There were a lot of winners (and losers and surprises) at this year’s Grammys, with two prime examples being Taylor Swift and Beyonce. Swift’s Folklore picked up the trophy for Album Of The Year while Beyonce snagged some awards as well, which helped her get more all-time Grammy wins than any singer ever. Now the pair have gotten in touch and recognized each other for their achievements, as Swift revealed today that this morning, she woke up to flowers from Beyonce.
Swift shared photos of the gift on Instagram today. With the flowers was a note, which reads, “Taylor, Congratulations on your Grammy. It was great seeing you on Sunday night. Thank you for always being so supportive. Sending love to you and your family. B.” Sharing the letter, Swift wrote, “Woke up to flowers from the queen of grace & greatness @beyonce and suddenly it’s the best Friday EVER. Thank you B and congratulations on your epic achievement Sunday night!!”
Reflecting on the Grammys after the fact, Swift collaborator Aaron Dessner had only kind things to say about Swift, as he wrote in an extensive message, “I am constantly humbled by and grateful for our friendship and collaboration. It’s such a strange thought that this time last year, we hadn’t even begun our journey together, since you are now such a big part of my life. You have restored my faith in music and the ways in which it can help me and others. In a year of such uncertainty and fear, I’m eternally grateful for the music we made. You generously shared your songwriting genius with me and others on these records — and made everyone involved feel appreciated and confident in their work. I can’t say enough positive things about you as an artist and a person.”
The full 68-team bracket was unveiled for the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on Sunday, with Gonzaga, Baylor, Illinois, and Michigan earning the top seeds. The entire tournament will be played in Indianapolis, spread across a variety of venues in the Indy area, and started Thursday, May 18 with the First Four, with the first and second rounds of the tournament taking place Friday to Monday.
CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV will once again split duties for the first and second rounds.
Here is the full schedule of tip times, TV networks, and broadcast teams for next week’s action (all times Eastern):
Friday, May 19
12:15 p.m. (CBS): 10. Virginia Tech vs. 7. Florida (Nantz/Raftery/Hill/Wolfson)
12:45 p.m. (truTV): 14. Colgate vs. 3. Arkansas (Dedes/Haywood/Shehadi)
1:15 p.m. (TBS): 16. Drexel vs. 1. Illinois (Harlan/Bonner/Jacobson)
1:45 p.m. (TNT): 11. Utah St vs. 6. Texas Tech (Blackburn/Antonelli/Washburn)
3:00 p.m. (CBS): 15. Oral Roberts vs. 2. Ohio St (Eagle/Spanarkel/Erdahl)
3:30 p.m. (truTV): 16. Hartford vs. 1. Baylor (Byington/Smith/Ross)
4:00 p.m. (TBS): 9. Georgia Tech vs. 8. Loyola Chicago (Nantz/Raftery/Hill/Wolfson)
4:30 p.m. (TNT): 12. Oregon St vs. 5. Tennessee (Dedes/Haywood/Shehadi)
6:25 p.m. (TBS): 13. Liberty vs. 4. Oklahoma St (Harlan/Bonner/Jacobson)
7:10 p.m. (CBS): 9. Wisconsin vs. 8. UNC (Eagle/Spanarkel/Erdahl)
7:15 p.m. (truTV): 15. Cleveland St vs. 2. Houston (Blackburn/Antonelli/Washburn)
7:25 p.m. (TNT): 13. North Texas vs. 4. Purdue (McCarthy/Johnson/Ross)
9:20 p.m. (TBS): 10. Rutgers vs. 7. Clemson (Dedes/Haywood/Shehadi)
9:40 p.m. (CBS): 11. Syracuse vs. 6. San Diego St (Nantz/Raftery/Hill/Wolfson)
9:50 p.m. (truTV): 14. Morehead St vs. 3. West Virginia (Byington/Smith/Ross)
9:57 p.m. (TNT): 12. Winthrop vs. 5. Villanova (Harlan/Bonner/Jacobson)
Saturday, May 20
12:15 p.m. (CBS): 12. Georgetown vs. 5. Colorado (Catalon/Lappas/Ross)
12:45 p.m. (truTV): 13. UNC Greensboro vs. 4. FSU (Anderson/Jackson/LaForce)
1:15 p.m. (TBS): 14. Eastern Washington vs. 3. Kansas (Nessler/Lavin/Washburn)
1:45 p.m. (TNT): 9. St. Bonaventure vs. 8 LSU (Blackburn/Antonelli/Jacobson)
3:00 p.m. (CBS): 16. MSM/Texas So. vs. 1. Michigan (Eagle/Spanarkel/Erdahl)
