Month: October 2020

It’s been over a year and a half since Ariana Grande released her chart-topping record Thank U, Next. While the singer has not been shy about working on new music, fans have been wondering when exactly Grande’s next project will see the light of day. On Wednesday, Grande revealed the wait is nearly over.

Announcing the project in a succinct tweet, Grande revealed her next record will debut in just a few short weeks: “i can’t wait to give u my album this month.”

The album announcement arrives after Grande teased fans about new music for weeks. In September, Grande posted a five-second snippet of a vocal track she was working on, writing “brb” as a caption. Just last week, the singer hinted at new music while also urging fans to vote in the upcoming election. “turning in these mixes and reminding u again to register to vote if u haven’t already,” she wrote alongside a selfie.

While the next album will be her first solo work since Thank U, Next, that doesn’t mean Grande hasn’t been working hard on new music. The singer collaborated with Lady Gaga on the Chromatica track “Rain On Me,” stopping by the MTV VMAs in August to perform a rendition of the single. Earlier in the lockdown, Grande teamed up with Justin Bieber to share the quarantine track “Stuck With U.”

On Tuesday, Donald Trump shared a baseless, easy-to-disprove conspiracy theory involving Barack Obama, the Navy SEALs, and Osama Bin Laden with his tens of millions of followers on Twitter. The president retweeted an article from “conservative propaganda site” DJHJ Media (we will not be linking to it) alleging that Obama and Joe Biden may have “killed” the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, the “global manhunting machine” that assisted in the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in a cover-up that goes all the way to the top, as cover-ups often do. Not only that, but it also “claims Bin Laden’s body double was actually killed in the raid and that Biden then ordered a Navy SEAL helicopter be shot down in order to stop the “truth” from coming out,” according to Newsweek.

Naturally, the theory is a big hit among the QAnon crowd.

The account that Trump retweeted has since been suspended, but the president promoting the far-right conspiracy theory did not sit well with Robert O’Neill, the Navy SEAL who (controversially) claims to have been the one who killed Bin Laden.

“I know who I killed, homie,” he wrote. “Very brave men said goodby to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double. Thank you Mr. President. Happy birthday @USNavy,” he tweeted.

O’Neill, a vocal Trump supporter in the past, was in the news earlier this year after Delta Airlines banned him for not wearing a mask on a flight.

Nicki Minaj’s Twitter stans are notoriously ruthless, especially when there’s a chance she was dissed by another musician. So when it seemed that Cardi and Nicki were taking shots at one another back in 2017, Nicki and Cardi’s fans alike were at each other’s throats. But now, it could be that both musicians have laid their dissagreements to rest. Cardi teased an upcoming collaboration with a secret guest, and fans are convinced it’s with Nicki Minaj.

Cardi B took to Twitter to tease the upcoming collaboration last week. “Gonna have ya sick,” she wrote. According to HipHopDX, rumors began to circulate claiming a snippet of a track called “Lavish” had leaked online. The lyrics reportedly appeared on a Genius page before being taken down and apparently revealed a verse from Nicki.

Fans took the rumor and ran with it, getting excited about the possibility of a collaboration between the two superstars.

Fans have held on to the beef between Cardi and Nicki for some time, but as Megan Thee Stallion pointed out in her recent New York Times op-ed, disagreements between female rappers are oftentimes blown out of proportion. “In every industry, women are pitted against one another, but especially in hip-hop, where it seems as if the male-dominated ecosystem can handle only one female rapper at a time,” Meg wrote. “Countless times, people have tried to pit me against Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, two incredible entertainers and strong women.”

Stay tuned to see if Cardi’s rumored collaboration with Nicki Minaj comes to fruition.

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

The Seattle Seahawks are perhaps the best team in the NFL this season, sitting at 5-0 thanks in large part to a high-flying offense that is second in the league in points per game. As is always the case when that happens, the offense has been led by the team’s star signal caller, Russell Wilson, who has taken his game to new heights this season and is arguably the frontrunner at this early juncture for the league’s Most Valuable Player award.

Before we get anywhere near the point where the MVP is handed out, Wilson has already earned another distinction. In a bit of news that dropped on Wednesday, EA Sports that Wilson is the latest entrant into the Madden NFL 21 99 club, a group that is made up of players who receive the game’s highest individual rating. The news was announced on the official Madden Twitter account.

Wilson started the year with a 97 overall rating in Madden NFL 21, while the 99 club consisted of Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas, Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore, Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald, Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey, and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. So far this season, Wilson has completed 72.8 percent of his passes for 1,502 yards and a league-high 19 touchdowns.

