The Weeknd crashed Coachella last night with a new song from The Idol

The Coachella music festival has launched itself yet again this weekend, its return heralded in the usual way: By us getting a lot of ad-ish press statements in our inboxes from various Coachella-adjacent companies, none of which are legally allowed to say the trademarked word “Coachella,” and thus have to talk at length about “Indio,” “festival season,” etc.

Over the last few years, though, there’s been a weird mutation in the world of Coachella headliners: The idea that, for every moderately famous musical artist on the bill, there’s a decent chance you’ll see a few more equally (and sometimes even more) famous performers showing up for their set as a “surprise guest.” It’s become a regular enough occurrence at this point that it’s paradoxically expected; give or take a Frank Ocean here or there—who’s headlining this Sunday, in his first live performance since 2017, and thus really doesn’t need the hype help—half the interest any particular artist sparks at this point is the question of who they might bring with.