Month: December 2020

At least in terms of music, 2020 was great for Eminem fans as the rapper delivered two new projects: Music To Be Murdered By and its Side B counterpart. Frequent Eminem collaborator Skylar Grey made yet another appearance on one of his tracks, this time joining him on the Side B cut “Black Magic,” and it turns out the song helped cap off her year in a huge way.

Over the weekend, Grey took a moment to reflect on how well she has been treated by Em over the years, which was sparked by Grey learning that “Black Magic” helped her double her monthly listeners on Spotify:

“Because of Black Magic, my @Spotify surpassed 4 million monthly listeners today… which is double what it was just a couple weeks ago. I want to take this moment to publicly express my gratitude for Marshall and everything he has done for me in the past 10 years. When he cut ‘Love The Way You Lie,’ my career was suddenly on fire. And he could have stopped there… but he didn’t. Black Magic is the 14th song we’ve worked on together… over the years he’s continued to include me in projects, bring me on tour, and show me tons of support. Even when other people gave up on me, he never did. Even after I parted ways with Interscope Records, he still believed in me. So to me, he’s beyond a collaborator, a mentor, or a friend… he’s family. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU Marshall… for all of the incredible opportunities, and for always having my back… I am forever indebted to you. Love you so much homie.”

Find Grey’s post below.

With 2021 right around the corner, ABC has announced the host of its annual New Year’s Eve festivities. This year’s edition of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve will be emceed by New Orleans bounce pioneer and living legend Big Freedia, live from her hometown for the Central Time Zone ball drop. Naturally, another local, PJ Morton, will ring in the new year with a rendition of the traditional anthem “Auld Lang Syne.”

In a statement, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said, “We are beyond excited that Big Freedia and PJ Morton, two of New Orleans’ brightest musical lights, will be shining for our city and before the entire world as we ring in the new year. Even though we won’t be watching this performance in person, we will be watching from the safety of our homes as ‘Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2021′ rings in the new year with that special New Orleans flavor.”

Cantrell further noted, “We’re also excited that this event will employ nearly 70 local crew members, many of whom have been shut out of production jobs due to the pandemic and that the world will remember that New Orleans will be the safest place to visit and enjoy our music and culture in 2021.”

Meanwhile, Ryan Seacrest, Lucy Hale, and Billy Porter will handle the New York celebration from Times Square, while Ciara will perform hosting duties in Los Angeles. Performers for the evening include Brandy, Doja Cat, Ella Mai, Maluma, Megan Thee Stallion, Miley Cyrus, and Saweetie, for a hip-hop-centric, female-powered night.

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve will air beginning 8 pm ET on Thursday.

A lot goes into making a movie. Filmmakers create worlds with their films, so it can be hard to get every last detail right, especially if the movie is set in the past and you have to keep track of what things did and did not exist in that time period. Well, Wonder Woman 1984 hit HBO Max over the long holiday weekend, and sure enough, a reference to a punk album that wasn’t out in 1984 makes an appearance.

Without getting spoilery, there’s a moment in the film where some background characters make a brief on-screen appearance. The group of punk enthusiasts are wearing clothes appropriate of their interests, and one of the people is wearing a t-shirt that has the album art of the Cro-Mags album The Age Of Quarrel. That album was originally released in 1986, two years after Wonder Woman 1984 is set, so it shouldn’t appear in a movie set in 1984.

Cro-Mags singer John Joseph doesn’t have a problem with the inclusion, though, as he insists a version of the album was around in ’84. He posted a screenshot of the moment on Instagram and wrote, “Had about twenty people tell me about this. Patty Jenkins Director/Writer (Monster – Wonder Woman etc.) is a good friend since the 80’s – she asked me to send her a Cro-Mag shirt for the new ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ released today. I sent her this ‘Age of Quarrel’ tee-shirt. The original album (black cassette) was recorded in 1984. Me and Parris (guitarist) paid for the recording. His father owned a pressing plant in Nashville and pressed up the tapes.”

Superchunk/Mountain Goats drummer Jon Wurster shared a picture of the moment as well and Joseph wrote in the comments (as Stereogum notes), “The artwork may be different but the songs are the same I suggest people talk about things they know as opposed to what they think they know.”

It’s not surprising that at least one person noticed the error, as about half of HBO Max subscribers watched Wonder Woman 1984 on its Christmas release.

Lori Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giannulli attempted to avoid prison time in the college admissions scandal by pleading guilty. However, a judge declined to go entirely easy on them for charges involving wire and mail fraud. Those federal crimes led to substantial fines, community service, and prison sentences for both spouses. In Mossimo’s case, he received five months behind bars, and Lori landed herself two months for her role in what became known as Operation Varsity Blues.

