the album really has worked a miracle and altered the way general public see Bieber; as far as we see it, however, one rather nice album doesn’t really change the fact that his catalog is uneven and a lot of his recent music has been boring, worship-lite wife guy pop. Bieber being the ‘legacy’ superstar is a bit of a bold risk; he has never headlined one of the Big Five of US festivals, he’s scaled back on live shows significantly over the years, his public life has been slightly turbulent of late, and he’s a pretty unique get, all things considered.

At the same time, this is Justin Bieber we’re talking about, not Frank Ocean or Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. He’s fine. Mid, even.