Month: December 2020

Fans spazzed out hard when a Clubhouse chat spawned a rumor that a Verzuz battle between longtime rivals Foxy Brown and Lil Kim is imminent. However, the event’s founder/primary coordinator Swizz Beatz wants fans to hold their horses. Perhaps it was lost in the wash of excitement or maybe it was due to the rules of Twitter that only allow users to see a direct reply if they are following both accounts (that’s why tweets must start with a period if they use an @ handle first), but it didn’t seem too many folks saw Swizz’s reply to Bossip associate editor Jason Lee about the plans for the battle.

“No!!!!!” Swizz denied. “Not confirmed!!!”

Of course, even if fans had seen his tweet, they’d have probably only used it as a chance to harangue the veteran producer to make the rumor come true. If there’s one immutable rule of social media, it’s that once a fan theory has been adopted, they’ll run it into the ground until they make it happen (see: The Snyder Cut). Fans have plenty of reason to want to see Fox and Kim share the stage, though. It was previously unthinkable that Gucci Mane and Jeezy could be in the same room without violence, yet Verzuz reunited the beefing trap rap pioneers to perform their hit “So Icy” just last month.

Meanwhile, Foxy and Kim’s beef goes back even farther and includes fewer dead homies, so there’s even more investment in seeing them bury the hatchet — especially in an era where women in rap are helping each other more than ever and even Cardi B and Nicki Minaj seem prepared to reunite on a track. Whether we’ll actually get to see that long-awaited reconciliation is, per Swizz, still unconfirmed — but we can dream.

Despite the NFC East being, by far, the worst division in football, the Philadelphia Eagles still find themselves third in the division at 3-8-1, trailing both the Giants and the Football Team, who are both 5-7. It was a year that, in theory, should’ve shaken out for Philly to make the postseason as they were the only one with, theoretically, a proven commodity at quarterback after Dallas saw Dak Prescott go down for the year with a gruesome leg injury.

Dallas has been platooning backups, led by Andy Dalton, while the Football Team has turned to Alex Smith coming off two years away from football rehabbing his own nearly career-ending leg injury, and the Giants have won their last two games with, of all people Colt McCoy. The Eagles, meanwhile, have had Carson Wentz healthy all season, fresh off of a monster contract extension that will pay him $128 million over the next four years — with $66 million guaranteed at signing.

So far this season, Wentz has been a disaster, as his career has followed a truly bizarre trajectory of, at times, looking like an MVP candidate but this season looking totally rattled behind a shaky offensive line and not finding any consistency. That has led to Eagles fans begging Doug Pederson to turn to rookie second round pick Jalen Hurts, and they finally got their wish late in this weekend’s game against the Packers. While Hurts wasn’t perfect, his performance (and that of Wentz) was enough to lead the Eagles to finally, officially, make the change to hand Hurts the keys.

Hurts will now start against the Saints, with Wentz serving as his (highly paid) backup, and we’ll learn an awful lot about how ready the rookie is against the NFC’s top team and a pass rush that is downright nasty. The Eagles offensive line woes have been among the reasons some have advocated against the QB change, but at this point Philly has nothing to lose as a team as they have to rattle off a number of wins in a row to have a shot at the playoffs. As for Wentz, it remains to be seen what his future holds as he’s guaranteed $25 million next year and carries a ton of dead cap so Philly likely won’t want to release him outright (and his deal makes it incredibly unlikely to find a trade suitor), but if Hurts plays well down the stretch of the season his future seems like it won’t be with the Birds.

For the majority of her career, Taylor Swift’s music has been pretty safe for work and appropriate for people of all sensibilities. That remains mostly true today, although there is one moment on Folklore where kids might want to put on their earmuffs. On “Mad Woman,” she says “f*ck” for the first time in one of her songs, singing, “What do you sing on your drive home? / Do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn? / Does she smile? / Or does she mouth, ‘F*ck you forever?’”

Studies have shown that swearing is good for you, and indeed, Taylor says dropping that F-bomb felt awesome. In a new Entertainment Weekly interview, she was asked how it felt, and she responded simply, “F*cking fantastic.”

