NEWS
Lola Young just performed at Glastonbury 2025 – see the highlights from her set below.
The former NME cover star made her Glastonbury debut on the Woodsies Stage today (June 27) and was met with a packed tent when she opened with ‘Good Books’ – taken from her debut album ‘This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway‘.
“Thank you, Glastonbury. I’m so honoured to be here, this is a magical moment for me,” she told the crowd, before launching into a string of tracks from the LP, which NME awarded five stars.
Her first time at Worthy Farm, it was an emotional affair for Young, who even shed some tears during a particularly stirring rendition of ‘You Noticed’.
“This is so special, this is so important to me,” she said later in her set. “I take my job very seriously, and this is incredible, so thank you for being here, thank you for supporting me.”
Young went on to introduce her latest single ‘Not Like That Anymore’, taken from her recently announced second album ‘I’m Only F**king Myself’, due for release on September 19 via Island/Day One (pre-save/pre-order here).
“This is the latest song I just released,” she told the audience. “I wanna bring someone special on the stage if you don’t mind.” The pop singer then brought a blow-up doll with her face on stage – the same one that features in the upcoming album’s artwork – and proceeded to sing to her plastic doppelganger.
It came after Young had teased her set with a giant version of the doll yesterday (June 26), which was strapped to the back of a van and driven around the Glasto area.
Later, wrapping up the set, she told the crowd: “This was everything I wanted it to be and more, thank you so much, Glastonbury, I love you,” before closing with her breakout hit ‘Messy’. See the moment above, and her full setlist below.
‘Good Books’
‘Wish You Were Dead’
‘One Thing’
‘Don’t Hate Me’
‘Walk On By’
‘You Noticed’
‘Conceited’
‘Not Like That Anymore’
‘Big Brown Eyes’
‘Messy’
NME caught up with Young when she received the Rising Star Award at this year’s Ivor Novello Awards.
The singer told us about the background of ‘Messy’, which ranked as one of the biggest songs of 2025 so far. “I just wrote it from a really personal place and it can sometimes be re-triggering hearing that song because it was so intense,” she told us at the awards ceremony. “I’m out of that place now, out of that difficult time in my life.”
“I think it’s just a relatable song. A lot of people don’t feel like they’re enough for somebody; they don’t feel like they’ll ever win.”
Still to come this weekend are headliners Olivia Rodrigo, The 1975, and Neil Young, as well as the likes of Charli XCX, Raye, Biffy Clyro, Loyle Carner, Rod Stewart and The Prodigy.
NME caught Lorde‘s surprise set earlier today, giving it a five-star review that read: “Live, some of the songs really come into their own. ‘Man Of The Year’s slow build becomes even more dramatic and thunderous, Lorde ending the track collapsed in a heap on the floor in response.”
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2025.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
