Month: April 2022

I’m a simple man who enjoys simple things, like a warm stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a Sunday afternoon nap, and notoriously handsome actor Oscar Isaac playing with puppies. The Moon Knight star dropped by The Late Show on Tuesday, where host Stephen Colbert enlisted his help in trying to get some rescue dogs adopted on behalf of New York’s North Shore Animal League.

Isaac and Colbert made up “flattering lies” for each of the adoptable dogs “to make you want to adopt them even more.” Such as: Sterling, a basset hound mix, has “memorized the bathroom codes for every Starbucks in the country,” while Alma, a potcake (just in time for April 20) mix, is a “champion marathon runner, even better she’s agreed to attach your Fitbit to her collar, so now all those steps can be yours.” And let’s not forget labrador mix Goose, who was one of Isaac’s co-stars in Best Picture nominee Dune. “She played the most challenging role of all: Timmy Chalamet’s soft, fluffy hair,” he joked.

You can watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert clip above.

And to learn more about the North Shore Animal League, the world’s largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption organization, click here.

Soccer Mommy (aka Sophie Allison) is clearly looking to push herself on her new album Sometimes, Forever, evidenced by the fact she opted to enlist Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never as the LP’s producer. That shines through on her latest single, “Unholy Affliction,” which sees Allison incorporating experimental and alternative influences on the dark song.

Allison says of the track, “‘Unholy’ was really fun in the studio because the end result was totally different from what we expected. Dan made this really cool sequence with the demo vocals that wound up becoming most of the song. It was nice to have 2 different versions of the song that kind of mashed together.”

In a recent Pitchfork interview, Allison said she’s a “little bit territorial” about her music, noting, “I just want stuff to be uniquely mine.” Still, she was eager to work with Lopatin on the album and wanted him to “go crazy” with his production. Lopatin said of Allison, “Sophie finds magical ways to complicate her bubblegum melodies with a subtle weirdness: a twisted chord, a bent texture, some dark comedy. It’s addictive to listen to all that sweet and sour stuff she has going on, so I just tried to amplify that.”

Listen to “Unholy Affliction” above.

Sometimes, Forever is out 6/24 via Loma Vista Recordings. Pre-order it here.

During Arcade Fire’s joyous, surprise performance on Friday evening in the Mojave tent at Coachella, leader Win Butler took time to reflect (reflekt?). He recalled the band’s first performance at the event nearly 20 years prior in 2005, noting that they were just children back then. It’s the kind of realization that not many bands or artists are able to make at Coachella. Sure, someone like Richie Hawtin can trace his roots back to the first Coachella, but the vast majority of musicians don’t get to grow old with a music festival. If they aren’t sent out to pasture, there is certainly a nostalgia-based mico-genre fest waiting for them 20 years down the road.

Arcade Fire, of course, aren’t just any band. Their rise has always been inextricably linked to Coachella, this last weekend being their fifth total appearance, including headlining in 2011 and 2014. YouTube videos of those first couple performances in 2005 and 2007 are touchstones to how many people first experienced them, in a time when a conquering set at Coachella could help get you to a next level, whatever that is. Announced with just a day’s warning, the Canadian indie-rock icons played what is the equivalent of a Coachella underplay (they’ve recently been doing club shows in New York and their current home of New Orleans), filling up the modest Mojave instead of their usual Coachella Stage.

But despite their iconic status, there was still some concern about whether the young-leaning Coachella fans would even care. So, yes, it was heartening to see the Mojave overflowing, and even more so to find people singing along not just to the classics like “Rebellion (Lies)” and “Wake Up,” but also “Afterlife” and “The Suburbs.” It felt like exactly the moment the band needed after years of playing arenas, to see their music connecting in a space where the energy didn’t get lost in the rafters. The band looked Coachella straight in the eyes and found their commitment delivered back to them in spades.

