Month: October 2020

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got a surprise new album from Laura Jane Grace, one of the most impressive debut albums of recent memory from Bartees Strange, and another new Song Machine entry from Gorillaz. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

Laura Jane Grace – Stay Alive

Last week, Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace released a new solo album out of the sky. Written and recorded during quarantine, Grace’s lyrics are especially poignant, with her solo vocals taking on an added bite as she tries to find the silver lining in isolation while admonishing the Trump administration.

Shamir – Shamir

On their sixth studio album, Shamir turns up the fuzz and delivers some of their best music to date. The album is jam-packed with infectious melodies and arrangments that touch upon everything from alternative rock to ’90s-inspired pop, making Shamir‘s eleven tracks some of the most interesting and exciting of their career.

Bartees Strange – Live Forever

On his debut album, Bartees Strange is able to sound like Frank Ocean, James Blake, and a dozen others. Live Forever feels like something from a veteran artist, and “Strange’s casual prolificacy with melding guitar rock with R&B, hip-hop, and EDM styles is stunningly showcased,” writes Steven Hyden for Uproxx.

Field Medic – Floral Prince

Ever prolific, it’s only been a bit more than a year since Field Medic released Fade Into The Dawn, a collection of lo-fi folk tracks that put Kevin Sullivan’s lyrical prowess on full display. Floral Prince continues in the same lane, with many of the songs sounding like they were recorded on a four-track and featuring not much more than Sullivan’s guitar and light percussion.

Jonsi – Shiver

After a decade-long hiatus, Sigur Ros mastermind Jonsi has returned with new solo music. Shiver takes on a more urgent approach than his work in Sigur Ros, with big synths and vocal modulation, featuring appearances from Robyn and Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser.

Drive-By Truckers – The New OK

Just a few short months after releasing The Unraveling, which Steven Hyden called the year’s “most political rock album,” Drive-By Truckers have unveiled The New OK, another album that was initially inspired by outtakes from The Unraveling. It’s the band’s thirteenth studio album, but they are as impressive as ever, with provocative songwriting and emotional delivery.

Kurt Vile – Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep)

Two years removed from his latest solo album, Kurt Vile has shared a collection of two covers, two originals, and a duet with the late John Prine, which Vile called “the single most special musical moment” of his life in a statement. The EP is full of goodness, with dreamy guitars and Vile’s carefree drawl, a welcome return from the man who has delivered some of the most enjoyable guitar music of recent memory.

Gorillaz ft. Elton John & 6LACK – “The Pink Phantom”

Gorillaz have been racking up some pretty impressive talent so far for their collaborative Song Machine series, but they raise the bar significantly with an Elton John feature on the new track “The Pink Phantom.” It’s perhaps the most pop-oriented song that Gorillaz have released since “Feel Good Inc.”, with John’s piano serving as the focal point around which the song moves and evolves.

Beabadoobee – “How Was Your Day?”

One of the brief moments of serenity on Beabadoobee’s debut album Fake It Flowers is “How Was Your Day?” a lo-fi acoustic numbers that was recorded on a four-track cassette recorder in her boyfriend’s garden while her studio was closed around the beginning of the pandemic. Although she’s just 20 years old, Beabadoobee’s songwriting cuts like few other modern artists, and “How Was Your Day?” dives deep into “all the relationships I neglected when I was away from home,” she said in a statement.

Wallows – “Virtual Aerobics”

The new EP from Wallows was written and recorded during the throes of quarantine, but “Virtual Aerobics” sounds as cohesive as any other track the band has released. It features a bouncing chorus that will burrow itself deep inside your brain, and a green screen video that is instantly captivating.

Adrianne Lenker – “Dragon Eyes”

Adrianne Lenker’s two(!!) new solo albums are coming soon, and “Dragon Eyes” is the latest entry into the canon, a sparse but lush number that puts her poetic delivery on full display. As the leaves turn and start to fall from the trees, there isn’t a more perfect moment for new Adrianne Lenker music — take it from the top comment on the song’s official video, which reads “This song turned me into a bird.”

G Flip – “You & I”

The latest single from Australia’s G Flip was written in just a few hours in London from the perspective of the honeymoon phase of a new relationship that ended up falling apart before the song could be released. It’s a jubilant indie pop song about “being able to look at someone and the whole world just becomes background noise to your epic love story and it feels like it’s only you and that other person standing on the planet,” G Flip wrote in a statement.

