Month: February 2021

This week in the best new pop music saw some flirty tracks and tenacious tunes. Demi Lovato teamed up with Sam Fischer for a vulnerable song, Finneas shared a fan-favorite to streaming services, and Victoria Monét debuted a sweltering single.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop music. Listen up.

Demi Lovato — “What Other People Say” Feat. Sam Fischer

After weeks of teasing, Demi Lovato and Sam Fischer have finally revealed their soaring collaborations “What Other People Say.” The song is Demi’s way of shirking her past and looking towards the future by leaning on her fluttering vocals to deliver lyrics about her previous drug use and social anxiety.

Finneas — “American Cliché”

Finneas shared the grandiose single “American Cliché” this week, which started as a fan-favorite at live shows. But the singer finally decided to record the song and debut it as a single after being “bullied” by fans asking for its release. “I just wanted you to know, your cyber bullying absolutely worked and is absolutely the only reason I went back to it and produced it,” he said about the track.

Victoria Monét — “F.*.C.K”

It’s been less than a year since Victoria Monét shared her well-received LP Jaguar. Now, Monét returns with a sultry single about friends-with-benefits. “‘F.*.C.K. is a nod to the millennial and gen Z mindset,” she said in a statement. “We do not have to be confined to traditional commitment ideals, and instead, embody the freedom to be intimate when and with whom we mutually, please! I wanted to give that non-binding friendship intimacy an official name…the way we see it, if you’re never in a relationship, you technically can never break up.”

HER — “Fight For You”

HER put on a spectacular performance of “America The Beautiful” at the Super Bowl this weekend, but that’s not the only piece of music she shared. HER debuted the powerful track “Fight For You,” which appears on the upcoming LaKeith Stanfield-starring film Judas And The Black Messiah. “The song was so fun to make, especially making something from that time the late ’60s, early ’70s is one of my favorite eras of music,” she said about the track.

VanJess — “Caught Up” Feat. Phony Ppl

R&B sister duo VanJess released their shimmering EP Homegrown this week, and on it arrived the irresistibly groovy track “Caught Up.” Harmonizing their ethereal voices over a disco-infused beat, VanJess sing of looking for comfort in a romantic partner.

Raveena — “Tweety”

26-year-old pop-soul star Raveena first made a name for herself with her self-released 2019 debut album, Lucid. The album drew critical acclaim and even landed her the opportunity to perform on NPR’s coveted Tiny Desk series. Now launching into a new era, Raveena shares the sparkling tune “Tweety.”

Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler — “Emily”

After attracting a wide audience from their 2019 joint EP Brent, Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler have once again teamed up to share a collection of songs in the form of Brent II. The follow-up EP debuted this week and with it came the quiet love ballad “Emily,” which sees the two songwriters harmonize gentle melodies over a softly strumming guitar.

Lucky Daye — “On Read” Feat. Tiana Major9

The last we heard from Grammy-nominated singer Lucky Daye, he had released his 2020 LP Painted. Now, Daye is bringing his soulful music into the new year. Teaming up with Tiana Major9, Daye shares the laid-back track “On Read,” which boasts twang-infused guitar chords over a rolling beat and closes out with Daye delivering a few lines of spoken-word poetry.

Oliver Tree — “Out Of Ordinary”

Pop boundary-pusher Oliver Tree made a splash with his head-turning bowl cut and debut LP Ugly Is Beautiful. Now returning with his first track of the new year, Tree shares the bubbly song “Out Of Ordinary” as a somber reflection on the woes of suburban life and the tolls it takes on someone who pushes back against the idea of a cookie-cutter perfection.

Dasha — “Shiny Things”

Cutting-edge singer Dasha flaunts her ’00s sensibilities with her buoyant new single “Shiny Things.” “This song is all about confidence in the person you’re with and within yourself,” Dasha said in a statement about the track. “The ‘shiny things’ are everything that other people have that you don’t. Instead of letting that lead to insecurities you gotta focus on all the shiny things that you have that others don’t.”