She then elaborated:

“Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven’t done this before, so you can’t ever do this. ‘Well, you’ve never had an explicit sticker, so you can’t ever have an explicit sticker.’ But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn’t adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I’m really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I’m not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I’m glad they picked up on because they’re very intuitive.”

Check out the full interview here and see where Folklore falls on our list of 2020’s best albums here.

Several notable indie rock artists joined together for charity recently. To raise money for Seattle Children’s Hospital, artists like Angel Olsen, Kim Gordon, and Fred Armisen were tapped to perform music for the annual benefit livestream SMooCH, which took place virtually this year. During the event, Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard was joined by a Foo Fighters member and others to deliver a subdued cover of a country classic.

Gibbard united with Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, and Guns N’ Roses members Duff McKagan and Mark Lanegan for a jangly rendition of “Highwayman.” Each musician took turns delivering verses, combining their unique styles for a compelling cover Jimmy Webb’s iconic 1977 track.

The cover isn’t the only musical charity project that Gibbard has been involved in this year. Along with raising money for various organizations at the beginning of lockdown, Gibbard recently appeared on The Georgia EP, a benefit record featuring covers of TLC, R.E.M., and other prominent Georgian songwriters. Proceeds went directly to Fair Fight, an organization started by Stacy Abrams to combat voter suppression in states like Georgia and Texas.

Listen to the “Highwayman” cover above, around the 53-minute mark.

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Olivia Jade has given her first interview since the college admissions scandal that infamously landed her parents, actress Lori Loughlin and fashion designer in Mossimo Giannulli, in prison. However, Jade was met some resistance when she reached out to Red Table Talk whose three female hosts [Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris (Gammy)] were divided over the optics of a letting a wealthy, privileged white girl use their show to restore her reputation after her parents essentially bribed her way into a college education that she didn’t even want or need.

“You know, I fought it tooth and nail,” Gammy stated right up front. “I just found it really ironic that she chose three Black women to reach out to for her redemption story. I feel like here we are, [a] white woman coming to Black women for support when we don’t get the same from them. It’s just, it’s bothersome to me on so many levels. Her being here is the epitome of white privilege to me.”

But despite Gammy’s objection, Jade was allowed to speak freely about her experience, which she openly admits was “messed up” and a “mistake.” She specifically regrets how she didn’t realize how the whole situation was wrong as it unfolded and tried to explain why she was a willing participant in the scandal. Via Red Table Talk:

“I was like, ‘Well, this is what everybody does and my parents worked really hard, and I don’t understand.’ But that’s not, that’s not how it should be and unfortunately that’s how it was. And I’m grateful for the situation to see that big change and that big difference in my own mind to know like, ‘Okay, Olivia, the fact that you were on YouTube and you were saying stuff like, ‘I don’t want to go to school, I just want to go party at school…’ Like, the fact that you even could say those things just shows how fortunate you were. That you didn’t have to worry about that. That you knew you were gonna be okay without it.’ And that sits with me and makes me cringe and it’s embarrassing that I ever said those types of things, and not only said them but edited it, uploaded it, and then saw the response to realize it was wrong. There was no like malicious intent behind it. I was never trying to hurt anybody or say those things to brag about my life, it was just — I was oblivious.”

While Jade voiced her concerns about her life going forward, Gammy brought the bluntness back. “You know, so there are some people who would feel like, ‘She’ll be fine.’” Pinkett Smith said, causing Gammy to jump in with, “I feel that way. Clearly. I feel like you will be fine.”

You can watch the full Red Table Talk interview with Olivia Jade below:

(Via Red Table Talk on Facebook)

JT‘s back after a relatively short hiatus from Twitter and she’s got a message for fans who called out her outrageous posts on the site. The City Girls member deleted her account when fans started resurfacing old tweets in which she mocked musical stars — some of whom are now her labelmates — and expressed racist views. After taking a day to collect herself, JT’s account popped back up with a tweet simply reading, “Hi.” However, the real message was hidden in her profile picture, which astute fans recognized as a screenshot from a viral video from 2016 — the year after many of her scandalous tweets were made.