Romy – “Lifetime”

You might know Romy Madley-Croft from her time in The xx, and now she is getting ready to release her debut solo album under the name Romy. “Lifetime” was produced during lockdown, and revels in the modern daydream of being reunited with friends, family, and loved ones after months apart. It’s an emotional, electronic club track, with poignant and evocative lyrics.

The Big Easy – “Alone/Fake It Till I Make It”

The debut album from Brooklyn’s The Big Easy was written during a period of start-and-stop changes — after going through breakup, vocalist/guitarist Stephen Bethomieux moved out of his parent’s place in New Jersey and into Brooklyn, but then had to quickly turn right back around and move back to Jersey. The tension is palpable on the band’s meditative and propulsive new double single “Alone/Fake It Till I Make It,” which comes accompanied by a music short film about being yourself.

Sinai Vessel – “Guest In Your Life”

It’s been three years since we last heard from Sinai Vessel – on 2017’s Brokenlegged, the lineup expanded to feature a full band, but on the new album Ground Aswim, Sinai Vessel is once again the solo project of Caleb Cordes. “Guest In Your Life” is written from the perspective of a new relationship, although the lyrics look ahead to predict the way it might hypothetically end. It’s a welcome return for Cordes, and a solid indication that Ground Aswim will be well worth the wait.

Goat Girl – “Sad Cowboy”

Recorded just before lockdown, Goat Girl’s new album On All Fours was produced by Dan Carey (Kate Tempest, Black Mid, Franz Ferdinand). The album’s lead single, “Sad Cowboy,” is an adventurous track featuring drum machines, sci-fi synthesizers, digital soundscapes, and dramatic swells of vocal and guitar. For a track about losing touch with reality and trying to navigate a world that constantly feels like a bad dream, the instrumentation often adds an additional level of anxiety to the lyrical material.

The Weak Days – “The Seams”

The Fabric of Our Lives, the new album from The Week Days, is a concept album. It’s an ambitious project from the Lansing, Michigan band, but one that shows the value in going big or going home. “The Seams” is an inflection point in the story of The Fabric Of Our Lives, told through the lens of an emo-inspired arrangement and a guest vocal from Looming’s Jessica Knight.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The White Stripes were one of the most successful and beloved rock bands of the 2000s, and Jack White has remained in the public eye in various capacities since the group disbanded in 2011. While White’s career is going strong, the group’s legacy is one worth celebrating, and that is just what is being done now: Their first greatest hits compilation, appropriately titled The White Stripes Greatest Hits, is set for release on December 4.

To mark the announcement, the duo shared a never-before-seen video of them performing “Ball And Biscuit” in Tokyo, Japan back in October 2003.

The band hasn’t revealed much from the tracklist so far, aside from that it has 26 tracks and one of them is “Ball And Biscuit.” However, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the band’s three songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 (“Seven Nation Army,” “Blue Orchid,” and “Icky Thump”), and probably some of their singles that made it onto the alternative charts as well, like “Fell In Love With A Girl,” “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground,” “The Hardest Button To Button,” and “My Doorbell.” Also, “We’re Going To Be Friends.”

Watch the “Ball And Biscuit” performance above.

The White Stripes Greatest Hits is out 12/4 via Third Man Records/Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.

Back in June, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream announced it would be changing the culturally appropriated product name “Eskimo Pies” to… something different. After four months, the company has announced a new name for its chocolate-covered ice cream bars. They’re going with “Edy’s Pies” — an honorific to the company’s founder, Joseph Edy. The brand will also stop using the caricature of a young Indigenous child wearing seal fur on its packaging.

This rebranding comes in the wake of massive social upheaval across the U.S. as we grapple with the echoes of chattel slavery, Manifest Destiny, and American colonization. Brands like Uncle Ben’s (now Ben’s Original), Aunt Jemima (rebranding), Cream of Wheat (dropping logo), Mrs. Butterworth (rebranding), Plantation Rum (rebranding), and even the Washington Football Team (rebranding… FINALLY) have taken note of our changing world. And while these responses are easily mocked as superfluous, it’s not completely insignificant to see corporations absorb costs in order to be more culturally sensitive.

