No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond movie (and last with Daniel Craig), was one of the first movies to be affected by the pandemic — and that wasn’t even its first delay. The film was originally scheduled to come out in November 2019, then February 2020, then April 2020 after original director Danny Boyle left the project. He was replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga, but the April premiere was delayed until November due to COVID. Got all that? I’m not done: November 2020 became April 2021, which turned into October 2021. That’s the FINAL release date, as the FINAL trailer for No Time to Die makes clear.
Put another way, in the time since No Time to Die was originally supposed to come out and now, we’ve gone through an entire Ana de Armas (who plays the mysterious Paloma in the film) and Ben Affleck relationship and the resurrection of Bennifer.
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
In No Time To Die, Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.
No Time to Die, which also stars Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Billy Magnussen, Rory Kinnear, David Dencik, Dali Benssalah, opens (for real this time) on October 8.
Halsey officially debuted her fourth studio album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power this week alongside an accompanying IMAX film. Though the album was produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and has contributions from notable rock musicians like Dave Grohl, the album still features some undeniable pop moments. Her track “I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God” expertly combines a driving beat with empowering lyrics to create an infectious pop-leaning anthem.
Big Red Machine — “Birch” Feat. Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift collaborator Aaron Dessner teamed up with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon to release the album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? as the duo Big Red Machine. Swift lent her vocals to a couple of tracks on the LP, including the shuffling song “Birch.” The heart-tugging tune delicately combines each singer’s soaring vocals, leaving both pop and indie lovers everywhere in their feels.
Kacey Musgraves — “Justified”
Kacey Musgraves returned this week to drop the ultimate breakup anthem “Justified.” The song arrived days after Musgraves announced her upcoming album Star-Crossed, which she said is a modern-day Greek tragedy. “Justified” reminds listeners that “healing doesn’t happen in a straight line” and previews the country-pop crossover that is expected to be heard on her LP.
BTS, Megan Thee Stallion — “Butter (Remix)”
Megan Thee Stallion infused some hot girl magic into BTS’ hit song “Butter” this week. The K-pop group implored the rapper to lend a verse on their No. 1 track, and Megan brought the heat. Though the remix was the source of some brief drama with her label, Megan adds with some boastful verses charting her rise to fame on top of the disco-twinged beat.
Selena Gomez, Camilo — “999”
A few months after the release of her Spanish-language album Revelación, Selena Gomez returns to link up with Colombian songwriter Camilo for the rhythmic pop tune “999.” About the romantic and breathy single, Gomez sung Camilo’s praise in a statement. “Camilo is a fantastic songwriter and singer who proudly wears his heart on his sleeve which is something we connected on immediately,” she said.
Kim Petras — “Future Starts Now”
It’s been a while since we heard from pop star Kim Petras, but her new single “Future Starts Now” proves it was worth the wait. The dancefloor-ready tune launches her new era of music, tapping into a maximalist sound for an addictive tune about letting the music take control of you.
Griff — “One Night”
On the heels of her coveted Rising Star Brits award, Griff shares the compelling track “One Night.” Starting off slow, the song transitions into a euphoric pop tune highlighting Griff’s impressive vocal range. “’One Night’ is about feeling like you’re always carrying this darkness or burden,” Griff said about the song in a statement. “I think in the daytime we can feel distracted because we’re around people and we’re busy, but that moment between going to bed and falling asleep, there’s just enough silence for those burdens to get louder.”
J Balvin, Tokischa — “Perra”
J Balvin is just two weeks away from the release of his anticipated album Jose. This week, the Colombian superstar shared a preview of the LP with his Tokischa-featuring single “Perra.” The energetic tune is a hard-hitting effort by the Reggaeton musician, offering a pumped-up contrast to his recently released lovelorn track “Que Locura.”
