Photos by Marc Fong // Written by Mike Frash & Kevin Quandt //
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival //
Golden Gate Park – San Francisco
August 8th-10th, 2014 //
The lineup for the seventh annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, taking place August 8th-10th in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was announced Tuesday. Headliners Kanye West, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and The Killers were the focus of the many knee-jerk reactions, but what does the lineup say as a whole? Here are five trends we’ve spotted.
Three-day passes for the festival go on sale Thursday, April 10th at 10 a.m.
1. RAP IS REPRESENTED MORE THAN EVER
Outside Lands missed out on the OutKast nostalgia sweepstakes, but the far more controversial (and relevant), Yeezus has been crowned as the first rap headliner in the festival’s history (see below). Beastie Boys were slotted to headline the festival in 2009, and they sadly had to pull out due to Adam Yauch’s cancer diagnosis. Tenacious D ultimately became the headliner over M.I.A. The Bay Area doesn’t attract an abundance of hip-hop or rap in general, yet many in the SF music community have wondered when Outside Lands, now a top national festival, would get into the game. El-P and Killer Mike, one of most dynamic music duos in years, are working on a follow-up to their incredible Run the Jewels debut and are sure get Golden Gate Park pumped. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed at noon in 2011 at Outside Lands, and since then, they own four major singles and seemingly sell out every show they perform. But they are dangerously within the range of overexposure, and since winning “Best Rap Album” at the Grammys over Kendrick Lamar (and Macklemore felt the need to text-apologize to Lamar), some music fans are out for vitriolic blood. That said, Macklemore’s impact on the popular music landscape is undeniable. Atmosphere, Aer and Watsky, also successful suburban-oriented spitters in their own right, are also on the bill this year.
2. KANYE WEST IS AS DIVISIVE A FIGURE AS EVER
Reaction to Kanye West as the top headliner was distinctively negative Tuesday, at least from the loudest people. West is at the peak of his career, releasing two of the most essential albums of the past five years with Yeezus and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The mega-narcissistic artist of a generation is already busy working on a follow-up to be produced by Q-Tip and Rick Rubin, and it may be out before Outside Lands in August. Odds are Yeezus will pull back from minimalist trap production and go back to his soul-sampling roots to cast a wider net. West has won over music critics with his recent boundary-pushing efforts, but the question becomes, can he avoid a Kardashian-enhanced mainstream backlash bigger than the “Swifting” he pulled at the MTV Video Music Awards? Our money is on ‘Ye.
3. THE FIRST REPEAT HEADLINER
Now in its seventh year, Outside Lands has finally reached the point when we see our first repeat headliner in the form of classic rock demigod, Tom Petty and his band the Heartbreakers. Having played on the second day of the inaugural year to a healthy-sized crowd, Petty worked through some technical errors with a set heavy on his standout hits from the past decades. A new release and tour recently announced lead us to think that Mr. Charlie T. Wilbury is primed to have a big second half of 2014.
4. A SLIGHT SHIFT IN ELECTRONIC MUSIC CURATION
One thing that Showbams noticed when culling through the lineup was the inclusion of slightly more progressive EDM. What was once a genre more reserved for Treasure Island Music Festival is making its way to Golden Gate Park, hoping to turn some folks onto a newer style of electronic production. This new shift is mainly represented by Disclosure, Flume, SBTRKT and Gold Panda. Each act brings a quality that is slightly out of the “dance music” box, whether it’s Disclosure’s 2-step-garage sound or Gold Panda’s experimental beat production. Even after all these years, Another Planet and Superfly keeps us on our toes.
5. THE MOST ECLECTIC LINEUP YET
Outside Lands has always basked in musical diversity, and this notion is true now more than ever. As our collective access to music becomes easier and more plentiful, so does our acceptance of a greater variety of genres. In one weekend, festivalgoers will bounce to Big Freedia, get rural with Kacey Musgraves and dance with Duck Sauce. Whether it’s folk, EDM, hip-hop, indie rock, country or soul, Outside Lands’ eclectic lineup suits the integrity and character of SF and the Bay Area.
Follow our Outside Lands 2014 playlist on Spotify.
you folks in berkeley in charge of this and last years lineup are starting to ingest large amounts of bad acid
“The Bay Area doesn’t attract an abundance of hip hop or rap in general” You know nothing about the Bay Area hip hop scene. Just because you attend a lot of non-hip hop concerts in SF, doesn’t mean hip hop artists aren’t selling out venues everywhere. That type of blanket statement in the beginning of your article makes the rest of your writing untrustworthy
In general, San Francisco sees less rap acts than other major cities. I’ll stand by that.