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

Remember when the Game of Thrones showrunners and HBO’s programming president and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and literally everyone else in the cast insisted that Jon Snow was dead? I guess technically he did die, but the implication was that the season five finale was the end of that know-nothing. It was not. Keep “Jon Snow is dead” in mind when reading this quote from Tom Holland when discussing Spider-Man 3 with Esquire:

“No, no, they will not be appearing in this film,” he says firmly. “Unless they have hidden the most massive piece of information from me, which I think is too big of a secret for them to keep from me. But as of yet, no. It’ll be a continuation of the Spider-Man movies that we’ve been making.”

Holland is referring to the multi-verse rumor that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, his Peter Parker predecessors (say that five times fast), will be in the follow-up to Spider-Man: Far From Home. Is he lying? Is he telling the truth? Is he overcompensating for all the times that he blabbed? Did he leave himself some wiggle room with that “unless they have hidden…” disclaimer? No clue! But there’s one thing we do know for sure: Khan definitely won’t be in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Spider-Man 3: This Time with No Dancing is scheduled to come out on December 17.

Given what we’ve witnessed in the last few years, It’s no secret that TikTok dance crazes have major pull in making musical hits. Doja Cat’s “Say So” gained significant ground as the background music of a popular routine before hitting the top slot on Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2020. The popular app also has an uncanny ability to bring songs back from mild obscurity thanks to highly-emulated dance videos, like Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” and Fergie’s “London Bridge.”

TikTok’s choreography is clearly hip-hop inspired, which isn’t surprising given the high-energy nature of the songs used. But although dance is essentially one of the core elements of the genre, it’s more often than not lambasted as “corny,” lyrically evident by Terror Squad’s 2004 hit “Lean Back.” (“My n****s don’t dance, they just pull up their pants,” Fat Joe quips in the chorus.) Despite the naysayers, dance floor-ready songs have always been essential for success. The popularity of these dance crazes, specifically through social media’s lens, signals a generation-led shift in the market.

While the internet is not the end-all and be-all tool for cultural domination (especially given the popularity of fad dances like the Running Man or the PeeWee Herman since before the web’s inception), it’s surely the most effective way to create virality. TikTok’s dance-centered popularity has altered the course of the music industry, but it is in no way a new phenomenon. During the internet’s first dance craze boom in the mid-2000s, then-unknown hip-hop artists similarly used social media to set the internet ablaze, recognizing that by utilizing these growing sites and the contagiousness of rhythm, they would be able to get their work off the ground. Whether calculated or not, these dances created major cultural moments.

In 2006, the internet, dance, and Atlanta-bred hip-hop subgenre snap worked together to supply fans with easy-to-follow dance moves over a catchy, minimalist beat. Although snap music was called “laughable,” “goofy,” and “cheap-sounding” by The New York Times in 2006, its dance-heavy popularity during the mid-aughts was applauded for helping to reboot the digital singles market. (Nielsen Soundscan reports that in the U.S. alone, 582 million digital singles were sold in 2006, a 65 percent upswing from the previous year).

With MySpace’s supremacy, music-sharing sites like Soundclick, and the rising popularity of YouTube, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t know the dances to snap-heavy tracks like Dem Franchize Boyz’s “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It” or Yung Joc’s “It’s Goin’ Down.” As a result of this growing trend, artists like Harlem’s Webstar and Young B and Atlanta’s Soulja Boy got in on the fun, creating their own wildly-popular dances, the “Chicken Noodle Soup” and “Crank That (Soulja Boy).” Not only were these iconic moves central to the height of the Digital Age of dance crazes, but the virality of these songs also helped the artists grow. Dem Franchize Boyz and Yung Joc garnered top 10 hits, “Crank that” went No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and “Chicken Noodle Soup” was re-made in 2020 by BTS’ J-Hope and singer Becky G, proving its cultural and racial transcendence.

As we see with both then and now, the 1-2 punch of the right song and dance combination results in societal and chart supremacy, and companies have always taken notice. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that major labels like Warner Music Group and Sony BMG “[were] scouring the country to find the next big set of steps,” as “the dance surge is also changing the way labels market their product” — perhaps at a detriment to the natural essence of dance trends. Does the premeditated approach taken by artists and labels in making the next big hit diminish dance fads’ originally organic nature?

