Month: June 2022

Chewy customers are for life (and beyond), according to the many, many testimonies from incredibly grateful pet owners. And yup, there’s a reason to notice what’s happening with Chewy because nearly everyone loves dogs. That includes perpetual movie villain Danny Trejo (who doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t love dogs), and Better Call Saul knows how to give good dog-fan service, but boy, Chewy goes 100 extra miles to honor humanity’s best friend, who does everything from provide owners endless love and devotion to save Ukrainian lives while sniffing out explosive devices.

I’m not sure what we did to deserve dogs, but I’m awfully glad that we have them. And Chewy feels the same, as a new viral tweet (from Anna Brose out of Alaska) indicated. Brose wrote about how she contacted the pet supply company to return dog food after her beloved pooch passed away, and she was asked to donate the food to a shelter. She also received a refund, flowers, and a personally signed note from the Chewy rep.

As Brose soon learned, Chewy does a lot of good for their customers. Many customers tweeted about similar happenings when their pets passed away, or simply for no reason at all. Flowers, notes, refunds on unused equipment and suggestions to donate. It’s all in there, and it’s in plentiful supply. Chewy loves pets and their owners, and their customers love them for it. A shelter employee even stepped up to attest how the Chewy-directed donations are a real thing, and this helps cats and dogs so very much while they wait for their forever home.

In addition, Chewy apparently even keeps an eye on quietly removed pet profiles and reads between the lines before sending out handwritten notes of condolences after pets pass away.

Oh, and then there’s the individualized portraits that come from Chewy’s art department.

Simply stunning. They’re creating brand loyalty in such an organic way and it’s coming from a place of sheer joy and love. Are you getting a little misty-eyed after seeing these portraits? Same.

Ahead of his upcoming album, Drill Music In Zion, Lupe Fiasco has revealed the album’s title track. Contrary to its title, “Drill Music In Zion” features Fiasco delivering his brand of conscious rap over a jazz beat — not a drill beat.

On “Drill Music In Zion,” Fiasco examines humankind’s transactional nature and how people’s love of money and material objects drives and ultimately corrodes them.

“Position jostlers monitor hegemonics / Robots make the robots that solder electronics / Nostradamus couldn’t bother to keep a promise / Logic’s on a rocket, where profit defeats the conscience.”

In an interview with Financial Times last month, Fiasco says that he plans to rap until he dies. He also says he’s at a point in his career where he’s no longer driven by numbers.

“I care about rap, but I don’t care anymore about the business side or selling records,” he said. “I’ve always been a storyteller. When I was in the third grade, I wrote a play about a warring cat and mouse. I will be rapping right until the day I die.”

Check out “Drill Music In Zion” above.

Drill Music In Zion is out 6/24 via Thirty Tigers. Pre-save it here.

Lupe Fiasco is a Warner Music Artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Given Lady Gaga’s sustained level of extreme success, it’s a given that there have been plenty of tributes to her over the years. Now, though, Gaga has offered a co-sign to a new one that moved her by sharing a few words about “Gaga,” a new song by 20-year-old singer-songwriter Grace Gaustad.

Gaga tweeted, “Grace and I share a vocal coach who is deeply meaningful to us both and changed our lives, through him I found her and she found me. So proud of her and feel touched she wrote a song inspired by me. Love her! Check it out!”

The tune is named after Gaga but she’s not the only pop icon referenced on it, as the chorus goes, “Baby, I just wanna be a rockstar / Dancing like a virgin like Madonna / Flashing lights, I’m front row with Rihanna / On the edge of glory like I’m Gaga, Gaga.”

Upon releasing the song, Gaustad wrote, “This song and video is one of the most important things I’ve ever released because it’s a tribute to the woman who made me want to follow my dreams in the first place. @ladygaga Thank you for being you. Thank you for inspiring MILLIONS of people including me. Thank you for being a light in a dark world. 10 year old me is somewhere dancing to the telephone music video in her bedroom. I love you.”

Watch the “Gaga” video above.

Famously nice guy Tom Hanks showed off his angry side when a crowd of overly exuberant fans tripped his wife, actress (and fellow former-COVID haver) Rita Wilson.

While leaving a restaurant in New York City on Wednesday night, Hanks and Wilson were swarmed by selfie takers, autograph seekers, and one guy holding a Wilson volleyball from Cast Away. About 15 seconds into the video (which you can watch here), Wilson briefly loses her footing while the crowd is swarming her and Hanks. “Stop it,” she yelled, while Hanks used more forceful language. Understandably so:

“My wife? Back the f*ck off! Knocking over my wife?!” Hanks screamed before the couple hustled into a waiting car. One fan could then be heard apologizing, saying, “Sorry about that, Tom.”