Julia Wolf — “Falling In Love”
Pop head-turner Julia Wolf is way past “Falling In Love” with her latest track. The glitchy and heart-tugging single contemplates being over the idea of love and offers a taste of her upcoming EP Girls In Purgatory, which celebrates the two-year anniversary of Wolf’s first song.
Amber Mark — “Foreign Things”
Amber Mark is unbothered in her latest single “Foreign Things.” The irresistible and wildly-fun tune makes it impossible not to get up and dance. Along with saying the single is about the “thrill of newness,” Mark says: “This marks the start of my journey towards self discovery and serves as a precursor to the enlightenment and self love that’s achieved in previous singles ‘Worth It’ and ‘Competition.’”
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
After making a Justice League splash last summer, DC FanDome is returning for a second year, and it hopes to blow DC Comics fans away with new footage from its jam-packed slate of heavily anticipated films, TV series, and video games. The online-only event just dropped its first announcement trailer, which not only includes an appearance from Black Adam himself, The Rock, but promises a brand new trailer for The Batman when DC FanDome 2021 arrives in October. The trailer also featured glimpses of The Flash, which will bring back Michael Keaton’s Batman for a reality-bending adventure.
Here’s a brief rundown of what to expect from this year’s DC FanDome lineup:
Films: Along with a new trailer for The Batman, the event will also include a sneak peak at The Flash and Black Adam. Fans will also get a behind the scenes look at Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
TV: Thanks to its CW offerings and expansion to HBO Max, there is no shortage of updates on DC Comics shows, which include Peacemaker, Titans, Doom Patrol, DMZ, Superman & Lois, Batwoman, Stargirl, Naomi, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. The Netflix hit Sweet Tooth will also give fans a glimpse at its second season.
Video Games: Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will both get sneak peak aheads of their 2022 releases.
Animation: It wouldn’t be a DC FanDome without a look at the new season of Harley Quinn. Fans can also expect a look at the new Batman animated series Batman: Caped Crusader, as well as the upcoming animated movies Injustice and Catwoman: Hunted.
Fans had been not-so-patiently awaiting Lorde’s return as she readied her fourth studio album Solar Power. But even with all the anticipation, the album received some pretty mixed reviews from critics across the board. The notoriously offline singer isn’t fazed by the less than stellar reviews, mostly because she hasn’t read them.
The singer recently sat down for a cover interview with NME following her album’s release. The singer revealed that she didn’t let herself read what the critics had to say about her album at first. “I can only look at food websites because I don’t want to see myself anywhere,” she explained. The singer compared seeing herself online to eating too much sugar. “Baby me would have just eaten the sugar and gotten the headache, whereas now I’m gonna take care of myself. I feel like I can see my world and myself a lot clearer now. Everyone has that experience in their early to mid-20s – you can’t see yourself that well for a while and then it starts to sharpen.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Lorde reflected on how much Robyn’s music influenced her songwriting. Lorde has always been drawn to how the singer is able to bring empathy into her lyrics. “I think there’s just so much room in Robyn’s world for being a hot mess or being this sort of ball of emotions shooting out in every direction,” she said.
Kanye West. Just writing his name conjures a chaotic storm of thoughts and emotions. The mercurial producer has meant so many different things to so many people for so long that he’s basically become something of a human Rorschach test. Every listener to his latest project — the oft-delayed and much-hyped Donda — will project something different onto it, reading into it exactly what they see, so it almost feels anticlimactic to type this: My only takeaway from this hefty, exhausting listen (it clocks in at nearly two hours, along with tacked-on, remixed versions of four early records, which are the ones that will likely garner much of the attention) is that it is pretty much exactly what I expected.
What I expected was this: A Picasso napkin doodle. That is, for better or worse, what Kanye delivered. The story, so it goes, is that one night, Picasso is sitting at a cafe (one sign that this tale is likely apocryphal: no one seems to know what he ordered, whom he’s with, or even what cafe this supposedly was) when he’s approached by a fan who asks him for a quick sketch on a paper napkin. He does the sketch, a line drawing of a dove, and requests an exorbitant sum for what is, essentially, a doodle. The fan, taken aback, asks what possible reason he could have for asking for so much for something that took so little apparent effort and time. Picasso replies that it took him 40 years to draw it — the implication being that it was his name and experience that made the drawing valuable, not the drawing itself.