The difference between the virality of K-Camp’s 2019 song “Lottery (Renegade)” and Drake’s No. 1 hit “Toosie Slide” should be obvious — one garnered natural popularity due to a rapid-speed dance challenge, while the other was self-orchestrated to sell. The “Renegade” dance, made by Georgia teen Jalaiah Harmon, created something far larger than the song itself; it was done by regular people and major celebrities alike, and Harmon performed it at the 2020 NBA All-Star Game. While ingenious (though not groundbreaking), the “leak” of the “Toosie Slide” routine before its actual release manufactured something that can’t always be forced: cultural moments. While Drake’s song and dance succeeded commercially, most crazes truly work best when they become inescapable staples of popular culture without much effort, like Drake’s own previous dance-driven effort, “In My Feelings,” which was driven by the inescapable Shiggy Challenge in 2018.

This is not to say that artists shouldn’t try their hand at creating dance challenges for their songs, however, forcing virality has seemingly adverse effects on the song’s overall staying power. A manufactured approach worked a bit for Unk with “2 Step” in 2007 and Megan Thee Stallion with “Body” in 2020, but it’s apparent that those song and dance combos did not match the commercial or chart success of their previous hits, “Walk It Out” and “Savage,” likely because their popularity didn’t come naturally.

The music industry is a business that thrives on trends — we know that. However, when it comes to dance crazes, in particular, it may be the best bet for artists and labels to allow these trends to take over organically instead of through calculation. The difference between a passing fad and a true cultural moment is largely determined by fans themselves, whether through the moment’s show-stopping relevancy or the evocation of a feeling largely associated with a specific time in their lives. While the age of COVID-19 seems like the prime time to drop a potentially chart-topping, dance-heavy, internet-shaking tune, releasing something for sake of profiting off of it exploits the trend instead of enhancing what makes it work in the first place.

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

Seven years ago, when Nipsey Hussle declared his Crenshaw mixtape would cost $100, the overall reaction online was skepticism. However, he had one true believer: Jay-Z, who commended his ambition while buying 100 copies of the album. Eventually, the album sold out, proving Nipsey right, and since then, a bond was forged between the two rappers-turned-moguls. Unfortunately, that connection never turned into a musical collaboration — until now.

Jay-Z and Nipsey will finally appear on a track together for the first time on the upcoming soundtrack from Judas And The Black Messiah. Directed by Shaka King and starring Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield, Judas recounts the downfall of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton as he’s betrayed by William O’Neal, an informant for the FBI.

In addition to the Jay-Z and Nipsey Hussle collaboration, “What It Feels Like,” the tracklist also includes contributions from ASAP Rocky, BJ THe Chicago Kid, Black Thought, Dom Kennedy, G Herbo, HER, Hit-Boy, JID, Lil Durk, Masego, Nas, Polo G, Pooh Shiesty, Rakim, Rapsody, Saba, Sir, Smino, and more. HER previously released “Fight For You” and performed the song on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week. Check out the tracklist below.

Judas And The Black Messiah will debut on HBO Max 2/12.

We’re not even three weeks into President Joe Biden’s administration, and already Tucker Carlson is suggesting that Donald Trump supporters might be the target of drone strikes simply for the sin of being MAGA. Carlson jumped to the wild conclusion on Tuesday night while playing a clip of MSNBC host Nicole Wallace as she addressed the domestic terror threat facing the country in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol building. As a former communications director for George W. Bush, Wallace vividly remembers the War on Terror following 9/11, and she knows Mitch McConnell remembers it, too, which is why she doesn’t understand why the Senate Minority Leader won’t vote to convict Trump. Wallace used drone strikes as an example of how the country attacked Islamic terrorism “at its roots,” and she’s puzzled by how McConnell is taking steps to stop domestic terrorism at its roots. And, no, she’s not talking about drone striking Americans. Wallace is talking about holding Trump accountable.