Despite the connotations of his rap name, Lil Uzi Vert has so far managed to avoid running afoul of gun violence or the police for much of his career. Unfortunately, his streak came to an end on Tuesday — but not in the same way as many of his peers and contemporaries. TMZ reports that Uzi was detained by police in his hometown Philadelphia after having a gun battle on the streets — albeit with paintball guns.

Police told TMZ that reports were called in of Uzi and his friends shooting out of a vehicle near North Philadelphia. When police searched the car, they found only seven, realistic-looking paintball guns (with requisite orange tips to identify them as replicas). Uzi himself live-streamed the paintball fight on Instagram and the footage eventually found its way to YouTube. Police cited Uzi and his friends, which is about the best-case outcome considering the news over the past, let’s just say 200 years.

Thankfully, since Uzi won’t face any worse consequences like jail time, he’ll likely have time to finish up his rumored collaborative project with Future while continuing to contribute outstanding guest verses like the ones he’s shared with A Boogie, Gunna, and Lil Tecca.

Check out our review of Uzi’s 2020 albums Eternal Atake and LUV Vs. The World 2.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Remember how important film soundtracks were in the ’90s and early 2000’s? It was an era when inclusion on the soundtrack to a teen or superhero film often equated to an instant mega-hit or an association with a prestige film could launch an entire career. The period’s biggest movie, Titanic, featured a song almost as colossal as the boat, while Good Will Hunting pushed virtually unknown songwriter Elliott Smith onto the Oscars stage and Singles shined a light on an entire burgeoning rock scene in Seattle. In 1999, Blink-182’s inclusion and subsequent cameo in American Pie helped boost their quickly growing public profile, while movies like Romeo + Juliet and Batman Forever also launched hugely successful singles from the likes of Garbage, U2, and Seal. And it wasn’t always for the better, like 2002’s Music from And Inspired by Spider-Man, which boasted a single from Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger that has since sold around fifteen million copies worldwide.

Clicking play on “Care,” the first single and opening track on Beabadoobee’s debut album Fake It Flowers, there is something instantly familiar that draws back to this (mostly) bygone era of rock-centered film soundtracks. And that’s exactly what Bea Kristi set out to do while writing the album. “I think music and film go so well together,” she tells me over the phone. “I’m a very visual type of person. I just think it would be super badass if I was able to write a song for a film. That’d be a dream.” The song itself embodies all of the staples of a good soundtrack: a start and stop chorus as the film’s main characters put their hands in the middle of the huddle before the big championship game, a ripping solo underneath the montage of the game itself, and a build-up to the final explosive chorus as the team scores the winning goal.

Where many musicians would say that there was a specific band or concert that encouraged them to pursue music, Kristi was instead inspired by how music could be utilized in films to heighten the emotion or comedy of a scene, but also have a life of its own outside the setting of a film. The lightbulb moment came while she was watching the 2007 film Juno, perhaps the last entry into the aforementioned “soundtrack era” (the album hit No. 1 within a month of its release and has since gone on to sell over a million copies). “That made me realize I really wanted to make music like that and to play guitar like that,” she recalls. The event sent her down a rabbit hole of discovery, both prompted and enabled by the ubiquity of streaming services and the ease of finding any artist’s algorithmically curated related artists.

Soon, Kristi had jumped from the Juno soundtrack deep into the studio work of that album’s breakout, lo-fi indie staple Kimya Dawson and her band The Moldy Peaches. She then transitioned toward heavier alternative acts like Veruca Salt, My Bloody Valentine, and The Smashing Pumpkins. All of these influences are seamlessly incorporated across the twelve tracks that make up Fake It Flowers, resulting in an album that is simultaneously the most modern and nostalgia-inducing release of 2020.

After gaining buzz and momentum with a series of EPs over the last several years that landed her slots on tours with artists like The 1975 and Clairo, everything changed for Beabadoobee in 2019 when her early track “Coffee” was sampled in the chorus for Canadian artist Powfu’s “Death Bed.” The track promptly went viral on TikTok and broke the top 20 on charts in nearly 30 countries worldwide. Just like that, the bubbling singer-songwriter exploded into a full-blown star. “It was very, very fast and in such little time,” she recalls. “Everything was so overwhelming.”

She retreated from the spotlight to her parents’ house in London, where she doubled down on writing Fake It Flowers. “I felt like I had to write an album just for my mental health even, because I just needed to get things off my chest.” Where her early EPs represented Kristi’s mindset in the moment of putting pen to paper, Fake It Flowers instead takes on a wider approach, encapsulating a period of introspection and examination of Kristi’s life up to this point.