3:30 p.m. (truTV): 12. UC Santa Barbara vs. 5. Creighton (Byington/Smith/Shehadi)
4:00 p.m. (TBS): 15. Iona vs. 2. Alabama (Catalon/Lappas/Ross)
4:30 p.m. (TNT): 11. Wichita St/Drake vs. 6. USC (Anderson/Jackson/LaForce)
6:25 p.m. (TBS): 15. Grand Canyon vs. 2. Iowa (Nessler/Lavin/Washburn)
7:10 p.m. (CBS): 10. Maryland vs. 7. UConn (Eagle/Spanarkel/Erdahl)
7:15 p.m. (truTV): 13. Ohio vs. 4. Virginia (Blackburn/Antonelli/Jacobson)
7:25 p.m. (TNT): 9. Mizzou vs. 8. Oklahoma (McCarthy/Johnson/Shehadi)
9:20 p.m. (TBS): 16. Norfolk/App vs. 1. Gonzaga (Anderson/Jackson/LaForce)
9:40 p.m. (CBS): 11. MSU/UCLA vs. 6. BYU (Catalon/Lappas/Ross)
9:50 p.m. (truTV): 14. Abilene Christian vs. 3. Texas (Byington/Smith/Shehadi)
9:57 p.m. (TNT): 10. VCU vs. 7. Oregon (Nessler/Lavin/Washburn)
Four Good Days is Glenn Close’s first movie since Hillbilly Elegy, for which she picked up her eighth Oscar nomination (and a Razzie), but hers isn’t the performance that people are talking about. Mila Kunis is nearly unrecognizable in the addiction drama, about a “long-estranged mother and daughter [navigating] the most difficult four days of their lives together in a heartbreaking and hopeful story based on real-life events.”
The Family Guy actress has stringy bleached hair, her face is covered with scars, and she’s wearing “meth teeth,” as Kunis put it to Deadline. “It is really fun to do something so outside the norm. When you go see the best special effects guy, who makes the most beautiful meth teeth, it sounds so weird to say, but you put it on, and you’re like, ‘Well, this is fun to play with.’ Then, you have to be able to teach yourself to speak with this mouth, and not sound like you’re lisping,” she said. “So, that was actually really fun, to walk around the house with this weird meth mouth, and then the physicality of it.”
Four Good Days, which was directed by Rodrigo García (Albert Nobbs) and co-written by García and Eli Saslow (the movie is based on his Washington Post article, “How’s Amanda? A story of truth, lies, and an American addiction”) comes out in theaters on April 30 and on VOD on May 21.
While we’re well into the good stuff in our Scotch-whisky-by-price-point odyssey, we’re not near the peak of what scotch can offer. In the $100 to $125 range we won’t hit the 20-year and above bracket yet; much less the really special one-offs. While we’re very close to topping out with bourbon, we’ve got a long way to go with scotch.
Below you’ll find some unique bottles featuring single barrel and special finishing expressions, alongside a good mix of 15 to 18-year-old masterpieces. The only parameter besides price? They taste good.
As for the prices, these are market averages. Transportation costs, local taxes, and trade wars can have a pretty big effect on how much you pay for a scotch expression at your local shop. Good luck out there!
Compass Box is one of the best blenderies working the whisky game today. The London-based shingle created their Hedonism expression as a bit of an outlier. The juice is 100 percent grain whisky from North British Distillery and Cameronbridge Distillery, with a focus on first-fill bourbon barrels and re-charred American oak. Those barrels are married into this masterful blend.
It’s then proofed down to a very accessible 86 proof and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a clear sense of bourbon vanilla and caramel that draws you in (especially if you’re a bourbon drinker). The taste holds onto those notes while adding in soft orchard fruits and a buttery, rich toffee silkiness and sweetness. The end smooths out the vanilla into a pudding, with a mild spiciness next to a final note of salted caramels covered in toasted coconut surfacing on the slow finish.
Bottom Line:
This is a great bridge between bourbon and sweet scotch. It’s best to give this one a taste neat to get a sense of it. Then try it with a rock or two to let it open up and really embrace the bourbon-forward notes.
