Month: April 2022

Noel Gallagher is pretty well-known for being one of rock’s grumpiest grumpy old men, often making condescending remarks about everyone from Jay-Z to his own brother and former Oasis bandmate, Liam Gallagher. Most recently, he directed his disdain toward Harry Styles, calling the pop star’s music “worthless” and positing that he doesn’t write his own songs — an opinion likely born from Styles’ origins as a member of X Factor-launched boy band, One Direction.

Normally, given Noel’s crotchety reputation, the majority of music’s stars dismiss or ignore him (although Jay-Z got in an awesome, subtle shot in 2008 at Glastonbury, pretending to play a guitar and covering “Wonderwall”), but one self-declared Harry Styles fan decided to stand up for him in a recent interview. Appearing on NME’s latest cover, Kehlani addressed the situation in the accompanying feature promoting their new album, Blue Water Road.

“That person – whoever that is – can kiss my ass,” they said. “They might as well call me inauthentic and I’m about as authentic as it gets. [Styles] worked his ass off to make people fall in love with him on national TV and be lumped in with a group of boys and still had to stand out from an entire group of people. That’s as authentic as it gets! I’m a Harry Styles fan, clearly, but watching the transformation that he’s taken to find his own songs and his own voice, own persona, own fluidity and image – I think he’s been brave and epic. He’s f*cking tight.”

We’re sure Gallagher will be just delighted someone finally responded back to him, but if nothing else, let’s all hope we get a ripping Harry Styles/Kehlani collaboration out of this.

It’s fair to say that Elon Musk and Lauren Boebert are pretty obsessed with Twitter. After all, one doesn’t decide to plunk down $44 billion to own a social media platform, which one can use for free, without sheer fascination at work. Boebert, as well, spends an inordinate amount of time on Twitter, which seems to be her favorite place for self-owns. This week, however, Elon has had so much fun while tweeting about what else he’d like to buy (and of course he tossed a cocaine joke in there), but that’s not the most bizarre thing involving these two and Twitter.

Rather, Boebert seems pretty fixated upon receiving attention from Elon. Ever since he started making noises about buying Twitter, she’s been tweeting at him with praise about his free speech absolutism. She tags him and sometimes directly responds to his tweets, and it’s very odd.

And Elon has, uh, not been responding to her.

On Friday, Lauren made a new bid for the Tesla CEO’s attention. This happened when Elon decided to declare that “[t]he far left hates everyone, themselves included!”

Boebert hopped onboard with a response: “Misery loves company!”

Again, Elon did not directly acknowledge Boebert, but there might be some shade here: “But I’m no fan of the far right either. Let’s have less hate and more love.”

Yup, the discomfort is fairly palpable…

Last year, we declared that Holly Humberstone would be pop’s next big thing. Getting a spot on Olivia Rodrigo’s tour sure does help with that, along with a powerfully vulnerable single titled “London Is Lonely.” Today, the British singer is back with another great single, “Sleep Tight.”

The emotional yet catchy track was co-written by none other than 1975’s Matty Healy, as well as longtime collaborator Rob Milton. It’s her second time working with Healy, and their musical chemistry is proving to be something special. About the track, Humberstone said, “It’s awkward trying to navigate catching feelings for a friend, as they are often feelings we might have been suppressing for some time. When they float to the surface, you have to weigh up the risks of getting hurt and potentially losing them in your life. I wrote ‘Sleep Tight’ about the uncertainty of friendships evolving into something more.”

She added: “The first summer out of lockdown was pretty crazy for my friends and I because we finally had our freedom back and acted like we had nothing to lose. This song takes me back to that time of what felt like no consequences and impending heartbreak.”

Watch the video for “Sleep Tight” above.

Looks like life in plastic is not fantastic, folks! While fans on Twitter have been giving Greta Gerwig some brilliant free soundtrack ideas for her Barbie movie, the most obvious choice for a theme song is Aqua’s 1997 smash hit, “Barbie Girl.” The song in the movie would be a no-brainer, but it seems like it won’t be happening.

“The song will not be used in the movie,” Ulrich Møller-Jørgensen, who manages Aqua’s lead singer Lene Nystrøm, told Variety. While there wasn’t any reason given, it’s worth noting that the band has historically had bad blood with Mattel, the creator of the iconic Barbie doll, through a series of lawsuits that were ultimately dismissed. Mattell allegedly thought the sound “portrays Barbie in a very negative and sexual manner” at the time.

