Bill Burr is not holding back his thoughts on CNN. During the latest episode of his Monday Morning podcast, the comedian completely blasted the cable news network for its recent coverage of Donald Trump by claiming that CNN wants him back.
“They want Darth Vader to come back,” Burr said (via Mediaite) after catching a glimpse of CNN’s coverage thanks to his mother-in-law who watches the station while visiting. “They want him to come back cause they have nothing to talk about cause it’s show business and Joe Biden is a f*cking bore!”
According to Burr the “f*cking morons” at CNN can’t stop boosting Trump for ratings “while they act like they allegedly don’t like him,” and it’s going to repeat the 2016 election. He then unloaded on all of the corporate news channels. “They’re f*cking treasonous un-American pieces of shit, just like Fox News, MSNBC, just like all of them. Just like f*cking all of them.”
The rant was yet another example of Burr not pulling his punches. During the height of the pandemic, he called out Joe Rogan right to his face after Rogan said wearing a mask “is for bitches.”
“I don’t want to start this bullshit,” Burr said while seated across from Rogan. “I’m not gonna sit here with no medical degree, listening to you with no medical degree, with an American flag behind you smoking a cigar, acting like we know what’s up, better than the CDC. All I do, is I watch the news once every two weeks — I’m like, ‘Mask or no mask? Still mask? Alright, mask! That’s all I give a f*ck about.”
Once you’ve made a song like “WAP,” you’ve probably raised the bar on what people will let you get away with indefinitely. That certainly seems to be the case with Cardi B’s verse on Normani’s new song “Wild Side.” The rapper revealed on Twitter that after submitting her original verse for their collaboration, the singer apparently thought it was too tame, requesting Cardi to bring more “WAP” energy. Naturally, Cardi was happy to oblige.
Responding to a fan’s comment calling her “nasty nasty” and opining that it makes sense to have Cardi on a song like “Wild Side,” Cardi posted a gif of a mischievously grinning Wendy Williams and explained, “I did a verse and Normani team said they wanted nastier. Sooo I was like alright …. Your wish is my command.”
So far, it looks like Normani’s request is paying off. The song has become an instant hit with fans on Twitter, who were quick to fill timelines with enthused reactions to the video’s risque imagery and bold artistic direction. The track is Normani’s first single release since 2019’s “Motivation” (which likewise received an overjoyed reaction from fans) and may single her readiness to begin promotion on her solo debut album in earnest.
Cardi, meanwhile, has been whetting fans’ appetites for her follow-up album to 2019’s Invasion Of Privacy with features on projects from Migos and Pop Smoke, as well as an appearance in the latest Fast & Furious movie.
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Liz Cambage, one of women’s basketball’s biggest stars, is pulling out of the upcoming Olympics.
In a statement sent out early on July 16, Cambage cited her mental health and concerns about going into the Olympic bubble as reasons why declining to play for the Australian National Team. Specifically, she wrote that she has been having panic attacks, not sleeping and not eating for the past month.
Anyone that knows me knows one of my biggest dreams is winning an Olympic gold medal with the Opals. Every athlete competing in the Olympic games should be at their mental and physical peak, and at the moment, I’m a long way from where I want and need to be. It’s no secret that in the past I’ve struggled with my mental health and recently I’ve been really worried about heading into a ‘bubble’ Olympics. No family. No friends. No fans. No support system outside of my team. It’s honestly terrifying for me. The past month I have been having panic attacks, not sleeping and not eating.
Relying on daily medication to control my anxiety is not the place I want to be right now. Especially walking into competition on the world’s biggest sporting stage.
I know myself, and I know I can’t be the Liz everyone deserves to see compete for the Opals. Not right now at least. I need to take care of myself mentally and physically. It breaks my heart to announce I’m withdrawing from the Olympics, but I think it’s best for the Opals and myself. I wish them nothing but the best of luck in Tokyo and I hope they go forth and win a gold medal.
Cambage, who plays for the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA, was likely to be the lead option on an Australian team that also includes Leilani Mitchell and Ezi Magbegor, among others. It’s unclear at this time who will replace her on the roster. Olympic play begins on July 26.
I recently thought about Manifest while on a 10-hour plane delay (travel is obviously a mess these days) and thought, well, “At least I’m not doing a five-year time-travel thing here.” That little anecdote is nothing compared to the amount of attention that Netflix viewers devoted to Manifest during the week that NBC cancelled the sci-fi drama after three messy seasons. Actually, the fact that the show was sitting at #1 on Netflix’s most popular list during its week of cancellation says a lot, despite Netflix still saying, “Nah” to making a fourth season. Still, fans have been hell-bent upon saving the series, even though it’s an objectively bad show that made little sense from week to week.
