Every year, the lineup for the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California, leaves people confused and head-scratching. Since its inception, Coachella’s country music district has booked independent, up-and-coming and legendary country artists to perform alongside major mainstream country headliners. And while independent fans have often felt like the font sizes needed to be reversed, it has also opened up great opportunities for grassroots artists.

The Stagecoach Festival was a fairly novel concept when it first started, but now that non-radio artists like Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers and Sturgill Simpson are as popular or more popular than the mediocre and even top mainstream stars, the tide has turned.

When you see Zach Bryan as the top artist on Stagecoach, Sturgill Simpson as the second artist, and Sierra Ferrell and Flatland Cavalry as the third artist, it’s clear how far things have come. Font size has reversed, at least to some degree. Many of the mainstream, middle-of-the-road artists now use the smallest font, while Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Morgan Wallen, HARDY, and other artists of that ilk are nowhere to be found.

Add in Luke Combs, Midland, Carley Pearce, Ashley McBryde and the Brothers Osborne, who are considered more acceptable alternatives to the mainstream, and the Stagecoach 2024 lineup doesn’t look too bad, even with outliers Shaboozey and Jelly Roll, who are still nowhere near as reprehensible as country rappers of the past.

The Stagecoach lineup has always been a good litmus test for where country music stands at any given moment, and it’s hard to look at the lineup in 2024 and not come to an overall positive assessment. But there are some glaring exceptions. And they really have nothing to do with country artists at all.

At a time when country music is more popular than ever, Stagecoach has decided to pad the lineup with more warmed-over rock acts than ever before. Sure, in recent years, festival organizers have added a few more rock acts, probably to appeal to fans on the fringes of country music.

But this year, there are butt-rockers Creed, boy band Backstreet Boys and auto-tuner T-Pain as part of Diplo’s “Palomino” stage. There are also Nelly, The Goo Goo Dolls and Sammy Hagar as major acts. Do you really think that’s what fans of Zach Bryan, Sturgill Simpson and Whiskey Myers want to hear? Those names are like punchlines to those fans.

Stagecoach isn’t the only one trying to attract regulars with this genre-bending program. Texas’ Two Step Inn has also used this method, booking T-Pain and Diplo, among others, in the past. It’s also common for independent country festivals to invite a few more indie-rock-oriented acts. But artists like Mt. Joy and Lord Huron actually have a lot of natural overlap with independent country fans.

Some people complain about Lana Del Rey. And of course it would have been better to book at least one real country woman (Lainey Wilson, Megan Moroney) as the top name for the festival. But much of Del Rey’s music is in the “Americana” realm, and rumors say her upcoming album will do that even more. It’s nowhere near as big an outlier as The Backstreet Boys.

However, there is a much bigger problem here.

While long-time readers of Saving Country Music will feel like they’re listening to a broken record here, it’s really important to point out how irresponsible it is of Stagecoach to continue booking Nelly and Diplo for this event. Once again, this begs the question, how many women do these men have to credibly accuse of rape and sexual harassment before we start taking these allegations seriously? Before you answer, understand that it has to be more than three per person.

At least three women have accused Nelly of sexual misconduct, and he was arrested last month for alleged possession of ecstasy and an outstanding warrant. Diplo’s criminal record also includes numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, including pop/hip-hop singer Azalea Banks’ statement that Diplo molested her when she was a minor. Diplo also has another civil case filed against him, accusing him of distributing revenge porn in June; the incident is still under investigation by police.

Should these allegations disqualify these two men from working? No. But why does country music continue to feel the need to make a peace offering to these two guys when there is a line forming to the left of the real country acts who would love to get on that Stagecoach lineup? The reason this keeps happening at Stagecoach is because in recent years, no one has played Stagecoach more often than Nelly and Diplo. They both also listed in 2022and Diplo has been the only consistent performer in the lineup since he was first booked in 2019.

Speaking of being accused three times, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys has himself been accused of rape three times. Are we seeing a pattern here? While some of these artists are banned in their genres, Stagecoach seems to accept them as if it were a moral laundering machine. Winston Marshall, Ryan Adams, Unknown Hinson and other artists would be completely off-limits at Stagecoach due to far less serious allegations but active campaigns to get them removed.

Country music is changing. There have arguably never been so many top acts filling the festival bills, and those top acts have never been more heavily represented by artists not signed to Music Row record labels or supported by commercial radio stations. It’s a great time to be a country fan. There’s no reason to resort to the Backstreet Boys, Diplo or Nelly to draw fans to the event. If anything, they add an ickiness factor to the entire lineup that it doesn’t need.