This Highland malt has made a roaring comeback (the expression went on hiatus from 2015 to 2018). Revival 15 takes its sherried nature very seriously. The juice is aged in a combination of Pedro Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks for 15 long years. Those casks are married and this whisky is brought down to a very easy-drinking 92 proof with that soft Highland water.
Tasting Notes:
You’re greeted with notes of blackberries and blackberry bushes (stems, leaves, thorns, and all) next to a hint of a cherry pie cut with a good dose of walnuts covered in dark chocolate and orange zest. The taste leans into the fruit more by adding savory figs and over-ripe apricot to the cherries while a mildly spicy dark chocolate lurks in the background. The end is full of honey sweetness, that dark chocolate and walnut base, and plenty of fruit, leaving you with a warmed and sweetened feeling.
Bottom Line:
This is a dram that really blooms in the glass with a little water. You’ll get an almost smoky burnt coffee bitterness to cut through all the fruit, marrying together with that walnut and chocolate note. It’ll also bring about a fresh mint whisper, making this is a really interesting whisky for subtle cocktails.
Glenfiddich tends to wow, even in their entry point expressions. Their 18-year-old carries on that tradition. The juice is aged in both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks for 18 long years. The whisky is then married and brought all the way down to 80 proof with Speyside water before bottling.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a real journey just on the nose from the apple orchard to a stewing pot with tart apples and spices to a buttery-crusted apple pie with spices, nuts, and vanilla. That fruit holds on as cedar arrives with notes of salted caramel wax paper wrappers, mild malts, and sweet dates with a hint of nuttiness. In the end, it all combines towards a hybrid sticky toffee pudding/Christmas cake vibe of dried fruits, spices, malts, and cedar as it slowly fades away.
Bottom Line:
This really feels like the holidays in a glass (if that’s what you’re looking for). The sip is super velvety and goes down too easily without any water or rocks.
This expression’s neck hangs heavy with gold and double gold medals. The juice is aged in ex-bourbon barrels before its transferred to sherry casks for a finishing maturation. That balances the body of the whisky towards bourbon while allowing the sherry to highlight the brighter edges of the expression.
Tasting Notes:
This sip opens on the nose with an earthiness that’s slightly dry next to a bowl of mixed nuts with hints of plum jam and vanilla pudding. The palate embraces a bright apricot sweetness with a rich and creamy nougat base that leans into the nutty nature of the nose. The end holds onto the fruit brightness and adds in a bit of citrus, cedar, and mild dark spices while slowly fading out towards a final wisp of dry smoke.
Bottom Line:
There’s an easiness to this dram that’s hard to ignore. It’ll draw you in and demand your attention as the flavors bloom and expand across your senses. It’s also a great candidate for bridging smoky and sweet, since the smoke note here is way back in the background.
Speyside’s Glenlivet always hits it out of the park. Their Nàdurra expression (“natural” in Gaelic) takes an unfussed-with approach to whisky. The juice is aged for 16 years in ex-sherry barrels. Then it’s bottled as is in small batches — no filtration and no cutting down to proof with water.
Tasting Notes:
Expect a nose full of raisins, nuts, cinnamon, and stone fruit with a hint of anise and maybe black licorice. The taste will dance between svelte vanilla cream, robust orange marmalade on buttered toast, and nutty dark chocolate that’s more smooth than bitter. The end is long and touches on notes of dry cedar with a real sense of orange oils, spice, and chocolate-covered salted nuts.
Bottom Line:
It’s not rare per se to get a cask strength single malt. But it’s not that typical either. That makes this a solid expression to try out. It’s a good palate expander and will give you a look into how amazingly smooth and mild high-proof scotch can be, especially when compared to similarly high-proof bourbons or ryes.
This is an “essential” scotch for any whisk(e)y drinker. The Islay expression harnesses local Port Ellen peated malts to create their smoky whisky. But it’s more than that. Aging on the sea and masterful barreling and blending brings about an Islay whisky that’s about much more than just smoke.
Tasting Notes:
The nose opens with a clear billow of smoke similar to an alder-fueled smoker (placed on a beach), dripping with brisket and salmon fats as it smokes those meats along with all the brown sugars, salts, and spices those meats were brined in. The palate holds onto those notes while drying out, a touch — with mild vanilla and fruit in the background. In the end, the sea salt, fatty smoked beef and salmon, and soft dry woods dominate the palate as this one fades slowly away.
