Marguerite Stouse

2023’s Coachella Festival is all wrapped up, with hot gossip, riveting stories, and personal accounts flowing out of all news and social media platforms. With fans and celebrities mixed into the crowds together, Coachella provides a unique adrenaline rush: with music blaring, anything can happen. Old flames reuniting, special appearances, and shows gone wrong are just the beginning to the seemingly never-ending list of surprises from Coachella; Let’s take a closer look.

Couples at Coachella came off to a strong and surprising start. After almost two years since their dramatic breakup, Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello were shockingly unrelenting in their PDA during the music festival. Fans quickly took to Instagram among other platforms to converse and speculate about Shamilla. A few days after these viral videos were released, the two were spotted in Los Angeles holding hands. Are the two back together? On the mend? Or just having some fun? According to a private ET source, “They are both attracted to each other and care about one another a lot. They are having fun,”. 

While Shamila may be stealing headlines in the couples department for this year, another couple has received a fair amount of press in the wake of Coachella. After increased speculation regarding Bad Bunny and Kendall Jenner’s relationship, a video of Jenner appearing for his performance has left fans with a little more certainty regarding their current status.

Bad Bunny is no dark horse. His strong presence as a performer and signature mix between reggaeton, rap, and pop puts everyone on their feet, with his Grammy performance causing A-list celebrities to rock out. Bunny’s Coachella performance was nothing short of this, as he performed many of his songs from his hit album, Un Verano Sin Ti, including “Después de la Playa”, “Tití me Pregunto”, and “Efecto”. He also performed his latest release “un x100to” (reads as 1% in spanish) with Grupo Frontera. This song has risen to the top of the charts in less than a week, and had the crowd screaming and dancing, including Jeff Bezos. 

Though the founder of Amazon roughing it in the crowds of this music festival was comical and slightly shocking, Bezos does not take the cake for the biggest surprise appearance of Coachella. Former Disney star, singer, actress, and model, Zendaya made headlines with her surprise performance with singer songwriter Labrinth. 

With over seven years stretching between Zendaya’s last musical performance, her guest appearance left fans speechless. People Magazine reports, “Zendaya performed the final two songs of his set — “I’m Tired” and “All for Us,””. After her performance, the star took to Instagram to express her gratitude, writing, “cannot express my gratitude enough for this magical night…My heart is full, I can’t thank you enough for the love I received tonight, [it] made my nerves melt away. I’m so grateful.”.

Coachella has always lured fans in, and this year is no different. However, where there are celebrities, there is drama, and this music festival had a plethora. Frank Ocean was supposed to headline Coachella in 2020 but was put on the back burner due to Covid-19, this year he was the main headline for Weekend 1. But, his show started over an hour late due to supposed set issues, including a rumored ice rink. Ocean supposedly forced the stage crew to scrap his plan revolving around the rink, forcing all his dancers to change and the ice to melt before his performance could begin. His set was significantly shortened due to the curfew policies. Furthermore, after his first performance (or lack thereof), Coachella announced he would not be coming back to headline Weekend 2. Blink-182 took his place, and though some fans were satisfied as Ocean has not performed in 6 years, the majority were left angry and disappointed. 

Coachella 2023 was a festival to remember, with hints at new albums from popular artists, drama, and jaw-dropping performances. You can always expect the unexpected at an event as popular as  Coachella. There is no doubt next  year will be no different.

Stevie Wonder, a world-renowned pianist, songwriter, and musician, just celebrated the 50th anniversary of his album, Talking Book. Wonder paved his way through the music industry facing and defeating many obstacles head-on. As a blind man, his disability highlights his talents in the industry, especially his expertise on the piano. Follow Wonder through his creation of “Talking Book”, an album that rocked the charts and transformed the music industry.

In 1972, following the release of “Music of my Mind” eight months prior, “Talking Book” was released, reintroducing pop to the music industry. After the release of some of his earlier albums, Wonder hinted that he would be writing and producing more than happy love songs. “Talking Book” reaffirmed that and also extended his sonic and technological ambitions, as he used state-of-the-art synthesizers and an arsenal of studio effects to orchestrate his songs with startlingly novel sounds” New York Times reported. Talking Book was Wonder’s vessel to demonstrate his expertise and show a more political side of himself. 

The “album cover — which showed Wonder wearing African-style robes and braided hair in a quasi-Biblical desert landscape (actually Los Angeles) — made clear that Wonder’s futurism was unmistakably Afrofuturism” reports the Times. Afrofuturism is a movement that Wonder was a part of that involves literature, music, or art featuring futuristic themes that subsume black history and culture. This increased his popularity as his music reached multiple genres including gospel, R&B, jazz, show tunes, folk, pop, country, and classical music. 

Wonder signed his first contract with MoTown Records when he was 11, where he was gifted the name of Little Stevie Wonder. His first contract expired in 1971, on his 21st birthday. “Other labels were eager to sign him, and when he returned to the Black-owned Motown, he had won complete creative control for himself. From then on, he would write and produce his own songs, release albums when he decided they were finished and choose his own collaborators,” said New York Times. 

The 1970s were a time for creativity within R&B, artists experimented with new instruments and tunes while incorporating their social consciousness in their lyrical writing, Wonder was no different.

New York Times reports, “Music of My Mind,” the first album under the new Motown contract, started to probe Wonder’s newfound freedom; then “Talking Book” reveled in it. It’s an album mostly of songs about love: euphoric, heartbroken, jealous, regretful, longing, anticipatory”. “Superstition” and “Big Brother” are two tracks on the album that showcase a political side of Wonder. “Superstition” covers received opinion and being gullible while “Big Brother” talks about a politician who is “tired of me protesting/children dying every day.”

The song “You and I”, compares love going right to love going wrong. “Maybe Your Baby” is another track on the album where Wonder sings about the realization of being cheated on. The final track on the album, titled “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever),” is described as “a Beatles-tinged three-episode song in which the singer picks himself up from “shattered dreams,”.”

The album itself was futuristic for its time, Wonder had a few outside musicians helping him but the majority of the instrumental bustle heard in the background of his songs are self-made. The album was a smashing success: “Superstition” and “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” both reached #1 on Billboard Hits contributing to his ten #1s in total. Both tracks stayed as #1 for a full week. “Talking Book was not only a hit album — No. 1 on the R&B chart, No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200 — but also a harbinger of R&B and pop that would be increasingly electronic and synthetic, proudly unbound by physical realities”