But while the magic of their 65-minute performance can be attributed to many things — the surprise aspect, Arcade Fire’s live prowess, the glory of a sunset set in the desert — it also affirmed something a bit unexpected. Coachella, for the first time in more than a decade and in its 21st total installment, felt like a music festival for adults.

It doesn’t necessarily feel like the event was booked that way. Its headliners, particularly Harry Styles and Billie Eilish, are both closely tied to youth culture. Styles certainly tries to bridge the youth of today with those of decades past (he’s virtually always linking himself back to classic rock signifiers via style, album titles, even his collaborators and choices of cover songs), but as a live performer, he’s still used to playing for teens. Even at Coachella, there was a bit of overly-rehearsed canned banter that comes with the territory of playing for young people. In turn, it also felt like his headlining set was the least attended and talked about on the grounds. Eilish, in turn, only recently stopped being a teen herself. But she’s always been an outlier for her age group, which is probably why every aging male rocker under the sun wants to make it known in their interviews that they are a fan.

And maybe the headliners knew that this Coachella would be a different demographic than years past. Styles bringing out ’90s country-pop legend Shania Twain was certainly not a play for the zoomers hearts, nor was Billie’s decision to share the stage with Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn. Even the weekend’s sort-of-replacement headliners, Swedish House Mafia x The Weeknd, called back to Coachellas of a decade past as much as they served to highlight one of the biggest pop stars on the planet (SHM last played Coachella in 2012, the first year that The Weeknd performed at the festival). Meanwhile, teenagers’ favorite rapper-du-jour, Jack Harlow, was performing at a branded Coachella offshoot party a few miles down the road rather than on the grounds, in what can be seen as an oversight from bookers or a conscious decision based on perceived appeal.

It was almost like Coachella knew a vibe shift was coming. After three years away and two postponed editions — who knows if we’ll ever see Rage Against The Machine, Travis Scott, or Frank Ocean top the bill — the world of Coachella 2022 is very different than the world of the last Coachella in 2019. And while I’m not going to overly analyze all the factors that led to a notably older crowd, it feels like price point, pandemic job opportunities, and public health all have an impact on how all people approach large-scale events. And the festival went ahead and used some of its most coveted real estate — the big stages at sunset — to highlight the world of international music with 88rising’s Head In The Clouds Forever, Brazil’s Anitta, and Colombia’s Karol G. All three sets felt like landmark moments for their own cultures, and for music’s globalization, where sounds from different part of the world can all fit nicely in front of the same audience. And all felt more like testing the water than knowing for sure what would work best. Sure, dance acts like Flume and Disclosure still had huge audiences looking to groove, but it hardly felt like the revelry of the past, with people seemingly better aware of personal space and using the massive polo field to stretch out. Seeing fans pulled out of the audience, despite the sweltering heat, was rare. Never was there any fear of an Astroworld-esque crowd surge.

As someone that’s been covering Coachella for more than 10 years now, the festival’s M.O. has long been its ability to evolve. Sometimes, it is so ahead of the curve, people question whether Coachella has a plan at all. But then April hits and Harry Styles has the No. 1 song in the country (at least during the first weekend) and artists like Fred Again.., Carly Rae Jepsen, Japanese Breakfast, and 21 Savage all made their tents overflow with the kind of real-world interaction that can’t be inflated by Spotify listens or Instagram followers. Likewise, artists like Beach Bunny, 100 Gecs, Denzel Curry, Wallows, Finneas, and even our beloved Phoebe Bridgers didn’t manage to woo people in mass to their sets. Each of these musicians have had different pathways to the polo fields and different measurements for success. But it is still a curious thing that can only really be seen at a music festival, where musicians have to compete with each other, half-mile walks, and hand-dipped corndogs for attention. It’s definitely not as easy as getting someone to click follow or maintaining passive attention on a curated playlist.

