Month: February 2021

Morgan Wallen continues to set records with his sophomore album, Dangerous: The Double Album. After it topped the charts last week, it became the first country album to spend its first six weeks at No. 1 since Garth Brooks’ The Chase in 1992. This week, Wallen once again finds himself at the top of the Billboard 200 — its seventh in a row.

The album’s continued reign set a new Billboard record, making it the first country album to spend its first seven weeks at No. 1. Dangerous posted a total of 89,000 units sold for the chart dated March 2. This number is comprised of 80,000 streaming equivalent album units and 7,000 pure album sales.

In addition to that record, Dangerous also joins a list of just seven other country albums that have spent seven or more total weeks atop the album charts. Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind has spent the most weeks at No. 1 with 18. Next up, Wallen could tie Eagles’ Hotel California and Brooks’ The Hits number of eight total weeks atop the chart if Dangerous comes in at No. 1 again next week.

Elsewhere on the chart, Ariana Grande’s Positions jumped seven spots to claim the No. 2 position while BTS’ Be went from No. 74 to No. 7, both as a result of deluxe reissues.

The music world is still recovering from a great display of R&B talent thanks to D’Angelo’s Verzuz show on Saturday night. Rather than facing another artist like other participants on the platform have done, the legendary singer put on a concert that saw him go through his beloved albums — Brown Sugar, Voodoo, and Black Messiah — with some special guests. Once D’Angelo’s show came to an end, Swizz Beatz and Timbaland got together on Instagram Live to discuss the night and tease what would be next for the platform and it was here that they revealed an upcoming battle would take place between Ghostface Killah and Raekwon.

Neither Swizz nor Timbaland revealed when the matchup would take place, but their excitement for it was clear. They delivered the news after excitingly playing select songs from the rappers’ catalogs, including Raekwon’s “Incarcerated Scarfaces” and “Verbal Intercourse” as well as Ghostface’s “Run.” Raekwon and Ghostface will now be the third and fourth members of the Wu-Tang Clan to participate in a Verzuz. RZA went against DJ Premier last April while Method Man joined D’Angelo last night to perform “Left & Right” and “Breakups 2 Makeups” with him.

The upcoming Ghostface Killah and Raekwon battle joins a growing list of matchups that have been teased. Foxy Brown and Lil Kim were reported to be locked in for a Verzuz, but Swizz Beatz said it was unconfirmed. Bun B also said a matchup between him and 8Ball & MJG was in the works, but it had yet to be confirmed.

You can watch a clip from Swizz and Timbaland’s Instagram Live above.

Few celebrities have rebranded themselves quite like Gwyneth Paltrow, who has become perhaps the first Oscar-winner to pivot into an extremely questionable health guru. Goop, her wellness and lifestyle empire, teems with products of dubious efficacy. One of them — a candle called, simply, “This smells like my vagina” — even nearly burned someone’s house down. Now her advice for how to battle COVID-19 has attracted the ire of no less than England’s National Health Service.

In a recent blog post, Paltrow revealed she tested positive for the disease in the early days of the pandemic. She’s fought long-term effects ever since, saying it left her with “long-tail fatigue and brain fog.” She commiserated with a doctor she trusts, and now she’s on a “keto and plant-based” diet, consumes “lots of coconut aminos,” and chows down on sugar-free kimchi. And if she wants to drink she does so with herbal non-alcoholic cocktails, which you can helpfully purchase on the Goop site. She also fasts until 11am every day and takes “an infrared sauna as often as I can.”

If that sound great to you, then NHS England has some bad news: It’s not that great for you. “We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS,” Professor Stephen Powis, NHS’ national medical director, told The Guardian. “We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that.”

Powis added: “Like the virus, misinformation carries across borders and it mutates and it evolves. So I think YouTube and other social media platforms have a real responsibility and opportunity here.”

