If you’re a lamp or a bed, we have bad news for you. There’s a new kid in town, and it has four legs, a pair of armrests, and is a major supporter of vertical posture. That’s right: couches. These bad boys are the new in-demand stage prop at concerts, with more and more musicians incorporating the piece of furniture into their set — from Lily Allen to Charli XCX to Hilary Duff. We aren’t sure why, exactly, so allow us to investigate.
Couches have always had a strong presence in song lyrics — just think of Jeff Buckley’s “So Real,” Paramore’s “All I Wanted,” the Arctic Monkey’s “Do I Wanna Know?” and Snail Mail’s “c. et. al.” (in the case of most of these tracks, couches are good for sleeping or spilling drinks on, especially when you’re wasted). But appearing onstage so frequently is a new thing. We got used to seeing beds a lot: Sabrina Carpenter fittingly sang from a canopy one during the sensual “Bed Chem” on the Short n’ Sweet Tour, Taylor Swift brought a massive white metal bed to deliver “Fortnight” during the Eras run, and Usher is currently bringing his R&B magic to the mattress on tour during “Seduction.” But the couches have officially taken over. These days, if you’re a musician preparing to hit the road, it’s probably number three on the must-have list, behind “in-ear monitors” and “herbal tea.”
It’s easy to see why. Couches provide a cozy aesthetic, and a way for artists to change up their set and take a breather. Lucy Dacus has used couches all through her Forever Is a Feeling Tour, inviting special guests to join her for “Bullseye,” from Ani DiFranco to Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker. And for her set at All Things Go last year in New York, she brought out mayor-to-be Zohran Mamdani for a chat. Dacus first incorporated couches into her set several years ago, when she had two herniated discs in her back and was forced to perform entirely laying down (that was back in 2022, basically making her a Couch Pioneer).
Maria-Juliana Rojas for Rolling StoneCouches also allow for an intimate, almost therapeutic moment, particularly during personal songs. In Hilary Duff’s case, it’s for her performance of “We Don’t Talk,” a cut off her new album Luck …or Something that’s rumored to be about her estranged sister, Haylie. “Let’s have it out/I’ll hear you out/You hear me out/On the couch,” she sings. But eagle-eyed fans took this to another level, believing even the color of the couch was an easter egg. “That is absolute bullshit, and totally not true and crazy,” Duff told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “And I don’t have the time to make threads for people to catch on to about that. I have a full life and a busy family, and this was literally just a song about my truth, and that was it.” Sometimes, a couch is really just a couch.
But there are exceptions. Allen’s current tour — where she performs her devastating album West End Girl, widely perceived to be about her divorce from actor David Harbour — features actual pieces of furniture from the Brooklyn townhouse they once shared. She’s changed up the kind of couch a lot (her set at Radio City in New York featured a red velvet tufted sofa), but every performance features her perched on one for “Sleepwalking,” as she sings, “Who said romance isn’t dead?/Been no romance since we wed.” For this West End girl, the couch is everything.
And the trend appears to be just getting started. For Reneé Rapp’s brief Brooklyn set last year, celebrating the release of Bite Me? Couch. For Mitski’s “Circle” earlier this year, in support of Nothing’s About to Happen to Me? Couch. For several songs during Phoebe Bridgers’ phoneless tour, including her show at Madison Square Garden? Couch. And for a hot minute during Charli XCX’s intimate Brooklyn gig earlier this month? You guessed it: couch. We aren’t sure what’s next (if it’s vintage TV sets, Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman just did this on their recent joint tour). But for the time being, sit back, relax, and enjoy watching your favorite musician do the same thing.
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Those small opportunities became part of the festival’s identity: a place where established acts and future stars could exist side by side. That philosophy remains central to the festival’s return. While Warped Tour’s biggest names will draw crowds, Lyman believes the real magic has always happened away from the main stages.
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in a split image
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny Dealt With Trump Quietly. It’s a Smart Move
Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny are both major superstars — and they’ve shared some parallels in their careers and discographies for several years. Now, they’re even using the same playbook to deal with taunts and baiting from Donald Trump and the White House’s social media teams.
Since Trump took office during his second term, he and his administration have been using social media as part of their communication strategy. The propaganda-like, rage-bait-style clips often lean into internet culture and use popular music to make light of Trump’s most egregious actions, like his immigration policy and war-hungry foreign policy.