Bottom Line:
This is the perfect barbecue or smoked fish pairing whisky. Yes, it’s peaty and smoky but those billows ride along with the richer notes of all that brown sugar, sea salt, and fat. They never overpower the whisky or everything else that’s going on.
Aberfeldy is at the heart of Dewar’s scotch. The juice here is a classic Highland whisky aged in American oak and finished in sherry casks. That whisky is then cut down to proof with water from Pitilie Burn, a bubbling stream with gold deposits next to the distillery.
Tasting Notes:
Aberfeldy is renowned for its honeyed nature and this shines through on the nose with hints of clove-studded oranges and a touch of that sherried wood. The palate holds onto the wet sherry wood while going full holiday cake with spices, nuts, dried and candied fruits, and a sweet maltiness. The end reveals a mild note of bitter dark chocolate next to the honey and spices as it fades fairly quickly.
Bottom Line:
This is a great sweet scotch to have on the shelf. It’s amazingly silken while being very drinkable neat (or with a drop of water to let it bloom more). Also, that honey nature really makes this a solid candidate for citrusy whisky cocktails.
As with the cask strength selection above, a single barrel single malt isn’t rare per se. But it’s in no way the norm in the world of single malt whisky. The whisky is pulled from a single sherry butt (which yields about 800 bottles — a standard barrel yields around 250). The whisky is then just proofed and bottled as is.
Tasting Notes:
The nose opens with dried fruit and fat nuts but in the subtlest of ways. The dried fruit vascilates between dried apricot and sultanas while the nuts are like dry hazelnuts and toasted walnuts. The taste brings about a dry woodiness that’s more akin to nutshells as a mild eggnog spiciness arrives on the silken palate. The end is long and touches on that soft sherry sweetness, plumminess, spiciness, and nuttiness evenly and, again, subtly.
Bottom Line:
This is a definite, “Oh, wow…” dram from The Balvenie. Everything is so dialed while also being wholly accessible and kind of … nourishing. If you ever call a dram “smooth,” let it be this one.
This is a classic Highland single malt with a modern twist. These bottles were just relaunched in 2019 with age statements. Their 15-year was aged in both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry before marrying, proofing, and bottling in nice, squat bottles.
Tasting Notes:
You’re met with an initial nose of high-end Niedderegger marzipan covered in dark chocolate (yes, that brand specifically) next to touches of powdered ginger, honeyed malts, and a touch of citrus. That marzipan note leans more into the dark chocolate as the taste amps up the spices and gets fruity while holding onto the malty nature of the sip. The end is medium-length and leaves you with creamy vanilla, damp wood, and plummy sweetness.
Bottom Line:
This is a great whisky from an old distillery. It’s hard not to fall in love with this dram. It’s unique, accessible, and fully feels like it’s a classic scotch — not playing at anything else (like trying to grab a bourbon drinker’s attention, for example).
Glenmorangie has a wide range of whiskies to choose from. While we dig on their more entry-point versions, their 18-year is a hell of a bottle. The juice is aged for 15 years in ex-bourbon casks. Then a portion of those casks is re-barreled into sherry casks for three years. That whisky is then batched back with the rest of the bourbon barrels to create this dram.
Tasting Notes:
Honey dominates the nose with mixed nut and dried fruits, kind of like a homemade trail mix without the M&Ms. The taste holds onto those rich honey notes and adds in a late-fall sense of wet, falling leaves with a soft nuttiness and almost savory fruitiness (not quite a squash but not as sweet as a fig either). A very, very small whisper of cherry or applewood smoke arrives to usher in a slow finish of salted caramel, more of that bespoke trail mix, and a final note of sherried malt.
Bottom Line:
The word “classic” has been thrown around a lot in this post. Sorry, not sorry — it’s often apt in these drams. These are some classic whiskies and this is one of them. It’s just such a winner all around — velvety, full of defined yet balanced flavors, satisfying.
And, again, you feel like you’re drinking a scotch that’s meant to be a touchstone of the style and nothing else. If you appreciate that, you’ll appreciate this.
Reports for essentially this entire season have indicated that the New Orleans Pelicans are willing to listen to other teams when they call about the availability of Lonzo Ball. According to a new report by Marc Stein of the New York Times, one such team with plenty of interest is in Ball’s old stomping grounds of the Staples Center, but it would hardly be a chance for him to suit up for the Los Angeles Lakers again.