This is far from the first time public health officials have come for Paltrow’s wellness advice. In 2018 Goop agreed to fork over a substantial settlement over their infamous “vaginal eggs,” which had touted unproven health benefits for those who purchased them. She also recently came under fire for trying to claim that she popularized wearing masks to combat COVID-19. On the other hand, she is set to release a follow-up to her “vagina candle,” this one called “This smells like my orgasm.”

(Via The Guardian)

The latest entry in the very long tradition of Marvel stans and cinema fans yelling at each other about movies got its latest entry over the weekend, but at least this time we got a decent meme out of it. As a warning, this post contains some spoilers about Episode 8 of WandaVision, so don’t scroll down if you don’t want a line from the episode spoiled.

The line in question happened during a flashback, in which Wanda and Vision discussed the subject of grief. The synthetic humanoid offered a bit of advice to Wanda that became a significant bonding moment for the future couple. “What is grief, if not love persevering?” he asked Wanda, who was mourning her dead parents and brother.

Many fans praised the line on social media after the episode aired on Friday. But one comment in particular set off a firestorm on Twitter. The tweet from Madison Hatfield, said the line would be infuriating to future screenwriters trying to best it.

“Do you hear that sound? It’s every screenwriter in the world whispering a reverent “FUCK” under their breath,” it wrote.

The tweet quickly went viral, with some agreeing that the line is profound enough to be worthy of such praise. But there were detractors, many of whom quickly pointed out either that it wasn’t all that earth-shattering or that other kinds of media have similarly clever sentiments as well. Which is why the text from the tweet soon became a meme format where others raved about lines from cinema and TV shows that were, well, not nearly as good as the tweet suggested.

Some just decided to change the line altogether.

None of this will fix the never-ending battle between cinephiles and Marvel fans, who seem to be battling for the future of the entertainment industry. But at least this time the fight was less about semantics and more about making people laugh.

Few know how to carry a running joke with the ease of Marc Maron, a longtime comedian, podcaster, writer and actor, who just has a knack for interviewing people and keeping listeners interested. During lockdown, Maron has been hopping on Instagram Live to touch base with fans and recently they’ve been asking him about musician Kevin Morby, probably because his excellent 2020 record Sundowner is the kind of album you’ll want to share with friends who haven’t heard it yet.

For his part, Maron somehow hadn’t heard of Morby (maybe start with City Music in that case, Marc) and turned the whole thing into a bit of a meme. “I have no idea who Kevin Morby is, but somebody always throws his name out there,” he said. “I asked somebody about Kevin Morby the other day.”

Well, Morby himself is apparently a big fan of Maron, and had a field day with that clip, delighting in the fact that he was an unknown but often-discussed presence in Marc’s life. “Marc Maron not knowing who I am being a part of his morning programming is really making my week” Morby wrote. “I’m a huge Maron/WTF fan ever since hearing the Fiona Apple interview in 2012 and have logged many hours since so hearing his voice keep saying he doesn’t know who I am is an honor. I don’t know who I am either Marc.”

That was apparently all it took — now the two are officially acquainted after hopping on an Instagram Live together this morning. The two talked for about twenty minutes, and the full clip is available on Marc’s Instagram. Maron called it “alt-rock clickbait,” and he couldn’t be more right. Wait until you get through Maron’s household wandering in the beginning and check out the conversation below.

There was a time not too long ago when LaVar Ball was one of the most ubiquitous and, by proxy, famous people in the basketball world. The father of Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo could’ve been described as a villain or hero depending on who you asked, but he was, if nothing else, unavoidable.

He was the king of braggadocio, making outlandish proclamations regularly, both about his boys’ future dominating the NBA and his own exploits, famously insisting he could take Michael Jordan in a game of 1-on-1. However, as Lonzo scuffled to begin his NBA career and LaMelo became a globetrotting teen on his own unique path to the NBA, LaVar faded into the background. This season, though, has to have been a bit of sweet redemption for LaVar, as his youngest, LaMelo, is the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year in Charlotte and Lonzo, while on the trade block, has steadily improved into a quality point guard in the NBA, even if not the star he once was proclaimed to be.

