Month: June 2021

After the unexpected death of Tom Petty a few years ago, fans and the music industry alike have fought to preserve his incredible legacy and influence on the world. Our own critic Steven Hyden ranked the best songs from the legend late last year, and now a new reimagining called Angel Dreams is planned to mark the 25th anniversary of The Heartbreakers 1996 album, Songs And Music From The Motion Picture “She’s The One.” Available in limited edition cobalt blue vinyl or the standard black vinyl, the blue edition is out today, June 12, aka Record Store Day, and the classic black will arrive on July 2nd.

Angel Dreams is presented as a continued celebration of Petty’s prolific Wildflowers era combined with the songs and music from She’s The One. The formal new title, Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture “She’s The One”) is a nod to the opening track, “Angel Dream (No. 2),” which has been released to streaming services as a preview, and you can hear it above. Petty’s longtime engineer and co-producer Ryan Ulyate worked on remixes of the reissue with Petty before his passing, and his daughter Adria Petty and wife Dana Petty also worked to help arrange details for the release, including finding the cover art. Check that out below along with a full tracklist of the songs.

Angel Dream (Songs And Music From The Motion Picture “She’s The One”) tracklist:

Side 1:
1. “Angel Dream (No. 2)”
2. “Grew Up Fast”
3. “Change The Locks”
4. “Zero From Outer Space”
5. “Asshole”

Side 2:
6. “One of Life’s Little Mysteries”
7. “Walls (No. 3)”
8. “Thirteen Days”
9. “105 Degrees”
10. “Climb That Hill”
11. “Supernatural Radio (Extended Version)”
12. “French Disconnection”

Pre-order the album here.

Plans for Bruce Springsteen to return to Broadway are well underway, and rumors about his plans for a 2022 tour (possibly with The E Street Band) has also been happily received by fans. What was even better was when Bruce called into the Sirius XM’s E Street Radio to give more updates on what he’s been up to recently. He told the show’s hosts Jim Rotolo and Dave Marsh about plans for a tour with the band, casually confirming that rumor, before dropping a bomb about a new collaboration that will have indie rock fans thrilled — he’s working with The Killers.

“It’s [Brandon Flowers] and I with the band, we have done something that is going to come out soon, in a week or so,” Springsteen said. “I’ve been staying busy.” He also mentioned working with another big name, this one more in his own generation, John Mellencamp. “I worked on three songs on John’s album and I spent some time in Indiana with him,” Springsteen said. “I love John a lot. He’s a great songwriter and I have become very close [with him] and had a lot of fun with him. I sang a little bit on his record.”

Maybe that song with Bleachers helped The Boss realize that milennial rockers love working with him? Keep an eye out for Brandon and Bruce, coming your way soon.

Sharing a new single featuring St. Panther today, McClenney is gearing up to release his new full-length project, On A Virgo Mind later this summer on August 13. Releasing the album fully independently, this 26-year-old producer and songwriter is known for his work shaping the sound of Black alternative R&B by collaborating with artists like Jamila Woods, Chika, H.E.R., Khalid and more. Actually, McClenney was a collaborator on the breakout hit that put Khalid on the map, “Location,” which was also Grammy-nominated.

Focusing back on his own solo work, McClenney has earned the co-sign of music industry titan Quincy Jones, and worked tirelessly to help change outdated, coded language in the Grammys that incorrectly labeled Black music categories. He co-authored the proposal that advocated for the organization to remove “urban” from their categories and swap in more descriptive labels like “melodic rap.” Separately, he also co-authored a proposal that expanded the global music categories.

This week’s taste of his forthcoming album is more effortless grooving from the self-described “creative Black mind,” and prominently features St. Panther, aka Irvine born producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Daniela Bojorges-Giraldo. Check out the song below and hear some of his older work above with the “Give Me Time” video. Keep an eye out for more updates on the new full-length from McClenney coming very soon.