Gerwig’s Barbie, which stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is allegedly “totally different” than what fans are expecting. As Will Ferrell and Michael Cera have recently been added to the cast, many are wondering: who is this movie for, exactly?

While the movie doesn’t look like it will have Aqua’s hit single in it, it will still probably be fun, or at least give Nicki Minaj an opportunity to return to her roots. If all else fails, maybe the “Barbie Girl” medieval cover will do?

Whatever city on the hip-hop map you call your own, there’s no escaping the impact of Hot 97’s Summer Jam in New York. It’s still one of the biggest single-day festivals in the culture, nearly always offering a who’s-who of the biggest stars in hip-hop. This year’s lineup is no different, highlighting the leading rap artists of 2022, as well as some of the genre’s fastest-rising up-and-comers.

The festival’s top line gets to include one of New York’s hometown favorites in the form of Fivio Foreign, with Chicago’s Lil Durk and Atlanta’s Lil Baby right behind. Young Thug and Gunna are apparently sharing a joint set, which makes sense considering how closely tied the duo’s output has been over the past two years between Punk, DS4EVER, and Slime Language 2 (we’re definitely getting both “Surf” and “Ski“).

Elsewhere on the lineup is a cross-section of styles and locales, from Miami’s City Girls to Virginia’s Pusha T to Compton’s Roddy Ricch. Even Nigerian favorite Burna Boy is there. Meanwhile, New York will remain well-represented thanks to Benny The Butcher (I know, I know, he’s from Buffalo, but still), DreamDoll, 22Gz, Lady London, Dougie B (hopefully, he makes bail by showtime), and The Girll Codee (worth giving a Google).

Summer Jam takes over Metlife Stadium on June 12. As always, get more information at the official website.

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

The Minnesota Timberwolves have had control well into the second half of four of the five games of their first round series against the Memphis Grizzlies, and yet they find themselves going back to Minneapolis facing elimination in Game 6, down 3-2 in the series.

A big part of the problem has been late game offensive execution, as their losses in Games 3 and 5 featured fourth quarter collapses. At the center of it all are the two stars on both sides, Karl-Anthony Towns and Ja Morant. The Grizzlies All-Star has been able to find an extra gear in the fourth quarters of those pivotal games, almost willing Memphis to wins, while Towns has gotten lost in the shuffle of a Minnesota offense that has far too often relied on them hitting difficult, contested jump shots out of iso sets for D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards.

Compounding Minnesota’s issues is the fact that they have been talking a lot in these games, particularly Towns, and it has backfired spectacularly — most notably his “we in Minnesota now” comment while mic’d up during the first half of Game 3 that became an easy target for Morant afterwards. Neutral observer Draymond Green has some thoughts about this new phenomenon of KAT trying to be a trash talker, and suggested on his podcast on Friday that Towns should scrap the talking and “just be yourself” because he’s putting an unnecessary target on his back.

For years Towns has heard criticism that he isn’t tough enough and plays soft, and it’s pretty clear that he is trying to change that perception. The problem is when he does it with words only, not actions, it’s pretty easy for opponents to see through that. As Green notes, in Game 5 he was doing all that talking but let Memphis guard him with Dillon Brooks and never once went into the post trying to calm his team down and take advantage of what should’ve been a mismatch down low.

Everyone wants KAT to find That Dog In Him but it’s just not something that can be manufactured through talking. Green, who is a very natural sh*t-talker, seems to think dropping the talking act and simply asserting his dominance would work much more effectively, and if Towns needs a “quiet killer” role model, Tim Duncan tape would serve him well as he was an absolute monster who barely said a word on the court. That’s not to say Towns can’t express himself out there when it feels right, but Green points out that this year has felt out of character for Towns and a bit forced.

Throughout pretty much of all 2019, there was a lot of talk about Adam Sandler—yes, that Adam Sandler—being a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, if not an outright win, for his role as diamond dealer/gambling addict Howard Ratner in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems. When Sandler didn’t even get a nomination, he quickly rose to the top of just about every “snubbed” list written. And now, after weeks of rumors that the trio might try again with a new project, Sandler has confirmed that they are indeed working on a new film.

In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sandler confirmed that he indeed is “going to do another movie with the Safdie brothers.” While he was tight-lipped about pretty much any other details, from what we can glean from the comments he did make, the Safdie brothers could still be writing the film, which will most definitely not be a sequel to Uncut Gems or anything like it.