The lesson here is: do not come between Oscar-winning actors and their wives.

Earlier this month, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu tweeted about a “not great altercation” he had during a book reading in Philadelphia. Some “professional autograph seekers” followed the actor “out of the Philly event and then threw soda on our window. They then ran to their car to remove the front license plate so we couldn’t ID them.” Both Liu and Wilson were fine, but people really need to chill.

(Via Page Six)

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is on the defensive at the moment, and gosh darnit he should be. While speaking with the House Select Committee about the events leading up to the events of January 6, 2021, several people within Donald Trump’s inner circle have claimed that Rudy—then serving as Trump’s personal attorney and seeming hype man—was three sheets to the wind on election night 2020. And that it was a very visibly inebriated Rudy who urged Trump to forget what the polls said or who Americans had voted president and to just get out there and declare himself president!

This would all make a kind of funny anecdote if it had been kept within MAGA world’s walls, but it’s now part of the public record—and public discourse—as Liz Cheney talked about it during Monday’s committee hearings, and Rudy is PISSED! On Tuesday, he issued a statement on the claims being made against him, where he hilariously swore that he ​​”REFUSED all alcohol” on election night and that his favorite drink is Diet Pepsi.

Yet, on Thursday night—just two days later—Giuliani was back to his rambling old self during a fundraising dinner for his son, New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani (who has been banned from attending any debates in-person because he’s not vaccinated).

First, he made some super funny jokes about Steve Bannon showing up to the event as a “surprise” guest and poked fun at the contempt charges being lodged against Trump’s former chief strategist, saying that Bannon “came here all the way from court with his shackles on and his leg irons on. You know, like that scene in Scrooge.” Ha ha ha—jail is funny! When a young woman draped herself around Rudy to talk more about the younger Giuliani’s run for governor, Rudy surprisingly didn’t need to “tuck his shirt in.” In fact, he seemed oblivious to the conversation being had with him at all as his mind had already trailed off toward golf. A few too many Diet Pepsis will do that to you!

To his credit, Giuliani’s small talk seems to have improved. For years, we’ve witnessed him show up at events and steal the spotlight with his rambling and oft-incoherent chatter. Like the time he spoke at an otherwise somber event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 talks, and veered so off-topic as to claim he “Never had a drink with [Prince Andrew], never was with a woman or young girl with him. Ever, ever, ever.” Which, for whatever reason, just didn’t seem appropriate when the topic at hand was how nearly 3,000 people died on September 11th. Or the time he spoke at the 2021 New York Young Republican Club gala and talked about Hitler and Stalin and child pornography and killing babies for no discernible reason.

So, all in all, boring the audience with golf talk is a step up. Way to go, Rudy!

(Via Ron Filipkowski)

Beloved TV actor Henry Winkler is coming for Herschel Walker. On Wednesday night, the Barry and Happy Days star took a break from posting fishing photos to fire off a tweet directly calling out the football player, who’s running for a Senate seat in Georgia.

“I need to repeat this again I am an American First with every right to an opinion … then I am an actor,” Winkler tweeted. “Got that Mr. Walker .. Mr famous Athlete.”

Unfortunately, The Fonz didn’t provide any context for his barb. His missive wasn’t a quote tweet, so there wasn’t much to go on. But after a little digging through Winkler’s timeline, it’s clear the iconic actor was not over Walker’s recent criticism that celebrities are one of America’s biggest problem.

Here’s the full Walker quote, and our apologies if you can’t make heads or tails of it because this is the kind of word salad that would make Sarah Palin, or her lesser form Lauren Boebert, green with envy.

Via NotHoodlum on Twitter:

I think some of the biggest problems going on in our country today we have so many celebrities telling people they can’t do it – telling a lot of people oh you know … you can’t do it like you gotta feel bad for yourself feel sorry for yourself which is sad to me because they done it but they telling you you can’t do it and it’s like God you did it why they can’t do it? I think that tell all kids that uh that you know, they can’t do it or … making our kids feel sorry for themselves. And ah not having it don’t want to educate. You don’t quit.

After seeing the almost incomprehensible quote, Winkler tweeted, “Aren’t [you] kind of a celeb, Hersh?” The actor also dipped into the replies and quote tweeted a user who couldn’t believe that Walker is not only on the ballot, but is polling well.

