The venerable UK music festival Glastonbury finished announcing its headliners this past Friday. As is customary, the fest marked the occasion by releasing a poster listing all the confirmed performers so far, designed by longtime Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood. Across the top line, the headliners read like so: "THE KILLERS, THE CURE, STORMZY, KYLIE, JANET JACKSON." See?
Here is the first Glastonbury Festival 2019 line-up poster, which includes our final two Pyramid Stage headliners: @TheKillers (Saturday) and @TheCure (Sunday). Many more acts and attractions still to be announced. pic.twitter.com/jYOoTQQurf
— Glastonbury Festival (@GlastoFest) March 15, 2019
All well and good, right? Wrong! Placement on festival posters has long been a contentious matter among popular musicians. Just last year, 2 Chainz raised a stink about his surprisingly low position on the Governors Ball poster, and we at Stereogum annually make sport of dissecting the Coachella font-size hierarchy. Such a blunt assessment of artists' relative stature is bound to be a touchy subject, and Glastonbury 2019 has proven to be no exception.
Monday, Janet Jackson tweeted out the Glastonbury poster to promote her performance. But Jackson's version of the playbill was slightly, shall we say, customized? This version of the flyer slotted Janet's name up front, ahead of the Killers, the Cure, Stormzy, and the mononymous Kylie Minogue. See?
Can’t wait to see you #UK #Glastonbury2019pic.twitter.com/oEZIxE1ufc
— Janet Jackson (@JanetJackson) March 18, 2019
Apparently this is becoming common practice in the UK! Or at least it's not the first time it's happened. Last year, a band called the Sherlocks created an alternate poster for the Y Not festival nudging themselves to the next font size up. The Sherlocks later deleted their adjusted Y Not poster, but I'm guessing Jackson will continue to proudly circulate hers. All things considered, hers is probably more accurate anyway.
Glastonbury goes down 6/26 to 6/30, and tickets have already sold out. Get more info here.