You can hear the chaos throughout the album, as Bea masters the loud/soft dynamic that some say was popularized by Nirvana (which in turn was lifted from the Pixies, but I digress). She even calls Fake It Flowers a “female album,” channeling the vocal stylings and arrangements of fierce female alternative rock icons Alanis Morrissette and The Cranberries’ Delores O’Riordan. Some tracks rage with the fuzzed-out, heavy instrumentation that hearkens back to alternative rock staples of mid-late ’90s, while others take on a more reserved approach, giving Kristi’s vocal space to emphasize her deeply personal and reflective lyrics.

In fact, each song can be viewed as a standalone narrative from a moment in Kristi’s life — the infectious “Worth It” tells the story of a failing long-distance relationship, while the reverb-drenched “Dye It Red” revels in the temporary comforts one can find in a change in physical appearance. “Sorry,” on the other hand, is firm in its declaration of prioritizing one’s self, even if that means separating from someone entirely, building from just a single guitar to the onslaught of overdriven guitars laced with intense feedback and brash percussion.

The album is versatile in its delivery method, giving the listener many opportunities to engage with and latch on to Kristi’s lyrics, ideally to serve as a source of inspiration and a sense that you might not be alone in your feelings. “If one person can relate to at least one song on this album, that means I’ve done something right,” she explains. “The whole idea behind Fake It Flowers is something I was supposed to tell someone, but couldn’t. Writing this album helped me a lot with my problems, and hopefully, it can help someone out there too.”

With her debut album, Beabadoobee has created a project that is an epic film score for growing up, never shying away from the difficulties of coming of age that are the same for everyone, regardless of whether that period was in the ’90s, or the 2020’s. As for the classic film soundtrack she wishes she could have written for? “But I’m a Cheerleader because they only chose female artists. And basically the whole film, it’s a comedy, and they’re really fun songs and really dancey type songs, and there’s sad ones. And I feel like I’d want a song from Fake It Flowers to be in that movie. That or The Craft.”

Fake It Flowers is out October 16 on Dirty Hit. Pre-order it here.

Not too long ago, Oneohtrix Point Never announced a new album, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, which press materials described as “a nostalgic and self-referential career-defining body of work, collaging maximalist baroque-pop within atmospheric glitter.” Today, Daniel Lopatin returns with another preview of the album: a video for the Caroline Polachek-featuring “Long Road Home.”

The stop-motion clip follows a pair of demonic creatures who become romantically interested in each other. The courtship carries on from there until they eventually become one. The clip is described as an homage to the 1982 Georges Schwizgebel short Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein.

Co-directors Charlie Fox and Emily Schubert said of the clip in a joint statement, “It’s a romantic fable about love and transformation, which grew out of a lot of wild philosophical conversations with Dan over the summer. We wanted to take these supposedly grotesque or demonic creatures and turn them into the weirdly adorable and heartbreaking protagonists of this courtship ritual. For a song that seems to be sung by something mutant and magical in a time when intimacy is craved and feared, it felt like a hot match; it just felt good inside. And all this stuff started oozing out.”

Watch the “Long Road Home” video above.

NLE Choppa must have recorded his verse for Juicy J‘s “Load It Up” video before he changed his mind about his rap content because he goes all the way in on his usual subject matter, threatening enemies with hollows and Glocks. Meanwhile, Juicy also sticks to his own well-worn script, tossing off lines about weed, women, and cash before his heavily pregnant wife shuts down the video shoot and drags him home in a tongue-in-cheek peek behind the curtain, Wizard of Oz style.

The Memphis great has been gearing up for the release of his new album The Hustle Continues, which also features the Wiz Khalifa collaboration “Gah Damn High.” It’ll be his first full-length album release since 2017’s Rubba Band Business — although he’s also released a handful of mixtapes since then, including ShutDaFukUp and Road To Stay Trippy — and his first independently released project after leaving Columbia Records.

Juicy has also been busy making guest appearances with other artists, including Megan Thee Stallion, French Montana, IDK, Memphis’ own Jucee Froot, and R&B duo THEY..

Choppa, meanwhile, is enjoying a breakout year that included the release of his debut album, his inclusion in XXL‘s 2020 Freshman Class, and his turning over a new leaf, beginning plant-based diet and delving into meditation.

Watch Juicy J and NLE Choppa’s “Load It Up” video above.

NLE Choppa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

After battling zombies for over a decade in six Resident Evil movies, Milla Jovovich (along with director Paul W.S. Anderson) is officially moving onto other beasts, like dragons and other massive creatures who burst out of the desert in Sony’s Monster Hunter trailer. The visuals might remind people of Dune sandworms, but that’s where the similarities end. And that’s alright, considering that Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s heady sci-fi epic masterpiece will come to theaters next year, and Monster Hunter (which is based upon Capcom’s video game franchise) is geared toward sheer escapism. Jovovich portrays Captain Artemis — interestingly enough, a character who doesn’t hail from the video games — and the focus here is on action, one-liners (including a Guardian of the Galaxy joke), and those enormous CGI beasts.

