Month: January 2022

A lot has been going on with Demi Lovato, so it makes sense that a sonic rebrand would be in order, too. The teen pop star recently came out as nonbinary, letting fans know they prefer using “they/them” pronouns, and helping educate the rest of the mainstream, heteronormative public about what the shift means for dating and attraction. Additionally, after several severe relapses and near-death experiences, the singer has chosen to live completely sober now, not just “California sober,” which usually means the person in question still uses marijuana despite abstaining from other drugs and alcohol.

Last night, Lovato brought that same energy to their music career, posting a somber, staged photo of their team — including manager Scooter Braun – all dressed in black. In the photo, Lovato is also with her new label, Island records, and is shown flipping off the camera with both middle fingers. Very punk rock, indeed. “A funeral for my pop music,” they wrote as the caption for the post. And a snippet of new music, which leaned decidedly pop-punk, was also posted to their Instagram story. Check out the funeral post above, as well as a snippet of what the singer posted to their story to preview a new sound.

It sounds pretty good, but I wonder how Miley feels about all this?

The When We Were Young music festival announced its lineup for their upcoming showcase later this fall. It’s set to be headlined by My Chemical Romance and Paramore and feature additional performances from A Day To Remember, Taking Back Sunday, Avril Lavigne, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, Boys Like Girls, The All-American Rejects, Mayday Parade, We The Kings, 3OH!3, The Ready Set, and more. While many were excited about the festival, which is set to go down during the weekend of October 22-23, others raised some concerns after seeing who was behind the When We Were Young festival.

Is The When We Were Young festival put on by the same people as Astroworld?

Yes, the one thing that the When We Were Young festival and Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival have in common is that they were both put on by the same company: Live Nation. It was just two months ago, that the tragedy at Astroworld left ten dead and hundreds injured. Both Travis and Live Nation, as well as others, face nearly $1 billion in lawsuits as a result of the incident. While Live Nation being the promoter behind Astroworld may be a point of concern for some, it should be also noted that Live Nation is responsible for a number of other festivals and tours that occur throughout the world. A shortlist includes Bottlerock, Bonnaroo, Rolling Loud, Austin City Limits, and more. Live Nation will also be responsible for upcoming tours done by Jazmine Sullivan, Cordae, Amine, Kane Brown, KYLE, Haim, Beach House, JoJo, and many more.

Unfortunately, if you’re interested in attending the When We Were Young festival, tickets for both days of the showcase have sold out.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The When We Were Young music festival announced its lineup for their upcoming showcase later this fall. It’s set to be headlined by My Chemical Romance and Paramore and feature additional performances from A Day To Remember, Taking Back Sunday, Avril Lavigne, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, Boys Like Girls, The All-American Rejects, Mayday Parade, We The Kings, 3OH!3, The Ready Set, and more. While many were excited about the festival, which is set to go down during the weekend of October 22-23, others raised some concerns after seeing who was behind the When We Were Young festival.

Is The When We Were Young festival put on by the same people as Astroworld?

Yes, the one thing that the When We Were Young festival and Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival have in common is that they were both put on by the same company: Live Nation. It was just two months ago, that the tragedy at Astroworld left ten dead and hundreds injured. Both Travis and Live Nation, as well as others, face nearly $1 billion in lawsuits as a result of the incident. While Live Nation being the promoter behind Astroworld may be a point of concern for some, it should be also noted that Live Nation is responsible for a number of other festivals and tours that occur throughout the world. A shortlist includes Bottlerock, Bonnaroo, Rolling Loud, Austin City Limits, and more. Live Nation will also be responsible for upcoming tours done by Jazmine Sullivan, Cordae, Amine, Kane Brown, KYLE, Haim, Beach House, JoJo, and many more.

Unfortunately, if you’re interested in attending the When We Were Young festival, tickets for both days of the showcase have sold out.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The second SNL of 2022 boasts a big get: the triumphant return of Will Forte. The comic and actor on the show for eight seasons, from 2002 to 2010, though he’s made return appearances from time to time, most recently in 2016. During his tenure, he did the requisite impersonations: He took over George W. Bush from the just-departed Will Ferrell, and he also handled Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Brian Williams, and more. But he was best known for MacGruber, the MacGyver send-up he later milked for a movie and, now, a show on Peacock. But why did he ever leave?

When Forte’s decision to leave after eight seasons was first announced, his reasons were mysterious. In a press statement, SNL honcho Lorne Michaels was cryptic, simply said he was going to “pursue new opportunities.” But a few years later, after he scored the title role in the popular show The Last Man on Earth, he opened up more about skedaddling from a steady, much-watched gig he had done for almost a decade.

“It was way more of a personal decision than a professional one,” Forte told The Daily Beast in 2017. “It’s always going to be a crapshoot when you leave there in terms of getting work, but it just felt like the right thing to do. I had been there for eight years, just turned 40, and my sister was having kids and they’re all on the West Coast, so I wanted to be closer to them.”

