Month: April 2021

The end of 2020 brought tremendous news for Lorde fans: She revived her famed onion ring review Instagram account that was previously inactive since 2017. That wasn’t just a one-time comeback, either, as yesterday, she shared a new review.

This time, Lorde’s culinary adventures took her to Hotel Ponsonby in Ponsonby, New Zealand. Sharing some photos of her food, she gave an honest and positive review, writing, “Yoosh lads back with another ring post… these were from the Hotel Ponsonby establishment, we’re talking PICKLED onion rings which is a first for this reviewer. I totally vibe the concept— used to eat pickled onions out of the jar as a youngster— however I think if you’re gonna go there, go there, and let acidity rather than sweetness dominate. Absolutely sensational batter, perhaps the best I’ve tried. 4/5 overall ringsperience.”

Lorde previously spoke about the account with Jimmy Fallon in 2017, confirming that she was behind it and telling him, “Now everyone knows about it and it’ll feel like something I’m doing to crave fame, then people are gonna be throwing onion rings at me on tour and it was gonna turn into a whole thing. It was fun for like five seconds, but I’m still going to keep eating onion rings.” In a post from her recent reviewing comeback, she also noted, “I’ve got to be honest with you, this reviewer stopped ordering onion rings after her identity was leaked to the press in the great debacle of 2017. I’d get a smile and a wink from waitstaff– it got embarrassing, you know? But it occurred to me that some things are too good to let the internet spoil.”

Apple TV+ is quietly killing it with some of the best comedies on TV, including Ted Lasso, Mythic Quest (so good), and Dickinson. Physical could be added to that list soon.

The 1980s-set series stars Rose Byrne as Sheila Rubin, “a quietly tormented housewife in San Diego who behind closed door battles extreme personal demons and a vicious inner voice. But things change when she discovers aerobics, sparking a journey toward empowerment and success.” She also has extremely ’80s hair (the last time she had an extreme haircut in a comedy, it was for Spy, a very good movie), drinks sugar-free pink lemonade, and yells “punch! punch! punch!” in what looks like a mall fitness studio.

I am so in. The GLOW vibes don’t hurt, either.

“A lot of what we’re exploring in the show is the divide between the external and internal for so many women,” creator Annie Weisman said about Physical. “No matter how polished the external there’s so much turmoil underneath the surface… That’s a lot of what we’re exploring in the show, is that divide.” Byrne called it a “great companion piece” to FX’s Emmy-winning miniseries Mrs. America, which she also appeared in. “It was still a challenging time for women to find that independence,” she said.

Physical was written by Weisman and directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), Liza Johnson, and Stephanie Laing. The first three episodes debut on Apple TV+ on June 18, followed by new episodes airing weekly on Fridays.

Nearly three years have passed since the death of Mac Miller and this fall, a book remembering his life and music is set for release via Permuted Press. Pre-orders have already put the The Book Of Mac: Remembering Mac Miller, written by DJBooth veteran Donna-Claire Chesman, on the Amazon Best Sellers lists, where it’s currently No. 3 in Books, and No.1 in both Rap & Hip-Hop Musician Biographies and Rap Music (Books). Chesman announced the project after completing her Year of Mac editorial series on DJBooth, which compiled personal essays, interviews, and other features to commemorate Mac’s legacy over the course of 52 weekly dispatches throughout late 2018 and 2019.

The Book Of Mac will likewise be comprised of intimate interviews with those who knew Mac best, including friends and collaborators like Just Blaze, Kehlani, Syd, Thundercat, Wiz Khalifa, and more, with commentary and critique on his musical releases by Chesman.

Mac Miller passed away at the age of 26 in 2018, the result of an accidental overdose while on tour. Since then, his estate has released one album, Circles, completed with the assistance of Mac’s collaborator Jon Brion, while fan-favorite mixtapes like KIDS and Faces have found their ways to DSPs in the years since. Two new songs were released in August last year.

