{"id":62710,"date":"2026-04-17T15:05:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/17\/sabrina-carpenter-karol-g-slayyyter\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:05:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:05:43","slug":"sabrina-carpenter-karol-g-slayyyter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/17\/sabrina-carpenter-karol-g-slayyyter\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabrina Carpenter, Karol G, Slayyyter"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tMidway through her Coachella<\/a> set, Slayyyter<\/a> let out a death growl during \u201cYES GODDD,\u201d and the sound reverberated through the thousands-deep audience that gathered to see her. And so did a few astonished gasps when a drone shot revealed just how far outside of the Mojave tent her crowd of headbanging bodies stretched. Slayyyter didn\u2019t have a primetime slot or an extensive budget for a flashy production. She went on in the scorching heat at 3 p.m. in an outfit she made herself. It didn\u2019t matter to her or anyone else there. She delivered one of the most striking sets of the entire first weekend<\/a>, joining the stacked roster of women who dominated conversation around this year\u2019s festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other side of the pop spectrum, far away from metal screams and the electric current of \u201cCRANK,\u201d flashed the shining lights of Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>\u2019s Hollywood dream. The pop star\u2019s headlining set <\/a>was a two-year-old manifestation come to life. At Coachella in 2024, she promised she would be playing the most coveted position on the lineup the next time she came to the desert. Carpenter packed this year\u2019s performance with film references, from Dirty Dancing <\/em>and Cabaret <\/em>to Psycho <\/em>and The Rocky Horror Show<\/em>. Call it Sabrinawood: Some say it\u2019s the place where your dreams come true \u2014 which is especially accurate for pop fans who love spectacle as much as the women on this year\u2019s lineup do.<\/p>\n

\n\tFKA Twigs<\/a> has never been known to hold back on stage, but what Coachella witnessed on the final night of weekend one <\/a>was revelatory. During \u201cCellophane,\u201d the emotion that poured out of her as she choked out words through tears made for a moment as striking as when a crew of ballroom dancers descended on the stage. It was the peak of performance. Even Twigs\u2019 outfit changes were blink-and-you-miss-it seamless. This level of showmanship is often expected of women in pop. But watching all of the other women who put on knockout performances at Coachella this year, thus far, there\u2019s never a sense that they feel weighed down by the obligation of meeting those expectations. They step onto a stage and, in that moment, it\u2019s immediately clear to everyone watching that they belong there.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tHistorically, Coachella\u2019s biggest moments have centered around women who define, disrupt, and dominate pop. It was true of Beyonc\u00e9, who immortalized her 2018 performance as the first Black woman to headline Coachella in the Netflix documentary Homecoming<\/a><\/em>. (That performance also popularized the portmanteau of combining an artist\u2019s name with the festival name, \u00e0 la Beychella<\/a>.) It was also true of Blackpink<\/a>, who became the first K-pop girl group to play Coachella in 2019 and the first K-pop group, overall, to headline in 2023. Katseye named both performances as major influences for their first performance at the festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year, the history-making mantle was passed to Karol G<\/a>, the first Latina to headline Coachella. The Colombian pop star delivered the biggest performance of her career <\/a>with the weight of history on her shoulders. She narrated the set introduction in Spanish and projected English translations onto the screens, setting the scene with a story about a young woman finding her voice by escaping the confines of the barriers placed around her. \u201cWe don\u2019t do this because we want to take everyone out, we do this because we want everyone to feel welcome to our culture, to our music,\u201d she said later in the set. \u201cI want everyone to feel proud of where you come from. Please don\u2019t feel scared, feel proud. Raise your flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBINI<\/a> followed suit as the first Filipino group to perform at the festival. The eight-member unit introduced the desert to P-pop, <\/a>performing in a mix of Filipino, Tagalog, and English. These historic moments are often long overdue in a way that inadvertently highlights how far behind the curve the festival was at a point in time, and, to some degree, continues to be. This year marked the 25th iteration of Coachella since the festival launched in 1999. Prior to 2017, when Lady Gaga headlined<\/a>, no woman had headlined in a decade, since Bj\u00f6rk become the first to headline, in 2007.<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tTiming is an often underrated factor when considering what makes a great Coachella lineup. Take this year\u2019s headline set from Justin Bieber, for example<\/a>. Critiques of his performance were largely targeted towards his Swag<\/em>-heavy setlist and stripped-back stage design, which mostly included the laptop he used to browse through YouTube (a nod to his career origin). But no one who has been truly following him over the past few years expected anything more or less. The last time Bieber would have plausibly hit that stage with full-blown choreography and the career-spanning setlist people seemed to expect this year would have been in 2017, post-Purpose<\/em> and during peak \u201cDespacito.