We need to have a serious conversation about what’s going on with our current pack of regular festival headliners. Case in point: This year’s Austin City Limits. Austin City Limits is one of our biggest annual festivals, and its bookers have just unveiled the lineup for this year’s two-weekend show. There’s lots of great stuff on deck for ACL, but the crew of headliners seems like a symptom of a larger disease. What’s going on here?

Kendrick Lamar is headlining Austin City Limits this year. That’s great! Alanis Morissette, who doesn’t do too many things like this, is also on the top line. That’s good, too! I bet she’ll be awesome! One weekend has Shania Twain, and the other has the 1975 — two acts who don’t exactly have a whole lot in common but who would both be fun to see in this environment. But then: Foo Fighters? Again? At another festival? Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers? In 2023? Odesza? Hozier? The Austin City Limits organizers presumably understand their audience, and I’m sure there’s a huge demographic out there for that stuff. But when I see those names, I do not feel inspired.

Fortunately, there’s the undercard. The smaller-font names on the Austin City Limits include a ton of great acts. This year’s bill has the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Maggie Rogers, Kali Uchis, Lil Yachty, Tove Lo, the Mars Volta, Death Grips, M83, Rina Sawayama, GloRilla, Little Simz, Poolside, Chromeo, Tegan And Sara, the Breeders, the Walkmen, Jessie Ware, Tanya Tucker, Ethel Cain, Yves Tumor, Ben Kweller, Sudan Archives, BigXThaPlug, Bass Drum Of Death, Miya Folick, and many others. I’m sure you could see a great weekend’s worth of music at Austin City Limits. I’m just saying.

This year’s festival goes down 10/6-8 and 10/13-15 at Austin’s Zilker Park. You can find all the relevant info here.