Ubisoft revealed they are currently working on the next entry in their Avatar series, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The announcement was made during June 12’s Ubisoft Forward E3 conference after years of rumors that a sequel to 2009’s James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game was in the works. While the cinematic trailer didn’t show much in the way of gameplay or narrative, it looks as if the upcoming game will be a first-person action-adventure game set in a stunning, open-world Pandora.

According to publisher Ubisoft’s description listed underneath the game’s trailer on YouTube, in “this new, standalone story, [you] play as a Na’vi and embark on a journey across the Western Frontier, a never-before-seen part of Pandora.” Players can expect to “explore a living and reactive world inhabited by unique creatures and new characters, and push back the formidable RDA forces that threaten it.”

In addition, the description stated the game is coming exclusively to next generation consoles, PC, Stadia, and Lun. This is largely due to the engine the game is being developed on. Massive Studios, the developer of Frontiers of Pandora, is utilizing Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine to create the game. It’s worth noting this powerful engine is the same one the studios are using for the studio’s upcoming Star Wars game which, unfortunately, has not yet been formally revealed.

It’s also interesting that the first game in the series, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game, featured voice acting from Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Giovanni Ribisi. While it has been over a decade since that project, there’s always the chance they might return for the upcoming sequel. At the time, not much else is known about the project, but here are a few standout images from the game to tide you over and get you hyped.

Willow Smith has always been stood out in a crowd. The singer’s breakout single, “Whip My Hair,” which she dropped at the young age of 10, was proof of this. Now Smith, who is months away from turning 21, continues to be loud and proud. A little over a month ago, she teamed up with Travis Barker for their first collaboration, “Transparent Soul.” The track arrived with a raucous video that captured the two acts rocking out during an underground show. It was clear that Smith is well into the rock stage of her career — though some don’t approve.

During a recent interview for V Magazine, Smith spoke about her love for the genre and how it was received by her peers in school. “…Being a Black woman in the metal crowd is very, very different on top of the pressures that the music industry puts on you,” Smith said to Alexis White, of metal core band Straight Line Stitch. “Now, it’s like an added pressure of the metal culture, the metal world, and just rock in general. I used to get bullied in school for listening to Paramore and My Chemical Romance.” White responded, “Yeah, there’s a lot of, ‘Hey, you’re Black. You’re not supposed to listen to that.’”

Smith replied back, “Exactly! And it’s not okay. Just through the music that I’m putting out right now and the representation that I can bring to the mix, I just hope that the Black girls who are listening to my music and listening to this album see that there’s more of us out there.” She added, “It’s a real thing, you’re not alone. You’re not the only Black girl who wishes she could flip her hair to the side, and wear black eyeliner, you know what I mean?”

Smith also spoke about her upcoming album and how it will contain many more guest acts, like Avril Lavigne, than her previous record, 2020’s The Anxiety.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was one of the biggest surprises in gaming back in 2017. The tactical XCOM like shooter caught everyone off guard because nobody expected it to be as fun as it was. Mario is known for platforming and spin-offs while the Rabbids are a wacky group infamous for mini-game collections. Them combining to form one of the best tactics games on the Nintendo Switch wasn’t expected, although it was a welcome surprise.

Their crossover together was so well done that everyone finished it asking for more. On Saturday during the Ubisoft Forward event, people got their wish, as Mario + Rabbids Spark of Hope was shown to the world. It featured Mario and the Rabbids landing a spaceship, only to come across what appears to be zombified enemies. Good thing they have Rosalina Rabbid around, because this time, they need to save the galaxy.

Fans of the first game will be happy to see that the gameplay looks to be very similar, but with some expanded features to differentiate movement between cover. A welcome addition, because one of the best parts of the first game was the movement in combat scenarios.

It’s honestly a bit of a surprise to see Mario + Rabbids getting a sequel. While Kingdom Battle was really fun, it felt like they had done the most they could possibly do with that formula. Clearly, the developers at Ubisoft believed differently, although it will never stop being a surprise that the success of Mario + Rabbids didn’t lead to a trend of tactical shooter spin-offs. The formula works really well and this game is proof that with the right amount of charm any genre of game can fit into any universe.