Even if that sensitivity is ultimately aimed at selling more ice cream bars. Or syrup.

Dreyer’s — which is owned by international ice cream giant Froneri out of the U.K. — said in their announcement (via The New York Times): “We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is inappropriate.” While “Eskimo” being classified as a pejorative still seems to be up for debate in the lower 48, the word has been resoundingly dismissed as racially-charged in Canada and across the rest of the Arctic, though it is still used in some parts of Alaska.

So what’s wrong with “Eskimo?”

Not a ton, in theory. The term was used by colonizers to group together all the Indigenous people living the Arctic between Siberia, what is now Alaska and Canada, and Greenland. Of course, those peoples had individual names for their cultures and communities — they are the Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Greenlanders or Kalaallit people — but the colonizers were nothing if not efficient in their grouping of massive swaths of humans. Many cultures do that and it’s not always mean spirited. In fact, the term “Eskimo” was likely an outsider word for “people who lived up north,” to begin with. The term is often attributed to the Algonquian-speaking Innu-aimun people (of what’s now Eastern Canada) and translated roughly to “one who laces snowshoes.”

But over the decades, the word grew to be a pejorative for Inuits, Alaska Natives, Siberians, and Greenlanders through usage. Colonizers incorrectly believed “Eskimo” to mean “raw meat eater” or “eater of worms” and historically linked the word with other crude connotations of “savages.” In the present day, at the very best, the term is used to erase identity between a massive swath of varying cultures around the Arctic Ocean across two continents. While at the worst, it carries on the stigmas — created through colonization — of Artic Indigenous people as subhuman.

That may not be enough to prove to you that the word is racially charged, but it’s certainly enough to prove that it doesn’t have to be on an ice cream box. There are better ways to sell candy-coated frozen sugar bricks.

All in all, this feels like a win. And it casts into sharp relief the brands still using offensive or loaded imagery. In fact, here are a few companies that should ponder rebranding ASAP:

• American Spirit — International tobacco company — owned by British American Tobacco — that still uses a stereotypical “Indian in a headdress” logo. It has no affiliation with any Indigenous nation.
• Red Man Chewing Tobacco — Besides the “Red Man” name, this partially Swedish-owned brand still uses a stereotypical “Indian in a headdress” logo. It has no affiliation with any Indigenous nation.
• Indian Motorcycles — Still uses names like “Chief” and “Scout” for their bikes and use a stereotypical “Indian in a headdress” as a logo. The company has no affiliation with any Indigenous nation.
• Miss Chiquita — The original a “sexy” lady banana cartoon was changed to a “Latin” woman in 1987. Chiquita’s history is also rooted in the United Fruit Company which started wars, committed massacres, and overthrew democratically elected governments throughout the Americas so that people in the U.S. could have access to slightly cheaper bananas and pineapples.
• Calumet Baking Powder — Named after a ceremonial Indigenous tobacco pipe and branded with a stereotypical “Indian in a headdress” logo. It has no affiliation with any Indigenous nation.
• Apache Gin — A Belgian owned and operated gin brand that was “influenced” by a trip to Apache Country. It has no affiliation with any Indigenous nation.

Then, of course, there are car brands (Jeep Cherokee, Winnabego), clothing brands (Cherokee, Quechua), and professional sports teams and their damaging mascots and fan “traditions” (Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers). This is simply to say, there’s still a lot of work to do when it comes to undoing racist caricatures and mascot pageantry in our culture.

Is a massive international brand ditching a harmful logo, name, or mascot going to fix the world? Of course not. But at least it’s a start — and reflects the fact that a mostly white and colonial power structure is finally listening to BIPOC voices and concerns on this matter. It’s a step in the right direction. A step towards ending fake or stereotypical imaginary of marginalized cultures — something that we know does harm to the mental health of Indigenous folks.

Perhaps steps like the ones taken by Edy’s Pies, Ben’s Original, and the Washington Football Team will help pave the way towards more equity. Maybe it’s the gateway that will lead towards shedding more light on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit or police killings of Indigenous men or the massive poverty of a majority of Indian Country still lives in. Maybe we’ll get a mainstream Indigenous TV show on the air. Anything is possible!