All of this went down after U.S. Attorney’s Office came down upon dozens of parties, including Loughlin and Giannulli, who participated in a scheme (paying around $500,000 in bribes) to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as faux recruits to the crew team. Felicity Huffman, who was also involved in the scheme, pleaded guilty months earlier and only served a few weeks behind bars, and Lori is now done with her time and out in the fresh air again. The Associated Press has the details:

Loughlin was released from the federal lockup in Dublin, California, where she had been serving her sentence for her role in the college admissions bribery scheme, the federal Bureau of Prisons said… Loughlin and Giannulli were both initially supposed to report to prison on Nov. 19, but prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed Loughlin could start her sentence on Oct. 30. Loughlin also agreed that she would not seek early release on coronavirus-related grounds, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, Giannuli is still behind bars and due to be released in April. There’s no telling if Lori’s acting career will bounce back at any point, but given that Huffman recently scored her first role, a “comeback” isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Probably not a bunch of Hallmark movies, though? We’ll have to wait and see.

(Via Associated Press)

Don Lemon is fed up with Kayleigh McEnany’s “carnival of lies,” and so is Jake Tapper.

Over the weekend, the CNN reporter appeared on Reliable Sources to discuss President Trump’s war with the media during his single-yet-endless term. “There are some people that are so mendacious, I just wouldn’t put them on air,” Tapper told host Brian Stelter. “Kayleigh McEnany, I never booked her. Jason Miller from the Trump campaign, I would never book him. These are just people who tell lies the way that most people breathe. There was no value in that.” He used to speak to Trump folks, like Kellyanne Conway because she’s “more of a filibusterer and a subject changer,” unlike McEnany, who the current-White House Press Secretary who “tells lies all the time” and “can’t acknowledge reality.” Tapper added, “I am just not going to put somebody like that on air.”

McEnany responded to Tapper’s comments on Twitter, where she wrote, “This is a therapy session for a broken network, and @jaketapper is lazy enough to participate by lobbing baseless personal attacks, with ZERO evidence.” She then diagnosed Tapper’s “real” problem: “I do not leak. I do not lie. But I DO call out the lies of the media (i.e. CNN Russia collusion hoax!).” She even lied when she claimed she doesn’t lie.

You can watch the Reliable Sources clip below.

(Warning: A Marvel comic-book spoiler will be found below.)

The upcoming MCU shows from Disney+ are going to get funky. Weird, even. She-Hulk will be a legal comedy, and WandaVision will give viewers 1950s-set sitcom vibes so far. In this new trailer, the “perfect” world of the two superhero lovers begins to crumble, as they slowly realize that they can’t simply conjure up a picture-perfect home life and expect it to keep happening. Reality starts to collapse upon itself, and if you don’t mind a comic-book spoiler here, there’s one part of this trailer that freaks me out the most.

Those shots of a pregnant Wanda reveal to me that Disney isn’t planning to be entirely wholesome with this series, and I’m not even talking about the saucy debate concerning Vision’s anatomy. Nope, this has to do with Wanda’s fractured mental state that follows her pregnancy. In the comics, she gives birth to twins, but (long story short) she essentially conjures them, and what happens later causes her to go mad. Whether this has to do with the fracturing of reality that we see during this trailer, time will only tell, but things are likely about to get not-so-pretty. From the synopsis:

The series is a blend of classic television and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in which Wanda Maximoff and Vision — two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives — begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.

WandaVision will premiere on January 15.

Dua Lipa involved a number of collaborators in her Future Nostalgia album and in various versions of its songs. Before the record dropped, Lipa noted that she worked with disco legend Nile Rodgers, although their collaborations didn’t find their way onto the album. That hasn’t soured the relationship between the two, though, as Rodgers still has an interest in working with Lipa.

In a new interview with The Sun, Rodgers insisted that he’d still like to collaborate with Lipa, saying, “That’s up to her. We got along great, we really liked each other. She can call me any time — I’m down.”

In an interview with Radio.com earlier this year, Lipa spoke glowingly about Rodgers but admitted the music they worked on together “didn’t quite fit in the theme of Future Nostalgia.” She added, “He’s a friend of mine and I adore him. Hopefully we’ll get to do some stuff together. Something that really feels unique to both of us, and something that we can bring and present to the world one day.” She noted elsewhere, “He’s amazing. What an icon, a legend. We decided to get in the studio together because I felt like a lot of the songs and the production that I was doing felt like a perfect match for us to work together.”

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Though she sometimes complains about the pains of craving a $88K bag, Cardi B is mostly a very down-to-earth celebrity. She loves to share real stories and experiences with her fans, and often launches into the personal details of being both a public figure and a mother.

Tonight, she was in motherhood mode, lamenting the fact that a recently popular cartoon, Peppa Pig was influencing her daughter Kulture in an unexpected and unwelcome way. “My baby been watching peppa pig and now Everytime she sees a wetpuddle she wants to stomp on top of it,” Cardi wrote on Twitter. “That sh*t gets me so tight ! F*Ckin up her uggs……Deum you peppa pig …COUNT YOUR F*CKIN DAYS!”

While I’ve personally not watched Peppa Pig this kind of purposeful puddle jumping does seem like it would set an example for kids that would be very annoying for their caretakers. Here’s this adorable cartoon pig making puddle jumping look like the most fun thing ever? And for a celebrity child like Kulture, who might actually own expensive shoes, the damage is even more dire.

