LOS ANGELES — Taylor Swift’s name isn’t on the lineup poster of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, but that doesn’t mean pop’s biggest superstar won’t make an appearance in Indio this month.
Not to go all Taylor Swift conspiracy theorist on you, but there are some signs — and celeb gossip reports— that point to Swift spending some time in the desert.
First, she’s on a break from her Eras Tour, which recently wrapped its run in Asia and Australia. There’s no reason to figure out if she can be there in time, like people did when Swift flew from Japan to see boyfriend Travis Kelce play in the Super Bowl — her entire month is free before she heads to Europe in May.
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Second, her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” drops on April 19, which is the first day of Coachella’s second weekend. It’s not unprecedented to see an artist roll up to the fest with brand-new material. Kendrick Lamar dropped “Damn.” two days before his first Coachella headlining stint in 2017.
Now, she could just be taking the month of April off to do promotion for the new album, but the most compelling reason of all that we might see Swift in Indio? Her friends are going to be there.
Our team of Coachella experts has compiled some likely spots for a Swift surprise at the festival.
Lana Del Rey
True power is having a fan base that can convince Taylor Swift to take a backseat on her own song. “Snow on the Beach” was a dreamy highlight of Swift’s “Midnights,” which featured her pal Lana del Rey’s spare but velvety harmonies. Yet Lana’s fans would not accept such a slight role for her, and successfully petitioned for a new edit where Del Rey gets a much more substantial role — and they were right, it’s the superior version. Lana’s set will be a pinnacle of a career steeped in L.A. mythology, so can Del Rey convince Swift, the most famous artist in the world, to drop by for brief harmony cameo on the Coachella main stage? Weird, but f— beautiful.
Bleachers
Jack Antonoff’s rock band Bleachers plays the Mojave Tent on Saturday evening, but as the producer to the stars, including Swift and Del Rey, there’s potential for a Swift sighting, if not a guest spot. Antonoff has worked on a string of Swift’s albums and he’s the producer of the forthcoming “The Tortured Poets Department.” And after Swift’s “Midnights” dropped, the hit “Anti-Hero” got a Bleachers remix, which, if re-created, would make for a pretty epic Coachella moment.
Sabrina Carpenter
Carpenter toiled for years in the Disney-pop salt mines before breaking out in 2022 with the comparatively frisky “Emails I Can’t Send.” That album’s best track, “Nonsense,” went viral on TikTok thanks to Carpenter’s onstage habit of changing the lyrics of the song’s outro to suit whatever city she’s in: “Old people think I’m Hannah Montana/ He’s so big I need an extra hand-a/ Make some noise for sweet home Alabama,” she sang, pricelessly, at that state’s Hangout Fest last year. The singer kept at it as one of Swift’s opening acts on the Eras Tour, and just last month she joined a fellow Eras alum, Norway’s Girl in Red, for a bumptious duet with the very Taylor-rific title of “You Need Me Now?” Perhaps Swift will reward Carpenter’s loyalty with a surprise Coachella cameo.
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