While we still haven’t heard much from the real biggest baller of them all this year, LaMelo’s play allowed Kenan Thompson to reprise his role of LaVar on Saturday Night Live to the delight of many. Thompson’s LaVar returns to take a victory lap and insist that LaMelo’s going to win all of the major awards — Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Prettiest Hog at the Mecklenburg County Fair — and eventually unite North and South Carolina into a Super Carolina.

A big salute to whomever was in charge of Charlotte research for this bit because “Gateway to Gastonia” and the banking jokes were terrific, and the “CaraMelos” are a tremendous touch at the end. Neva lost!

Marjorie Taylor Greene was in the news again this week after posting anti-trans messages outside her office to mock a representative with a transgender child. The story got plenty of pushback from others in office and in the news, and so it’s no surprise that Saturday Night Live addressed the incident on Weekend Update.

In the sketch, Greene, played by Cecily Strong, talks a lot about “science,” but apparently spells it “sience,” as it appears on a shirt she’s wearing to prove a point.

“Because we had to trust the science, Colin. You know me, I’m a science person, I’m always talking science,” she said. “Unless that science is climate change, coronavirus, space lasers, evolution, the metric system, the rhythm method, breastfeeding, living on Mars, Jesus’s skin color, or Santa’s skin color, by the way, which is white.”

Elsewhere in the segment, Michael Che laid out his frustrations with Democrats and their inability to pass legislation giving people aid amid the pandemic. Discussing a senator who was happy the House bill didn’t include a raise in the minimum wage, Che unloaded on basically everyone in congress.

“That’s like 40 years ago when rent was like, a dollar, and everyone had one porno tape,” Che said. “This is why Democracts never get stuff done: you keep leaving it up to a vote and taking no for an answer. When Republicans lose a vote, they storm the Capitol. Why can’t y’all get that mad? Say what you will about a guy in a viking helmet taking a dump in Nancy Pelosi’s desk, but he will not be ignored.”

They also addressed the concept of the Muppets getting “canceled,” which you can watch below.

BTS are one of the most successful and influential pop groups in the world right now, despite living at a time when racist violence and hate against the Asian community is raging due to ignorant misunderstanding of COVID-19. It’s appalling that this kind of prejudice is so prevalent still, and normalized to the point that German radio DJ Matthias Matuschik for the station Bayern 3 compared these monumental artists to coronavirus last week.

Live on the air on Wednesday, February 24, Matuschik played the BTS cover of Coldplay’s “Fix You” that the group performed as part of an MTV Unplugged show, and proceeded to insult them. According to the Associated Press, the DJ dubbed BTS’ cover “blasphemy” — though it hews extremely close to the tone and delivery of the original — and compared the band to “some crappy virus that hopefully there will be a vaccine for soon as well.”

According to AP’s summary of Matuschik’s on-air comments, he began to backpedal claiming “I have nothing against South Korea, you can’t accuse me of xenophobia only because this boy band is from South Korea. I have a car from South Korea. I have the coolest car around.” Finally he added that as penance for their version of “Fix You,” BTS “will be vacationing in North Korea for the next 20 years.”

The radio station and the DJ himself have both since issued apologies for the DJ’s comments, which are below.

Bayern 3’s statement:

We apologize unreservedly for the remarks made by presenter Matthias Matuschik in his live broadcast. His choice of words to comment on BTS were unacceptable. Both he himself and we at BAYERN 3 know that it is not enough to simply intend a different meaning. If statements are perceived by many people as offensive or racist, then they were. However, we feel the need to stress that Matthias’ social engagement to promote a peaceful togetherness among people (in Bavaria) is testament to his conviction that everyone must be treated equally — regardless of their nationality, culture, skin color, sexual orientation or religion. BAYERN 3 also expressly and resolutely distances itself from any form of racism, exclusion and discrimination. In the meantime, the presenter and his family receive serious threats. We ask, despite every sympathy for the indignation, that the discussion must remain on a substantive level. We will work through the issue in more detail with Matthias and the entire team and ensure that such serious mistakes will not happen again in the future.

