Coachella 2026: The best of the lineup’s bottom lines

With the festival’s lineup officially out, we’re picking the lower-placed artists you can’t miss.

The Coachella 2026 lineup is out, and as usual, people have loud opinions. Proclamations of “This is the worst booking ever!” will likely follow the festival every year and be debated online until the argument is ended definitively by Morgan Wallen’s inevitable headlining slot a few years from now. However, it’s true that even in its most mediocre years, each Coachella lineup has had its inspired selections. And that’s the case in 2025.

There are a lot of attention grabbing acts beyond the headliners. Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize are continuing their collaboration for Nine Inch Noize. The xx’s live return. Dijon’s triumphant comeback. Addison Rae performing after David Byrne. But the line-up’s undercard — for our purposes, the bottom two lines for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — has some brilliant acts that could just convince you to pull the trigger on financing those tickets.

Soon after the lineup dropped, The FADER scanned through all the acts listed on the bottom two lines of each day (see the full artist poster here). Here are all the bottom line artists we’re most looking forward to, presented in the order they’re listed.

Ninajirachi

 

It takes a special talent to make a concept album about being extremely online sound not just cool, but fun. The Australian producer and DJ’s I Love My Computer is a sleeper pick for dance album of the year, and she’ll be hitting Indio after a sold out fall 2025 USA tour. Expect a memorable pop-conscious, hikikomor-IDM party. — Jordan Darville

NewDad

 

Irish band NewDad have opened for Fontaines DC and co-signed by The Cure’s Robert Smith. Their new album Altar, which drops this week, makes it clear why; it’s a collection of bruised yet cavernous songs about feeling displaced by society and longing for a place to truly feel at home. If it’s good enough for indie rock royalty, it’s good enough for Coachella. — David Renshaw

flowerovlove

 

It’s a ripe moment for young British singer-songwriters translating their inner worlds into resonant, adolescent anthems. Griff, Rachel Chinouriri, and Lola Young have all gained fervent followings for their honest dispatches. Flowerovlove, the project of 20-year-old Joyce Cissé, might be next up. She makes music on the poppier end of that spectrum that feels like the song version of shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty. I find her 2023 hit “breaking news” endlessly charming, and would beat the Coachella traffic to catch her set. — Steffanee Wang

Youna

 

I went through a random rave phase a few months ago that led me to Youna, a South Korean DJ who puts on super meditative, flow-state-inducing sets. I haven’t seen her live, but have played her very vibe-y Watera Festival set through my living room speaker several times wondering what it would’ve been like to be there IRL. — SW

Lambrini Girls

 

Lambrini Girls are Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira, two outspoken British punks that write furious and fabulous songs that scythe down subjects including class tourism, transphobia, thinspo culture, and the manosphere. Their shows are a gathering place for like minded outsiders looking to let out their rage and have a good time. Hailey Bieber probably won’t be there, but you should be. — DR

Freak Slug

 

Freak Slug’s last album, I Blow Out Big Candles, is weird, perfect indie rock. The music is kinda shoegaze, kinda bedroom-pop, but it’s her offbeat lyrics that I’m obsessed with. “He’s a beautiful man with a nice haircut but there’s nothing behind those daydream thoughts.” — SW

Röyksopp

 

One of the most egregious undercard placements in recent memory? Put some respect (and an umlaut) on their name: Röyskopp have been making inspired indie-tronica since 1998, with their masterpiece Melody A.M arriving in 2001 — think Air meets Basement Jaxx. Anyone lucky enough to catch their set could be treated to classics like “Remind Me,” “Happy Up Here,” and “Monument” (maybe Robyn will show up for her feature on that one?) — JD

Drain

 

Coachella has become an unlikely home to the new wave of hardcore bands in recent years, with Militarie Gun, Speed, and Scowl all making their presence felt alongside the Patrón Tequila activations. This year it will be Drain providing the most fun mosh-pit moments of the weekend.The Santa Cruz band’s live shows are a cavalcade of flailing limbs as sweat-drenched revellers go wild at their thrash heavy punk songs and infectious attitude. The band are renowned for uniting the disparate arms of the heavy music community; metalheads, old school punks, and nu gaze zoomers all love Drain. Coachella will, too. — DR

Model/Actriz

 

Model/Actriz’s frontman Cole Haden has a twisted tendency to jump in the pit and get right in the faces of the audience to coo or shout the band’s industrial punk love songs. It’s menacing but also kinda romantic. And it would be a crime to go to Coachella and not see it happen live. — SW

Jane Remover

It’s quite simple: No one in the rap underground is doing it like Jane Remover. While her peers and commercial juggernauts alike struggle to chart a course post-rage (or simply cling to its desiccated corpse), Jane Remover is tearing up the maps and creating new, spectacular dimensions. Check out her recent songs “Dreamflasher” and “Audiostalker” (featuring fellow iconoclast Lucy Bedroque) to glimpse her mastery of melody and madness, or just check out her GEN F profile.

Samia

 

Music festivals were made for thousands of teen girls to shout their hearts out along to casually devastating indie pop songs, like the music from Nashville-based artist Samia. Being in the middle of the pit as everyone screams, “I’ll fucking kill her/ I’ll fucking freak out,” would probably heal an ancestral wound. — SW