“Celebs are AMERICANS first,” Winkler tweeted.

Maybe someone gently nudge Winkler that “America First” is kind of Trump’s whole thing. The Fonz means well, of course. He’s got a good heart.

(Via Henry Winkler on Twitter)

While Flying Lotus is no stranger to vocal collaborations on his albums, the producer is best known for the prolific canvases he creates on his own. Sure, the Kendrick Lamar-featured “Never Catch Me” is considered by some as FlyLo’s magnum opus, but for some diehards, we’d love to hear more tunes like 2014’s “Your Potential//The Beyond,” where vocalist Niki Randa adds thick vocal textures to the tune. It seems as though FlyLo is indeed entering the point in his career where he’s leaning further into vocalists to help him bring new depths to his music. Look at his last album Flamagra, which featured notable collabs with vocalists in Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano, Thundercat, and others. But those are all known commodities, which don’t have the same allure that someone like say, Randa, brought in the past, as perhaps his muse.

Enter Devin Tracy, a classically-trained future R&B vocalist, who released an EP in Soulection’s Black Label series in 2018 and last year’s Don’t Take It Personal EP, but is a relative unknown. Lotus discovered Tracy at a recent session and it seems as though a creative connection quickly blossomed between the pair. Now, FlyLo’s new singles, “The Room” and “You Don’t Know,” feature Tracy on vocals and the diehards will be pleased.

“The Room” kicks off the two movement release with those familiar FlyLo layered strings intertwined with snares, as Tracy ranges all over the map with his evocative delivery. “You Don’t Know” is definitely more drums focused, but Tracy is a revelation on both, going from high registers on down and back.

Flying Lotus will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on August 21st, backed by the Bowl Orchestra, and this new release effectively whets the palate for more new tunes this year from the Grammy-winning producer.

Listen to “The Room” and “You Don’t Know” above.

There’s no shortage of companies, governments and organizations around the world searching for talented workers with a deep knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The demand is providing a clear pathway to rewarding, world-changing and well-paying STEM careers for many young people.

However, some students are missing these incredible opportunities because they haven’t envisioned themselves in STEM or encountered any mentors to show them a pathway for success.

FIRST is a global nonprofit that provides robotics-based programs and mentorship from adult volunteers such as educators and STEM professionals to students ages 4 to 18. FIRST is a mission-based robotics community that aims to get kids excited about STEM and allows them to build these talents, along with critical life skills such as communication and leadership, through team-based robotics competitions.

FIRST has a proven impact in guiding young people into STEM careers, all while having fun and making useful connections.

FIRST Championshipvia FIRST

Nearly 700,000 students and 320,000 adult mentors, coaches, judges and volunteers participate in the nonprofit community year over year, and the transformational power of FIRST programs was featured in the 2022 Disney+ documentary “More Than Robots.” Students develop problem-solving skills and learn confidence, cooperation, empathy and resilience—skills that will serve them well in their future careers.

Fazlul “Fuzz” Zubair, systems engineering department manager at Raytheon Technologies, an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate, mentors FIRST Team 4201, The Vitruvian Bots, in Los Angeles.

Zubair has hired 15 Raytheon Technologies employees from his FIRST team, creating a FIRST-to-work pipeline. Better yet, many of the new employees then give back to FIRST by mentoring their own teams. Zubair’s dedication to mentorship has created a cycle of positivity that continues to grow.

“Here, at FIRST, it’s a sport where everyone can go pro. They can come out of this program, and they can get a good-paying job and contribute positively to society and solve the tough problems that we have,” Zubair told Upworthy.

“Raytheon Technologies understands this, so it supports students in the program and its employees who mentor. Through FIRST, we’ve created a pipeline of people who already know how to collaborate with engineers and when they come into our companies, they have a head start,” Zubair continued.

See on Instagram

Wireless communications innovator Qualcomm Incorporated is another multinational company that supports FIRST. It has been hiring FIRST students because of their advanced skill sets since 2006.

“They’re working on robots and learning things like coding and critical thinking, but they also have 21st-century skills like teamwork and the ability to collaborate with students that come from diverse backgrounds. Those are all things that are important in the workplace,” Natalie Dusi, corporate social responsibility manager at Qualcomm Incorporated, told Upworthy.

As employees, FIRST students join the workforce with experience and vital collaboration skills. “They roll up their sleeves and start innovating right away. When FIRST students come into Qualcomm Incorporated, they are confident,” she added.