“How does Mitch McConnell—who understands that the way you root out terrorism, is to take on, in the case of Islamic terrorism, kill those who incite it—how does he not vote to convict someone that he said, on the floor of the Senate, incited an insurrection?” Wallace asked in the clip, which Carlson then used to accuse liberals of wanting to bomb Trump supporters. Via The Daily Beast:

“Maybe not the unity we were looking for,” he snarked, adding: “But things have changed. Supporters of Donald Trump, it turns out, were so dangerous that maybe they do deserve Hellfire missiles raining down on their homes.”

Even though it’s clear that Wallace was using a metaphor, Carlson encouraged his viewers to “save that tape” because it’s a “sign of the moment we’re in.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Usually, when a musician is in the news for some reason, the amount of streams their music gets tends to go up, which makes sense. Naturally, then, following the Super Bowl, The Weeknd saw a substantial increase in plays.

Billboard reports that on Sunday, the day of The Weeknd’s halftime show, his overall song and album catalog sold 36,600 copies, which is an increase of 385 percent from the 7,500 sold on the day before, February 6. Breaking it down further, his song sales were up 454 percent over the same period, while his album sales shot up 138 percent. Of those total sales, 29 percent of them were from the halftime-closing song “Blinding Lights.”

All the songs that were performed had significant sales increases on February 7: “Blinding Lights” (10,000 sales; up 423 percent from the previous day), “Save Your Tears” (4,000; 245 percent), “Can’t Feel My Face” (3,500; 987 percent), “Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey)” (3,000; 1,240 percent), “Starboy” (2,500; 1,175 percent), “I Feel It Coming” (2,500; 1,021 percent), and “The Hills” (2,000; 771 percent).

The day after the performance, The Weeknd took a moment to hop on social media and reflect on his career-defining moment, writing, “still buzzing from last night. i couldn’t stop smiling the whole performance. thank you [Pepsi, the NFL, and Roc Nation] for believing in me to bring a fresh new take on the halftime show. XO we did it !”

In his final appearance as Drunk Uncle on SNL (May 20, 2017), Bobby Moynihan wore a red “Make America Drunk Again” hat. Donald Trump must have enjoyed that, as he didn’t realize that you’re not supposed to agree with the racist, sexist, hot take-spewing alcoholic. Moynihan, who currently stars on Mr. Mayor, told the Daily Beast‘s the Last Laugh podcast about doing Drunk Uncle in the episode that the former-president hosted.

“I remember thinking, this is one of the only things in the show that’s actually really bad-mouthing him and pointing out how racist and terrible he is. And he walked up to me afterwards and I’m like, oh no. And he shook my hand. And he was like, ‘Thank you so much. That was so nice to hear such nice things being said.’ And I was like, you moron,” Moynihan recounted. In the Weekend Update segment, Trump’s “number one fan” Drunk Uncle points out the things they have in common (“We both love white Russians”), screams “her name is Bruce” in reference to Caitlyn Jenner, and confuses Michael Che with Ben Carson. “It’s like I’m running for president, y’know?” Oh, we know.

Moynihan continued, “I was saying he’s just like me, I love him. And he was just like, thank you. And I was like, no, you idiot, I thought you were going to be mad and you’re not. And now I’m mad that you’re not mad.” The former-cast member doesn’t think Trump was the worst host during his time on the show, but “he was just delusional… The vibe felt like a bratty, rich child.” You can listen to the podcast here.

And as always, R.I.P. Ass Dan.

(Via the Daily Beast)

Jacob Ainsley Chansley, the MAGA rioter also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” recently reached a month-long realization that his hero, Donald Trump, wasn’t all that and doesn’t really care about his supporters. The former president incited MAGAs toward the January 6 insurrection and then simply decided (after a “we love you, go home” video) to pretend those rioters who are now sitting behind bars don’t exist. Well, Shaman Guy has had a rude awakening. He’s repeatedly freaked out about a lack of organic food options in jail, and he seems honest-to-god surprised at not being pardoned. That’s a ridiculous expectation to those of us at home, yep, but QAnon Shaman’s lawyer, Albert Watkins, visited with Chris Cuomo on Monday night to reveal more about his client’s state of mind.