Unfortunately, this was just a cinematic teaser, so we’re gonna have to wait until 2022 to see what a Mario + Rabbids sequel will look like.

A member of the Philadelphia 76ers’ rotation is headed to the sidelines for a few weeks. Starting wing Danny Green suffered a calf injury during the team’s Game 3 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night, and while he did eventually rejoin the team on the bench, he did so while wearing a walking boot on his right leg.

Now, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports that Green has suffered a calf strain, and while he has a chance at returning later in the postseason, the veteran is slated to miss the next 2-3 weeks.

Philly looked in control against the Hawks despite Green’s absence, so it’s certainly possible for them to get past Atlanta despite not having his services. But with a gigantic matchup potentially looming in the conference finals against either the Nets or the Bucks, not having Green would be a critical blow, as his defense and perimeter shooting are important pieces to the puzzle for the Sixers. Both series in the East will be wrapped up no later than next Sunday.

An offseason acquisition, Green has averaged 9.5 points and 1.3 steals in 28 minutes per game for the Sixers. He started all 69 regular season games in which he appeared and connected on 40.5 percent of his attempts from three.

It’s been a while since America had a good old fashioned evolution battle. The last significant bout involving the scientific theory was in the mid-aughts, when religious groups tried to float an idea called “intelligent design,” which was effectively laughed out of existence. But someone’s trying to make scientific illiteracy a thing again, and that person is — of course — Marjorie Taylor Greene.

According to Axios, the relentlessly controversial congresswoman went on Real America’s Voice, the podcast hosted by Steve Bannon. Greene is infamous for believing in nonsense. She claims she’s no longer a follower of QAnon, floated something about Jewish space lasers, and seems to think June 31 is a real date. But a thoroughly vetted scientific theory about the origin of species, first postulated by Charles Darwin and buttressed by over a century-and-a-half of exploration — for her, that’s a bridge too far.

Greene and Bannon — who has his own wacko beliefs — were discussing some different deranged theories about how COVID-19 first began. One unproven theory posits that it was created in a Wuhan lab. Some people throw in a line about American funding being involved. Greene speculated that it could have been a scientific breakthrough gone awry, calling it a “bioweapon” and that scientists were trying to “experiment with like some sort of Dr. Frankenstein experiments.”

Bannon, perhaps wondering about her scientific bona fides, then interrupted her, asking if she believes that species evolve. She did not.

“I don’t believe in evolution,” Greene told the former Trump aide. “I believe in God.” She added, “I don’t believe in that type of so-called science.”

This should surprise no one. People who believe in weird things tend not to believe in issues that experts agree is real, from biological evolution to climate change. So, in a sense, perhaps this is not news,

(Via Axios)

Many NBA idiosyncrasies intersect at Donovan Mitchell: geography, drama, style. After yet another delightful postseason performance this week to open the Jazz’s second-round series against the Clippers in Salt Lake City, Mitchell stands among a select few with a reasonable claim to being a next face of the league. He plays a delirious brand of basketball carved from the changes the sport has undergone in recent years and is one of the most marketable personalities who boasts a wonderful nickname — Spida — to go with his All-Star caliber play.

Already among the active players with the highest per-game scoring average in the playoffs after 29 career postseason games, even the great Magic Johnson praised Mitchell in a rare comprehensible tweet this week.

Greatness is clearly staring us right in the face when it comes to Mitchell, but a few things seem to be holding him back right now. A game reliant upon unreal pull-up three-point shooting and a flair for the dangerous make it feel as if the bottom could fall out at any time, even if dozens of games into his playoff career, Mitchell’s track record makes that seem very unlikely.

There’s also the Utah of it all — never has the NBA had anything resembling a face of the league who played for the Jazz. Karl Malone was far from charismatic, and nobody on the Deron Williams teams ever grew to that stature (nor were they ever as good as Mitchell’s Jazz are). Even among Mitchell’s teammates, Rudy Gobert stands as one of the most oft-mocked superstars we have, both for COVID reasons and the struggles defense-first players have from a marketability standpoint.