Well, the streaming numbers reflect the show’s rabidly enthusiastic audience. According to Deadline, the week after NBC cancelled the show (that would be June 14-20) saw staggering numbers to the tune of 2.5 billion viewing minutes. That’s far different than the way Netflix calculates views, which is to log a few minutes from a user and count it as “a view.” Yet Nielsen’s quantifying the matter and says that the cancellation apparently prompted a doubling in viewing minutes from the week before the announcement. This is bonkers:
Manifest at 2.49 billion minutes ballooned from 1.11B viewing minutes the previous week, an increase likely to be noted by Netflix, which eventually opted not to order a fourth season following the show’s NBC ax. The missing plane drama had long been conceived by creator Jeff Rake as a six-season series, and fans had been pushing it to the top of Netflix’s rankings since it recently began airing Season 1 and Season 2.
For comparison’s sake, Manifest ended up being the most popular show streaming on Netflix since Bridgerton and Cobra Kai. It’s no wonder that series creator Jeff Rake — who’s envisioned and planned the series for a six-season run — is still urging viewers to keep the faith because he wants to find a way to wrap up the show for viewers in some shape or form, although a formal season pick-up anywhere doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
The Portland Trail Blazers are used to questions about Damian Lillard’s future with the franchise, and every time they’ve popped up, Lillard and the team have presented a united front, which has led to him stick around. But according to a new report by Henry Abbott of TrueHoop, that might change this offseason due to Lillard’s displeasure with how things are going.
Abbott reports that in the not-too-distant future, Lillard could submit a formal request for greener pastures. In a post on his Substack on Friday, Abbott wrote, “Now a source close to Lillard says that in the days to come, he plans to request a trade.”
Lillard’s frustrations have been on display in a few different ways ever since the Blazers’ offseason began following a first-round loss to the Denver Nuggets. In the immediate aftermath, Lillard made comments that raised eyebrows about the team not being good enough before making a post on his Instagram that asked “How long should I stay dedicated? How long til opportunity meet preparation?” Weeks later, reports of his frustration went to a new level amid the backlash the team’s decision to hire Chauncey Billups.
Everything is a rumor until something concrete happens, but it’s not hard to see this being different. A report from a few weeks back indicated “six or seven” teams thought that they had a chance to bring Lillard on board via a trade, and now, the opportunity to start negotiating might be just around the corner.
Pontiac, Michigan rapper DDG keeps his outstanding week going with a new collaboration with 20-year-old Louisville rapper 2KBaby. The two Midwestern artists both recently moved to Hollywood to be closer to the action, so it’s only natural that they’d feel like they’re now living the sweet life — hence the title of their new song, “Zack & Cody,” named for the iconic Disney Channel duo from the 2000s sitcom The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody. Over a simple, melodic beat, the two rappers trade bouncy verses about their parallel rises to stardom.
The new song caps a pair of breakout weeks for DDG, who went from making vlogs on YouTube to pursuing a rap career using the audience he’d built on that platform. His work in that new area culminated in last year’s debut album, Valedictorian, but it was his 2021 collaborative mixtape with producer OG Parker that shot him to the peak of his mainstream exposure so far. The tape’s single “Moonwalking In Calabasas” became his signature hit and prefaced his eventual inclusion in this year’s XXL Freshman Class. Also this week, he participated in the Freshman Cypher and featured on Uproxx’s latest digital cover.
Listen to 2KBaby and DDG’s “Zack & Cody” above and check out its video below.
2KBaby is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
This week’s roster of new albums includes the latest from John Mayer, Sob Rock. To mark the occasion, he has shared a video for album standout “Shot In The Dark.” The song features backing vocals from Maren Morris, who also contributed to the Sob Rock highlights “Last Train Home” and “Why You No Love Me.”
Also today, Mayer announced a bunch of tour dates in support of the album, which will bring him across North America between February and April 2022. Tickets are set to go on sale on July 23 at 11 a.m. local time via Mayer’s website.
Watch the “Shot In The Dark” video above and check out the full list of tour dates below.
02/17/2022 — Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
02/18/2022 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
02/20/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
02/23/2022 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
02/25/2022 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
02/27/2022 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
03/01/2022 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
03/04/2022 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
03/11/2022 — Las Vegas, NV @ Grand Garden Arena
03/13/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Forum
03/15/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Forum
03/18/2022 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
03/22/2022 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
03/25/2022 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Arena
03/27/2022 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
04/02/2022 — Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center
04/05/2022 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
04/08/2022 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
04/11/2022 — Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
04/13/2022 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
04/20/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
04/23/2022 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
04/24/2022 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
04/28/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
This week’s episode of Indiecast opens with Steve and Ian discussing recent albums from the offspring of famous people. This leads naturally into a conversation of Sling, the new sophomore album from indie pop phenom Clairo. Claire Cotrill’s parents are well-connected in the music industry, which many haters use as a way to discount her success as an artist over the last few years and reiterate the “bootstraps” mentality (that is a driving force of the capitalist mindset, but we digress).