Due on October 26, 2021 you can pre-order The Book Of Mac on Amazon.

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

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Released in 2005, Superwolf by Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney for years didn’t seem to exist outside of a few small enclaves reserved for hard-core enthusiasts. A profoundly beautiful folk-rock record populated by unreliable narrators, Superwolf at the time was supported by only a small handful of shows and a minimal press campaign. After that, it fell into a digital black hole for more than a decade, having been deliberately held back from streaming platforms until 2018.

And yet people kept on discovering Superwolf. It helped that the album had some famous fans. (Rick Rubin loved it so much that he started using Sweeney — an indie-rock veteran who played in Chavez in the 1990s and Zwan in the early aughts — as one of his regular studio musicians.) But it’s the uniquely indelible songs Sweeney wrote with Will Oldham (who has used the Bonnie “Prince” Billy name for much of his work since 1998) that has kept Superwolf alive over the years. If you knew the record, you likely heard about it from a friend, who shared it like a precious family secret.

For me, the power of Superwolf has always derived from its fascinating and frequently creepy juxtapositions. There are love songs like “What Are You,” in which Oldham sings tenderly about “sliding down grassy slopes / where we can be alone.” But a few lines before that, he also muses about taking his love over his knee, in order to “spank you mercilessly.” And then there’s Sweeney’s lonely guitar line, which evokes an uneasy menace gliding just beneath the platitudes.

Is this really a love song? If it is a love song, is it sung from the point of view of a person who, shall we say, is not well? And if that’s the case, is it actually a horror story? These enigmas at the center of Superwolf aren’t absent in Oldham’s other work, but the songs he’s written with Sweeney still feel … different. They constantly put the listener in a gray area between love and hate, peace and violence, calm and chaos. It’s an album that seems superficially soothing upon first listen, and then more and more unsettling the deeper you get into it.

“I know what you mean,” Oldham replied when I brought up this reaction to Superwolf last month. “There is a threat inherent in a lot of what Sweeney and I make together.”

Oldham had asked that we conduct our interview over email. The occasion was the forthcoming release of Superwolves, the long-delayed sequel to his original collaboration with his close bud Sweeney due this Friday. Miraculously, they’ve maintained the same singular mood of the first record, even as they’ve opened up their partnership, on three tracks, to the thrilling Tuareg guitar hero Mdou Moctar and his crack band.

This time, however, the “threat” that Oldham speaks of is occasionally more overt. For instance, on the album-opening “Make Worry For Me,” he glowers about making trouble “when I come to your street” over Sweeney’s sleazy, Crazy Horse-after-a-dozen-honey-slides guitar lick.

“It’s important to me that we build caveats into some, if not all, of the songs,” Oldham said. “We aren’t peddling unadulterated and unrealistic fantasy lovers’ rock. We live with fear, and we are white, American, culturally Christian males — we are a threat to the well-being of the world.”

Throughout our correspondence, I could sense Oldham’s unease with self-promotion. It’s not that he was rude or unresponsive, quite the opposite in fact. He dutifully explained the long, somewhat disjointed, but ultimately fruitful path to Superwolves — they originally started work about 10 years ago on an EP of originals and two covers until “wires got crossed.” (“Matt didn’t realize that his flight was a day earlier than he thought, so we were working at different paces and didn’t finish the work,” he explained.) Time passed. Then, in 2015, Sweeney mentioned that he had “a chunk of time” to work on songs, so Oldham started putting some lyrics together. More time passed. Then around late 2018 or early 2019, they met up with Mdou Moctar to record a track, which “stoked our furnace to get this machine rolling for reals.” Another session in Brooklyn with Moctar followed, along with more recording at John Prine’s legendary Nashville studio The Butcher Shoppe in February 2020. Then, well, we all know what happened shortly after that.