Whether Coachella’s next phase is to reinvent itself for the next group of young people or to age with its current audience remains to be seen, but for this year at least, there was something special in the air. People seemed appreciative to have music festivals at all, soaking in the moments rather than blacking them out. Of all the awful shit we’ve had to deal with since 2020, the hope coming out of it was that we’d be a little better as a culture, that we wouldn’t take things for granted. Arcade Fire, a band that somewhat unfairly lost the good will it had built in the aughts, understands this. Fred Again.., who wasn’t even releasing music before the pandemic, also gets it. Doja Cat, the star-of-the-moment that did the best job of securing that title over the weekend, for sure gets this. She didn’t waste time in her set for a contrived special guest that had little to do with her performance, but instead put on fellow oddball Rico Nasty, who in turn got to play in front of what is surely the biggest audience of her life. For maybe the first time ever, Coachella was able to look backward and forward at the same time, the kind of self-reflection (self-reflektion? sorry) that only comes in adulthood. Coachella felt all grown up, and ready for whatever comes next.

Check out our exclusive gallery of Coachella 2022 photos below.

Daniel Caesar

Phoebe Bridgers

Lil Baby

Arcade Fire

Anitta w/ Snoop Dogg and Saweetie

Carly Rae Jepsen

Ari Lennox

Raveena

21 Savage

Megan Thee Stallion

Freddie Gibbs

100 Gecs

Girl In Red

Giveon

Arlo Parks

Japanese Breakfast

Conan Gray

Head In The Clouds Forever

Run The Jewels

Dave

Doja Cat

Swedish House Mafia x The Weeknd

Jamie xx

Joji

Karol G

Fred Again..

Maggie Rogers

Orville Peck

Finneas

Coachella

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

A month away from her upcoming album, Eyeye, Lykke Li has revealed a new song called “Highway To Your Heart.” On the track, Li ponders her loneliness, while still hoping to return to a past love. In the song’s accompanying visual, directed by Theo Lindquist, Li is seen incapacitated on the ground after a car accident has seemingly taken place off-screen. A man attempts to revive her as rain pours down.

For Eyeye, Li wanted the songs to “have the intimacy of listening to a voice memo on a macro dose of LSD,” as she said in a statement. She recorded the album in her Los Angeles bedroom using a “$70 mic,” often writing the lyrics in the moment she recorded them.

In addition to the album’s music videos, Li says Eyeye will contain seven minute-long “visual loops”, centered around love, addiction, relapse, and obsession.

“We wanted to capture the beauty and grandeur of a three-hour European arthouse movie, while making something native to modern media,” she said. “The intention is to deliver the full impact of a movie in sixty seconds on a phone screen, which is where most of our emotional experiences happen now anyway.”

In support of Eyeye, Li will perform various shows across Europe.

Check out “Highway To Your Heart” above and the concert dates below.

10/17 – Stockholm @ Cirkus
10/19 – Copenhagen @ Vega
10/21 – Amsterdam @ Royal Theatre Carré
10/22 – London @ Barbican
10/24 – Berlin @ The Metropol
10/26 – Paris @ Le Trianon

Eyeye is out 5/20 via Play It Again Sam/Crush Music. Pre-save it here.

Lauren Boebert’s the usual suspect when it comes bashing U.S. policy at the Mexico border, and Ted Cruz has been known to film himself lurking in the bushes in an effort to make something happen. Well, both of them have been distracted with Boebert tweeting about masks and Ted fretting about Mickey and Pluto getting it on, so House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) stepped in and fill the void.

Did she ever. Lesko apparently decided not to read a Wall Street Journal article citing one million border arrests within the past six months. Instead, she inflated the number to one billion while tweeting, “Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 1,000,000,000 migrants at our southern border in just 6 months.” She added, “President Biden’s open border policies are fueling this crisis! #BidenBorderCrisis.”

The tweet’s still up, although people have screencapped it in case Debbie decides to delete it. Is the not paying attention to Twitter, or does she believe that it’s really “one billion”? There’s no telling. Regardless, people are pouncing on her for the careless-or-reckless number inflation along with her strange use of the word “apprehended.” She also seems to believe that the entire population of China has entered the U.S. over the past half year. Is this really what happens when the math books get banned for being too “woke”? Yup, there’s lots of feedback here, including from Rep. Eric Stalwell.