Musically, Sling is a very low-key affair that could be viewed as another “reaction to fame” record that exists as the opposite end of the harshness spectrum from Nirvana’s In Utero. Produced by Jack Antonoff, the LP stems from the pent-up anxiety of Cotrill’s sudden fame after her debut, and the intense touring schedule that followed. It’s not as immediately gripping as Immunity, but seems like a record that could get definitely grow on a listener after it settles in the brain and ages.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, both Steve and Ian are plugging brand new surprise EPs from two of their favorite artists. Steve is urging everyone to check out Total Serene, the latest short-form release from Gang Of Youths, and Ian can’t get enough of the new EP from Yves Tumor.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 48 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
When Black Widow catches up with David Harbour’s Red Guardian in the present day, he’s in a Russian gulag arm-wrestling his fellow inmates and telling tall tales about his encounters with Captain America. Eventually, one of the inmates, played by the towering Dutch bodybuilder Olivier Richters, sits down for a match and pokes a major hole in one of Red Guardian’s stories about fighting Cap. Before brutally breaking the massive inmate’s arm, Red Guardian refers to the man as “Ursa,” which immediately caught the attention of Easter egg-obsessed Marvel fans.
In the comics, Ursa Major is the codename for Mikhail Ursus, a member of the Russia fighting team, the Winter Guard. More importantly, Ursa Major is a mutant whose power is transforming into a large walking, talking bear who’s gone up against several of Marvel’s heavy-hitters. While there’s been not confirmation from Marvel that the MCU version of Ursa has the same origin as his comics counterpart, Richters is now claiming that his character is, in fact, a mutant. If true, this would make Ursa the first mutant to appear in the MCU.
After two years I can finally tell who my character is: Ursa Major : the first mutant (X-Men) to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. … Ursa is part of the Winter Guard, noted for being “Russia’s answer to the Avengers”. His power transforms him into an incredible bear, transcending The Hulk in size. Ursa appears many times in the comics fightning Wolverine and The Hulk. When production on set told me who I really was in Black Widow I let some tears in my hotel room, because my movie dream became true: being a official comic super Hero. I can only hope Marvel will bring back Ursa in full form
You can see Richter’s full post below. He’s the hulking 7′ 2″ beast on the right making his fellow bodybuilder, Tony Montalbano, look like a small child.
Several years ago, I decided to conduct a thought experiment with John Mayer: I imagined him having the exact same career, except now it started in the year 1980 rather than the year 2000. This was actually pretty easy to imagine, given that a musician of his ilk — a soft-rock guitarist with pronounced singer-songwriter musical leanings — was much more common in the yacht-rock era than today. If Mayer had that career arc, would I feel differently about his music?
At the time of this experiment, I was indifferent to Mayer as an artist, and had negative feelings about him as a person. Musically, I dismissed him as a lightweight, a precursor to every bland pop-folk superstar of the past two decades, from Ed Sheeran to Shawn Mendes. As an interview subject, he seemed smug or even arrogant. (Consider that Mayer, in that infamous 2010 Playboy profile doomed to re-appear in nearly everything subsequently written about him, brazenly used the n-word, an offense that certainly would’ve permanently derailed his career had it occurred even five years later.)
But I had reason to suspect that I had judged him unfairly. People I admired seemed to admire John Mayer. Frank Ocean recorded with John Mayer. Dave Chappelle toured with John Mayer. Bob Weir asked John Mayer to join his band. So I did my thought experiment. Maybe then, I could appreciate the guy.
If you know anything about music history, it’s clear that artists who are loaded down with inconvenient contemporary baggage — and John Mayer definitely had a deluxe luggage set of inconvenient baggage — suddenly appear liberated once they escape their era. With Mayer, I found that putting him in the same mental context as artists such as Phil Collins, Dire Straits, and Bruce Hornsby — all of whom were once wrongly maligned as cheesy relics, and are now rightly acknowledged as consummate pop-rock craftsmen — transformed how I thought about his music. I found that I could get beyond his pretty-boy smirkiness and the cultural baggage of songs like “Your Body Is A Wonderland” and “Daughters” and appreciate him as a songwriter and guitar player. Turns out that he slots with some of my all-time favorite smooth rockers from the 1970s and ’80s with extreme comfort. It was what finally made me a John Mayer fan.