Zubair says that FIRST students are valuable, in part because they understand that failure is part of learning and innovation.

“Learning through failure is something that’s really hard to teach,” he said. “You must go through that process. I like to tell my students all the time, ‘I’d rather you fail on this robot than a billion-dollar satellite. Learn now, fail often, fail early.’”

For FIRST CEO Chris Moore, the opportunity to gain confidence in STEM is an important and deeply personal issue. When he was in middle school, a teacher dissuaded him from pursuing a career in technology and he believes it had lasting, negative effects on his career. “Even now, as someone with decades of experience leading youth-serving organizations, this STEM inferiority complex has stuck with me, and at times I still doubt my own STEM competency,” he told Upworthy. “The reality is, STEM is achievable and rewarding for everyone, no matter their gender, age, race, economic standing orientation nor any other factor.”

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Statistics point to a high demand for STEM workers and a short supply, especially in the United States and especially among women, underserved, and underrepresented groups. FIRST provides young people from any background with the skills they need to succeed in their STEM studies and future careers. Notably, FIRST reached more than 20,300 youth in underserved communities during its 2019 season.

FIRST students are twice as likely to express interest in a STEM career than their peers.

FIRST understands the value of inspiring all students and does so by providing innovation grants to teams from underserved communities and developing strategic alliances with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers and Girls, Inc., and other like-minded organizations.

One of the lasting impacts FIRST has on students is an understanding that no matter who they are or where they come from, they can solve the world’s most pressing issues.

The theme for the 2022 – 2023 season is energy. Students will explore the essential role that energy plays in keeping the world moving forward, the possibilities that different energy sources unlock, and how we can all realize a brighter future through innovative ideas in energy generation, efficiency, and use.

Cooperation, empathy, and resilience are skills that last a lifetime and it’s never too early for a child to enjoy their benefits. Learn more about FIRST programs in your area and how you can become involved!

Go to firstinspires.org.

Mitski is having a good year after releasing her new album Laurel Hell, and so is Harry Styles after he unveiled Harry’s House. Today, the “Washing Machine Heart” singer took to Twitter to express her appreciation for Styles and what she’s learned from him in some heartfelt tweets.

In a pair of tweets, Mitski wrote, “From Mitski: Watching Harry Styles & his band from the audience last night, I felt so honored to get to be a small part of these giant joyful events. Thank you for having us! We still got more shows to go, but I’m already learning so much, I feel like I got a scholarship! It’s awe-inspiring, watching hundreds of people work together to put on an amazing show each night. Thank you so much to Harry and his team for the opportunity to see it all up close, to witness all the love and energy you put into your shows. It’s a real privilege.”

In February, Mitski also took to Twitter to discuss the usage of phones at concerts. “But sometimes when I see people filming entire songs or whole sets, it makes me feel as though we are not here together,” she wrote. “This goes for both when I’m on stage, and when I’m an audience member at shows.”

Summer is right around the corner, meaning two things: Festival season is upon us and the year is already halfway over. Whether you’re looking to open up the pit to mosh at a show or throw on a wistful album to accompany a long drive, indie musicians have already shared a number of exciting releases in 2022.

From Arcade Fire’s triumphant comeback album We to Angel Olsen’s country-leaning Big Time and Sharon Van Etten’s monumental We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, indie artists gave us some of the most compelling releases of the year thus far. With the steady roll out of new music, it can be hard to keep track of all the best new albums — and that’s where we come in. Check out our unranked list of 2022’s best indie albums (so far) below.

Angel Olsen — Big Time

Fans who were introduced to Angel Olsen on her synth-led 2019 effort All Mirrors won’t recognize the songwriter’s Southern drawl on her sixth studio album Big Time. Big Time is Olsen’s version of a country record; steeped in emotion and penned following a particularly devastating period of time after both of Olsen’s parents passed away just months after she came out as queer to her family. As a result, Big Time is humbled and down-to-earth as Olsen attempts to make sense of the contradictions in her life; grief amid love, and tragedy amid romance. – Carolyn Droke

Arcade Fire — We

It’s hard to stay relevant as a rock band today, especially when your most nostalgia-inducing era ended well over a decade ago and when pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo work rock into their music and make guitar-based groups less necessary for a casual music fan to seek out. Arcade Fire took a pretty good stab at it this year, though, with We, which was better-received than its predecessor Everything Now. We works because instead of trying to modernize with dance influences like Everything Now did, it reaches for, and often touches, the same feeling that Funeral gave wide-eyed fans back in 2004. – Derrick Rossignol