Compared with their first album, Superwolves has been been given a relatively robust media push, including a splashy spread in GQ. If this feels at all antithetical to the hushed, mysterious mythos of the first Superwolf, Oldham seems inclined to agree. Just as he is ambivalent about his music being on streaming platforms (“I don’t listen to streaming music,” he said flatly) you can tell he sort of wishes that he and Matt could stay a little more out of focus.

“Word-of-mouth is the best form of promotion. Word-of-mouth is in decline right now,” he said. “People don’t speak openly and freely to each other as much; conversation is relegated to corporate-mediated nearly-one-way transmissions. In order for people to learn that this record exists in a timely fashion, we go to the machine.”

Fortunately for me, Sweeney was more than willing to hop on the phone. A chatty and gregarious conversationalist, Sweeney prefaces many sentences with “dude” and frequently diverts to fun tangents about various pop-culture geek topics, including Douglas Sirk films and the underrated quality of Grant Hart songs on Husker Du albums. (He’s not kidding!) It’s no wonder that Sweeney has worked with so many different kinds of artists, ranging from Adele to Kid Rock to Neil Diamond to Six Organs Of Admittance.

But his nearly 25-year-old friendship with Oldham seems especially dear, for both personal and artistic reasons. Even though they haven’t put out a new album in 16 years, they’ve stayed in regular contact, with Oldham sending Sweeney a steady stream of lyrics for him to turn into songs.

“The level of quality is always pretty exciting. It’s like, ‘Okay, cool, I’m going to be reading something that’s as good as writing gets,’” Sweeney enthused. “That’s always a guarantee. I don’t think anybody’s ever going to argue that his lyrics are anything less than incredible every time, which is pretty fucked up. Who else can you say that about? I can’t say that about anybody else.”

Sometimes, the music comes quickly. For “Make Worry For Me,” Sweeney had a sudden flash of inspiration: “I’m going to try to write a Peter Green meets Al Green song,” he recalled. Other times, however, the slippery moral and emotional shades of Oldham’s writing was like a puzzle that Sweeney spent years trying to solve — two years, in fact, in the case of one of the album’s best tunes, “Good To My Girls.”

“What Will is great at is communicating how close horror is to love, and just how side by side really very opposing life forces are all the time,” he said. “I remember years ago, Will was like, ‘Man, I saw this documentary about this whorehouse in India that caters only to the untouchables.’ When I first saw ‘Good To My Girls,’ I assumed that it was told from the point of view of a guy talking about his kids or his girls. Then I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is the madam.’ It’s the person telling themselves that they’re a good person.”

That sort of insight can only come between friends who know each other like brothers. The intense intimacy of Superwolf and Superwolves is what’s so bracing about them, though the latter album boldly explodes the tight bond at the core with the buoyant energy of Mdou Moctar on songs like the ecstatic “Hall Of Death.” The guitarist and his band — whose own new album, Afrique Victime, drops in May — intersected with Sweeney after he learned that Chavez’s guitar-heavy albums were a reference point for Moctar’s searing 2019 LP, Ilana (The Creator). Already a fan of that album, Sweeney was thrilled by the connection, which seemed to mitigate the risk of bringing in such a joyous, infectious third party into Sweeney and Oldham’s quieter dynamic.

“It turns out that Mikey, the American in the band, lives down the street from me, and Mikey really likes the Superwolf record,” he said. “Literally, it seems like the two western things that that band likes are things that I was involved in, which is like a huge, huge deal to me.”

Just as Sweeney and Oldham welcomed outsiders into Superwolves, they are also inching more and more into the world at large. Concerts are planned for later this year. Their music is as accessible now as it has ever been. And there are more songs to be written. Maybe it won’t even take another 16 years to hear them this time.

“There’s a handful of Will lyrics that I wasn’t able to crack that are sort of staring at me from a shelf in my brain,” Sweeney said before signing off. “Staring down on me like an elf on a shelf just like, ‘When are you going to bring me to life?’”

