Month: September 2021

When Ruth Negga was asked for her thoughts on someone who claims they “don’t see race,” she replied, “Are you saying that because you’re trying to reach out in a compassionate and empathetic way, which is lovely and great, or because you don’t want to talk about it or because you’re f*cking blind?” The Oscar-nominated actress, who has an Ethiopian father and Irish mother, will further explore race in Passing.

Directed by Rebecca Hall, the black-and-white Netflix movie stars Negga as Clare Kendry and Tessa Thompson as Irene Redfield, two Black women “who can ‘pass’ as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the color line during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in late 1920s New York,” according to the official plot summary.

Here’s more:

After a chance encounter reunites the former childhood friends one summer afternoon, Irene reluctantly allows Clare into her home, where she ingratiates herself to Irene’s husband (André Holland) and family, and soon her larger social circle. As their lives become more deeply intertwined, Irene finds her once-steady existence upended by Clare, and Passing becomes a riveting examination of obsession, repression, and the lies people tell themselves and others to protect their carefully constructed realities.

Passing, which also stars Alexander Skarsgård and Bill Camp (what a great cast), premieres on Netflix on November 10 following a limited theatrical release.

UK indie-pop duo Let’s Eat Grandma — aka Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth — have returned with their first new music in three years. Following their sophomore album, 2018’s I’m All Ears, “Hall Of Mirrors” is a shimmery dream-pop jam that comes with a hazy new video directed by El Hardwick. Mirroring (sorry) the song’s title, the visuals feature Walton and Hollingworth wandering around local fairgrounds, taking spins on the carousel, and, naturally, getting lost in a funhouse.

“I wanted to use the setting of a fairground at night to describe the dizziness, intensity and excitement of being with a woman I had strong feelings for, and the hall of mirrors as a metaphor for discovering and exploring parts of myself that I was bringing to life,” Walton said of the new track in a press release. “In some ways it’s reflective and almost secretive, journeying through confusing and difficult emotions, but I also wanted ‘Hall of Mirrors’ to be a euphoric song that conveys clarity, confidence, and ultimately joy.”

Let’s Eat Grandma initially made headlines when they, at just 17 years old, released their debut album, 2016’s delightfully avant-pop I, Gemini, the songs for which were written when the duo were only 14.

Watch the band’s video for “Hall Of Mirrors” above.

Over the past decade-plus, Drake and The Weeknd have become two of the most prominent musical figures in pop culture, so much so that at least one professor thinks they’re worth spending an entire semester studying. Writer and teacher Dalton Higgins will teach a course titled “RTA 950: Selected Topics In Media — Deconstructing Drake And The Weeknd” at Toronto’s Ryerson University.

In an Instagram post about the course, Higgins explained his motivation behind creating the class, writing:

“There are great courses out there being taught about numerous rock, folk and pop stars like Miley Cyrus, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, so why not The Weeknd and Dizzy. Also, I’ve been kicking around the Hip Hop Ed scene for years and have seen some great courses being taught in the USA about Jay Z (Georgetown University), Outkast (Armstrong State University), Beyonce (there are MANY Bey courses; Arizona State, University of Texas; Rutgers University). Plus the University of Arizona offers a minor in Hip Hop Studies, and Mcnally Smith College in Minnesota offers a hip hop diploma. […] Nevertheless, it’s time to get our Canadian rap & R&B icons recognized & canonized academically or otherwise. And it is CRITICAL for scholars, historians, to examine the Toronto music scene that birthed Drake/Weeknd and helped create the conditions for them to become mega successful.”

As Daily Hive notes, Higgins published an unofficial Drake biography in 2012 and has been teaching hip-hop-related courses at Toronto universities for the past decade.

Space Force: it’s more than just the other Steve Carell sitcom!

It’s also the name of the sixth U.S. military service branch that’s charged with “missions and operations in the rapidly evolving space domain” (SPACE CRIME?!?), where members are known as “guardians.” People had “that sounds familiar” jokes then and they have jokes now for the guardians’ dress uniforms.

Space News (name a more reliable source for space-based news, you can’t) reports that earlier today at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space, & Cyber conference, Gen. Jay Raymond, commander of the US Space Force, unveiled the service’s dress uniform.