Stein reports that the Los Angeles Clippers are doing what they can to try and figure out a way to acquire Ball, who is slated to become a restricted free agent at the end of this season. The clock is ticking on their ability to pull off a deal, though, as the NBA’s trade deadline for this season is next Thursday.
The Clippers, with a well-chronicled need for a playmaking upgrade, are exploring trade routes to acquiring New Orleans’ Lonzo Ball before next Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, league sources say.
As Stein notes, the Clippers could use a playmaker in their backcourt, and Ball very much fits that bill. He is in the midst of a career year with the Pelicans, averaging 14.2 points, 5.6 assists, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.3 steals in 31.7 minutes per game as a member of the team’s starting lineup. He’s also connecting on 38.5 percent of his triples.
Ball, who played for the Lakers from 2017-19 before he was sent to New Orleans in the Anthony Davis trade, makes a ton of sense in Los Angeles, both as an on-ball playmaker and as someone who can play off the ball when Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are running the offense. The question is what they could possibly give up to make a deal happen — they have some contracts that could be moved in a deal for Ball, while a number of their future Draft picks are owned by the Oklahoma City Thunder due to the Paul George trade. Stein did note that the most likely avenue for a deal would require bringing on board a third team.
Lana Del Rey ranks among the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Among those slotted as “indie,” she might be the most acclaimed. Upon the release of her 2019 opus Norman Fucking Rockwell, Del Rey was proclaimed “one of America’s greatest living songwriters,” high praise considering that fellow Americans like Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, and Carole King are still with us. She is, by any metric, presently at the peak of her prestige.
Perhaps the only person who doesn’t feel this way is Lana Del Rey. In a recent interview conducted by frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff — the privilege of being interviewed by a fellow extremely successful musician rather than a journalist is yet another sign of her rarefied status — Del Rey declared, “I will die an underdog and that’s cool with me.” An underdog? If Del Rey is an upstart, what does that make 99.9 percent of other artists? She is Michael Jordan in the 1990s, winning championship after championship, and yet seeing doubters around every corner. Only MJ did this as a means to stoke his competitive fire, whereas LDR, I think, feels genuinely misunderstood. Figuring out why is a key to understanding Del Rey’s music, including her new album out today, Chemtrails Over The Country Club.
In 2019, in the immediate wake of NFR‘s rapturous reception, Del Rey publicly responded to a lengthy and erudite album review by NPR’s Ann Powers suggesting that LDR makes “a sonic and emotional argument for collapsing the boundaries that uphold authenticity as a cultural value,” via unexpected musical and lyrical juxtapositions. Anyone familiar with her work can recognize to what Powers refers — from the beginning, Del Rey has favored a mix of all-American iconography and hip-hop bravado, dusty country-inspired songwriting and glossy pop production, high feminine glamour and disturbing subjugation, and so on and so on. In Powers’ view, LDR isn’t interesting because of her actual songs — which she deemed “uncooked” — but rather because she has a “compulsion to collapse logic, to violate boundaries musically, through imagery and within her storytelling.” This makes her, according to this argument, a Dylanesque meta-trickster, wielding a series of masks in service of critiquing the very value of “meaning what you say” that music critics have pushed as a virtue for decades.
Del Rey, to put it simply, did not agree. She, in fact, did not seem to understand at all the subversive qualities that Powers (and many other music writers ) have attributed to her music. Over the course of a small handful of tweets, LDR made it clear that she steadfastly believes in the concept of musical authenticity, and sees herself as a shining example of it. “My gift is the warmth I live my life with and the self-reflection I share generously,” she countered.
Now, I can’t say I completely understand what Del Rey was going on about here. But I think I have an idea, and it relates to a theory I’ve long had about Bob Dylan. Sometimes, Dylan does things that nobody understands, like appearing randomly in a Victoria’s Secret commercial or calling Jimmy Buffett one of his favorite songwriters of all time. Inevitably, armchair Dylanologists will imbue these confounding actions with layers of deeper meaning, insisting that he is playing a form of multi-dimensional chess with his persona. And they will argue that this only makes the experience of listening to Dylan’s music all the more profound, because he is, in a sense, “collapsing boundaries” between seemingly unlike cultural artifacts and in the process reinventing the very art of songwriting.
