Conor Oberst has remained busy over the past decade with a handful of solo albums and his recent Better Oblivion Community Center effort with Phoebe Bridgers. All the while, Oberst has given many a performance in promotion of these endeavors. One thing he hasn’t done in some time, though, is perform with his recently reunited Bright Eyes, who have been active lately and just officially announced a new album.

The band’s most recent show was at Honolulu’s Hawaii Theatre in November 2011, and they haven’t performed together since then. They changed that last night, though, when they gave their first performance in almost a decade on The Late Show.

For the performance, the band chose “Mariana Trench,” the new single they released alongside the recent album announcement. The performance took place in a studio with all three band members and others present for a nicely filmed, multiple-camera presentation.

At least some individual parts may have been filmed separately, though, as there seem to be some slight continuity errors when transitioning between shots (like at around 3:30 into the video, when one shot shows backing singers in one part of the room, and the next shot of Oberst singing in front of that same area doesn’t feature the singers behind him). Either way, this was pulled off in a nice and mostly seamless way.

Watch Oberst and company perform “Mariana Trench” above.

Rappers often feud with each other but it seems as though lately, they’ve had more disagreements with brands and retailers for hawking questionable wares and making iffy public statements. One of the biggest offenders is Walmart, whose website operates similarly to Amazon’s in that outsider retailers can rent “space” on the site to sell goods you wouldn’t normally find in Walmart’s brick-and-mortar stores. In December 2017, 2 Chainz went off on the brand for knocking off his dabbing Santa sweaters (which were supposed to be for charity) and now, another Atlanta star is mad at Walmart for selling bootleg branded goods.

Lil Baby, whose album My Turn has had an impressive run on top of the Billboard charts this year, woke up to the news that somebody is using the Walmart site to sell copies of his signature chain. Lil Baby, who proudly reps his “4 pockets full” mantra with a 4PF chain and clothing line, logged into his sparingly used Twitter to let fans know, “Walmart got me f*cced up.”

The rapper’s popularity has skyrocketed within the last few years thanks to a string of successful singles and projects including My Turn and most recently the single “Bigger Picture,” which he released as a response to ongoing protests against police brutality. So, it makes sense that fans would want to be a part of his movement — but maybe knocking off his trademark looks isn’t quite the right way to do it. At $70 for the fake 4PF chain, it’s probably not an investment you’d want to make anyway — unless you want your neck to turn green.

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J.K. Rowling’s latest round of controversial comments about trans people (“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”) led to a renewed backlash against the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts author. Very quickly, Daniel Radcliffe expresesd disagreement with Rowling, and Eddie Redmayne, followed suit. Rowling’s latest book, The Ickabog, appeared to be in jeopardy when Hatchette employees threatened to stop working on the book, and now, some of Rowling’s fellow authors don’t want to be associated with her literary agency.

Variety reports that four authors from the U.K.’s The Blair Partnership are outta there. Among them are Drew Davies, Ugla Stefanía Kristjonudottir Jonsdottir, and Fox Fisher, who all resigned while stressing that their decision was not an easy one and issuing the following statement:

“After J. K. Rowling’s public comments on transgender issues, we reached out to the agency with an invitation to reaffirm their stance to transgender rights and equality. After our talks with them, we felt that they were unable to commit to any action that we thought was appropriate and meaningful.”

The authors continued while claiming that freedom of speech should not be valued at the expense of further oppression of underrepresented groups. They also feel that both publishers and agencies must make meaningful change and offer platforms for these groups, and it’s clear that they’re not onboard with The Blair Partnership’s response to the Rowling matter.

Days after Rowling’s latest round of anti-trans tweets, she penned a lengthy essay, in which she elaborated upon her unchanged point of view. After stating that “accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people,” she wrote at length about her “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism.”

(Via Variety)

Lil Yachty appears to have found himself in a scary situation yesterday, but thankfully, it seems he is alright. TMZ reports the rapper crashed his Ferrari on the highway, but was not seriously injured.

The publication notes that Yachty was driving the car on Georgia State Route 400 in Atlanta on Monday. It was raining, which made the roads slick and caused Yachty to hydroplane, spin out, and crash into a barrier on the side of the road.

The good news is that it appears Yachty is doing fine, as he only sustained minor injuries to his arm, and it’s not clear if he even went to the hospital following the crash. As for the car, it is apparently totaled.

Last night, Yachty shared a tweet that may be connected to the reported crash, writing, “So thankful for my life. Never take it for granted.” This is as close as the rapper has come to addressing the situation.

The rapper is fresh off the release of his latest album, Lil Boat 3, which just came out towards the end of May. The record features a roster of esteemed guests that includes Drake, DaBaby, ASAP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, Tierra Whack, Future, Mike Will Made-It, Draft Day, Lil Keed, Lil Durk, and Young Thug.

To date, only 11 movies have at one point been the highest-grossing movie of all-time, three of which hail from the same director: Steven Spielberg.