Kanye probably feels great resonance with this story; it’s no coincidence that he first started pulling his current schtick of slapping together a collection of song sketches and calling them albums in 2016 when he released The Life Of Pablo. Perhaps it was then that he realized that, because he’d given the world College Dropout and Late Registration and Graduation, and hell, even 808s And Heartbreak, that he could get away with putting out stuff as garish and grandiose as Yeezus and Ye, that the spectacle would outweigh the underwhelming output, that the name “Kanye West” held more truck with fans than anything he’s actually put out into the world. All that legend building he did early in his career calling himself a genius and a visionary and a god had finally paid off.
It’s on the backs of those boundary-pushing, genre-stretching works that he crafted the myth of Kanye the perfectionist, who once tweaked the mix on “Stronger” well over 70 times with the help of eighteen different engineers before employing Timbaland to get the sound just right. If you played any of those 75 other versions of the mix for a fan, I doubt they’d hear much difference or be able to articulate it if they could hear it. But it’s the story — which, when you think about it, could be just as apocryphal as Picasso’s napkin — that sells the image of the Kanye who could get away with hosting three different listening sessions for Donda, each time playing a slightly different version of the album, and each time pushing back the release date just another week, another few days, perhaps never even intending to put anything out at all, as his temper tantrum toward Universal for apparently dropping it without his permission suggests.
And as for the version of the album that did hit DSPs, it’s as I expected, somehow both half-baked and overwrought, a bundle of contradictions and experiments and unearned group assignment B pluses that both perfectly sums up who Kanye is now without telling us very much about him at all. To judge from the title, you might have thought this album would finally find Kanye coming to terms with his anguish and ennui at the loss of his doting mother in 2007. There is some of that here, yes, such as the primal scream therapy of “Come To Life” and on the introspective first half of his verse on “Jesus Lord” which features a more expansive contribution from Jay Electronica. Kanye wrestles with the public dissolution of his relationship with Kim Kardashian on “Lord I Need You” and nods to his faith on “Heaven And Hell.”
But even from the opening track, the much-vaunted and twice-updated “Jail” featuring Kanye’s highly anticipated reunion with Jay-Z, the album comes across unfocused, unmoored, diffuse, and to be honest, kind of boring. There are long swaths of synth choir noodling that feel like they’re meant to sound moody and intense and deep, and it just comes across as pretentious and shallow like that clove-smoking jerk Kyle in Lady Bird, trying to project an image of mysterious cool because he doesn’t actually have anything interesting to talk about. Whenever Kanye’s production swivels into anything resembling novel territory or evokes the past excitement he used to stir up with his bold, broad splashes of inspiration from outside hip-hop and R&B, he immediately throws away that goodwill with a disorienting, unnerving left turn into more maudlin muck.
Most of the album’s truly exciting moments come from outside artists; the moments when the production perks up are marred by the memories of someone else doing it first and better. Take the sample of a cover of gospel singer Tonex’s “Make Me Over” sung by Briana Babineaux. It’s a gorgeous rendition and clever use of the sample — that Westside Boogie already did on his own song called “Make Me Over” from the 2015 mixtape The Reach. On “Believe What I Say,” a flip of Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” sounds suspiciously like rival rapper Drake’s own use on the 2014 “Draft Day” freestyle that he re-released on 2019’s Care Package. Kanye doesn’t even rap on “Moon” with Don Toliver and Travis Scott, letting them do the heavy lifting. In fact, most of the bright spots on the album come from its guests: Lil Baby on “Hurricane,” Lil Durk and Vory on “Jonah,” Roddy Ricch on “Pure Souls.”