Greg Gutfeld is so opposed to student loan forgiveness that he’s willing to “go to war” to stop it. During Tuesday night’s episode of The Five, Gutfeld chimed in with his thoughts on the real worth of a college degree. Naturally, the conservative leaning talk show wasn’t gung-ho about higher education. Gutfeld described the college experience as “a six-figure cover charge to get you into the bar of life.” He then quipped, “And the hangover is you pay it off later.”

The Five host then put extra emphasis on the “you” part and made it clear that he’s ready for battle if has to pay for other people’s student loans. Via Mediaite:

“There’s ways to gain experience in life, so you don’t end up six, seven figures in debt.” he continued. “And by the way, nobody’s paying for it. You’re paying for it. That’s something I would go to war for. Cancel debt? No, no, no, no, no. And everybody who paid their debts would be on my side.”

Jeanine Pirro agreed, “That’s right. I’m with you already.”

Of course, this wasn’t Gutfeld’s first time railing against student loan debt forgiveness, which has become a prominent issue in progressive circles. Back in December, The Five host flew off the handle at Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for saying America has a moral, economic, and political obligation to cancel student loan debt.

“You know what? Screw you!” Gutfeld yelled on the air. “No one has to pay your damn debt! That’s on you! It is not a moral obligation on anybody for the decisions that you made!”

Gutfeld then called AOC and The Squad “overeducated, over-caffeinated idiots.”

(Via Mediaite)

A couple days ago, Kendrick Lamar shared some long-awaited news: His next album is called Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and it’s set for release on May 13. Lamar revealed the news on his mysterious oklama.com website, which fans noticed last night has been updated. It’s not currently clear exactly what this new update means, though.

Currently, oklama.com/theheart features a window full of numbered, retro-looking computer folders, like the ones that were on the site when the album announcement was made. Since that update has gone live, fans have been clamoring to figure out what’s going on.

Fans tried opening all the folders on the page, but each one leads to the same error page. One fan dug into the site’s code and found that every folder is set to lead to the error page, even the one black folder that is labeled “important.” Furthermore, somebody else noticed the amount of folders on the page actually changes relative to your internet browser window; I was able to get as few as 11 folders to show up by decreasing the size of the window and increasing the page zoom (I actually got to nothing showing up at all by making the window as small as possible), and over 5,000 folders by doing the inverse. With default settings, my browser displayed around 500 folders.

Even with the functionality of the website figured out on a technical level, that still hasn’t solved the mystery of what it means. Some have speculated that given the page’s URL, “The Heart Part 5,” a sequel to 2017’s “The Heart Part 4,” is coming soon. Others believe that at a certain point, the “important” folder will be updated, perhaps to direct to new music from Lamar.

Whatever’s going on here, Lamar and his team have come up with an intriguing way to get fans excited about new music, so kudos.

Despite essentially flushing $35 million down the toilet (not to be confused with one of the White House’s clogged toilets), Mike Lindell is still trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. The pillow man, whose attempts to reinstate Trump as president include threatening a lawsuit against “all machines” and hosting a multi-day Thanksgiving “marathon” that was viewed by dozens, has made multiple predictions about when “The Big Lie” will be revealed, none of which have come true. Obviously.

But folks, he’s back at it again.

“We are… the preliminary injunction, the first one in the United States, it’s going to be, come out on Thursday. We’re looking at Thursday, if everything goes right,” Lindell said. “Now, I’m not going to give all the details, there’s a lot of surprises. It’s going to shock the country, as a matter of fact. How we’re doing these, and how they’re going down.”

Lindell then spoke directly to “all you journalists out there” (including he called the “enemy of the people”) who “write your stupid stories on, you know, this subpoena and that subpoena. How about talking about the biggest crime in history? And how about these preliminary injunctions and what we’re going with the evidence? We’re taking the evidence from the machines, because we know what’s inside them.”