Matthias Matuschik’s statement:

I am deeply saddened about the reactions my comments in my live show have caused — and first of all: I am very sorry and I would like to unreservedly apologize. In my presentation, I was primarily annoyed by the fact that the boy band BTS covered the song “Fix you” by Coldplay, which I hold in high esteem. The nationality of the seven boys should not matter — mentioning it and making the connection with a virus was completely out of line. I have given this a lot of thought over the past few hours and understand and accept that my words racially offended many of you, especially the Asian community. That was never my intention, but I realize that, in the end, what matters is only how words are perceived — not how they were intended. People who have known me for a while know that, in addition to my work as a radio DJ and cabaret artist, I have also been very active against right-wing activities and for those seeking protection since the influx of refugees in 2015. It makes me all the sadder that I have hurt others with an ill-considered statement (that was intended to be funny) and put myself in a false light. I have made a big mistake from which I will learn. I am very sorry.

Plenty of artists who have collaborated with BTS or are simply fans of their music have also tweeted their indignation and outrage over Matuschik’s remarks, some of those reactions are below. Halsey also wrote a note on her Instagram Stories on Friday night expressing her outrage. “”I am horrified to read the comments made by Matthias Matuschik,” she wrote. “Racism and xenophobia cannot be thinly veiled as ‘on air humor.’ Irresponsible and disgusting statements in a time where hate speech and violent behavior towards Asian communities are skyrocketing. This is unacceptable. I hope a better apology to BTS, and the Asian communities across the world, is on its way.”

And finally, it’s worth noting that for their part, Coldplay loved the cover:

Check it out above if you haven’t seen it yet. BTS have yet to comment on the situation.

Dionne Warwick has become everyone’s favorite auntie on Twitter. The legendary singer has graced her growing social media fan base with phenomenal content that ranges from poking fun at the young generation of artists to seeking knowledge about them as well. All in all, it’s been a joy to watch Warwick work through the Twitter world and it was only a matter of time before Saturday Night Live emulated her personality on the show, something the cast did during their most recent episode.

Setting up the stage for her daily show, Ego Nwodim played the role of Warwick for the Dionne Warwick Talk Show. The sketch began with Kenan Thompson, who appeared dressed as The Weeknd in his current After Hours plastic surgery look. She asked him about his apparent plastic surgery addiction, confusing his “love” for it as the basis of his “Can’t Feel My Face” track.

Warwick quickly rushed him off stage and invited Nick Jonas, who hosted and performed on the SNL episode, to replace him. The comical questions continued as she asked Nick, who is currently a coach on The Voice, how he could be a more boring contributor to the show than fellow coach John Legend. Warwick also mixed up him with his fellow Jonas brother, Joe, before asking Nick a daring question about his manhood.

The sketch continued with an appearance from Dua Lipa, played by Melissa Villasenor, who agreed to join Warwick in egging Wendy Williams’ house. Lastly Machine Gun Kelly, played by Pete Davidson, joined to close the show, but Warwick was extremely disturbed by his look and quickly asked him to leave.

You can watch the sketch above.

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

Though Lana Del Rey has been fighting an uphill battle so far this year with some tone deaf comments about the artwork for her next album, Chemtrails Over The Country Club, and insisting that her comments about the capitol insurrectionists were taken out of context (*resists the urge to make a “Mariners Apartment Complex” joke*), this weekend she’s put her focus back on releasing new music and a snippet of the Jack Antonoff-produced “White Dress” doesn’t disappoint. The dreamy new song is another preview of Chemtrails, following up last year’s “Let Me Love You Like A Woman” and the early 2021 title track, which is a quintessential Lana tune full of mundane details and existential commentary.

It’s only been two years since Lana’s last album, the universally-acclaimed Norman F*cking Rockwell won our year-end critics poll and topped most year-end lists at music publications across the board. Since then, Del Rey has released a book of poetry called Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass — complete with spoken word renditions, which are close to songs but not quite — and has been teasing the release of Chemtrails since last fall. Check out the clip of her forthcoming video above, and look for the rest of the album in just a few weeks.