He added, “But I loved that job. I’m so thrilled I got to be a part of that show; it was like my family. But it just felt like it was the right time.”

A few years earlier, he had intimated about some of the other reasons he decided his SNL run should end. In 2013, while promoting his most dramatic starring turn in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, opposite screen legend Bruce Dern (and with Bob Odenkirk as his brother), he talked to Grantland about how the intensity of the show — and the fact that he’s “a little OCD” — didn’t make for an ideal work-life balance.

“I’m not trying to brag, but I’m a hard worker, and there, the actors are writers,” he said at the time. “So I would work really hard to write, and find myself there for long periods of time. And it’s a really hard, intense process. It’s a lot of work. So it’s hard to have a life outside of that.”

But 0nce Forte was no longer caught up in the mad grind of cranking out SNL episodes 20-some episodes a year, he was surprised by how he felt.

“The weird thing is the first time the rest of the cast is back doing the show and you’re not there,” he told Grantland. “You miss it with all your heart. It’s really hard to watch the show for awhile, because you just want to be there. But at the same time, that’s your family there, you want to support the show, but it’s hard to for a little while, because you want to be back there. And it was my choice to leave, so that made it even harder, because it’s like, ‘I could be there right now! Why am I not there, if I’m missing it so much?’ That took awhile, to talk myself into thinking I made the right decision.”

Forte will host SNL alongside musical guest Maneskin on Saturday, Jan. 22. The new MacGruber show streams on Peacock.

Apple TV+ turned two years old last month, and while the streamer isn’t anywhere close to besting the big dogs, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or HBO Max, they’re not doing too shabby. They’ve already won Emmys, including for a show that’s already a cultural institution. And they’ve been able to lure big time actors and filmmakers to their coffers, even funding the next epic from Martin Scorsese. Now they’ve enlisted Jon Hamm to make fun of the fact that they have yet to hire him for anything but a commercial.

The ad shows the Mad Men alum relaxing at home, scrolling through the streamer’s offerings. He flicks past Ted Lasso, the Billie Eilish documentary, as well as movies starring Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, and Chris Evans. And he can’t help but wonder what he did to get snubbed. “Hey Apple, did I do something to offend you?” he jokes. He soon notices that “literally everyone” is on there, even Jon Stewart, who chose Apple TV+ for his first show post-The Daily Show.

Eventually he phones up Tom Hanks to congratulate him for starring in not one but two Apple TV+ films: the war film Greyhound and the robot buddy movie Finch.

But Jon Hamm’s doing fine. Last year he was in Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, for HBO Max, while he can be seen in the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick this summer. Then there’s him starring in the latest screen version of Gregory Mcdonald’s beloved mystery snooper Fletch.

You can watch the ad in the video above.

(Via AdWeek)

If you’ve been online lately, you’ve likely seen an influx of P emojis. They’ve been shared by brands and artists alike including Gunna (the lead man behind use of the emoji), Chloe Bailey, IHOP, Future, Young Thug, the Memphis Grizzlies, Nike, Wingstop, Kim Kardashian, and many more.

What is the pushing P emoji ?

The emoji has been most frequently used with the phrase “Pushin P,” a term that Gunna has coined as it’s also the title of a song from his third album DS4EVER.

The exact definition behind “Pushin P” isn’t cut-and-dry, but the infamous line that Will Ferrell delivered in Blades Of Glory that Kanye West and Jay-Z helped amplify on “N****s In Paris” best describes the sentiment behind the phrase: “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative. It gets the people going.” Gunna has tried to explain the term on multiple occasions, but his best description of it comes from a post he shared to his Instagram Story shortly before the release of DS4EVER. “P don’t just mean Playa, P also mean paper too,” he said. “You could be pushing this P with paper too.”

The term also made for a great marketing tactic for DS4EVER. In the week after the album arrived, people all over social media were seen using the term in a number of ways. “Pushin P” helped push Gunna’s DS4EVER to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, edging out The Weeknd’s Dawn FM by just 2,300 copies.

DS4EVER is out now via 300 and Atlantic. You can stream it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

(Plentiful spoilers from Netflix’s Ozark Season 3 will be found below.)

If you’re gearing up to watch Ozark Season 4, Part 1, you could use a quick refresher on pivotal moments from the last time around. That’s only natural — Season 3 arrived in March 2020, and a lot’s gone down in the real world since that time. As you dive back into Marty Byrde’s fine mess, however, it’s most useful (because yep, it’s that kind of show) to remember the biggest deaths from last season.

Here are the two important character sacrifices: Helen and Tom, who were nice enough to be photographed here together in (much) happier times.