The only shocking thing that’s going to happen on Thursday is how much pizza cake I’m going to eat on International Pizza Cake Day. It’s alarming, frankly.

(Via Raw Story)

Nicki Minaj dropped Queen, her latest album, in the summer of 2018, so it’s been a minute since a new Minaj LP. There has been talk of a new one, though, and now London’s Wireless Festival has seemingly suggested Minaj’s fifth album will be out soon.

In a tweet yesterday, the fest wrote, “Brand new album by @NICKIMINAJ soon and a whole lotta BRAND NEW lyrics to memorise….right before the festival.” This year’s festival runs in multiple installments, from July 1 to 3 and from the 8th to the 10th.

That said, it doesn’t appear the Wireless Festival organizers actually shared any secret info or let the cat out of the bag early. After a Twitter user asked, “says who,” the fest responded with a clip from Minaj’s February Late Late Show interview with James Corden and wrote, “The queen herself. Pay attention.”

In the video, Minaj tells Corden, “Well, I do know it’s soon, and I do know it’s a lot sooner than it’s ever been, right? And I know that it’s coming this year, and I know that it’ll be out before the summertime.”

Of course, Minaj has yet to officially announce a new album and despite what she said on Corden, delays happen all the time in the music industry. So, it appears we are no closer today than yesterday to actually knowing when Minaj’s anticipated new release is coming.

The 1-8 series in the Western Conference is headed to New Orleans with the series tied at one game a piece. After a Chris Paul fourth quarter masterclass in Game 1 helped steer the Phoenix Suns to a victory, Brandon Ingram nearly had a triple-double and CJ McCollum could not miss down the stretch to help the Pelicans pick up a 125-114 win.

The story of the first half was the torrid play of Devin Booker. The Suns took a narrow 61-56 lead into the locker room at halftime, with Booker outscoring the rest of his team — the All-Star guard scored 31 points in the first half on 12-for-18 shooting with a 7-for-10 clip from three. He ended the half with a bang, knocking down a triple from the midcourt logo.

Still, despite the huge half from Booker, Mikal Bridges (10 points) was the only other player to score in double-digits, while McCollum and Ingram combined for 26 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists to keep New Orleans afloat. They continued to hang around early in the second half, and several minutes into the third quarter, the Pelicans were able to take the lead off of a triple by Ingram.

Back and forth the two teams went to start the third, sometimes literally. One sequence saw Jaxson Hayes get rejected by Bridges on one end, only for Hayes to get him back almost immediately on the very next possession.

But after a Bridges dunk midway through the frame, everything went right for New Orleans. The Pelicans outscored the Suns from the halfway point of the quarter until its conclusion, 19-9, and outscored them by 12 over the duration of the third. Booker heading to the locker room didn’t help here, and while New Orleans wrapped the quarter up, Monty Williams gambled and opted to keep the rest of his starters on the bench.

As a result, the Pelicans held a 90-83 lead after three, with Ingram scoring 14 points in the quarter.

It did not take long for Phoenix, with Booker watching on the bench and unable to return due to hamstring tightness, to take the lead back. The team started the fourth on a 13-5 run and were able to get ahead thanks to a dunk by Cameron Johnson.

Booker on the bench presented an opportunity for the Pelicans to pounce, and they responded in a big way. Ingram and McCollum, in particular, were able to get into a groove and help them take and extend their lead.

Ultimately, Phoenix just ran out of gas, while New Orleans seemed to get better and better as the game went on. Ingram led all scorers with 37 points, and chipped in 11 rebounds and nine assists. McCollum likewise just missed a triple-double, going for 23 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds. Herbert Jones pitched in 14, Jonas Valanciunas had 10 with 13 rebounds, and Larry Nance provided 13 points and six rebounds off the bench. Booker did not score in the second half, while Bridges had 19 and Paul had a double-double with 17 points and 14 assists.

Game 3 between the Suns and the Pelicans from New Orleans will tip off on Friday night at 9:30 p.m. ET.