Will the movie actually land in U.S. theaters soon, though? As of now, Sony is holding onto its December 30 release date, and given that this was always planned as a tentpole film (with some Mad Max: Fury Road vibes), it’s doubtful that this project will go straight to VOD. Also, the sound design is clearly meant to make theaters vibrate, with all those monsters flying everywhere and Milla Jovovich shooting them down like it ain’t no thing. More than likely, we’ll see the U.S. date push back with this movie continuing as planned in recovered overseas markets, where it should fare well.

Monster Hunter feels like a welcome popcorn movie (with no viruses!) in a time when it’s sorely needed. Of course, the audience will trade out our world for the place where Artemis and her army suddenly find themselves after slipping into some sort of portal. Anderson recently stated during New York Comic Con that Artemis’ unfamiliarity with this new world (and newness to the franchise) might help simulate the video game for moviegoers who aren’t yet familiar with the franchise’s stories. People will have to acclimate quite quickly to this world, given that the monster invasion appears to be unrelenting. The cast includes T.I. Harris (yes, that T.I. Harris), Ron Perlman, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, and Jin Au-Yeung.

Monster Hunter will arrive on December 30, maybe!

The WWE draft was supposed to end with the end of Monday Night Raw this week, but like last year, some WWE Superstars never got drafted on either show, and WWE needed a couple of days to catch up. In addition to Smackdown and Raw, Superstars were drafted on Talking Smack, Raw Talk, and then finally on Twitter.

In addition to everyone covered in the first two Draft Reports, here’s who else has been officially drafted:

RAW

1. Humberto Carrillo
2. Tucker
3. Drew Gulak
4. Andrade
5. Erik of the Viking Raiders
6. Lince Dorado and Gran Metallik

SMACKDOWN

1. Kalisto
2. Shorty G
3. Murphy
4. Billie Kay
5. Tamina
6. Zelina Vega

Finally, although they were never officially drafted, PWInsider is reporting that Mickie James and Andrade will both be on Raw. Mickie’s currently out with a broken nose, but it’s pretty surprising that Andrade, who’s been on TV quite a bit recently, never got drafted on screen.

Other things to note with these additions: Tucker is on Raw while Otis is on Smackdown, so that’s officially that for Heavy Machinery (and quite possibly for Tucker). Billie Kay and Peyton Royce are similarly split up, showing WWE’s dedication to keeping the IIconics apart. Kalisto was separated from the rest of Lucha House Party, although Gran Metallik and Lince Dorado seem likely to stay together as a tag team. Finally, Zelina Vega is truly off on her own now, on a separate brand from her former clients Andrade and Angel Garza. But on Smackdown, a least, she won’t have to worry about further attacks from a fiendish Alexa Bliss.

Here are the complete rosters of both shows as we understand them after the complete draft:

RAW

1. Drew McIntyre
2. Asuka
3. The Hurt Business (Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, Cedric Alexander, and MVP)
4. AJ Styles
5. Naomi
6. Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax
7. Ricochet
8. Mandy Rose
9. The Miz and John Morrison
10. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods
11. Dana Brooke
12. Angel Garza
13. The Fiend
14. Randy Orton
15. Charlotte Flair
16. Braun Strowman
17. Matt Riddle
18. Jeff Hardy
19. Retribution
20. Keith Lee
21. Alexa Bliss
22. Elias
23. Lacey Evans
24. Sheamus
25. Nikki Cross
26. R-Truth
27. Dabba-Kato
28. Titus O’Neil
29. Peyton Royce
30. Akira Tozawa
31. Lana
32. Riddick Moss
33. Arturo Ruas
34. Humberto Carrillo
35. Tucker
36. Drew Gulak
37. Andrade
38. Erik of the Viking Raiders
39. Lince Dorado and Gran Metallik
40. Andrade
41. Mickie James

SMACKDOWN

1. Roman Reigns
2. Seth Rollins
3. Sasha Banks
4. Bianca Belair
5. Jey Uso
6. Rey and Dominik Mysterio
7. Big E
8. Otis
9. Bayley
10. The Street Profits
11. Daniel Bryan
12. Kevin Owens
13. Lars Sullivan
14. King Corbin
15. Sami Zayn
16. Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura
17. Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode
18. Apollo Crews
19. Carmella
20. Aleister Black
21. Natalya
22. The Riott Squad (Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott)
23. Kalisto
24. Shorty G
25. Murphy
26. Billie Kay
27. Tamina
28. Zelina Vega