\u201d Pop moves quickly. It isn\u2019t always easy to keep up, though women are unforgivingly expected to do so without fail.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2022, when Kanye West dropped out of the festival, it seemed like the most logical decision would have been to move Doja Cat into the headlining slot. She was billed right below him on the same stage and had essentially already planned a performance fit for scale<\/a>, anyway. Festival organizers ultimately recruited Swedish House Mafia and the Weekend to replace West, but booked Doja to headline in 2024. Her ascension to the top spot on the lineup marked a first for women in rap. It was fitting for Scarlet<\/em>, the pop-denouncing record she released as a follow-up to Planet Her<\/a><\/em> \u2014 one of the defining albums of 2021, which cemented her arrival as a star in the pop arena \u2014 which made up most of the setlist. But it was hard to shake the feeling that the set missed the moment, in some way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCarpenter similarly used her set as a pivotal moment between album eras. Since she debuted \u201cEspresso<\/a>\u201d at the festival in 2024, she completed two legs of an arena tour in support of its accompanying album, Short n\u2019 Sweet<\/em>. Coachella, then, was a chance to switch gears. More than half of her setlist came from her latest album, last year\u2019s Man\u2019s Best Friend<\/em>.<\/a> The rest was a mix of her earlier releases, but only those that seamlessly bridged the gap between then and now, like \u201cSugar Talking\u201d leading into \u201cDon\u2019t Smile.\u201d Coachella has become a place where artists back years of hits into barely two hour-long sets, if that. But it can be easy to get stuck in the past that way. With this many eyes watching, why not put on a show that signals why they should follow you into the future?<\/p>\n

\n\tOne reason women have dominated the conversation around Coachella this year is that they are the ones defining the current moment<\/em>. Few people in pop have their finger on the pulse in the way PinkPantheress<\/a> does right now. Her Fancy Some More? <\/em>remix album expanded her Fancy That <\/em><\/a>mixtape with collaborators Kaytranada, Ravyn Lenae, Jade, and more. Most notably, it paired PinkPantheress with Zara Larsson on \u201cStateside,\u201d currently sitting at Number Nine on the Hot 100, which opened her Saturday night set. The near-hour long performance, the most high-production and elaborate set<\/a> of PinkPantheress\u2019 career, packed in appearances from Thundercat, Tyriq Withers, the Dare, and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tLarsson had a performance in Texas during weekend one of the festival, but it\u2019s possible weekend two will get lucky. If organizers really want to make Coachella pop next year, they\u2019ll make sure Midnight Sun <\/em>gets its moment in the desert. Having a concise and defined aesthetic <\/a>\u2014 like the beach-ready, rhinestone looks Larsson has leaned into, or the plaid and ultra-British looks PinkPantheress has built around the Fancy <\/em>records \u2014 creates an indisputable buzz around not only what songs will land on the setlist, but what the set itself will look like. It\u2019s been one of the primary ways women in pop have cut through the noise in the 2020s. Their influence was evident even in the outfits the crowd wore.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince returning after a two-year pandemic-related hiatus, Coachella has only scratched the surface when it comes to booking pop\u2019s new guard \u2014 though Addison Rae<\/a> appearing on this year\u2019s lineup shows that organizers may be trying to place their bets earlier and earlier. Dua Lipa and Olivia Rodrigo have made guest appearances during other artists\u2019 sets at the festival, but have never played their own. (To that point, neither has Rihanna, though that\u2019s another conversation for another time.) It\u2019s also been nearly a decade since SZA performed at Coachella, when she was billed in the top slot just below the Weeknd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the weeks leading up to this year\u2019s festival, unconfirmed rumors circulated speculating that organizers were keeping her on retainer to replace Bieber, should he decide to drop out. \u201cLmao who made this up?\u201d SZA wrote in an Instagram comment<\/a> earlier this week. \u201cI\u2019ve seen this 4 times now. I\u2019m in New York no one paid me a dime. Wishing everyone the best.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEven the women who aren\u2019t at the festival are making headlines. This was true of Manon Bannerman, one-sixth of Katseye, who is currently on hiatus from the girl group. The show went on with the group making their Coachella debut<\/a> as a five-piece, but the vague circumstances around Bannerman\u2019s overall absence has been one of the biggest stories in pop this year. There was no reality in which that conversation didn\u2019t carry over to this defining moment for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tIf the arrival of their \u201cPinky Up\u201d music video on the eve of their weekend one performance was meant to shift focus, it only fueled the speculation about the future of Katseye\u2019s lineup. Heading into weekend two, Katseye announced their third EP, Wild<\/em>. The five-song project isn\u2019t scheduled to arrive for another four months. A lot can happen between now and August. During their set last weekend, Katseye promised, \u201cThere will be many more Coachellas after today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s safe to assume women in pop will be the beating heart of those conversations, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n