In the video, a man sings what CNN described as an “Adele-inspired apology” to the judge. Unfortunately, his apology didn’t quite have the desired effect; he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for multiple felony charges. JT, no stranger to the justice system herself, probably isn’t trying to make light of the man’s performance but rather seems to be giving a sarcastic apology to those who brought back her old tweets.

However, JT hasn’t deleted the offending tweets — likely because she knows the screenshots have already been captured and are never going away. While some fans might have liked a more sincere apology from the Miami rapper, it looks like she’s more interested in keeping the past In the past and enjoying her current success. Besides, those tweets aren’t even the most embarrassing thing to happen to her this month.

The 2020 college football season has been defined by the unusual due to its happening amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the season has taken its most unusual of turns, as perhaps the sport’s greatest rivalry game will not be played for the first time since 1917.

According to a statement released by the University of Michigan, this weekend’s matchup against Ohio State will not be played due to an uptick of COVID-19 cases in Ann Arbor. It marks the second weekend in a row that the Wolverines will not be able to take the field due to the internal spread of the pandemic, as the team’s game against Maryland last week was also canceled.

In a statement, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel called this “disappointing for our team and coaches,” but stressed that the university’s No. 1 priority is making sure everyone is able to remain healthy. The statement also clarified that Michigan intends on playing as soon as it is cleared by health officials.

The Buckeyes had previously won eight games in a row in this series, including a 56-27 victory over the Wolverines last weekend. This year, Michigan was set to travel to Columbus to take on fourth-ranked Ohio State, and it is unclear if the Buckeyes will canvas the college football landscape with the hopes of finding a replacement game to help bolster its resume for the College Football Playoff selection committee. In an added twist, this should mean that the Buckeyes are ineligible for the Big Ten Championship Game next weekend, as the conference’s guidelines state that teams must play five games in order to participate, but there have been rumblings that this rule could be changed. If not, the Indiana Hoosiers would earn the distinction of participating in the game.

King Von might be gone but his work lives on. In the bone-chilling video for “Wayne’s Story” — shot before Von’s death — the late Chicago rapper details a mutually destructive cycle of violence that has even more weight, considering how he died himself. The song, which comes from Von’s final album, Welcome To O’Block, finds Von telling the story of “Shorty,” a young friend from the block, and his downward spiral into a life of crime. Unfortunately, the first one to pay the price is Shorty’s cousin, who dies as a result of his actions.

The true tragedy, both of the song and of Von’s life, is that neither Von nor his semi-fictional subject can see how they contribute to their own destruction. Or maybe they can, but they both feel stuck as if there’s no other choice. Shorty’s story is yet to be concluded by the end of the video but in real life, there is no “to be continued…” for Von.

In the weeks since his death in Atlanta, Von has been memorialized, both by the actions of his peers and admirers and by musical appearances with collaborators like Fivio Foreign. His album, Welcome To O’Block, re-entered the Billboard 200 and charted within the top 10.

Watch the “Wayne’s Story” video above.

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 the anticipated new live albums from Arctic Monkeys and Deafheaven, the return of The Network (who is definitely not Green Day in disguise), and the greatest hits compilation from The White Stripes. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

Arctic Monkey – Live At The Royal Albert Hall

A recent episode of Indiecast was all about the many live albums of 2020. The latest release from Arctic Monkeys is a career-spanning performance at the legendary Royal Albert Hall that was put to tape in June 2018. Spanning 20 tracks, Live At The Royal Albert Hall simultaneously captures the band’s infectious live energy and inscrutable “cool” factor, especially on classic AM tracks like “Do I Wanna Know?” Plus, proceeds from the album’s sales will benefit the organization War Child UK, which aims to protect and support children affected by war.