Space Force service members, known as guardians, will wear the dress uniform for formal business and ceremonial events. Raymond said these are prototypes and the Space Force invites feedback on these designs… The uniforms were designed with distinct features intended to highlight unique Space Force culture. The dark “space blue” jacket is a roundneck crossover design with a partial mandarin collar rather than the classic lapel blazer. The pants are dark grey.

Raymond described the uniforms as “distinctive, modern, professional, and comfortable to wear” and invited feedback on the design. He may not want to check Twitter, or if he does, he should probably mute the words “Battlestar Galactica.”

(Via Space News)

When Lil Nas X first took the music industry by storm with his viral “Old Town Road” track, people didn’t know whether it should be classified as country or hip-hop music. The song originally appeared on the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts in 2019, before being quietly excluded from the country genre. Now reclaiming his country crossover, Lil Nas X takes on a cover by the Queen Of Country herself, Dolly Parton.

Lil Nas X appeared on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge for a series of filmed performances. Not only did he perform a handful of songs from his recently released debut album Montero, like “That’s What I Want,” “Dead Right Now,” and “Montero (Call Me By Your Name), but he also gave a mesmerizing rendition of Parton’s “Jolene.” Complete with a slight southern drawl and a few backup singers, Lil Nas X’s rendition of the 1974 track stays faithful to Parton’s original version.

Ahead of taking the Live Lounge stage, Lil Nas X raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity in a very clever way. After joking he was “pregnant” with his debut album, the musician shared a “baby registry” that was a list of non-profit organizations his fans could donate to. Bro In Convo, an organization that supports Black, gay, bisexual, and queer men, reportedly received over $33,000 in donations from Lil Nas X’s registry.

Watch Lil Nas X cover “Jolene” above.

Montero is out now via Columbia. Get it here.

Celebrities want to do something to help end the pandemic, and their hearts are clearly in the right place, but boy, it’s a fine line to walk. First, Gal Gadot and friends treated us to the arguably tone-deaf “Imagine” sing-along and now, more A-listers are being mocked on Twitter for another well-intentioned, apparent misstep.

On Tuesday morning before President Joe Biden was scheduled to address the United Nations, 80 celebrities and high-powered entertainment figures signed an open letter urging world leaders to “end the Covid-19 pandemic now.” The letter was posted on Care.org, an international humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting global poverty and world hunger. In it, celebs like Eva Longoria, Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway, Ciara, Alyssa Milano, and more pressed world leaders to find a solution to the issue of vaccine inequality, calling Covid “a manmade pandemic of apathy.”

“Only 2% of people in low-income countries have received a single dose,” the letter reads. “Leaving the world’s most vulnerable to face COVID with no protection. This situation also lets new variants, like Delta, emerge and ravage the lives of millions. ”

The letter goes on to ask that global leaders make 7 billion vaccine doses available by the end of this year, and another 7 billion available by mid-2022 so that we can hopefully end the pandemic within a year’s time.

“To get this done the world community must also invest in last-mile delivery systems, public education, and frontline healthcare workers to get vaccines from tarmacs into arms,” the address continues. “Millions of doses could go to waste because low-income countries don’t have the support they need to get vaccines to vulnerable people. ”

The letter ends by stating that “none of us are safe until all of us are safe.”

And look, the message of this letter is a good one. Obviously, we need world leaders to step up and make vaccines more widely available if we want to end this pandemic soon, but when demands come from wealthy A-listers with easy access to vaccines and health care and the privilege of not having to worry about things like paychecks and sick leave and rent moratoriums, well … you can bet your butt that Twitter is probably not going to view the attempt well.

(Via Care.org)

One of the biggest stars in the world right now is Billie Eilish. Fresh off her appearance at the Met Gala, there are few people in music as big as Eilish. It’s not a surprise why. She creates great music, has a personality that’s easy to cheer for, and has an extremely interesting backstory.