But every single time Mitchell steps foot onto a big stage, he puts on a show. Though there’s still a way to go against the Clippers, Mitchell has averaged at least 29 points per game in each of his last three playoff series. When the Jazz stopped him from playing Game 1 against Memphis, his competitiveness was enough to inspire a bunch of hush-hush stuff across the NBA media for days. It’s pretty intoxicating.

On top of that, if you’re looking for reasons to like Mitchell as a player, he undeniably has made the most of his time in the league. He arrived as an undersized late-lottery pick whose competitiveness was about the best thing you could say about him. As he grew as a player, Mitchell took advantage of the space inherent in the modern game to become an even better version of himself. After shooting just 29 percent on pull-up triples as a rookie, he made it a point to get better at this element of the game and tallied 36 percent on more than five attempts per game this season.

And as he built out his game, the Jazz put together a system with so much space and smarts that he has all the room he wants to freelance. Those decisions sometimes get him into trouble (though even his turnovers have dwindled), and all of it together has turned Mitchell into one of the most dazzling performers in the playoffs, a player who could potentially be great enough to lead Utah’s offense on a title run this year.

Of course, there’s also the upside of existing in an NBA town like Salt Lake. As the young Black superstar in a place known in NBA circles for not always being particularly hospitable to opposing players, Mitchell holds fascinating influence. He wielded it in the first round when, after Ja Morant’s family was subject to some of that Utah ugliness, Mitchell met courtside with Ja’s father, Tee.

Across multiple games this postseason, we’ve watched a public friendship blossom between Mitchell and new Jazz co-owner Dwyane Wade. As the cofounder of the Social Justice Fund, a tireless supporter of his daughter, Zaya, and an outspoken advocate of disenfranchised groups across America, Wade is an intriguing mentor for Mitchell — not to mention the young Jazz standout has been compared stylistically to Wade since his Louisville days.

Should Mitchell, from his perch in Utah, continue to embrace the mantle of all that it means to be an outspoken champion of racial equity and genuine brotherhood with the rest of the NBA, it will give his career another thick layer of meaning in the broader conversation around the league. Mitchell could be crucial to how the NBA exists culturally for years to come.

This month, we’ll watch another early chapter play out. The league may not know it could use a character like Mitchell at its forefront, but he is asserting himself through all the ways an NBA star can, and he seems to be thinking bigger and bigger. At this point, who are we to doubt him?

There are near-death experiences, and then there’s this: As per CNN, a man in Cape Cod was swallowed whole by a humpback whale. But he lived to tell the tale.

That man is Michael Packard, a lobster diver who was doing his casually job off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The way he describes it sum it up best:

“I got down to about 45 feet of water, and all of a sudden I just felt this huge bump, and everything went dark,” Packard told CNN affiliate WBZ. “And I could sense that I was moving, and I was like, ‘”Oh, my God, did I just get bit by a shark?’”

“Then I felt around, and I realized there was no teeth and I had felt, really, no great pain,” Packard said. “And then I realized, ‘Oh, my God, I’m in a whale’s mouth. I’m in a whale’s mouth, and he’s trying to swallow me.’”

But the whale did not swallow him. After what Packard estimated were about 30 seconds, the whale shot to the surface and spat him out. He landed in the water, banged up but alive in and in one piece. He thought he may have broken a leg or two, but he did not.

A biologist told CNN that what happened was a rarity, and the whale was likely doing what’s called “lunge feeding,” in which they try to quickly gather a large volume of food in their mouth, not caring what they find. In this case, the whale scooped up a man and his diving equipment.

Packard still could have died, and not just from being swallowed. The speed with which the whale surfaced and ejected him could have caused an embolism from the air pressure in Packard’s lungs. But Packard remained calm and can now regale people with one whale of a tale.

(Via CNN)