But what if … there is no game? What if the truth is that Bob Dylan is a wonderful songwriter and musician who also happens to be a basic baby boomer from Minnesota who thinks women in lingerie and “Cheeseburger In Paradise” are pretty awesome? And what if his ability to not be self-reflective and live comfortably with these contradictions by simply just being in the moment and doing whatever the hell he wants is the central attribute to which his audience responds? “People pay money to see others believe in themselves,” Kim Gordon once said — what if that’s the essence of Bob Dylan (and Lana Del Rey)?
The conundrum for critics who like Lana Del Rey is that what they appreciate about her doesn’t seem to line up with LDR’s own conception of her work, or (more importantly) what her audience adores about her. Is it possible that she’s not some trickster? What if she sings big, beautiful power ballads about American flags and cool cars and unfashionable rock bands and mesmerizing death scenarios because she (and millions of her fans) find these things to be pretty awesome?
When you put on a Lana Del Rey song, you hear what thrills her, obsesses her, and fires up her imagination. And this inspires authentic emotion, the sort that hits like a wild crescendo at the end of a ’50s teenage car-crash song, the kind you can’t help but feel to the extreme, a symphony not directed at the head or those inclined to intellectualize her every move but toward the id. She puts these elements together because they make sense to her, and she can communicate this in her songs in such a way that it creates a new context for a wide audience. She doesn’t collapse logic so much as create her own Lana logic. This is the warmth with which she lives her life.
With Chemtrails Over The Country Club, Del Rey appears poised for some sort of letdown. With NFR, she delivered the most enticing of critical catnip — a big statement record released at the close of a decade and in the midst of the Trump era, an “obituary for America” perfectly suited for meaty thinkpieces. (Del Rey seems to recognize this aspect of NFR, telling the British music magazine Mojo last fall, “I knew they were going to like Norman [Fucking Rockwell] because there’s kind of nothing not to like about it … it’s easy to cheer for that.”)
Her new album, however, is consciously positioned as a step back from the epic scale and timely thematic concerns of NFR. It also feels, unintentionally, like diminished returns, like when Del Rey revives songs left over from past projects (including the affecting but minor soft-rock folk ballad “Yosemite,” which dates back to her mid-2010s Lust For Life period) or recycling lyrical references from NFR (the nod to Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind” in the slinky “Tulsa Jesus Freak”).
And yet Chemtrails, like all LDR albums, still feels like a unified piece of work that, in spite of some wan songwriting lapses, manages to cast a mesmerizing spell. From the time she entered the indie sphere in 2012 as an overnight star with the beguiling single “Video Games,” Del Rey has been a master of vibe. Like all vibes, it falls apart if you think about it too hard or attempt to deconstruct it by parsing the lyrics or dwelling on the derivative musical references. But if you let it waft over you like a scented candle or an Isabella Rossellini torch song, it will seep deep into your system.
As Lana Del Rey fan Bruce Springsteen once put it, LDR’s strength as songwriter is she “creates a world of her own” that’s richly cinematic. If Chemtrails feels like a retreat from the larger world that NFR addresses, it also shows just how cozy Lana Land can be. Your enjoyment of the album will stem from how much you’re already invested in her narrative. This includes a sadly nostalgic flashback to her teen years in “White Dress” — the part where she whispers about a time in her life when “I wasn’t famous / Just listening to Kings of Leon to the beat” is the album’s most quintessentially LDR moment — and the fantasies about middle-aged parental nookie in the title track, in which Lana insists, “I’m not bored or unhappy / I’m still so strange and wild.”
Many of the songs on Chemtrails are about leaving L.A. and starting over in the suburbia of flyover-country, a reaction to Del Rey feeling burdened by the weight of fame. I know this because she literally says she’s “burdened by the weight of fame” in the song “Dance Till We Die.” As always, LDR is telling us exactly what’s on her mind. Maybe it’s time to take those words at face value.
Chemtrails Over The Country Club is out now via Interscope. Get it here.
Fleet Foxes surprise-released Shore last year, and now, they’ve finally released physical editions of the album. To mark the occasion, the group has shared a digital-only expanded edition of the album, which adds acoustic versions of three album highlights: “Sunblind,” “Featherweight,” and “Going-To-The-Sun Road.”
Robin Pecknold previously told Apple Music of “Sunblind,” “I knew I wanted it to be kind of a mission statement for the record — kind of cite-your-sources energy a little bit. And then find a way to get from this list of names of dead musicians that I’m inspired by — whose music has really helped me in my life — to somewhere that felt like you were taking the wheel and doing something with that feeling. Or trying to live in honor of that, at least in a way that they’re no longer able to, or in a way that carries their point of view forward into the future. ‘Sunblind’ is like giving the record permission to go all these places or something. Once it felt like it was doing that, then the whole record kind of made more sense to me, or felt like it all tied into each other in a way that it hadn’t when that song wasn’t done.”
