Month: December 2021

On September 7, 2019, Mitski performed at Summerstage in New York City’s Central Park, declaring the performance to be her “last show indefinitely.” After announcing the show, she clarified, “Y’all, I’m not quitting music! Me? Quit music?? I’ve been on non-stop tour for over 5years, I haven’t had a place to live during this time, & I sense that if I don’t step away soon, my self-worth/identity will start depending too much on staying in the game, in the constant churn.”

It turns out, though, that Mitski actually did plan to quit music, as she revealed in a new Rolling Stone profile.

“I was thinking this was the last show I would perform ever, and then I would quit and find another life,” Mitski said. She also said of the performance, “It was beautiful. I performed, and I remembered how much I loved it. And I remember walking offstage, and I immediately started crying. Like, ‘What have I done?’”

Lucy Dacus opened that concert, so Rolling Stone got her thoughts about the show. Dacus said, “I asked her, ‘How do you feel.’ The first thing she said was, ‘Oh, I’ve made a huge mistake.’ She verbalized it, and I felt a shade of terror for her.”

Mitski revealed that the pressures of fame are part of why she wanted to leave music, saying, “This is what really made me quit. I could see a future self, who would put out music for the sake of keeping the machine running. And that really scared me.” She also noted, “I guess fame is relative. There’s Taylor Swift fame and then there’s local-DIY-scene fame. The real struggle for me in getting bigger is, how do I maintain integrity in the performance? How do I make sure the audience experience is still intimate and emotional in this 8,000-cap room? How do I not resort to flashy pyrotechnics onstage? Because I don’t want my show to be about that — I want people to enter into a place with me and have an experience, and then leave having experienced something important.”

Of course, Mitski has since gotten back on the horse, as she has a new album, Laurel Hell, on the way in 2022.

Read the full feature here.

One of the highlights of Issa Rae’s hit HBO show Insecure was always the soundtrack, curated by Issa herself and featuring some of hip-hop and R&B’s rising stars. Fans reveled in both hearing longtime faves and getting put onto newcomers with every episode, with the show’s team sharing each episode’s tracklist as part of a growing playlist on streaming services. On Sunday night, the series finale aired, bringing the show to a close that fans are still discussing and debating on Twitter.

And while the touching finale may have sparked diverging opinions on the resolution of its lead character’s complicated love life, one thing many fans seem to agree on is that the music helped make the show. Scrolling through the “Insecure” trending topic on Twitter, you’re just as likely to see messages praising the show’s musical curation as you are ones debating various plot points throughout its five-season run.

Many of the artists featured on the soundtrack also chimed in with both praise and thanks for Issa Rae’s fan-favorite series, which many say helped introduce them to new audiences — a sentiment that fans echoed wholeheartedly. Issa herself, who always live-tweets the show right along with fans, offering background information from the writer’s room and her inspirations for the show’s setting, plot, and its plethora of jokes, even noted how some of the finale’s songs found their way into touching pivotal scenes.

The last time we checked in on Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider, she stood at fifth overall in regular-play earnings. This was already a hell of a run in addition to Schneider becoming the show’s first trans champion during trans awareness week. Now, Schneider has become the fourth overall champ [with current earnings reaching $687,000, placing her behind only Ken Jennings ($2,520,700), James Holzhauer ($2,462,216), and Matt Amodio ($1,518,601)]. That’s not the only new notch on Schneider’s belt, though.

Amy, who has now won 18 consecutive games, has now reached another vaunted status: the woman with the highest earnings in all of Jeopardy! history.

The champ who previously held this record, Larissa Kelly, hails back to the aughts with her final regular-play game taking place in 2008 (she did return for a few tournaments, including the 2019 Jeopardy! All Star Games). She remains the fifth overall earnings champion and has now been knocked back to woman with the second-highest earnings. Larissa took to Twitter to acknowledge the passing of the torch.

“Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years,” Larissa tweeted. “[B]ut it’s been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off. Congratulations to Amy on becoming the woman with the highest overall earnings in the show’s history!”

