Wide spectrum of music at Coachella 2011

The incredibly long lineup for 2011’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was announced this week. A three-day festival in the desert of Indio, California that features some 150 bands, an annual bloom of tents and human civilization, Coachella is one of the biggest contemporary music festivals in America (last year the event drew 75,000 visitors each day). But it’s also an event where people expect to see supergroups, up-and-comers, and some of the mainstream acts they’ve come to love. Does this year’s event measure up?

To help answer that question and play us some of his favorite bands from this year’s lineup is reporter for The New Yorker, Kelefa Sanneh.