Glastonbury, once the muddy Mecca of musical rebellion, has become a curious relic, a sort of cultural Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs of idealism roam, unaware their era has ended. The festival, which used to conjure images of leather-clad rockers and cider-soaked anarchists, now feels like a corporate team-building retreat for the ethically oversensitive, a place where the air is thick with hashtags and the ground is littered with biodegradable coffee cups. The relevance of Glastonbury, like a once-sharp pencil, has been ground down to a blunt nub, and its slide into what some call “wokeness” — a term so overused it’s practically a bumper sticker — is only part of the problem. The real tragedy is the absence of the raw, unfiltered spirit of rock, replaced by a parade of pop acts so polished they could double as department store mannequins.
Let’s begin with the festival’s descent into a sanctimonious quagmire. Glastonbury has always fancied itself a countercultural beacon, a place where the establishment could be given a two-fingered salute while someone in a kaftan sold you a vegan falafel. But today, it’s less a rebellion than a TED Talk with a better soundtrack. The stages are festooned with banners preaching inclusivity, sustainability, and every other -ity that sounds noble but feels like a branding exercise. The performers, too, seem selected not just for their music but for their ability to align with the festival’s moral posturing. One can’t help but imagine the booking process: a panel of earnest clipboard-wielders ticking boxes for diversity quotas while muttering, “Does this artist sufficiently care?” The result is a lineup that feels less like a celebration of art and more like a United Nations summit with glitter.
This is not to say that social consciousness is inherently bad — heaven forbid we interrupt the sermon — but when it overshadows the music, you’re left with a festival that feels like it’s trying to sell you a lifestyle rather than a good time. The irony is palpable: Glastonbury, once a haven for the unwashed and unapologetic, now demands you check your privilege before you pitch your tent. It’s as if the festival has traded its soul for a blue checkmark on X, where every other post about it seems to lament the “woke takeover” or, conversely, praise its newfound piety. The truth, as usual, lies in the muddy middle: Glastonbury hasn’t gone woke so much as it’s gone safe, a sanitised spectacle where authenticity is sacrificed for applause from the right kind of audience.
And then there’s the music, or rather, the lack of it. Cast your mind back to the Britpop era, that brief, glorious moment when bands like Oasis, Blur, and Pulp swaggered onto the stage with guitars slung low and egos slung high. These were acts that didn’t just perform; they existed — messy, arrogant, and unapologetically themselves. Oasis didn’t need to lecture you on climate change; they were too busy throwing punches at each other. Blur’s Damon Albarn might pen a wry lyric about modern life, but he didn’t feel the need to deliver it with a side of sanctimony. These bands were the last gasp of rock’s relevance, a time when Glastonbury’s stages groaned under the weight of genuine, rough-hewn talent.
Compare that to today’s headliners, where the likes of Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish — talented, no doubt, but as manufactured as a flat-pack wardrobe — dominate the bill. The modern pop act is a curious beast: meticulously produced, relentlessly marketable, and about as rebellious as a vegan smoothie. Their songs, polished to a high sheen, are designed to slot neatly into Spotify playlists rather than to challenge or provoke. Where once we had Liam Gallagher snarling into the mic, we now have performers who seem to have been focus-grouped into existence, their every move choreographed to maximise Instagram engagement. The X posts about Glastonbury’s 2024 lineup were telling: for every fan gushing over Coldplay’s fifth headline slot (because apparently Chris Martin is contractually obliged to cry on the Pyramid Stage every few years), there was another lamenting the absence of “proper bands.” And they’re not wrong.
The decline of authentic rock at Glastonbury isn’t just a matter of taste; it’s a symptom of a broader cultural malaise. Rock, in its heyday, was the sound of defiance, of working-class kids with cheap guitars and expensive dreams. Britpop, for all its flaws, was the tail end of that tradition, a moment when bands could still capture the zeitgeist without a marketing team’s approval. Today, the music industry prefers its stars pre-packaged, their edges sanded down to fit the algorithm. The result is a festival that feels like a greatest-hits compilation of Top 40 radio, with nary a guitar riff to disturb the peace. Even the “rock” acts that do appear — think The Killers, still dining out on their 2004 debut — feel like nostalgia merchants rather than torchbearers for something new.
Glastonbury’s defenders will argue that it’s simply reflecting the times, that pop’s dominance is inevitable in an era of streaming and short attention spans. But this is a cop-out, the kind of excuse you’d expect from a festival organiser caught with their hand in the kombucha jar. Glastonbury used to shape the times, not just mirror them. It was where you went to discover something raw, something that hadn’t been focus-grouped into oblivion. Now, it’s a place where you’re more likely to encounter a yoga workshop than a band that makes you want to smash your pint glass and start a revolution. The festival’s scale doesn’t help: with 200,000 attendees and a budget that could fund a small nation, it’s become a bloated behemoth, too big to take risks on unknown acts who might actually have something to say.
In the end, Glastonbury’s decreasing relevance is less about its “wokeness” — a term that’s become a catch-all for anything that smells faintly of progress — and more about its loss of nerve. It’s a festival that’s forgotten how to be dangerous, trading the unpredictable energy of rock for the predictable sheen of pop and the smug glow of moral superiority. The spirit of Britpop, with its cheeky irreverence and unpolished charm, feels like a distant memory, drowned out by the sound of a thousand influencers snapping selfies in front of the Pyramid Stage. Perhaps it’s time to let Glastonbury retire gracefully, to admit that its days of cultural significance are as faded as a tie-dye T-shirt from 1995. Or maybe, just maybe, it could take a chance on a scrappy band with nothing but a riff and a dream. But don’t hold your breath — they’re probably too busy booking the next TED Talk.