Amy, of course, handled the congrats with style: “Thanks so much, I’m honored to be in your company, and I look forward to some day watching the woman who beats us both!”

Well, Larissa’s pulling for her and other ladies to come. “I hope there will be a long line of such women, but you are certainly setting the bar extremely high for them!” Larissa wrote on Twitter. “(And holy hell, that’s *before* any tournaments…can’t wait to see the fireworks to come!)”

Schneider returns to take aim at her 19th consecutive win on Monday. She has been very frank about what sucks about winning and has also used her platform to call out the GOP, and surely (as Larissa noted), there are many more fireworks on the way.

Musicians are major players in the realm of social media, and that remained true in 2021: A good chunk of the most-liked Instagram posts from the past year were by musicians or were music-related.

Ariana Grande has the top post among musicians and the second most-liked one overall, as a May 26 post featuring photos from her wedding with Dalton Gomez has over 26 million likes (according to Wikipedia, with data accurate as of December 23 and updated by Uproxx on December 27 for this post). It could be argued, though, that Billie Eilish actually fared better on the list: While the aforementioned Grande post is her only one in the top ten, Eilish has two posts on the list, the most among musicians. A post revealing her blonde hair ranks at No. 4 with 23 million likes and a photo from her Vogue photoshoot is No. 6 with 22.1 million likes.

Other musicians make cameos on the list as well. Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy announcement post from September, in which she tagged Travis Scott, is No. 3 with 24.6 million likes. Meanwhile, Iron Shore Mermaid, a professional mermaid performer, had a post in the top ten, a video set to The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay.”

Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez had the honor of having the year’s top post, as their pregnancy announcement racked up over 32 million likes since it was shared in late October. Meanwhile, Lionel Messi had three posts in the top ten, making him the person with the most top-ten posts this year.

In terms of the people involved, this year’s list looks similar to the 2020 ranks, as Ronaldo, Messi, Grande, and Jenner all had some of last year’s top posts, too.

Check out the top ten list of the year’s most-liked Instagram posts below.

1. Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez — pregnancy announcement (October 28; 32.3 million likes)
2. Ariana Grande — photos from her wedding with Dalton Gomez (May 26; 26.7 million likes)
3. Kylie Jenner — second pregnancy announcement (September 8; 24.6 million likes)
4. Billie Eilish — blonde hair reveal (March 17; 23 million likes)
5. Lionel Messi — First post after signing with Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (August 11; 22.1 million likes)
6. Billie Eilish — Vogue photoshoot (May 2; 22.1 million likes)
7. Lionel Messi — photo with the Copa América trophy (July 11; 22 million likes)
8. Lionel Messi — post announcing his departure from Barcelona during a press conference (August 8; 21.2 million likes)
9. Mermaid Montana — Iron Shore Mermaid (August 18; 20.2 million likes)
10. Tom Holland — birthday post for Zendaya (September 1; 19.6 million likes)

No matter what you did on Christmas, can it top a karaoke party at Lizzo’s house? Sure, you might’ve had a golden glazed ham or a feast of seven fishes with the fam, but where does rank next to tequila shots and matching jammies with Lizzo? And even though Lizzo might’ve made herself up as a Christmas Grinch last week, she proved at her party that she’s more like the reformed version of the Grinch who gets down with all of Whoville in the end.

At Casa de Lizzo on Christmas night, the soon-to-be guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race hosted an intimate affair with friends and karaoke. In a video series that she posted on Instagram, she begins by singing Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song,” in front of a gigantic karaoke projector screen. She closes it out singing “Lose Yourself” by Eminem and she’s doing exactly that, belting the lyrics “Snap out to reality, oh there goes gravity!” with perhaps a few of those tequila shots in her system.

But midway through the Instagram post, we hear her singing a song called “Mrs. Grinch,” with lyrics that are a callback to the captions from the Grinch photoshoot that she posted last week. Some basic internet sleuthing, indicates that “Mrs. Grinch,” is actually a song by Shelby Swain, who has been Lizzo’s hairstylist for years. It’s definitely a Christmas banger and had we known about it earlier, it definitely would’ve been included in our roundup of “Best New Holiday Music That You’ll Actually Want To Listen To.”