The thrill of this era of social upheaval is that even gestures like corporate rebranding feel like they’re part of a bigger movement. A movement that might really enact larger change this time. Change that directly impacts communities whose heritage was very nearly obliterated.

One can certainly hope.

Blackpink’s captivating performance at 2019’s Coachella exemplified their global success. As member Jennie put it, “Who would imagine thousands of people singing in Korean.” Ever since, they’ve shattered YouTube records and released their debut record The Album. Fans will now be able to follow Blackpink as they prep for their show-stopping Coachella set through the upcoming Netflix documentary, Blackpink: Light Up The Sky. Netflix just shared the trailer to the documentary, giving fans a taste of the behind-the-scenes footage shown in the film.

Along with offering an exclusive look at their Coachella performance, Light Up The Sky also gives insight into the K-pop group’s dynamic and tight-knit bond. According to the members, they’ve all lived together since they were teenagers in a type of “boarding school” that trained them for artistic success.

The trailer also gives a look at the hardships they faced moving away from their families as young teens, but also depicts the surreal moments where they sing in front of thousands of screaming fans. “All I wanted was for people to see the potential in us,” Jennie said in the preview.

Watch Blackpink’s Light Up The Sky trailer above.

The Album is out now via YG Entertainment/Interscope Records. Get it here.

HBO’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Outsider scored high ratings and also left the door ajar for more. El Cuco had seemingly been defeated, as with the book, but then a final scene showed Holly Gibney apparently afflicted with an El Cuco scratch, so thank you very much for those chills, screenwriter Richard Price. Jason Bateman, who directed some episodes and appeared as Terry Maitland, later told Collider that HBO was considering taking a second swing at the bogeyman, and now, Yul Vazquez (who played Yunis, the voice of reason next to Ben Mendelsohn’s Ralph) is adding fuel to that fire.

Yes, my man, Yunis, survived last season, and the man who portrayed him is suggesting a comeback. While speaking with ComicBook to promote Hulu’s Books of Blood (based upon Clive Barker’s work), Vazquez confirmed that “it’s not a limited series.” He obviously realized that he couldn’t say too much, so he repeated himself, and yup, it sure sounds like what Bateman previously said (“I know that they’re talking about it and Richard Price is playing with some ideas and taking some first steps”) is still to be believed. Bateman had also added that a Season 2 would obviously be “a complete free-ball,” given that Season 1 covered all of King’s book, but Price’s changes to the source material only made the story better, so I have faith that it could happen.

As for Price, he previously suggested to IndieWire that HBO would be game for a second season. “There’s no such thing as a series that, if it does well, they’re not going to want a second season,” he said at the time. Given that the show gathered such an intense following (including horror icon Robert Englund), fingers are crossed over here.

However, we should not expect to see El Cuco host/weird bar manager Claude return, since actor Paddy Considine just joined the Game of Thrones prequel as a lead. And even though people really wanna see more Cynthia Erivo, here’s what I think about a lack of Claude and Doppelganger Claude in a second season.

(Via ComicBook)

For nearly two decades now, fans have been eagerly awaiting a new album from The Postal Service, although they wouldn’t be blamed for giving up hope. After all, the group’s sole effort, Give Up, came out all the way back in 2003. They released a tenth anniversary edition of the album in 2013 which included some new material, but also in 2013, Ben Gibbard declared the group would play their last ever show that year.

All that said, it looks like The Postal Service is up to something: The group shared a mysterious teaser video today.

The 18-second video features some new music, the band’s logo, and the text, “Your meeting will begin tomorrow 10.7.20.” The clip was either posted or re-shared by all three band members — Gibbard, Jimmy Tamborello, and Jenny Lewis — and the group created a new Instagram account for whatever this endeavor is.

It’s not clear what the band is teasing. There’s no significant milestone anniversary for Give Up in the immediate future, as it came out 17 years ago. However, the band formed in 2001, so they could be setting things in motion for 20th anniversary plans.

Some users on Reddit’s r/indieheads have come up with some tantalizing theories. Some suggested the group could be reuniting to do something to benefit the struggling USPS or to encourage voting in the upcoming election (like a livestream performance). Another speculated the pandemic put Gibbard in the right situation to make another Postal Service album: “I’m cautiously optimistic that the insane nature of this year is what gave him the courage and self-permission to dive back in, which makes sense since everyone has been quarantined and secluded which ties right in to how the first and only album by The Postal Service came together (long distance collaboration).”

