Industry economic woes be damned — Coachella is back, baby! Which also means a long stretch of highway littered with cheeky billboard messages from featured artists. Now, granted, I have never attended the showerless desert event, but I’m a sucker for nostalgia and the conservation of physical, uhhh, advertising, and, of course, I’m a true-blue hater of all things corny. And I-10 east is full of all three on the way into the festival beginning April 12 and continuing next weekend. For two weeks, the most important billboards in music are hanging out on the side of the highway, so we ranked this year’s most memorable ones, from corny to cool.
Okay, so I’m not gon’ hold y’all up — this is clearly a play at reverse psychology. I do not care how authentic of an artist one might think Tyler is; FOR ME, he has been very genuine about his love for making moments happen. If he’s at Coachella, there simply ain’t no way he doesn’t want you to record him at Coachella. Like, please be serious. The smiley face tells all! So yeah, get them cameras out ’cause it might mean getting called out by your favorite shock-value artist. This is what he lives for. So you’re just gonna come to his Coachella set and not record it, even though he said if you’re gonna be at Coachella, don’t record his Coachella set?
Everything about this one feels kinda wack to me. So Lil Boat yanked Jim Joe’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late font and tried to drag Coachella for waiting eight years to tap his shoulder. And now, listen, I definitely understand being tight about that. Like, they should’ve called him earlier, no doubt. But this isn’t even some big statement on the festival-industrial complex — you’re just upset! I would kinda see it for Boat if there were some symmetry, like, Oh, that Drake-Future album came out eight years ago. Coachella waited eight years to invite me. But no! That album dropped in 2015, which is nine whole years ago! It’s slight but it matters.
Minimalism is dead, but Camila Cabello is truly a necromancer. Like, give us nothing, sis. The eyes thing would’ve been great in, like, 2004, which, at least to me, fits the aesthetic she’s been aiming for for a while. So I guess this one is a win. And the graffiti … chile, part of me believes they hired a teenage tagger to inspire the design, but let’s be real: Some Minnesota local probably drummed this up on Photoshop in 13 seconds. Not a fan. Try it again, please.
Y’all don’t understand — Ice Spice really gets the moment! And the moment, in 2024, is, undoubtedly, 2010!! This one is very simple, maximalist (!!!), and digital. The aesthetic is aligned: You could see this billboard wearing a name belt, black choker, and hoop earrings. You could see this billboard lookin’ fly at the mall and listening to Fall Out Boy unironically. You could catch this billboard gliding across the roller rink and inviting Wallys when the music slows down. The Sidekick is an iconic piece of telecommunication history, and I will always stan and remember.
This one is an unabashed win. The ideal alignment of corny-quirky, horniness, and sheer marketing ploy means people who aren’t whores will think it lowbrow and nasty. Those of us who fuck regularly might think it plucky and suggestive. The humorless among us will simply shit on the easy pun and go back to the sticky sock they share their bedrooms with. The only drawback for this joint is probably the font. It looks like a low-budget A24 title card. It’s punchy, it’s bold, it’s all of the promotional words aesthetes like me hate. However, the spirit of the thing — the joyous debauchery — I gotta respect that part.
… First of all. The other thing is that this billboard is probably the meeting point between Camila and Sabrina: horny but succinct, minimalist but self-referential. Which, now that I think about it, actually makes a lot of sense given where she is in the music game. “Good Tits Big Heart” is Rapp’s own lyricism blown up for the entire town to see, and though it may seem a li’l shocking on the face of it, once we know the origin, it’s like, How could you not wanna go to her show? A nipple could be set free! The only thing we have to lose is our chains.
Aye, listen: If anything, this billboard had me goin’ back in the DeLorean to the halcyon days of 2012, when Lana Del Rey performed on the Saturday Night Live stage as pitchy as a pubescent child who just guzzled Pepsi cola in the greenroom. As a sucker for both blasphemy and mockery, I gotta hand it to Lana for reclaiming a truly horrible live performance as a crucifixion narrative. It took Christ three days to rise, but Lana’s 12 years in a tomb means her return and eventual ascension are fated by the heavens. Apparently Coachella is the new Easter. Give praise.