Band Of Horses — Things Are Great

After a period of spotty records in the 2010s, Things Are Great felt like a conscious return to the brawny, vision-quest-y rock of Band Of Horses’ mid-aughts era, when they first roared to indie fame on the strength of their 2006 debut, Everything All The Time. After all this time, Ben Bridwell remains uniquely talented at crafting big-hearted rock songs that sound predestined to soundtrack life-changing road trips. – Steven Hyden

Beach House — Once Twice Melody

Not only did Beach House essentially define the contemporary dream-pop genre (or at least raise its bar), but a decade after making that type of music, they’re probably still the best at it. The massive scope of Once Twice Melody — an 84-minute, 18-track album — matches the grandiosity of the band’s sound. This epic-scale (again, both in structure and aesthetic) doesn’t come at the cost of intimacy, though, as the album is still filled with enough detail and vulnerability to prevent it from being just a sea of reverb, a balance Beach House has always been able to strike better than just about anybody else in their field. – D.R.

Big Thief — Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

So much of the pleasure of listening to this masterful album comes from appreciating the subtle and delicate ways in which Big Thief works and plays together, whether it’s the excellent jam that closes “Little Things,” the surprisingly heavy rock groove that subsumes “Flower Of Blood,” or the way Buck Meek’s voice rises to harmonize with Adrianne Lenker on the chorus of the stunning love song “12000 Lines.” An instant classic. – S.H.

Black Country, New Road — Ants From Up There

Ants From Up There is no casual affair. Black Country, New Road put on an idiosyncratic folk-rock opera with clashing instruments and Isaac Wood’s warbling baritone. The album fluctuates between colossal moments of bombast and quiet periods of withheld intensity like on the dynamic “Concorde” when the sound pauses and Wood wonders calmly: “I was made to love you / Can’t you tell?” Every second matters on Ants From Up There; the stakes are always getting higher, and catharsis is always brewing, even if it’s beneath the surface. – Danielle Chelosky

The Black Keys — Dropout Boogie

Since taking a lengthy break between albums, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have been as productive as any point in Black Keys history over the past few years; This past May delivered Dropout Boogie, the duo’s third album since 2019, and if it sounds like a return to their roots, that makes sense: The three latest albums are the duo’s first to be produced solely by them since 2006’s Magic Potion. The result is the Black Keys in its purest form: no-frills rock music built on guitar, drums, and not a ton else. – D.R.

Camp Cope — Running With The Hurricane

Returning for the first full-length release since their acclaimed 2018 album, Aussie rockers Camp Cope showcase their refined and relatable ballads on Running With The Hurricane. Contrasting the music’s sunny chords and distinct rhythms, the project as a whole is confessional, tender, and sincere. Over shimmering, folksy instrumentals, Camp Cope deal with heavy subject matters like misogyny in the music industry, sexual assault, and mourning the death of loved ones. – C.D.

Caracara — New Preoccupations

The Philly band Caracara use less as more on New Preoccupations, an album that thrives off of intense restraint that helps create a dynamic, cathartic listening experience. Songs explode into each other seamlessly and Will Lindsay’s earnest vocals imbue them with color and raw emotion over soaring instrumentals. A guest appearance from Anthony Green proves that Caracara are still connected to their emo roots, interested in digging into complicated feelings and sharing them with the world unabashedly. – D.C.

Caroline — Caroline

When the collective Caroline released their self-titled debut this year, it was clear why the band garnered comparisons to groups Black Midi and Black Country, New Road. Not only do they have an unusually large amount of members, eight to be exact, but the album was produced by Black Midi producer John “Spud” Murphy. There are not many lyrics to be found throughout the release, but there doesn’t need to be — the music speaks for itself. Inventive and evocative, songs like “IWR” open with a hymn-like chorus while others like “Skydiving On The Roof” break down into a dizzying array of strings and cool-toned guitars. –C.D.

Christian Lee Hutson — Quitters

Christian Lee Hutson quickly became this decade’s buzziest folk artists with his gentle and ruminating 2020 album Beginners. Continuing to showcase his observant songwriting, Hutson translated reflections on how time alters memory on his timeless sophomore album Quitters. The Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst-produced project is filled with wistful, ballad-like tracks like “Strawberry Lemonade” and “Rubberneckers,” led by acoustic chords and thoughtfully arranged orchestral sections. – C.D.