Olivia Rodrigo, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, and Noah Kahan are just some of the artists who have had their music used in these videos without their permission — and vehemently spoken out against these actions and against the president. In the past couple of weeks, the Trump administration seems to have wanted to provoke a response from two of the world’s biggest superstars: Bad Bunny and Swift.
On July 30, the official White House TikTok used “La Mudanza” for a particularly tone-deaf video about immigration that celebrated the number of deportations under Trump. A week later, a video with text that said, “mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president” set to Swift’s “August” was uploaded by Team Trump, the president’s official campaign account. The caption was an overt provocation: “I’m sure Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song,” it read. Days later, another clip from the same account featured an edited version of Swift’s Red album cover with text that said, “Did you know that Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about the color of the Republican Party?”
Neither musician has released a public statement denouncing the use of their music in Trump’s videos. Instead, two of the world’s biggest superstars quietly removed their songs from videos posted by official accounts linked to the Trump administration. (It’s unclear if there is a TikTok feature that allows selective sound muting on videos or if the respective teams reached out to the social media accounts directly.) The tracks are still available for other TikTok accounts to use in their videos, making their silence a pointed — and smart — approach. Both Bad Bunny and Swift seem to recognize the president and his administration’s tactics for what they are: antagonizing moves that keep the Trump conversation centered on his social media presence, rather than his actual policies and the harm they commit. Why would they add their star power to the conversation and stoke the flames when that’s exactly what the White House appears to want?
Some people argue that celebrities should wield their platform to denounce Trump at any chance if they are truly not politically aligned with his MAGA politics. But because they hold so much influence, these superstars need to be strategic about how they use it.
Benito, in particular, has been incredibly outspoken about his politics. He stood on two of the world’s biggest stages and used them to voice pro-immigration messages, denounce Trump’s policies, and highlight Puerto Rico as it struggles with the effects of U.S. imperialism. “Before I say, ‘Thank God,’ I’m going to say, ‘ICE out,’” the Puerto Rican superstar said at the 2026 Grammys. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.” Last summer, Bad Bunny’s music video for “Nuevayol” used a voice that sounds a lot like the president’s to deliver a pro-immigrant message. “I made a mistake. I want to apologize to the immigrants in America. I mean the United States. I know America is the whole continent,” the voice bellows out of a Seventies radio toward the end of the video. “I want to say that this country is nothing without the immigrants.”
Fans were convinced that Benito would speak out against the official White House TikTok account when it used one of his most political songs. But commenting on the video would only blow up the discussion for a wider audience. When Rodrigo, Perry, Grande, and Kahan made public comments, spokespeople for the White House used the opportunity to spread hateful rhetoric. “We’ll say this one last time: what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens who have injured and murdered innocent American citizens,” Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Rolling Stone after Grande spoke out. It’s the antithesis of what Benito said during his Grammys speech this year: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Swift, on the other hand, has dealt with Trump and the right-wing’s instigations for years, each one crazier than the last. The TikTok videos from the last week aren’t even the first time that the administration has used the singer’s music for social media videos. Last fall, both the official White House TikTok account and Team Trump used songs from Swift’s then-newly released The Life of a Showgirl in separate videos. One plucked the lyrics “pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes” from “The Fate of Ophelia” to celebrate Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the first and second ladies. The others boasted about Trump by using “Father Figure” and honored Melania Trump’s Patriot of the Year award with “Opalite.” As of Aug. 10, the audio is not available under all of these specific videos.
The pop superstar has not spoken publicly about these instances. But she has made her disdain for Trump clear. Over the years, Swift has criticized Trump’s autocratic leadership. On X, she wrote “we will vote you out” and endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 and 2024 elections, respectively. In 2019, Swift told Rolling Stone, “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it.”
Even though she’s shared her liberal viewpoints on issues like abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and racial inequality, Swift has still faced ridiculous claims of being MAGA-aligned and folding in right-wing dog whistles to her music — and that’s without ever naming Trump. If Swift were to make a statement about her music being used by the Trump administration, the attention-seeking president would absolutely revel in it. Getting Swift and Bad Bunny to weigh in is exactly the type of headline grabber he would love to draw attention from his remarkably unpopular presidency.