As I mentioned in a previous Coachella-themed post, this year will by my seventh time attending the festival. In that article, I mentioned how every time I have been, regardless of how "good" the lineup was, I've had an amazing time because I made a point to see the shows that were important to me. And as a music lover, even if that number of bands is lower than I'd prefer at the festival, I'd rather pay once and see them all over a weekend that be constantly journeying to parts unknown just to catch a band on tour.

Because my mentality apparently deviates from the masses that attend Coachella, generally when the lineup comes out I'm stoked, because there are a bunch of small acts that have been buzzed about all year. And also, generally, the public decides that they are unimpressed.

So this year, before I even saw the lineup for myself, I had heard things such as "This is the best lineup in years!" Even articles that were just rumors about booked acts made such declarations before Guns N' Roses and LCD Soundsystem had confirmed their reunions. And what do you know? While everyone else seems to be raving about this holy grail of Coachella lineups, my initial reaction was "Meh." Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of LCD Soundsystem and am very happy to see them playing together again, but that doesn't make the rest of the lineup amazing, especially since I'm hardly excited about the other two headlining acts.

What the overall "blah-ness" of this lineup amounts to is the fame of the "good" acts. Usually, I prefer a lineup with some maybe not so great top headliners, but oodles and oodles of dope bands that make up the year's best indie creds. With this sort of schedule, you'll never find yourself without a band to see, and that greatly contributes to more people going for the music rather than "have an experience."

This year, though, there are some pretty impressive names across a variety of genres in the top three lines of each day: the aforementioned LCD Soundsystem, Sufjan Stevens, Foals, The Kills, Disclosure, A$AP Rocky, Run the Jewels, Gary Clark Jr., Sia, Major Lazer, Flume, Beach, Miike Snow, and Death Grips, to name more than a few. But the smaller names leave a lot to be desired. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes are great, but they've played Coachella before, and are far less relevant now than they were then. The same goes for Matt & Kim and Cold War Kids.

As far as bands that really represent the cutting edge, and the up and comers of the year, there's only Deerhunter, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Courtney Barnett, Ibeyi, Years & Years, the Front Bottoms, BADBADNOTGOOD, Kamasi Washington, De Lux, and Girlpool. I know this may look like a lot of artists, but it's only 10, the same number of artists I selected last year as the best of the many more I saw.

I know many people will disagree, and it's not like the festival had trouble selling out in an hour today, but for me, it's a scary indicator that the festival is continuing to sell out. I was hoping the process of appealing to the mainstream would slow and eventually reverse, allowing the festival to remain focused on good and deserving artists, but with a lineup as unimpressive as this, my hopes are turning to worries.