1975’s Jaws briefly held the record before Star Wars came along, then 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial topped the later-renamed A New Hope. But Spielberg outdid himself, and everyone else, with 1993’s Jurassic Park. The Oscar winner remains his top-grossing movie (not adjusted for inflation), having made over $1 billion worldwide, including $517,642 this past weekend. In fact, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Jurassic Park was the number one movie at the box office for the June 19-21 weekend.

Kevin James playing a Neo-Nazi ain’t got nothing on the Dilophosaurus:

Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park topped the chart with an estimated $517,642 from 230 locations in its 1,411th weekend… The vast majority of the theaters reporting grosses were drive-ins, many of which have been able to remain open, and in other instances, reopen relatively quickly.

In second place behind Jurassic Park? Spielberg’s Jaws, which “earned an estimated $516,366 from 187 locations in its 2,349th weekend,” with E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark also in the top 20. This was the fourth time Jurassic Park has been number one at the box office (it held that spot for three weekends in 1993) and at least the third time it’s appeared on the chart in the past 27 years, including a 2013 re-release.

If COVID-19 cases continue to surge, drive-in theaters will get desperate for more Spielberg and start showing War Horse. That’s reason enough to find a vaccine.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

Tekashi 69 got his first No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 yesterday when “Trollz” debuted atop the chart. Naturally, he took to Instagram to celebrate the feat, and he used his platform to accuse Billboard, Apple Music, and Spotify of trying to prevent him from reaching his goal.

In a celebratory video, Tekashi and a friend pop bottles of champagne and spray them all over the room. Addressing the camera, he yells, “I can’t be stopped, n****! Didn’t I tell you?” He also thanked his fans for helping him to “beat the industry.” He reiterates some of what he said in the video in the written description. He accuses Billboard, Apple Music, and Spotify of trying to “blackball” him and “Trollz,” saying that the streaming platforms “didn’t give us any major playlisting.” He also says that he “went up against the music industry and won.”

Tekashi wrote, “#1 ON @billboard YOU CANT STOP ME. YOU CANT BLACKBALL ME. DIDNT I TELL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO RADIOOOOOOOOO (ZERO) @applemusic @spotify @thelarryjackson @carlchery DIDNT GIVE US ANY MAJOR PLAYLISTING on Spotify and Apple. THEY TIRED SO HARD PUSHING SOMEONE ELSES SONG. LET THE WORLD KNOW WHAT YA DID !!!! YOU CANT BLACKBALL MEEEEEE IM TO BIG OF A STARRRRRRRRRRRR … OH ANNDDDDDDD ALL THE FANBASES THAT TEAMED UP TO PREVENT THIS NUMBER ONE I SAW THAT TOOOOO. DEBUT NUMBER 1 WITH NONE OF YOU! HATERSSSS WATCH THIS 1 MILIION TIMES HATER HATER. YOU CAN SAY WHAT EVER IM NUMBER 1 AND YOU CANT TAKE THAT FROM ME I WENT UP AGAINST THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND WON!!!!!!!!! @nickiminaj WE ARE THE F*CKING MONSTERS OF THIS SH*T I LOVE YOU MOMMAZZZ”

Watch the video below.

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Eminem has spent a good portion of this year and last celebrating the 20-year anniversaries of The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP, which came out in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Em has commemorated the albums by sharing remastered videos, releasing expanded editions, dropping new merch, and more. Eminem fans know that 2020 is also the anniversary of another seminal work from the rapper: A few days ago marked the tenth anniversary of Eminem’s 2020 album Recovery.

On June 18, the exact date of the album’s decade milestone, Em shared a 30-second teaser video that showed off famous highlights from the album (“Not Afraid,” “Love The Way You Lie,” etc.), but didn’t offer much info beyond noting, “more coming Monday!” Well, Monday has come and gone, and last night, Eminem revealed his plan: He has released a run of anniversary merch, which is only available for an extremely limited time.

The merch went up for sale at 6 p.m. ET last night, and will only be available until 6 p.m. ET today. Available are two different long-sleeve t-shirts: A white one themed after “Not Afraid” and a black one with Recovery imagery, Both of them have Eminem’s name running the length of the right sleeve.

Read our recent look back at Recovery here.

Before this past weekend’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Trump administration boasted that they had received over one million tickets to attend the event. Yet only 6,200 people flocked into the BOK Center, which, for reference’s sake, singer Pink thinks she “sold that same place out in five minutes.” What happened? The K-pop stans happened. Music’s most passionate fanbase, as well as thousands of TikTok users, “claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Mr. Donald Trump’s campaign rally as a prank,” according to the New York Times. We thank you for service.

The prank was heralded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted, “You just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” as well as Stephen Colbert. The Late Show host dedicated a portion of Monday’s episode to the rally (“Doesn’t say great things when there are fewer people in your crowd than have credibly accused you of sexual assault”), including a message for the BTS and Blackpink listeners out there. “I just want to say to K-pop fans, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said.

Watch the clip above.