Even then, these moments stick out like sore thumbs as they guide the direction of their individual collaborations, unglued from any overarching theme or thesis. Kanye simply invites them to come to do what they normally do, which doesn’t tie into anything he’s trying to say — and it seems like he wants to say so many things, but the message becomes so muddled it’s hard to say what. The one thing that’s clear is that he wants absolution, which may be the hardest pill to swallow. He seems to think he’s the incorrigible lead from some 1970s-era family sitcom; deliberate missteps like cavorting with accused abusers such as Marilyn Manson and the disgraced but unrepentant DaBaby should be viewed as standard, episode-of-the-week hijinks from a charming troublemaker. They’re not. He still hasn’t quite apologized for whatever damage his association with Donald Trump did over the past five years, nor for his ill-advised (and likely Trump-sponsored) Presidential run in 2020. If this project is a tribute to his mother, it’s a poor one if he thinks these are the people she’d most want to hear him supported by and supporting.
But it’s all more myth-making to him. The spectacle, again, is all. He can make the claim that Def Jam took the album without his permission and that’s why it sounds so incomplete and he can say that it sounds that way because he’s a real artist and if you don’t get it that’s on you. He’s a leader and a genius and a victim and a lost little boy who just misses his mom. He’s Kanye West; he can be whatever he wants to be and whatever you want him to be at the same time. Except that’s not how it works. Nobody gets to have it both ways — not even Kanye West.
Zeb Noland was supposed to begin his coaching career this season in Columbia as a graduate assistant under new Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer, but instead he’s going to be the starting quarterback for South Carolina.
Thanks to still having a year of eligibility, the former Iowa State and North Dakota State quarterback (who backed up Trey Lance until this past spring) was able to trade in his headset for a helmet and step into the quarterback competition after Luke Doty suffered a foot injury during camp. Noland beat out transfer Jason Brown from St. Francis (PA), and will now start for the Gamecocks in their opener against Eastern Illinois on Saturday.
It’s a rather incredible story, made a bit funnier by the fact that Noland, despite holding a title of grad assistant, has more recently played football than anyone else on South Carolina thanks to his taking part in the Bison’s spring season, where he threw for 721 yards (51-for-100 passing) with five touchdowns and six interceptions. Those aren’t exactly eye-popping numbers and his performance against the better FCS competition leaves one to wonder just how successful he can be against SEC defenses, but for a South Carolina squad that was in desperate need of a one-year stopgap at QB, his presence and eligibility presented a perfect opportunity to write a new ending to his playing career.
Lil Nas X goes full-on Lisa Frank in the cover art for his debut album Montero, which he revealed today via social media along with a reminder of its release date, September 17. The cover carries over the fantasy theme from his “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” music video, with glittering columns overlooking a placid stream, all colored in vibrant but soft shades of violet and pink. In the center of the frame, Nas himself hovers in profile (and in the nude) surrounded by a lens flare rainbow.
Nas has spent the last several months hyping up Montero‘s release and proving that no one in the music business is better at promoting a project than he is — not even Drake or Kanye, who’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to out-troll each other but haven’t put out much (good) music between the two of them. Building on the controversy sparked by his “Montero” music video, Nas teamed up with with a shoe customizer to sell “Satan Shoes” with blood in them, riling Nike and conservative commentators alike, then doubled-down with an onstage kiss during his performance of the song on the BET Awards. Just when Nas’ detractors had reached their breaking point, he really showed out in the “Industry Baby” video, generating even more attention through homophobic rants from elder rappers. It’s all led up to September 17, when Lil Nas will release the debut album that will be sure to have everyone talking.
Montero is out 9/17 via Columbia Records. Pre-save it here.
Halsey is fresh of the release of her new album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, but that’s not their most important output in recent days: Not long ago, she also gave birth, her biggest project yet. While that and the preceding pregnancy was naturally an important moment in Halsey’s life, she’s frustrated with how some people in the music industry handled their pregnancy.