Listen to the acoustic versions of “Sunblind,” “Featherweight,” and “Going-To-The-Sun Road” above and stream the full expanded edition of Shore below. Also revisit our recent interview with Pecknold here.
Rootin’ tootin’ Rep. Lauren Boebert (a proud Rifle Republican) of Colorado can’t and won’t stop stepping in it on Twitter, which is making her already abrasive freshman Congressional term even more bizarre. In the past month alone, she’s blundered logic about the Texas power catastrophe and freedom (while rambling about so-called “Draconian restrictions”), and now, she’s completely not understanding why kissing booty with dictators (and offering them a ride on Air Force One) is a bad thing.
Lauren expressed her disappointment on the subject following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anger after Biden referring to him as “a killer” (along with the Kremlin basically responding that it takes one to know one) and the combative first U.S.-China meeting of the Biden administration.
“Vladimir Putin is basically calling Biden a senile old man,” Sarah Palin 2.0 tweeted. “China rebuffed Anthony Blinken to his face & Kim Jong Un refuses to talk to anyone from the Biden regime… but it’s good to know that America is ReSpEcTeD AgAiN.”
Vladimir Putin is basically calling Biden a senile old man, China rebuffed Anthony Blinken to his face & Kim Jong Un refuses to talk to anyone from the Biden regime… but it’s good to know that America is ReSpEcTeD AgAiN.
In response, the social media comeuppance was swift with people pointing out that it’s actually a good thing when dictators (and leaders of non-allied countries with the U.S.) are not enamored of our president. And also, Kim Jong-Un might be miffed about no longer receiving love letters from Trump? All over Twitter, a pile-on began.
Lauren, maybe you don’t realize this, but it’s a good sign when all the dictators don’t like you.
Oh, child, the thing you fail to understand is that this is indeed a good thing. It proves that we don’t bow down to dictators like the former guy did. We are finally being respected again.
China, Russia, and North Korea are not our allies, and are simply upset that they don’t have Trump to give them a free pass anymore. Kim Jong Un misses Trump’s love letters.
Our are thrilled we finally have an American President who they can trust.
Yes, that’s what we want, to be ReSpEcTeD by Tyrants. You’re confused because we just got rid of our own Tyrant, and that’s what you think good leadership is. Time to defect to the DPRK – you’d fit right in pic.twitter.com/AHSPRSS6Zl
Laur, you’re upset that the leader of the free world doesn’t cozy up to murderous dictators like the former guy? Well, I guess that’s pretty on brand for you. Can you say traitor? I know you can’t spell it.
Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen kick off this week’s episode of Indiecast with a half-assed recap of last week’s Grammys. It doesn’t last long before the duo dive straight into a discussion of the aesthetic and influence of Kurt Vile in honor of the tenth anniversary of Smoke Ring For My Halo.
The main topic this week is Chemtrails Over The Country Club, the seventh studio album from Lana Del Rey. It’s the follow-up to Norman F*cking Rockwell, which was one of our favorite albums of 2019, and Lana seems to feel the pressure across her latest. Like her other work, Chemtrails is a cinematic affair ripe with what can only be described as “vibes.”
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Hyden is bumping Cohen’s recommendation from last week of the new album by Really From, the Boston jazz-punk outfit. Cohen, on the other hand, has been digging into South Korean outfit Parannoul, whose releases are only available on Bandcamp.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 31 below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
Before you read this, it assumes you have watched the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. If you haven’t, there some spoilers for the first episode only ahead.
At the end of this first episode, Sam Wilson, aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), has decided against becoming Captain America, and the U.S. government was all too happy to agree with Sam’s decision. Then Sam watches on television as he’s almost immediately replaced by a white guy, John Walker (Wyatt Russell). Ahead, head writer Malcolm Spellman digs into the implications of that and why, what you saw and the reaction you had, is by design. And he’s pretty open to the fact that this is a storytelling device they are using that, by the end, if someone is on the fence, there’s a good chance that person will be rooting for Sam to become Captain America.
I was reading about how, when you pitched this, your pitch was kind of focusing on race. They are so lucky they listened to you. Because I was watching this and it feels like I’m watching like a current event.
