Olivia Rodrigo invited to White House but not Coachella?

Tony Pierce
2 min readJan 13, 2022

She’s got a drivers license, so what’s the problem?

Olivia Rodrigo at the podium of the White House Press Room in a Chanel suit
Olivia Rodrigo at the White House in July 2021.

Unless Olivia Rodrigo has an insane management team who demanded too much money from Coachella, I’m having a hard time figuring out how she’s not Sunday’s headliner instead of Ye.

I have love for my fellow Chicagoan but he’s done Coachella several times, meanwhile she textbook for that audience. Plus he’s done the festival five times already — wonderfully — but why a sixth?

The list of the 2022 Coachella lineup featuring Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Ye

The first time the artist formerly known as Kanye West took to the Coachella stage Rodrigo was four years old.

Last month the rapper sold out the LA Coliseum alongside Drake to support his most recent offering Donda and the video of that show is still available for free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

So what’s the draw to see him do many of those same numbers in the desert? To give people uninterested in catching Doja Cat or Swedish House Mafia something to do?

Meanwhile Rodrigo is nominated for seven Grammys including Song of the Year, and Best New Artist (which is a lock). Her debut album yielded four Top 10 hits, including “Good 4 U” and “Drivers License,” both of which went to number one and could also win Grammys for the 18 year old Californian native.

Best of all for Goldenvoice / AEG, she won’t go over her allotted time since she only has one record.

Is Coachella using Olivia as Ye’s replacement if he cancels suddenly — something not out of the question? And if so, isn’t that a wee bit disrespectful to the teen who best identifies with that Coachella audience, who just also happened to have the best 2021 of anyone?

SNL dudes (Regé-Jean Page, Kenan Thompson, Beck Bennett, Pete Davidson, Alex Moffat, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang) bond over the song “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo.

Also missing in this lineup I can’t understand: Wet Leg, Haim, The Linda Lindas, Lil Nas X.

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