Superwolves is out on April 30 via Drag City. Get it here.

Lizzo delivered a delightfully fun story last week when she shared that after a few drinks, she found herself in an impaired state and decided to send a message to actor Chris Evans on Instagram. To recap how that went down, Lizzo sent him three emojis: a puff of air, a woman playing handball, and a basketball, implying that she was “shooting her shot.” Evans was a good sport and responded, “No shame in a drunk DM [kissy face emoji] god knows I’ve done worse on this app lol [facepalm emoji].”

Now, the saga continues, as Lizzo has offered an update on how the situation has evolved. On TikTok, Lizzo shared a video responding to somebody who asked how things are going on the Evans front, and she responded by sharing a screenshot of their chat, only making it visible for a few quick frames of video.

The messages are visible when the video is paused, though, and Lizzo responded to Evans’ message with, “Well.. they say u miss 100% of the shots you never take [side-eye emoji] (and even tho I unsent it like a dork [facepalm emoji]) I’m glad u know I exist now [heart face emojis].” Evans responded, “Of course I do! I’m a fan! Keep up the great work!! xxx.” The two most recent messages after that are partially blocked and can’t fully be seen, but as BuzzFeed speculates, it seems Lizzo mentioned something about doing a shot and Evans responded by saying he’d buy it.

Check out a screenshot of Lizzo and Evans’ DMs below.

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

There have been many wrestlers-turned-actors over the years (“Rowdy” Roddy Piper in They Live, Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride, Kevin Nash in Magic Mike XXL, etc.), but none have been as consistently successful as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. His movies have grossed over $10.5 billion worldwide, with many billions to come from Black Adam, Jungle Cruise, and the inevitable third Jumanji movie. But just because The Rock is the King of Hollywood doesn’t mean Dave Bautista wants his career.

The Army of the Dead star, who wrestled under the name Batista, was recently asked by JoBlo about whether his muscular physicality has been an “asset” to his acting career. “No, because I’ve tried to go the other route. Like, The Rock is a perfect example of someone who uses that strength, so I wanted to go against that grain and make everything much smaller, very subtle. I make a living off of subtlety. I want that to be my strength. I want that to be what separates us. I don’t want to be that guy who walks in that room, I never wanted to be that guy,” he said. Bautista doesn’t mean that as a shot at The Rock, “but you know how he is as a character.” He continued:

“He feels very professional wrestling to me. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be an actor. I want to act, I want people to judge me for my acting, my subtlety. I want to take roles that require that. I don’t want to be a big action guy who just says cool shit and kills a lot of people and gets the girl. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to guy that makes people cry, who makes people think, who inspires people. I want to be a dramatic actor. I just love it. I love acting.”

One criticism of The Rock’s acting career is that he doesn’t take chances. He makes explosion-heavy action movies with fairly anonymous directors where, as Bautista points out, he’s usually playing a version of his persona. I love The Rock, but I doubt anyone has told him “no” since he worked with Michael Bay on Pain and Gain (arguably his best performance). Bautista, meanwhile, has his Marvel franchise and zombie heist movie, but he was also quite good in the little-seen thriller Bushwick, and he worked with auteur Denis Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune. It’s hard to imagine The Rock in a Villeneuve movie. Luckily we don’t have to. We have Bautista.

(Via JoBlo)

Sometimes good R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear.

This week, Jorja Smith announces the release date for her upcoming album as well as a new single. Also, HER dropped a bedroom-ready track with Chris Brown and Jhene Aiko released a music video for her Chilombo track “Tryna Smoke.”

Jorja Smith — “Gone”

Finally, the follow-up to Jorja Smith‘s 2018 Lost & Found is on the way in the form of Be Right Back and the UK singer has blessed fans with another cut from the project titled “Gone.” Be Right Back is expected to land on DSPs on May 14.