Whatever the case may be, some sort of news is coming from The Postal Service tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It looks like the claims that Kendrick Lamar had left Top Dawg Entertainment to sign to his own label, PG Lang, were greatly exaggerated. So says the man himself, with the help of his daughter’s Blues Clues doll, in a new video posted to Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith’s Instagram page. In the first slide, Kendrick, through “Blue,” denies the reports that he would turn his back on the man who effectively helped make him one of hip-hop’s three biggest stars of the last decade, while on the second slide, Kendrick and Top pose for a side-by-side with masks on.

This post is being updated

For the new season of his Netflix talk show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, host David Letterman has amassed quite the collection of talent. In the trailer above, the former-Late Show leader plays the flute with Lizzo; talks to Dave Chappelle about police brutality and systemic racism in the United States; goes shopping with Kim Kardashian; and heads to a llama farm (?) with Robert Downey, Jr. Or maybe it’s RDJ’s actual house. He seems like the kind of guy who would have llamas in his backyard.

“We’ve been doing this show and each time I’m gratified because each time the person in the chair is so much smarter than I am,” Letterman says. That’s because, like any good host, he listens to his guests, whether it’s Kardashian breaking down in tears (“I don’t know why I’m crying, I’ve talked about this before”) or Chappelle telling him, “I was shocked that nobody ever talks about what it feels like to watch a man get murdered that way — by a man in a police uniform. But I don’t want retroactive justice. I don’t want you to get them after I’m dead. I want you to stop it.” Chappelle also wants to know if Letterman smokes weed (he used to… and an animal tranquilizer once, too).

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman returns on October 21.

In a lengthy thread on Twitter, The Good Place star William Jackson Harper detailed a “disturbing” experience where his charity work with military members bumped up against a controversial executive order from President Donald Trump.

According to Harper, he had arranged to have a virtual discussion of Malcolm X with military academy students as part of the his work with Arts In The Armed Forces (AITAF). While he couldn’t have been happier that the students selected the film, which he calls “arguably the greatest biography committed to film,” the situation took an alarming turn a few days before the virtual event when Trump’s executive order entered the scene. Here’s what Harper tweeted:

Two days before the event, I was informed that students at two of the academies would not be taking part for fear of running afoul of President Trump’s “Executive Order Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping” which requires that federal and military institutions refrain from training material that promote a “pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors…”

Which meant they possibly couldn’t watch Malcolm X.

Shaken by the implications of the president’s order, Harper took the the administration to task for what he believes is outright censorship.

“I don’t disagree with the idea of combating race and sex stereotyping. But that is not what this order is about. This is censorship,” Harper wrote. “This executive order denies the very real experiences of so many minorities in this country. This executive order is rooted in the fictitious idea that the scourges of racism and sexism are essentially over, and that the poisonous fallout from centuries discrimination isn’t real. But all of these things are real, and they remain to this day some of the most salient malignancies in our society.”

In the end, three of the four academies still attended the virtual event, but Harper was still frightened by the fact that one academy abstained out of fear of backlash from the executive order. He ended his thread by urging everyone to vote. “If we don’t, we are whistling past the graveyard,” he said.

(Via William Jackson Harper on Twitter)

The Antlers were a defining indie group of the late 2000s and early 2010s, but they’ve been quiet in recent years. Their latest release is 2014’s Familiars, which is over six years old now. Today, though, the group has returned to share their first new music since then, a fresh track called “Wheels Roll Home.”

The track has a more optimistic sound than a lot of the band’s previous material, which aligns with what Peter Silberman says of the single: “‘Wheels Roll Home’ is a simple song about the hopeful promise of reunion after a long time gone. It’s that feeling of finding home in someone, eager and impatient to build a life together. It’s the experience of waiting out tumultuous times, longing for stability someday.”

While The Antlers have been away for a while, Silberman has remained busy. He put out his first solo album under his own name, Impermanence, in 2017. As for The Antlers, there is no official indication that “Wheels Roll Home” is the start of a new album cycle, so only time will tell if the track is more than a one-off single or if there is something else to follow.

Listen to “Wheels Roll Home” above.