5 Glastonbury Moments That Will Define Music in 2025

Glastonbury Festival has long been the most culturally significant stage for the world’s biggest artists and the scenes they shape. First held in 1970 at Worthy Farm in Pilton, England, it began as the Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival, a modest event with a £1 entry fee and free milk from organizer Michael Eavis’s dairy. It took cues from the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music but quickly grew into its own. As the years passed, it dropped the folk-centric focus, embraced contemporary performance art, and evolved into a sprawling cultural fixture. 

The country flags, the mud, the unpredictability, this is all part of what makes Glastonbury more than a concert, but a communal experience. To perform in Glastonbury is to leave a mark sonically, culturally, and politically — and in 2025, that meant Britpop anthems, club synths, surprise duets, and protest chants. Not everything made it to BBC Two, whether on television or the livestream, but in the fields packed with people singing and dancing until morning, Glastonbury’s most vital performances still carried resonance, even without a broadcast.

The 2025 edition delivered the live spectacle. With legacy acts, pop provocateurs, and breakout voices each claiming space, Glastonbury proved once again that cultural moments are made at this seminal festival.

Pulp Brings it Back to the People

Britpop outfit Pulp returned to Glastonbury with a headlining Pyramids Stage set that played like a love letter to the U.K. crowd who waited more than 20 years for a reunion; this assured an explosive comeback of not just Pulp as aband, but of Britpop as a genre — especially in light of Oasis’ reunion and global tour, set to begin on July 4. Lead vocalist Jarvis Cocker commanded the stage with charm and bravado, leaning into the band’s signature flamboyant theatricality. New material from their latest album More slipped in between sharp performances of their biggest hits, but it was “Common People” that brought the crowd to a boil. Stretching the song to eight minutes, Cocker fed off the audience’s energy and gave it right back, showing exactly why Pulp’s relevance hasn’t faded.

Olivia Rodrigo and the Cure’s Enduring Spell

Pop stars help canonize Glastonbury as the premiere destination for festivals all over the globe. That’s what pop singer Olivia Rodrigo did when she invited The Cure’s frontman Robert Smith to join her onstage. Earlier that day, folk-pop singer Gracie Abrams had paid tribute to the band with a solo rendition of “Just Like Heaven.” Rodrigo followed that lead, performing “Friday I’m In Love” with Smith in one of the weekend’s most surprising team-ups. In the process, she linked her chart-topping millennial angst to The Cure’s post-punk melancholy that came before her, with the crowd knowing every word. The Cure’s music still pulses through the bloodstream of British pop, and Glastonbury gave that legacy room to breathe. By signifying the antithesis of genre purism, this team-up represents how different generations of music can find mutual respect for one another.

Lorde Opens Up Without Warning

Lorde, fresh from announcing her new album Virgin, made a surprise appearance on the Glastonbury stage. Her set was unlisted and untelevised, but word quickly spread across the festival grounds. Designed to look like a sterile lab with transparent curtains and minimal lighting, it stripped the spectacle down to its bare essentials with electronic drum machines and synths. She delivered the full Virgin tracklist with no pauses, no small talk, and no encore. Just Lorde, backed by her band and producer Jim-E Stack, dissecting heartbreak and self-reinvention in real time. It was a bold move that suited the record’s themes: restraint, clarity, and a rejection of spectacle in favor of intimacy. Lorde has mastered the element of surprise by using the festival to signal her new era — perhaps echoing the spontaneous, rule-breaking energy that fueled Charli XCX’s Brat album last year.

Charli XCX Proves Her Point

If alt-pop singer-songwriter Charli XCX’s festival slot seemed odd to traditionalists, it didn’t take long for her to shut down the skepticism. With Brat now fully cemented as her defining record, the pop provocateur took to the stage with precision and attitude. The light show was blinding. The setlist jumped across eras, including early hits and fan-favorite deep cuts. Then when she pulled down a neon curtain at the finale, it felt like a reset, closing one chapter and hinting at whatever transformation comes next. Charli’s performance was a testament to how artists don’t need to simply fizzle out and burn after reaching pinnacle success, but can reinvent the wheel with each new appearance.  What’s more, Charli didn’t pander to the festival’s rockist leanings. She brought a club to the countryside and dared Glastonbury to keep up.

Sound as Protest

Music will always be a channel for artists to freely express certain issues and matters. Away from the headliners, some of Glastonbury’s most vital performances came from those using their stage time to protest. English rap-punk duo Bob Vylan, Irish hip-hop agitators Kneecap, and politically charged festival regulars like IDLES each turned their sets into acts of resistance. Their messages weren’t polished into soundbites or filtered for broadcast. In fact, most weren’t televised at all. But that didn’t blunt their force. The urgency in their lyrics, their confrontational energy, and the raw emotion in their delivery created a different kind of headline with one passed by word of mouth, by fan footage, and by the people who were actually there.