Mike, it is probably the thing we are most proud of. In a bunch of ways, this thing is of the times. And we’re all, everyone who worked on it, are very, very proud of that. It feels like the superhero project of the future, in that it’s relevant and rooted in the textures of a mindset that are dealing with the issues of now, good and bad. You know what I’m saying? Like it is very, very at the moment. And not of the moment like when this moment passes, but of where everything culturally is heading. We’re all very proud of that. And it was definitely by design.
I don’t know where the Flag Smasher stuff is going, but back when you were writing this was there ever a time, like with what we saw at The Capitol, when you’re like, “This is getting crazier than what we could’ve come up with.”
I would tell you offline. I’m not sure what I want to get into as far as how I see the world in this interview. But I’m a Black dude. The room was Black. Nothing has surprised me. And I think that is the importance of bringing diversity into these projects: the worldview is often to tap into the moment in a way that can be really, really special.
This won’t run until after the first episode airs, but I want to get into Sam’s arc because it’s pretty interesting…
Right.
He’s not sure he wants to be Captain America. And then the government chimes in, “Yeah, you don’t. That’s a great decision.” And then they immediately replace them with a white guy. That would definitely happen. Like that’s exactly how it would go down.
Yeah, absolutely. And his ambivalence is rooted in that and an awareness of that issue. The truth is, it’s not an easy decision. It’s not necessarily an appropriate thing to pick up that symbol if you’re Black, you know what I’m saying? And he’s very, very aware of that. And I feel like if you dig in the first episode, a lot of stuff is going to come to light. It’s going to be very satisfying.
And that scene where he’s watching it on TV at the end. It is so powerful. And he doesn’t even say anything. We know exactly what he’s thinking.
And I appreciate that. We put a ton of effort into that. I believe you are going to see it become more and more resonant and more and more relevant with each episode. And we worked very hard on that. Even those feelings when you’re writing. The great thing about the way we told the story over six episodes is, all those moments are feeling like that because we knew we were building to them like, there’s basically a constellation of emotional and character moments for each of these characters. And, hopefully, they will all resonate with you that way. And if they do, again, it’s not by accident. It’s because we have to confront what’s the truth in Sam’s identity and how he sees himself, right? As a Black man. That you can’t hide from that. You know what I’m saying? Just like with Bucky, you can’t hide from all the awful stuff Bucky was forced to do over the last hundred years. Or 90 years. I think you’re going to find a lot of it… Put it this way: I believe, like what I said a minute ago, it is a story of the times and that lives in every moment of every episode.
I just know I’m going to word this awkwardly so I apologize in advance because I’m trying to get into your head a little bit.
Go for it.
There are going to be people, white people, frankly, who are going to say, “I like Sam, but I don’t know about him being Captain America.” And the way this show looks like the way it’s going is, those people are probably going to start rooting for Sam to become Captain America.
That’s the exact goal. And I think that’s the magic of tackling things like that through a genre like this, you know what I’m saying? On a couple of levels. Number one: one of the things Marvel knew they wanted off the top is they wanted a buddy two-hander, right? When I say buddy two-hander, I’m also talking about a pedigree and an energy. If you think about the first buddy two-hander was The Defiant Ones, right? Not the first one, but the first one we all know about. The most iconic one of all times, it’s 48 hours.
I literally just re-watched that a few weeks ago.
And look at the issues it tackles.
Right.
While still being fun. So the buddy two-hander already is steeped in the tradition of being relevant to the times and dealing with real issues, but keeping it fun. And then you have the Marvel spectrum. When you look at what happened with our Black Panther, which proved its doing well, over a billion dollars worldwide. That all Marvel’s fans, ready for us to delve into honesty. As long as you keep it fun, they will have the conversation with you. I think even the people that might feel some kind of way about Sam will be rooting for him. But as you see in the pilot, it is not obvious what Sam is going to do.
And then on top of all that you have The Blip, which has taken on a whole new meaning.
Not at all by accident. For our entire creative team, I do want to say, it was a very present room and we were dialed in. But we did have a cheat code which is, once COVID shut down our production, we were able to really dig down deep and translate The Blip to the current state of The Blip of the Marvel universe being relevant to what’s happening today. I’m really glad you’re picking that up and, I promise you, it stays as relevant, if not gets more relevant as it goes.
‘The Falcon and the Winter Solider’ is now streaming via Disney+. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
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