I always make my Spotify point with some irony…you make some good points, essentially pixies are a huge scoop and it’s good to see (I just debate the “biggest” booking argument).
I do think current “buzz”, as pretentious as that sounds, counts for a lot at EOTR. There’s something special about going to see an act that everyone’s talking about, and for me that trumps a large discography or history of well attended gigs. Stuff like Black Country New Road and The Murder Capital last year, King Gizzard in 2017, Whitney in 2016…