HER — “Come Through” Feat. Chris Brown

HER tapped Chris Brown for the sensual R&B number “Come Through.” The pair combines their vocal talents over the smooth track, singing about what happens moments before a sneaky link occurs. HER’s debut album is on the way and she recently revealed the title to be Back Of My Mind in an Instagram post.

Jhene Aiko — “Tryna Smoke”

4/20 is a special day for cannabis smokers around the world and as a prominent chiefer herself, Jhene Aiko commemorated the day with a music video for her track “Tryna Smoke.” The track lives on her 2020 album Chilombo, which ranked at No. 4 on Uproxx’s Best R&B Albums Of 2020 list.

The WRLDFMS Tony Williams — “Everybody Knows” Feat. Wale

The WRLDFMS Tony Williams just inked a deal with Curb Records and “Everybody Knows” is the talented musician’s first song with the label, featuring Wale. “Everybody Knows” gives old-school vibes with a modern twist. “We’ve had this one tucked away for a good amount of time, and the time is finally right to share it with the world,” Tony said in a statement. “We’ve certainly had some unique challenges during the pandemic, but we feel blessed to be able to share what we’ve been working on.”

Rini — “Out The Blue” Feat. Earthgang

Rini upped the ante on his already ethereal slow-motion track “Out The Blue” with a feature from Dreamville’s Earthgang.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw The Weeknd reconnect with a favorite collaborator and the Grohl family affair. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

The Weeknd — “Save Your Tears” Feat. Ariana Grande

The Weeknd has brought a handful of other artists into the world of After Hours since its release, and now the latest new occupant on the After Hours universe is Ariana Grande, who joins The Weeknd on a new version of “Save Your Tears.” This follows a pair of previous collaborations between the two: Grande’s “Love Me Harder” from her 2014 album My Everything and “Off The Table” from Grande’s 2020 album Positions.

Moneybagg Yo — A Gangsta’s Pain

Moneybagg Yo’s profile has been steadily increasing with his annual albums since 2018 and the many mixtapes before and during that stretch. His full-length for 2021 is A Gangsta’s Pain, and he got a handful of great guests involved across the project’s 22 tracks, including Pharrell, Jhené Aiko, Future, Polo G, and Lil Durk.

Cordae — Just Until EP

Given how quickly rappers drop new projects nowadays, hip-hop fans aren’t used to waiting (my apologies to Kendrick Lamar devotees). Cordae is working on a new album, but he didn’t want his fans to be left without new material from him for too long. So, he dropped the Just Until… EP, which features collaborations with Q Tip and Young Thug.

Lil Yachty — Michigan Boy Boat

Lil Yachty has done a fine job at making a name for himself, so on his latest album, Michigan Boy Boat, he helps others get their shine, too. The project spotlights emerging rappers from Detroit and Flint like Veeze and Louie Ray, as well as more recognizable names like Tee Grizzley, Swae Lee, and Sada Baby.

Violet Grohl and Dave Grohl — “Nausea”

Dave Grohl has occasionally sung the praises of his daughter Violet Grohl and her musical abilities. Finally, the two have linked up on a track, and it’s a special one: The Grohls covered X’s “Nausea” because, as Grohl explained in a post on his storytelling Instagram page, they’re both actually related to the band’s drummer, D.J. Bonebrake.

Chvrches — “He Said She Said”

Lauren Mayberry and company have launched a new era of Chvrches with “He Said She Said.” On the track, Mayberry addresses some of the frustrations of being a woman, getting her frustrations out through the sort of soaring and anthemic synth-pop at which Chvrches have become so adept.

The Alchemist — “Nobles” Feat. Earl Sweatshirt and Navy Blue

It’s been quiet in the world of Earl Sweatshirt since his 2019 EP Feet Of Clay, save for a few appearances here and there. That has included productions by The Alchemist and now they’ve worked together again, this time on “Nobles,” a track from the producer’s upcoming This Thing Of Ours EP that also features Navy Blue.