Among the details of her backstory is she has a really interesting relationship with video games. Eilish grew up playing the puzzle game ilomilo, and even named one of her songs after it. Not only that, her mother Maggie Baird is the voice actress for Samara in the Mass Effect series. Now, Eilish will be forming her own relationship with gaming by having 10 of her songs appear in the VR rhythm game Beat Saber. These songs include:

• all the good girls go to hell
• bad guy
• bellyache
• bury a friend
• Happier Than Ever
• I Didn’t Change My Number
• NDA
• Oxytocin
• Therefore I Am
• you should see me in a crown

This is a strong list of songs that all will complement the energetic and sometimes exhausting gameplay of Beat Saber. Anyone who’s played it knows how addictive Beat Saber can be. Spend a few hours jamming out to some great music and before you know it you’ve been at it for two hours and can’t lift up your arms anymore. Adding Eilish’s songs to the game is only going to enhance that feeling of “Just one more song?” that every Beat Saber playthrough has.

Beat Saber is one of the best games on VR right now and a must-get purchase for anyone that owns a headset. Adding Eilish to its already vast discography is another example of that. The pack for her complete list of songs will be available to players at a price of $12.99 while individual songs will cost $1.99. If you’re still not sure we suggest giving “Happier Than Ever” a try first try and seeing how it goes.

A few days out from releasing their upcoming album, Let Me Do One More, DIY punk outfit Illuminati Hotties have shared a run of 2022 tour dates with co-headliners Fenne Lily and supporting slots from Katy Kirby and Pom Pom Squad.

Prior to those dates, the Hotties (aka the project of Sarah Tudzin) have a couple of upcoming fall shows, the first one being on October 23 opening for Death Cab For Cutie in Napa, California. Before that, they’ll headline Zebulon in Los Angeles on October 2, one day after the album release.

So far, Illuminati Hotties have shared a run of singles: “Pool Hopping,” “Mmmoooaaaaayaya,” “Uvvp” featuring Big Thief’s Buck Meek, and “Threatening Each Other Re: Capitalism.”

02/08/2022 — Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy and Harriet’s (Illuminati Hotties only)
02/09/2022 — Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room (Illuminati Hotties only)
02/11/2022 — San Francisco @ The Chapel *
02/12/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Highland Park Ebell *
02/13/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon *
02/14/2022 — Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole *
02/16/2022 — Austin, TX @ Antone’s *
02/17/2022 — Fort Worth, TX @ Tulips *
02/18/2022 — Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic Lounge *
02/19/2022 — Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room at Third Man Records *
02/20/2022 — Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Purgatory *
02/21/2022 — Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall *
02/22/2022 — Washington, DC @ Black Cat *
02/24/2022 — New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *
02/25/2022 — Boston, MA @ The Sinclair ^
02/26/2022 — Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church ^
02/27/2022 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit ^
02/28/2022 — Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar ^
03/02/2022 — Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern ^
03/03/2022 — Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch ^
03/04/2022 — Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall ^
03/05/2022 — Milwaukee, WI @ The Back Room at Colectivo ^
03/06/2022 — Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry ^
03/10/2022 — Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret ^
03/11/2022 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos ^
03/12/2022 — Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios ^

* with Katy Kirby
^ with Pom Pom Squad

Let Me Do One More is out 10/1 via Snack Shack Tracks/Hopeless Records. Pre-order it here.

The first reviews for The Many Saints of Newark are in, and the prequel film seems to fit nicely into The Sopranos world in at least one way: The critical discourse it’s spawning.

Set before the events of the television show, which has become a modern classic, The Many Saints of Newark pulls some surprising punches by not exactly being the Tony Soprano origin story it appears to be. While the late James Gandolfini’s son Michael is pitch-perfect casting as a young Tony, the film is instead more focused on the heyday of the wider Sopranos crime family during the ’60s and ’70s. It’s a creative choice that has critics torn over what the film adds to The Sopranos legacy with some praising its additions to the canon and others asking what the point was here. Although, that point appears to be the possibility of a sequel, which does fit the crime drama’s theme of always taking more.

You can read excerpts from the early reviews below:

Mike Ryan, Uproxx:

Let it be known to anyone reading this: The Many Saints of Newark is not a Tony Soprano origin story. Though, it’s not completely disingenuous to label it that way because there are many events that happen in this movie that no doubt influence the future Tony. But, here, mostly, Tony is an observer. My point is I’d hate for anyone to dismiss this movie for that reason alone. Because there’s a lot going on in The Many Saints of Newark – a movie I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I saw it a few weeks ago.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

If you’re a “Sopranos” fanatic (and who isn’t?), there are a few key things you want from “The Many Saints of Newark,” starting with a movie that’s compulsively authentic and watchable the way that the show was. As co-written by Chase and Lawrence Konner, and directed by the series regular Alan Taylor, “The Many Saints” more or less fills that bill. It’s a sharp, lively, and engrossing movie, one that provides a fascinating running commentary on how the world of “The Sopranos” came into being.