Deafheaven – 10 Years Gone

With touring off the table in 2020, Deafheaven instead decided to celebrate their tenth anniversary with a live-in-studio LP, featuring songs from throughout their first decade as a band. It’s everything you’ve come to know and love from the black metal shoegaze outfit’s studio recordings, but with the dialed-up intensity of their live show.

The Network – Money Money 2020 Part II

It’s been seventeen years since The Network, Green Day’s mysterious masked side project, released their debut album Money Money 2020. Now, the band has returned for a brand new LP to celebrate the prophetic title of their debut. Featuring a staggering 25 tracks, Money Money 2020 Part II is equal parts synth-pop and ’80s-inspired new wave, with tracks decrying the Trump family and anti-mask crusaders during the pandemic.

The White Stripes – The White Stripes Greatest Hits

Almost a decade after their break up, The White Stripes have cataloged their legendary career in a new greatest hits set. Although the tracklist is far from a chronological recollection of the band’s discography, it’s a good reminder of just how exciting and innovative the duo could be at the height of their powers.

Ryan Pollie – Museum At The End Of Time

The latest release from Ryan Pollie is 15-minute ambient visual album, designed alongside two leading video synthesis artists. Together, the team patented a new technology to assist with meditation or mindfulness exercises, a groundbreaking way to listen to music that provides a shortcut to a sense of calm and relief from anxiety. Museum At The End Of Time is an entry into the world of calm.

Tigers Jaw – “Lemon Mouth”

2021 is quickly approaching, and with it comes a new Tigers Jaw album. “Lemon Mouth” is the latest preview of the band’s latest effort I Won’t Care How You Remember Me, a shimmering alternative rock track that features Breanna Collins taking on the lead vocal for yet another exciting promise of what’s to come from the full LP.

Orson Wilds – “Stand Up”

On their first single after signing with a major label, Canadian duo Orson Wilds deliver one of the most anthemic indie rock jams since Arcade Fire dropped “Wake Up. “It’s the type of song that instantly grabs you and doesn’t let up until the final notes fade. It’s an exceptional promise of what’s to come from the duo, who is currently at work on their debut full-length album with producer extraordinaire Will Yip. The track’s b-side, “Mothers Daughters,” is pretty exceptional, as well.

Jenny Lewis & Serengeti – “Unblu”

Jenny Lewis has had a relatively quiet 2020, with a few standalone releases here and there. The latest of such releases is a collaboration with Chicago rapper Serengeti, a downtempo number featuring hushed vocals from both collaborators. “Unblu” is said to be the first of a handful of collaborative tracks that the duo recorded remotely during the pandemic.

The Wonder Years – “Out On My Feet”

To celebrate ten years of their breakthrough albums The Upsides and Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing, Philadelphia punks The Wonder Years returned to the mindset of 2010/2011 for a pair of tracks that were recreated from notes and demos of the era. “Out On My Feet” is the heavier of the two new tracks, but still incorporates everything the band has learned to fine-tune their craft in the subsequent decade. The result is a track that will please old-school fans, while also charting a path forward for the band as they embark on their next decade.

Claud – “Soft Spot”

Claud, the first signee to Phoebe Bridgers’ newly minted label Saddest Factory, is gearing up for the release of their debut album, Super Monster. “Soft Spot” is the latest offering from the LP, a warm track wherein Claud sings of dealing with unrequited love and the mixed emotions that come with it.

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

People love to project their own feelings onto Taylor Swift. Nothing illustrates that better than “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the best song off her eighth album, Folklore, and one of the funniest songs she’s ever written. I heard a writer I admire describe the song as “smug,” and that made me laugh, too. How many young women are in the position to buy historical mansions? How many old men have I endured bragging about their multiple homes since I came of age? When I was a college student in Malibu trying to grow into my madness, Taylor was hurtling from esteemed country songwriter to the slightly more terrifying role, most famous pop star in the world. We probably both listened to a lot of men drone on about their big houses. “Dynasty” is a dig at them, along with her haughty neighbors, not to mention the media speculation that constantly chased down her holiday parties there. But, it reads like a celebration. It’s not smug, it’s hilarious.

