1. Coachella’s biggest acts don’t sing.

While Coachella might be trending for its usual celebrity sightings and surprise sets, this year’s true headliners are the sky-high art installations. The 2025 lineup features a trio of towering creations that make past years look like craft hour at summer camp. Paris design studio Uchronia’s “Le Grand Bouquet” turns flower power into festival sculpture, with 32-foot inflatable blooms perched atop painted metal stems, and matching tiered seating for existential lounging.

London duo Isabel + Helen bring wind power to the desert with “Take Flight,” a 60-foot kinetic ode to vintage flying machines. And for a dose of minimal magic, Stephanie Lin’s “Taffy” features seven shimmering mesh cylinders that bend light like a desert mirage. When art this big steals the show, even the main stage starts to feel like background noise.

2. Let them eat 1,387 cakes.

Speaking of Coachella, there's a new festival causing FOMO meltdowns. San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum recently transformed into a sugar-fueled wonderland where over 1,000 people gathered with one non-negotiable entry requirement: bring a cake or stay home. Organized by cake enthusiast Elisa Sunga, tickets to this frosted phenomenon sold out "faster than Taylor Swift concert tickets".

What started as a casual dozen-person park meetup last April has ballooned into a touring sensation with upcoming stops in Los Angeles and London. The San Francisco edition showcased an eye-popping 1,387 cakes ranging from professional bakery creations to ambitious home baker experiments. That includes savory oddities like "scallion-pancake focaccia cake with chili-crisp cream cheese frosting." Who needs expensive festival light shows when you can watch 1,000 sugar-buzzed adults plotting their cake-grabbing battle plans? Now that's entertainment.

3. Justin Vernon finds the (salmon pink) light.

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon has emerged from the emotional wilderness with SABLE, fABLE - an album that might actually leave you… hopeful? Long known for breakup ballads that could ruin a perfectly good day, Vernon’s fifth record is his self-proclaimed “most positive” yet. Released April 11, the album arcs from solitude (SABLE) to connection (fABLE), swapping cabin-in-the-woods sorrow for something closer to joy.

In Spotify’s latest Countdown To episode, a giddy Lil Yachty (Vernon’s #1 Wrapped artist for seven years) interviews him about the shift. Vernon hints that someone new “rearranged” his life, possibly love? With features from Danielle Haim, Dijon, and more, it’s a sonic curveball that suggests even the king of melancholy can find the light.