The two are of no blood relation (Helen being the attorney for drug lord Navarro and Tom being Wendy’s troublesome brother) and died in separate incidents:

Helen Pierce: That blood-spattered moment on the tarmac was a shocker for all viewers. Helen had landed with Marty and Wendy in Mexico to see their mutual boss, and Navarro greeted them with open arms as Helen got a bullet to the head. And it was the ending that Helen deserved, given that she’d attempted to turn Navarro against the Byrdes, but Wendy had outsmarted everyone by already arranging a deal with Navarro. Both deals involved the FBI, but Wendy managed to edge out Helen by proving the Byrdes’ loyalty to Navarro, whereas Helen got cocky, not to mention sloppy, during her own work, which could have eventually jeopardized Navarro’s own freedom and family. So yep, he took Helen out.

Tom Davis: The cartel got Wendy’s molotov cocktail of a brother, too, and that order ultimately got greenlighted by Wendy. Ben was new to Season 3 and proved to be (despite being an inherently good person) nothing but trouble for the Byrdes. He had a terrible set of triggers, and his bipolar disorder made him act unpredictably and in ways that could expose cartel business. He does, however, grow close to both Jonah and Ruth. Given that Ruth grew romantically involved with Tom, his death sets up a good chunk of her emotional path in Season 4. Watch out, everyone.

‘Ozark’ is currently streaming (Season 4, Part 1) on Netflix.

The Weeknd began the year by releasing his sixth album Dawn FM, which the singer teased and promoted for more than six months. The album gave fans not only 16 songs but also contributions from Jim Carrey, Lil Wayne, Tyler The Creator, Quincy Jones, and Oneohtrix Point Never. Despite the hype behind it, Dawn FM failed to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as it was beaten by Gunna’s DS4EVER, which outsold it by just 2,300 copies.

Despite this, The Weeknd did accomplish something big: He recently passed Justin Bieber as the musician with the most listeners on Spotify. A press release revealed that The Weeknd has 85,667,564 monthly listeners on the app, giving him the most for any artist at the moment. It stops a streak that Bieber has held since last spring. Regardless, Bieber still holds the title for the most listeners at any point in Spotify history, after he became the first artist in the platform’s history to have more than 90 million monthly listeners.

Recently The Weeknd released videos for “Gasoline” and “Sacrifice” from Dawn FM. He also shared two new “alternate world” versions of songs from Dawn FM.

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

Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema is popular with Republicans, and with good reason: She keeps helping them block her party’s legislation. Last week, she joined Joe Manchin in shooting down attempts to change the filibuster, which Republicans were using to stop voting rights bills meant to counter restrictive voting laws enacted across several battle ground states. The move earned her further scorn, including from Arizonians in her party, who issued a strongly worded letter attacking her. Now they’ve gone one step further.

As per The New York Times, on Saturday Arizona Democrats formally censured Sinema, accusing her of impeding President Joe Biden’s agenda. It’s a largely symbolic move, though they vowed to withhold further donations from her and sought to seek a replacement when her term is up in 2024. The same group threatened to give Sinema a no-confidence vote back in September.

In a statement, Arizona representative Raquel Terán pointed out that voting rights were already under threat in the state, with Republican-led proposals to limit mail-in voting. She also pointed to the much-criticized audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County (home of Phoenix, the state’s capital).

“The ramifications of failing to pass federal legislation that protects their right to vote are too large and far-reaching,” Terán said.

Again, the censure itself will likely do little to Sinema’s political future, but it’s clear she’s run afoul of both those who put her in office as well as registered Democrats who could re-elect her in two years. Another group that took public umbrage with Sinema was Emily’s List, the fund-raising group aimed at Democratic female politicians who are pro-choice. They were Sinema’s key donors during her successful 2018 run. But after she helped Republicans make it easier to block voting rights, they dumped her.

(Via NYT)

The Chicago Bulls will be without the services of Alex Caruso for the next few weeks. According to the team, the wrist injury that Caruso suffered on Friday night during the Bulls’ 94-90 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks will require surgery, as Caruso was diagnosed with a fracture in his right wrist.

As a result, Caruso is expected to miss at least the next 6-8 weeks, at which point he will be reevaluated.

Caruso suffered the injury while going up for a transition layup during the game’s third quarter. The only player between himself and the rim was Bucks guard Grayson Allen, and while Allen made a play on the ball with one hand, he used his other to pull Caruso down to the ground. After the incident was reviewed by the officials, Allen was given a flagrant 2 foul and was immediately ejected from the game. Caruso was able to finish the game, but mentioned during his postgame press conference that he was dealing with some wrist soreness.

Bulls coach Billy Donovan, in speaking about the incident, implored the league to look into the foul, citing Allen’s history of dirty fouls dating back to his days at Duke. Caruso is the latest player in Chicago’s backcourt to spend some time on the shelf with an injury, as neither Zach LaVine nor Lonzo Ball were able to play on Friday, either. The good news is that LaVine shouldn’t miss an extended period of time after suffering a knee injury, while Ball is expected to miss a few weeks due to a minor procedure to repair a torn meniscus.