Watch Lizzo’s Christmas karaoke party clips on Instagram above and listen to Shelby Swain’s “Mrs. Grinch” below.

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

The Washington Football Team came into Sunday Night Football still, technically, in the hunt in the NFC but needing to win out to have a real chance at the postseason. Facing a Cowboys team that could lock up the division with a win, getting that first win needed was going to be a tall order but how quickly things got out of hand for Washington was a surprise, as the Cowboys offense simply met no resistance in the first half from the Football Team.

That poor effort coming off a similarly bad performance against the run a week ago in Philadelphia seemed to take its toll on the Washington defensive front, who came to blows on the sideline in the second quarter. Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne, former Alabama teammates and now teammates in Washington, got heated, with Payne poking Allen in the side of the head with his finger, enraging Allen who popped up and threw a punch at Payne before some brave individuals stepped between the two big men and cooled things off.

The sideline skirmish, unfortunately, did not result in some sort of galvanized effort from the Football Team on defense, as the very next possession after that scuffle saw the Cowboys march down the field and throw a touchdown to an offensive tackle just to rub it in.

So, yeah, there’s some things to work out in the Washington defense on the field and off of it.

CBS had the honor of holding the Week 16 national afternoon game in the NFL this week, and thought they might have an important one with the Steelers going on the road to face the Chiefs, with Kansas City needing a win to lock up the AFC West and Pittsburgh needing a win to stay in a wild card spot.

However, it became quickly apparent that the Steelers were not up to the task, particularly with TJ Watt out, as a Travis Kelce-less Chiefs offense lit them up for 30 points in the first three quarters, while Pittsburgh could only muster up an incredibly sad field goal late in the third while already trailing 30-0. In the end, Kansas City won 36-10 after almost a full quarter of garbage time, which led CBS to make the decision to flip to a more competitive game between the Broncos and Raiders.

The decision itself was sound, but the execution of it was hilarious, as they waited until the moment the Chiefs trotted Chad Henne out onto the field in place of Patrick Mahomes (after a Ben Roethlisberger interception took the game to commercial break). As soon as Henne appeared under center, the feed abruptly cut to the studio, where Nate Burleson said they’d be going to Las Vegas coming out of the two-minute warning in a 17-13 game, taking everyone back to commercial rather than showing Henne’s drive.

Making it all even funnier is that just before the two minute warning, the Raiders had picked up a crucial first down while the Broncos were out of timeouts, meaning that after all of that, the national audience was treated to three Derek Carr kneeldowns to end the game. It was a rather hilarious instance of a broadcast trying to make the right decision but waiting too long and just taking viewers on an incredible ride of commercials and non-impactful football.

Not a lot has gone right this season for either the Bears or Seahawks this season, so naturally when the two teams met on Sunday in Seattle, there was some weirdness in the air. For starters, a blizzard swept through in the morning, requiring plows to clear the field just to make it playable in the afternoon.

Add in the Bears going to Nick Foles as their starting quarterback with Andy Dalton and Justin Fields sidelined, and it certainly looked like a spot for Seattle to get a win. However, a 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter wasn’t enough for the Seahawks, who simply cannot play a normal fourth quarter, and saw Foles turn back the clock with an incredible final drive for the Bears that produced the game-winning touchdown and two-point conversion with a minute to play.

First came the touchdown, with former Seahawk Jimmy Graham making a familiar catch, posting up defenders and reaching high above them for a snag against his old team.

At that point, the Bears decided they wanted nothing to do with the prospect of overtime and went for the win right there, with Foles going up high again, but this time to Damiere Byrd who made the catch of the year over a group of Seahawks defenders and, somehow, holding on to the ball by holding it out with one hand as he went to the ground.