“I am deeply disappointed in former President Trump,” read the QAnon Shaman’s initial statement through his lawyer. “He was not honorable. He let a lot of peaceful people down. I have to leave judging him up to other people. I deeply regret and am sorry that I entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. I should not have been there.”

QAnon Shaman’s lawyer continued, stating that Trump did the unforgivable to his followers: “What he said day in, day out, that we all permitted, included untruths… out and out lies.” The statement appears at around the 4:00 minute mark in this video clip.

We’ve heard before that the guy feels duped, but the QAnon Shaman is reportedly attempting to undergo an “unwinding process” that Watkins says is aimed at shaking his loyalty toward Trump after believing years of lies. “You make it sound like he’s being deprogrammed from a cult…” stated Cuomo. And Watkins replied, “Well, I’ve likened the entire thing to 1978 and Jim Jones down in Guyana.” He added, “This is very real for these people.”

Well, QAnon Shaman is going nowhere fast, given that he’s been transferred to a few prisons and has been charged with civil disorder, obstruction, and disorderly conduct while awaiting trial. Meanwhile, Trump’s impeachment trial attorneys are attempting to characterize his incitement of the insurrection as “metaphorical” while defending their client, who’s hanging out at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida while his followers, including the QAnon Shaman, wonder where their guy has gone.

It’s not uncommon for a Cardi B song to take off on social media, especially TikTok. This has led to accusations that Cardi makes music that panders to users of these platforms to take advantage that the popularity a viral dance can provide. Now, Cardi has set the record straight.

On Twitter yesterday, Cardi wrote in regards to her new single “Up,” “Dont try to play me like I just started this sh*t cause of tiktok .My last 4 videos I gave choreography & at award shows as well .Please me , press ,wap & up was my last videos.EAT IT UP ! It wasn’t me who started the wap challenge.I didn’t even knew how to the dance that’s why I never did the challenge in the first place .How ya mad that these female rappers songs becoming tiktok challenges because people genuinely wants to dance to it.”

Somebody replied, “there’s a difference between becoming a challenge and forcing a challenge on people, that’s what the people mean,” to which Cardi responded, “I never forced a challenge. I never offer MONEY or prices for no challenge .I never even posted hey guys do a challenge for my song .People do it cause they want to sooo miss me wit that sh*t .I pay ya to show me when I told some1 ‘ hey do a challenge for my song.’”

She later added, “Thankful for all my fans ,artist ,influencer,tiktoker,people that critic music videos and songs ,and the GP for showing me love .I’m extremely happy and satisfied. Ladies that’s in my field keep doing what you doing they going to hate always.Give them a reason too. People that don’t like you always going to find a reason to hate you .Let ‘WINNING ‘ be the reason.”

She has hopped on other TikTok challenges, though, as she shared her own contribution to the “Silhouette Challenge.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s not surprising to see the world’s greatest artists pass their creative genes onto their offspring, and it appears that’s what Kanye West has done with his daughter North. Aside from his musical talents, Kanye is also a gifted visual artist: Some works from his teenage years popped up on Antiques Roadshow last year and showed his ability to work in different styles and mediums. Now, North is proving that she’s quite the painter herself.

Yesterday, Kim Kardashian took to Instagram to share a painting that 7-year-old North made, which depicts a mountain scene with trees and vegetation in the foreground. The landscape looks so good, especially for an artist so young, that it led to Bob Ross comparisons and for the late artist to become a trending topic on Twitter.

There was some skepticism, though, that North actually painted this herself. This led to one TikTok user to share a video in which she claims her mother is North’s art teacher. The user shared a photo of themselves as a 7-year-old and a similar painting they had created at the time, saying, “My mom taught me how to paint this and she taught North how to paint the same one two weeks ago. She’s been an art teacher for 30 years and everyone that comes through her classes goes through this exact same painting when they’re starting out.”

Check out some reactions to North’s painting below.