Op-Ed Post: How do we really feel?
By 8th-Grade Blogger Soleil Antle
This year’s annual Coachella Fest in La Quinta, California, was a hit! It was one of the best years for sure, but especially with Justin Bieber’s iconic performance. There are controversial opinions on his performance from weekend one, but we all know he was the one everyone was watching.
Some people believed that Justin Bieber just doom scrolled on social media and sang along to his old songs; little do they know it’s more than that. This was his first big appearance on the stage in about four years. In 2022 he stopped touring to prioritize his mental and physical health when diagnosed with “Ramsay Hunt Syndrome”–which is a rare disorder caused by the same virus that causes Shingles and Chicken Pox. He was physically unable to perform because his disorder led to partial facial paralysis, making it impossible to sing.
Canceling a tour isn’t as easy as it seems though because he ended up losing millions of dollars in the process, eventually ending up broke. In desperation, he sold his music for 200 million dollars which meant that 100% of his publishing rights, artist royalties, etc., would no longer be owned by him. So when one of his 290 songs were played on the radio or streamed on the internet, he would no longer be paid.
After this, he left the public eye, for what felt like forever, to focus on himself. But he has now returned. His Coachella performance was actually very special because he regained ownership and control by releasing new music that wasn’t a part of the original catalog he sold. When he sat on the stage scrolling on just a MacBook and picking songs, it transformed the high-budget musical festival to a fun chill vibe that mirrored how his career originally started. He scrolled through his own history singing along to his older clips. People watched him grow up, and this was a special flashback.
In the end, he had the highest-paying act in Coachella history, receiving 10 million dollars for a 90-minute performance. A lot of people renamed the popular event “Bieberchella.”
Work Referenced: theatlantic.com
This was an extremely interesting story. Thank you Soleil. Do you know that he lives in the Coachella Valley at the Madison Club??