It’s an outrageous catch and incredible body control with three guys trying to push him out to get the foot down then the knee in bounds. The Seahawks were unable to do anything on the ensuing drive, turning it over on downs to give the Bears a rather stunning come from behind win, moving both teams to 5-10 on the season.

The Carolina Panthers lost their fifth consecutive game on Sunday in a 32-6 loss to the Bucs that featured yet another lackluster offensive performance and, just generally, little resistance to what Tampa Bay was trying to do.

There are certainly injuries that have played a role, most notably to star running back Christian McCaffrey, but the lack of improvement as a team in Year 2 under Matt Rhule has led to plenty of chatter in Charlotte that the former Baylor coach should be on the hot seat. The Panthers don’t seem like a team ready to make another coaching change immediately, but every loss to close out this season will only increase the possible warmth he’s feeling under him.

After the loss on Sunday, Rhule tried to address those frustrations by insisting things are getting better, you just can’t see those changes tangibly in the on-field product — which, of course, is the only part that matters. Rhule did this by making a strange comparison to Jay-Z having to start his own agency (we think he means record label) to become an “overnight success” after seven years.

While I understand the general premise of trying to say that every “overnight success” is actually years of work behind the scenes that no one sees to become one of the best, this seems like a really weird analogy. The issue for Jay-Z in this story is that he was trying to get noticed and had to launch his own record label in order to get his music out, while the Panthers issue appears to be that they are simply bad at football, not that they’re actually good but no one can see them.

Unless they’re going to star their own football league in order to breakout on their own, I’m not sure Rhule has much going for him here, but it’s at least a creative effort at insisting he should be given a long leash because success is just around the corner.

Donald Trump Jr. didn’t know what to do with his life until his father improbably became president. Since then, he’s been a nuisance: delivering unhinged, red-eyed rants at the RNC; recording bizarre, slurry late night hotel monologues; texting someone else to get his own dad to call off the Capitol riot he helped foment. And at least one longtime Republican has finally had enough.

Peter Wehner, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes, penned a lengthy takedown in The Atlantic that tries to torch Trump’s oldest son once and for all. “Donald Trump Jr. is both intensely unappealing and uninteresting,” the piece begins, and it doesn’t get more glowing from there:

He combines in his person corruption, ineptitude, and banality. He is perpetually aggrieved; obsessed with trolling the left; a crude, one-dimensional figure who has done a remarkably good job of keeping from public view any redeeming qualities he might have.

What inspired Wehner to go on the attack now, nearly a year since his father left office in disgrace. It was Jr.’s appearance at a recent Turning Point USA soiree. “We’ve turned the other cheek and I understand sort of the biblical reference, I understand the mentality but it’s gotten us nothing. OK?” Jr. railed. “It’s gotten us nothing while we’ve ceded ground in every major institution.”

For Wehner, Don Jr. openly trashing one of the Bible’s greatest credos was a bridge too far. Don Jr., he wrote, “has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers.”

Wehner also decried Jr.’s us-vs.-them mentality:

“Throughout his speech Don Jr. painted a scenario in which Trump supporters—Americans living in red America—are under relentless attack from a wicked and brutal enemy. He portrayed it as an existential battle between good and evil. One side must prevail; the other must be crushed. This in turn justifies any necessary means to win.”

Of course, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree:

“He believes, as his father does, that politics should be practiced ruthlessly, mercilessly, and vengefully. The ends justify the means. Norms and guardrails need to be smashed. Morality and lawfulness must always be subordinated to the pursuit of power and self-interest. That is the Trumpian ethic.”

Wehner also reminded people that, despite Trump Sr.’s legal and financial woes — despite the fact that he’s a failed blogger who rants about nonsense to strangers at weddings — he’s still the de facto head of today’s Republican party:

“I understand that many Americans, including some number of Republicans I know, would rather we move on from the Trump family. But the Trump family and MAGA world won’t let us. And they’re playing for keeps.”

You can read the whole piece at The Atlantic. Then again, Trump is right about one thing: His base should get the vaccine so they don’t die.