Speaking with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, they spoke about the things they had to deal with from magazines and heads of companies, saying:
“You have to call the CEO of X, Y, Z and say, ‘Hey, hi. I’m just calling to let you know, I’m pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t want you to find out on Instagram. I wanted to tell you myself, personally. It’s still business as usual over here though, don’t worry. Don’t worry. My personal choice isn’t going to affect your profitability or your productivity or your assembly line. And also, in what world would you ever have to call me to tell me that you were having a baby? But I have to call you because it impacts your product.’
I mean, there was publications that were like… You know, we were going out and trying to set up magazine covers based around the album release, and they were like, ‘Yeah, but is she going to be pregnant? Because we don’t want to do a maternity cover.’ And I was like, ‘It’s not a maternity cover. It’s about my album, I just happen to be pregnant.’ And they’re like, ‘No, it’s a pregnant cover.’ And I was like, ‘So I can’t go talk about my album?’”
She also spoke about deciding to have a baby in the first place, saying,
“I’m 26, and I tried very hard for this pregnancy and it was like, I’m financially independent, I’m pretty far along in my career, it feels like the right time for me to do it. And I got treated like a teen mom a lot of the times, you know what I mean? Where people were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so young, and you have so much to do in your career, and you’re not married and you’re this.’ And it triggered all of these feelings of shame from when I was younger. It triggered a lot of old feelings of shame in me where I was like, how can you have an opinion, that kind of opinion on me making this decision? Because the flip side of it right, is that if I don’t and I wait until I’m in my 30s and I do SNL for the sixth time and have my seventh number one album and whatever. I’d do the same stuff over and over and over again. But then, there’s also, she worked too hard, she never had a family. She’s going to die alone, she was too obsessed with work, she never found someone. It’s a shame she’s not going to have any kids, her career’s not going to hold her at night. Okay. So nothing. So f*ck ’em and I just was like, ‘I’m going to do what I want to do,’ you know what I mean? I was like, ‘This is important to me.’”
The New England Patriots entered this preseason as one of four teams with a first round rookie quarterback and, as such, a quarterback battle taking place in camp between Alabama rookie Mac Jones and veteran Cam Newton.
Jones has, as was the case throughout his time in Tuscaloosa, been steady for the Pats throughout the preseason, showing why they were so bullish on landing him at No. 15 on Draft night back in April. Jones completed nearly 70 percent of his passes in the preseason, throwing for more than 300 yards in three games and capping things off with an impressive 10-of-14, 156 yard, and 1 TD performance in the finale against New York — a game Newton barely played, going 2-of-5 for 10 yards and one interception.
Newton’s preseason was far more volatile, with a rocky first week followed by a sensational second week, but it was the third week that allowed Jones to separate after Newton was forced out of practice for COVID-19 protocols. After missing most of practice, he had just the brief appearance in the final preseason game and Jones, who had taken all of the reps with the ones in practice, shined. The result was that Jones not only won the starting job, but Newton found himself out of a job on Tuesday, as many reported Newton was among the Patriots’ final cuts.
The #Patriots have released Cam Newton, source said.
It’s not a total shock that Newton would get cut after losing the starting job, as his contract was only guaranteed for $3.5 million of the $5.5 million he was signed for this offseason, allowing the Patriots to save some money by sticking with Brian Hoyer as the backup, while also ensuring there is no controversy over who should start should the team or Jones struggle early. It is firmly Mac Jones’ team in Foxborough now, as the Pats seem confident they have found their franchise QB.
The much bigger question is on Newton’s side, where the 2015 NFL MVP is now a free agent and will have to hope someone else was impressed enough with his preseason to want to bring him in just before the regular season. Making matters even more difficult for Newton is that the NFL’s policies regarding unvaccinated players makes it nearly impossible for him to get into practices in time to have a shot at the season opener.
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