Going back to the projection — this is something that both Swift and her multitude of overzealous-though-often-justified fans have had to learn to cope with over the last few years. The ride was never rockier than when a celebrity feud painted her in an increasingly negative light, and the initially lackluster reaction to her bristling, exterior-focused album Reputation threatened to unseat her. For anyone who cared about Taylor Swift, The Person, the fallout of her feud with Kanye West, and later, Kim Kardashian, was more troubling than an apparent impact on album sales or awards. Deeper than that, the feeling that a vicious narrative conveniently left out relevant facts in order to portray the subject in the worst possible light is a hard one to bear, even for the head that (arguably) wears the crown. Following Reputation’s big beats and lyrical daggers, a quick about-face righted the ship as Lover’s floral, rose-colored haze landed critics, and the public, back on her side – even if history will likely reveal Reputation as the stronger record of the pair.

But after the warm interiority of Lover, and a discography built on laying the hardest moments of her personal life bare, Swift needed a new strategy. She’s found it and then some on Folklore, a record that has finally surpassed Red as the best album in her sizable discography, a seemingly-impossible feat that Taylor zealots have worried at for years. Consider the new approach in motion: Instead of writing an interior-focused song about her relationship to Holiday House, her neighbors, or dated ideas about “new money” and women buying property, Taylor pulled in decades of history to make her point. This is a Folklore tactic that re-establishes just why her songwriting eventually turned her into a massive pop star; she’s a master of knowing when to share blueprint details, and when to leave space for a listener’s emotions to move into the house.

In a dour year full of death, despair, and the bad kind of absurdist hedonism, the space and light of Folklore changed the tone of music in 2020, not just for certain listeners, but for nearly everyone. It was a signal of potential, a gleam under a dark door, a reminder that quarantine, as endless as it may seem, is not forever. There will be an after, the album argues, appearing as a kind of preparation for it. If country twang, shiny pop production, vocal fry, or distaste for beat-driven bops have ever kept you away from the music of Taylor Swift, then consider Folklore a formal invitation to join the ranks of those who swear by her melodies. Folklore is an album for those dense enough to think Ryan Adams’ version of 1989 was better, its shimmering folk and timeless production choices all but guarantee any hurdle to listening, enjoying, and relating has been formally removed. This too can be read as a joke, if it wasn’t so important to establish, in the midst of this summer’s darkness, that there are still beautiful things.

Folklore remains a deeply-felt, idiosyncratic album that only Taylor could’ve made, but there’s a sense of remove that has been absent in her earlier work; it’s more like a new collaborator in the room than anything has been subtracted. It seems she’s finally come to an understanding of her place in the canon, a quiet wisdom bred in the isolation of quarantine, or perhaps credited to the newfound stability of a loving partner (and, apparently, inspiring musical collaborator). Though, none of this growth came easy. Halfway through the record, a song called “This Is Me Trying” is one of the only tracks she’s ever written that directly addresses mental health, and she explicitly notes in a recent concert film, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, that it’s a song about “mental illness, addiction, and suicide.” What might’ve once taken an entire album to address is now just a three-minute flashback, a truncated sadness that simultaneously illustrates the most insidious thing about mental illness, the way it steals other potential narratives from us.

Trauma necessitates self-focus, the brain stuck on a loop in pain sees only its own agony. Folklore casts a much wider net, with narratives that grapple with healing and moving on from the past, and most of the pain portrayed here is seen in a distant rearview mirror, or gently reimagined through the lens of other people’s lives (“Betty,” “August”). This is music that contextualizes what Taylor’s personally been through, naming feelings rather than real people in songs that capture moods (“Mad Woman”) and consequences (“My Tears Ricochet”) instead of literal play-by-play moments. The result is that those who haven’t been able to connect with Swift’s music in the past now have the necessary room to do it, and those of us who have literally grown up with her can proudly acknowledge another step in her own growth. Folklore isn’t just the best album of 2020, it’s a marvelous unraveling of everything she’s ever been, and a brilliant reckoning with who she wants to become.