“They’re working hard on it,” Sandler told EW. “Their work ethic is bananas. They’re always working, always writing, always thinking. I don’t know what I can tell you, but it’s gonna be very exciting. It’s different. But I don’t want them to ever say, ‘What the hell did you tell him that for?’ So I’ll just let them talk [about it].”

Fair enough.

For those of you keeping count, this new film will actually mark Sandler’s third outing with the Safdie brothers. Following the success of Uncut Gems, the three of them reunited in 2020 to make the short film Goldman vs. Silverman, which you can watch below.

GOLDMAN v SILVERMAN from Elara on Vimeo.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Ray J is calling “shenanigans” on a recent viral clip from Hulu’s The Kardashians in which Kanye West allegedly returns a laptop containing Kim Kardashian’s sex tape to his ex-wife. In the clip taken from the third episode of the show, Kardashian breaks down in tears as West hands over the computer. “He got me all of the sex tape back,” she says. “And he flew home and he got the computer it was on and the hard drive. He met up with Ray J at the airport.”

However, Ray J apparently takes issue with this version of events, responding via a comment to an Instagram post of the clip. “All of this is a lie smh,” he wrote. “Can’t let them do this anymore – so untrue.” While he didn’t offer any additional explanation, he may be referring to the fact that the laptop in question reportedly didn’t have any more explicit content on it, as explained by Kardashian in a portion of the show after the clip cuts off. “It was just footage of us at a restaurant, at a nightclub. Nothing sexual, nothing weird.”

However, that statement also contradicts Kanye’s own account given during a January interview, while Ray J’s manager, Wack 100, claimed that there was “more graphic” content. While Kardashian initially refuted the claim to People magazine in January, the clip from the show seems to undermine that statement, as well. While the world may never know the truth, one thing is for sure: Most of the damage that could have been done probably already has been, and it seems everyone involved has already mostly moved on.

Elisabeth Moss is one of the best working actresses out there today. She’s also one of Scientology’s most notorious members, and in an interview with the New Yorker, the Mad Men star was unusually open about the religion that has been compared to a cult.

“I don’t want to come off as being cagey. If you and I met, just hanging out as friends, I’m, like, an open book about it,” Moss said when the topic was brought up. “I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me. I want them to be seeing the character. I feel like, when actors reveal too much of their lives, I’m sometimes watching something and I’m going, ‘Oh, I know that she just broke up with that person,’ or, ‘I know that she loves to do hot yoga,’ or whatever it is.”

Moss called Scientology, whose other famous members include Tom Cruise, Nancy Cartwright from The Simpsons, and formerly Laura Prepon, “misunderstood” and “not really a closed-off religion. It’s a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in somebody who wants to learn more about it” (whether you allegedly want to or not).

Later in the profile, the Her Smell star was asked about an incident at the 2017 Television Critics Association awards when she reportedly left the room after Leah Remini won for her anti-Scientology documentary series. “I went to the bathroom,” she said. “I wish it was more exciting than that.” Moss also commented on the rumors that she swore during her Emmys acceptance speech for The Handmaid’s Tale because, as a former-Scientology member told the Hollywood Reporter at the time, “Scientologists are urged to communicate with ‘average people,’ and to do so effectively you have to ‘go down the tone scale.’ So they all use ‘f*ck, f*ck, f*ck’ every time they talk.”

When I asked Moss about the story, she said, “That pissed me off. That was a really, really big moment for me, and it was a big moment for my mom and me. My mom, who has supported me through the years and been such an incredible mother to both me and my brother. And to tell a lie like that, about that — I didn’t deserve that, and it was wrong.”

You can read the rest of the profile here.

(Via the New Yorker)

Big Thief were met with a wave of critical acclaim upon their release of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, a double-LP that arrived in February. The songs are warm and welcoming, with Adrianne Lenker’s incisive lyricism making them truly special. They’ve brought some of the tracks to television, like with their blissful rendition of “Simulation Storm” on Colbert. Last night, they brought the soothing “Certainty” to The Late Late Show.

During the episode of the James Corden-led late-night television show, he announced that he will be leaving next year. “When I started this journey, it was always going to be just that: a journey, an adventure. I never saw it as my final destination,” Corden said. “And I never want this show to overstay its welcome in any way. I always want to love making it. And I really think that a year from now, that will be a good time to move on and see what else might be out there.”

It’s fitting, then, to have an act as bittersweet and evocative as Big Thief to provide the soundtrack for his farewell. The performance is pre-recorded due to COVID protocol, but it’s still poignant and beautiful.

Watch the performance of “Certainty” above.