Listen, Peppa, it might be time to issue an apology to Cardi before this escalates any further.

Perhaps inspired by all the albums his good friend Taylor Swift had been releasing in 2020, Sir Paul McCartney let fans know back in October he’d be releasing a quarantine album of his own, McCartney III, just a few days before Christmas. The December 18th release helped McCartney usher in a Billboard record that spans over six decades. As numbers of the album’s first week sales come in after the holiday weekend, the former Beatle has reportedly become the first and only musical act to have a new record reach at least the top two slots for Billboard 200 chart’s album sales in each of the last six decades.

Chart Data reported the record-breaking feat on Sunday, cementing the news that McCartney III was likely coming in at No. 2 on the charts this week, behind Taylor Swift’s still churning Evermore. McCartney let fans know he was aware Swift’s second surprise album was coming, and seems more than happy to be sharing the spotlight with her. Though his most famous contributions to music certainly came as a member of The Beatles, that iconic British band broke up in 1970, and McCartney kept on plugging away anyway. Looks like his diligent, consistent work has paid off in a big way. Congratulations, Sir Paul.

The expectation for the 2020-21 season was that there’d be a wild chase for the playoffs in the Western Conference and a pretty defined hierarchy in the East, at least among the top 6 or 7. Firmly in that group are the Bucks, Nets, and 76ers, all of whom were in action against teams expected to be on the outside looking in when the playoffs roll around this spring.

However, the NBA is a funny place in the regular season and the old adage that any team can win on any given night in the Association came true in the strangest of fashion on Sunday when the Knicks, Hornets, and Cavaliers all won over their hopeful contender counterparts. After demolishing the Warriors on Christmas, the Bucks had seemed to shake off their rough start in the opening night loss to Boston, but questions will persist after they got torched by the previously winless Knicks, 130-110.

Three-point shooting was the difference maker in the Knicks win, as New York was lights out, hitting 16-of-27 from downtown, with Elfrid Payton leading the way for all scorers with 27 points on 12-of-16 shooting (including 3-of-3 on threes). Julius Randle, Alec Burks, and Frank Ntilikina all also caught fire from downtown, combining to go 11-for-14 from deep as a trio as they simply blitzed the Bucks and never relented.

On the other side, the Bucks had a disastrous shooting night, going 7-for-38 from distance as the “others” once again struggled around Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, who combined for 49 in the loss.

In Charlotte, it was a much closer game, which made the Hornets withstanding the best efforts of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (of all people on the Brooklyn roster) all the more impressive. The two Nets stars combined for 54 points, while Cabarrot cashed in three triples in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a balanced outing from Charlotte.

Gordon Hayward had a season-high 28 points to go along with 7 assists and 6 rebounds against the Nets, as he showed why the Hornets were willing to commit so much to him this offseason.

Hayward had plenty of help, as all five Charlotte starters hit double figures in the 106-104 win, including 19 from Terry Rozier who continues his strong start to the season. Rozier struggled from distance, hitting just 1-of-7 from deep, but was 6-for-7 inside the arc, most notably punching home this thunderous dunk on Kevin Durant through contact.

For a Charlotte team that’s struggled on the defensive end to star the season, they get some confidence in holding the line against a late charge by two of the league’s best scorers in Irving and Durant. Brooklyn reeled it in to a one-possession game on a few occasions late, but each time they did Charlotte had an answer on the other end and got just enough stops to gut out a win.

Unlike the Hornets and Knicks, the Cleveland Cavaliers entered Sunday looking to stay undefeated rather than to shake free of a winless record, but with wins over Charlotte and Detroit, many were wondering just how real the upstart Cavs really are. The answer we got on Sunday was a resounding “very” in the form of a dominant 118-94 win over the Joel Embiid-less 76ers.

Collin Sexton continued his excellent start to the season, scoring 22 points as he’s gone for 20-plus in each of Cleveland’s first three games. As a team they shot 39.1 percent from three-point range, including a perfect 1-for-1 night from JaVale McGee.

What’s been most impressive to see about this Cavs team to start the season has been the way they’ve moved the ball on offense. It pops around the floor and finds the open man, whether in transition or in the halfcourt, something that was on full display against Philly.

Even with rookie Isaac Okoro out, the Cavs, who went big with Larry Nance Jr., looked terrific and continue to impress to start the season. Andre Drummond had a monster 24-point, 14-rebound double-double and they managed to beat a good Sixers team even as Kevin Love played just nine minutes and had to leave with a calf strain. We’ll see just how sustainable this all is for Cleveland, but the energy they play with and the nice mix of vets and young guys all seeming to find a rhythm together will make them someone every team, no matter how good, has to give their full attention on any given night.

That was the overall theme of Sunday in the NBA, as three teams that came in unbeaten all left with L’s at the hands of teams that were hefty underdogs at the sportsbooks. In a strange season like this these results might be more regular occurrences than in most years, particularly as teams still get their footing under them early on after a short preseason. While we expected parity in the West, we got a taste of how that can play out in the East as well on Sunday.