I bring this up because, incredibly, John Mayer appears to have conducted this exact same thought experiment in regard to John Mayer. For his eighth studio album out today, Sob Rock, Mayer has said that it was goal to “pretend someone made a record in 1988 and shelved it and it was just found this year.” He officially introduced this musical costume with the lead single “Last Train Home,” a loving homage to the sort of beer-commercial synth-rock that 40-something-year-old boomers like Steve Winwood and Don Henley turned out regularly during the Reagan/Bush years. For maximum verisimilitude, he enlisted ringers such as Lenny Castro of Toto and prolific studio musician Greg Phillinganes (who most notably contributed to Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad) to silky up the grooves. And then there’s Sob Rock‘s delectable album cover, which is so fully realized as an encapsulation of an ’80s corporate rock aesthetic that even the constituency least inclined to give Mayer a chance — nerdy vinyl collectors — have to grudgingly acknowledge its sly observational genius.
Mayer has gone as far as to liken like the snarkily titled Sob Rock to “shitposting.” But the reason the album works as well as it does is that it’s not actually all that far removed sonically from Mayer’s best work. Albums like 2006’s Continuum and 2009’s Battle Studies are also indebted to the least fashionable strains of MOR blues-accented rock. What’s different now is that Mayer is about a decade removed from his peak as a hit-making pop star. His Sob Rock guise allows him to return to his former style, only this time with quote marks. He’s no longer the radio-dominating stud at the center of culture; he’s pursuing a different sort of post-modern cool that stems from being an aging, self-effacing rogue. To paraphrase “Fast Eddie” Felson (Paul Newman) from the Clapton-soundtracked 1986 film The Color Of Money: He’s acting like himself, but on purpose.
Playing the “self-aware washed” card has been a long game for Mayer. One of the highlights of Sob Rock is “New Light,” a witty slice of low-key Box Scaggs-style funk originally released as a single back in 2018, in which Mayer sings about “pushing 40 in the friend zone.” (Mayer is now 43.) Entering middle age has been transformational for Mayer, as it is for everyone. Ever since 2017’s underrated The Search For Everything, he hasn’t shown much urgency about putting out new music. In interviews, he’s hinted that the existence of Sob Rock was precipitated by the pandemic, when he was grounded from touring and suddenly had little to do.
Since 2015, a significant part of Mayer’s touring life has been filled by Dead & Company, one of the world’s most successful live bands. While Sob Rock has little in common musically with the Grateful Dead — weirdly, the two LPs he put out right before joining Dead & Company, 2012’s Born & Raised and 2013’s Lonesome Valley, most resemble his current band — it does seem like Mayer has adopted the Dead’s time-honored aversion to modern pop trends. For decades, the Grateful Dead have endured by sounding unwaveringly like themselves. The less they try to sound trendy, the more successful they are. Once you get past the superficial “shitposting” nostalgic trappings, that seems to be the animating idea behind Sob Rock.
I’m just one month older than Mayer, and I’ve similarly accepted that being comfortable in your own skin is the only way to survive as a semi-lame middle-aged man. The alternative for Mayer would have been to partner up with young turks in a bid for relevancy — “New Light” feat. Olivia Rodrigo! — which would have likely backfired. So instead he’s leaning into his own passé style with equal parts irony and earnestness. Yes, songs like the frisky beach party shuffle “Wild Blue” and the remorseful cad ballad “Guess I Just Feel Like” evoke an era of Michelob ads and Two-For-Tuesday nights on WROK The Eagle. But those songs also sound a whole lot like Mayer’s own “classic” period.
Actually, let’s remove those quote marks from classic. As Sob Rock demonstrates, Mayer remains an eternally tasteful musician with a natural feel for melody and songcraft, and those qualities make his catalogue much more consistent than he’s given credit for. Well, perhaps the sappy likes of “Why You No Love Me” isn’t worthy of the “tasteful” tag. And the album-closing “All I Want Is To Be With You” — a shameless rip-off of U2’s “All I Want Is You” from 1988’s Rattle & Hum — can only be described as derivative. But overall, Sob Rock doesn’t feel like a costume. It sounds like John Mayer coming back into himself.
Sob Rock is out now via Columbia Records. Get it here.
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: the first mutant (X-Men) to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. … Ursa is part of the Winter Guard, noted for being “Russia’s answer to the Avengers”. His power transforms him into an incredible bear, transcending The Hulk in size. Ursa appears many times in the comics fightning Wolverine and The Hulk. When production on set told me who I really was in Black Widow I let some tears in my hotel room, because my movie dream became true: being a official comic super Hero. I can only hope Marvel will bring back Ursa in full form