Diplo says Coachella has run out of 'great' headliners and is now just 'Influencer Survivor'

• Diplo told The Hollywood Reporter that Coachella doesn't have the "great superhero acts" it used to.
• He said there's just not that many "great" headliners left to book.

DJ and music producer Diplo says Coachella has run out of "great" headliners to book and that the desert festival is now more like an "Influencer Survivor" than ever.

Diplo told The Hollywood Reporter that Coachella is not what it used to be.

"I think they honestly might be having a hard time booking headliners," Diplo told THR. "There's not much left. We kind of left the era of great superhero acts, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Daft Punk. Now they book acts like Bad Bunny and Blackpink, who are cool, but they're just the most Top 40 there is. It's almost like they're stadium acts."

Diplo also told THR that this year's Coachella festival was more like an "Influencer Survivor" than ever before, echoing remarks he made on the "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" last April when he first equated the festival to the castaway reality TV competition.

He told THR that he thinks Coachella producers may "have a hard time" booking big acts "because I think there's not a lot of really culturally relevant new acts."

"I saw Labrinth," he said. "That was amazing. I think that represents real Coachella. He's part of the zeitgeist. But the rest of it just felt like they had to scramble to find things that were cultural touchstones, but also could bring a big crowd in."

Diplo, now a world-famous DJ, first performed at Coachella in 2005, long before the influencer era. He has since performed at Coachella three times, most recently in 2019, although he performed an invite-only after-party show this year, according to The Desert Sun.