Little Simz — “Introvert”

Little Simz had a beloved album in 2019 with Grey Area and now the UK rapper is ready to follow it up with Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. She shared “Introvert” and as Uproxx’s Aaron Williams notes of the track and its accompanying video, “The song features a boisterous orchestra backing Simz’s poetic lyrics while the video evokes scenes of the past year of social justice struggle, juxtaposed with classical art depicting generations of conflict and cathartic, interpretive dance choreography.”

Flying Lotus — “Black Gold” Feat. Thundercat

Sturgill Simpson isn’t the only one making anime programming for Netflix. Flying Lotus is involved with the samurai anime Yasuke, and he has shared some samples of his soundtrack. One of the latest was “Black Gold” featuring Thundercat, a familiar collaborator who is also a big-time anime head.

Snoop Dogg — From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites

Snoop Dogg is a fervent celebrator of 4/20 and he did so last week with a whole new album, From Tha Streets 2 Tha Suites. It yielded multiple highlights, including a forgetful smoking anthem and the suggestion that the rapper has once smoked with a certain former president.

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

Oh, Tom Cruise. The guy’s truly performing a labor of love while filming Mission: Impossible 7. Amid many delays, Cruise felt compelled (a few months ago) to go off on those who won’t heed virus-related protocols, all because he wants to help save the moviemaking business. In doing so, he cited the importance of keeping crews employed, but also, maybe just a little bit, he wants to help keep the industry alive so that he can still perform the wildest stunts. Alright, I made that last part up, but admit it: it’s totally plausible. All I really know is that Tom Cruise loves to do things like scale the Burj Khalifa, so when we saw him perching atop a speeding train last fall and waving like it’s no big thing, it wasn’t surprising, but it was awesome.

In that same spirit, director Chris McQuarrie teased viewers with an action shot from the upcoming sequel. Here’s Tom just, you know, hanging from a train in “fabulous Yorkshire.” That’s not all, though. McQuarrie promised, “We’ll be back for one last bit of mischief in short order.” So… Tom on roller skates on top of a train? Nothing has been confirmed, but it sounds like something that he’d do.

Daily Mail published some slightly-distanced video of the scene referenced in this photo, which involves Tom tearing across the top of the train last week. He’s wearing a suit and tie, and the video shows him adjusting the tie. Very important.

When this movie finally arrives, it will have been quite a haul. Several production delays and local controversies involving cruise ships plagued the production. In addition, a bridge kerfuffle and a stunt gone wrong must have caused frustration, but rest assured, this movie will be here. People need to see Tom Cruise dangling from a train.

Mission: Impossible 7 is scheduled for a May 27, 2022 release.

In March, Justin Bieber earned his seventh No. 1 single when the Justice single “Peaches” debuted on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track is still doing quite well, as it is No. 3 on the Hot 100 that was revealed yesterday. Now he has put a new spin on the song by joining Jimmy Fallon and The Roots for their longstanding Tonight Show series of “classroom instruments” performances.

Bieber starts out by playing the track on a toy piano, which actually adds a charming element to the track. From there, he is joined by Fallon and The Roots, who sport instruments like shakers, bongos, xylophones, buckets, paper bags (to tear), and other things of that ilk. Giveon and Daniel Caesar, who feature on the original track, were not involved with this performance.

Justice isn’t Bieber’s latest release, as on Easter, he dropped a surprise EP, Freedom, which features collaborations with Pink Sweats, Tori Kelly, Judah Smith, Beam, Brandon Love, Chandler Moore, and Lauren Walters. He’s also fresh off appearing in Earth Day! The Musical, a Bill Nye-hosted event that also featured Jack Harlow, Maluma, Ben Platt, Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Cody Simpson, Steve Aoki, Tori Kelly, Zac Efron, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, and Nick Kroll.

Watch Bieber, The Roots, and Fallon perform “Peaches” above.

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