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly:

Great character actors like Corey Stoll and Billy Magnussen come and go, sometimes with a bang (or a drill, or a weaponized steering wheel) and the women are mostly left to pick up the pieces. Michael Gandolfini’s tender, awkward Tony, too, is largely there to bear witness; a lost boy in a grownup’s world. Saints can’t be what Sopranos was — without the time or the ones who’ve been lost to tell it, fuggedaboutit. But for a hundred-something minutes, it feels close enough to coming home again.

Matt Goldberg, Collider:

If you approach the film simply through the eyes of young Tony Soprano, you’ll likely be disappointed, because that’s not the film that creator and co-writer David Chase set out to make here. Instead, he has crafted a film that gets to the heart of American myth and the sins we allow ourselves to perpetuate out of greed, lust, envy, and pride, but all under the cover that somehow these can be justified whether it’s through good deeds or simple restitution. Like The Sopranos, we see boys playing at being men with horrific consequences. The Many Saints of Newark is much bigger than a Tony Soprano origin story, and it’s all the richer for it.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:

The Many Saints of Newark is more of a diverting footnote than an invaluable extension of the show’s colossal legacy. It’s telling that one of the movie’s most electrifying moments is when the churning synth bassline of “Woke Up This Morning” blasts out over the end credits.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian:

Young Tony is portrayed with goosebump-inducing deja vu by Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini, who played the role on TV. Tony’s sleepy-eyed sensitivity, his melancholy, his glowering resentment and dangerous hurt feelings are there in embryo. His father, Johnny, is played by Jon Bernthal, and his terrifying mother Livia by Vera Farmiga who gives a superb rendering of Livia’s own haughty mannerisms. But you could spend this entire movie hanging on for the first sign of those all-important petit mal fainting fits that the TV show said originated in Tony’s dad. Is history being rewritten, or misrememberings corrected?

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

Directed with unfussy confidence by “Sopranos” veteran Alan Taylor, it wants to give people more of a show they love because of how forcefully it argues that more is never enough. The result, almost by design, is equal parts gratuitous fan service and gripping mob drama; a clumsy devil’s handshake of a film that’s asphyxiated to death by the same mythology it also leverages into a masterful origin story about cyclical violence and the sins of the father.

Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent:

It’s not all that necessary to be acquainted with The Sopranos to enjoy its feature-length prequel, The Many Saints of Newark. What it demands from its audience is only this: an understanding that there is no innocence among the powerful, and that men too often carry on the burdens of their forefathers. Such fatalistic ideas were already the lifeblood of David Chase’s celebrated mob drama, which aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007 and is still widely regarded to be a peerless work of television. But here they’re delivered with that quiet ache that can only come with the passing of time.

The Many Saints of Newark premieres in theaters and HBO Max on October 1.

It’s September 21! Happy birthday and congrats to everyone who made it to today — it’s been a rough year, huh? Fortunately for us, comedian Demi Adejuyigbe, better known as Electrolemon, is back with his latest video celebrating the occasion, set as always to the funky tune of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”

This time around, he goes for absolute broke, weaving in a goofy storyline about the musical Grease, performing a gravity-defying dance on the ceiling with a glittering disco ball, and having a blowout party in the front yard before hopping into a hot rod and soaring off into the sky. And even after all that, he saves the best for last, filling the credits sequence with video shout-outs from the band themselves, who congratulate him on his biggest and final “September” video.

… Wait, WHAT?!?!

Yup, that’s right. This is the last one — as he jokingly alludes to at the beginning of this year’s clip, he’s done this for a long time (to the point of feeling obligated to top himself every year) and he’s probably run of inspiration on this particular gag. We wish him well and thank him for his service, because these things have really brought a lot of hope and love into the world — especially as each one is accompanied by a charity drive for worthwhile causes.

This one is no exception. This time around, Demi is raffling off a painting of the Sept. 21 jersey he displays in the video, with proceeds going to Imagine Waterworks, West Fund, and Sunrise Movement. You can find out more at each respective website.

Watch “9/21/21” above.