Father John Misty — Chloë And The Next 20th Century

If an FJM album drops and there isn’t a polarizing press tour to go with it, does that album make a sound? I’ll admit I’m still getting used to this era of Father John Mum. But it feels appropriate for his most recent batch of songs. Rather than write about the familiar swaggering anti-hero that was his persona on the first four albums, Josh Tillman has instead focused on his other made-up characters — the titular “borough socialist” Chloë, a striving entertainment biz creative named Simone, the actress known as Funny Girl, an unnamed pair of ex-lovers who are reunited by their recently deceased cat Mr. Blue. It’s as much a collection of short stories as it is a record. – S.H.

Fontaines DC — Skinty Fia

Fontaines DC is a commercial juggernaut in the UK and Ireland: Their new album, Skinty Fia, went No. 1 in both areas. They’ve managed to cultivate a high level of respect stateside, too. That’s something they’ve earned via both consistency and a sense of adventure, emphasized by tracks like the grungy alt-rocker “Jackie Down The Line” and the trip-hop-influenced title track. – Derrick Rossignol

Gang Of Youths — Angel In Realtime

If 2017’s Go Farther In Lightness was this Australian band’s Joshua Tree — the fearlessly earnest collection of guitar-based spirituals rooted in an unending desire for transcendence — then perhaps the follow-up could be their Achtung Baby. An album in which beat-heavy, danceable, and often ecstatic music acts as a shield for blood-and-guts, dark-night-of-the-soul introspection. An intimate confession made to sound loud enough to engulf the entire world. – S.H.

Girlpool — Forgiveness

LA duo Girlpool did not hold back on their new album Forgiveness, which candidly explores lust, shame, and relationships, maturing suddenly since their previous, more innocent material. Vivid imagery and unabashed emotion propel the album forward: “Every day it’s Friday night / I hold my body like a butcher knife,” Harmony Trividad lulls over soft rhythms on “Faultline.” The unhurried pace doesn’t take away from the electricity and thrill of this album; they can excite with simple melodies and succinct lines about parties that are whispered honestly over twangy guitars. – D.C.

Haai — Baby, We’re Ascending

After honing her sound over the last five years with a handful of singles and a 2020 EP, Haai’s technical skills are on full display in her euphoric debut LP Baby, We’re Ascending. Tailor-made for sweaty, low-lit dancefloors, the album is moody, glitchy, and euphoric, jam-packed with fractal beats and atmospheric soundscapes. Her songs layer dizzying beats over gauzy vocals, like you’re hearing the words from within a dream. Fans of Porter Robinson, Hot Chip, and Kelly Lee Owens will fall head over heels with this London-by-way-of-Australia producer/DJ. – C.D.

Horsegirl — Versions Of Modern Performance

Chicago teenage trio Horsegirl effectively delivered one of 2022’s most exciting indie debuts with their shoegazey LP Versions Of Modern Performance. Drawing inspiration from the greats that came well before them like Kim Gordon and Brian Eno, Horsegirl subvert modern-day indie rock expectations. They evoke the grittiness and intellect of groundbreaking post-punk artists on tracks such as “Option 8” and “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty),” combining droning guitar tones and deadpan lyrics that infuse just the right amount of humor and apathy. – C.D.

Joyce Manor — 40 Oz. To Fresno

Following up Million Dollars To Kill Me, Joyce Manor are summoning the chaotic, raw energy of 2012’s Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired with their new album 40 Oz. To Fresno. The album clocks in at 16 minutes in a sort of sonic collage featuring taut, off-kilter rock songs like “You’re Not Famous Anymore” and “Don’t Try,” catchy tracks with poppier melodies with “Dance With Me” and “Reason To Believe,” and absolute rippers such as “Gotta Let It Go” and the merciless finale “Secret Secrets.” – D.C.

Khruangbin, Leon Bridges — Texas Moon

The companion piece to 2020’s Texas Sun is filled with David Axelrod-like explorations from Khruangbin, Bridges’ impeccable vocal delivery, and symbiotic sounds from the group. “I think my collaboration with Khruangbin is really where my heart is. I love how raw our sound is,” Bridges said in Uproxx’s February cover story on their project. Their chemistry is palpable throughout the spirituality of “Doris” and “Father Father,” the tender love of “Mariella” and “Chocolate Hills,” and the stone, cold groove of “B-Side.” Texas Moon fully established the foursome as a bonafide supergroup, one that makes you want to look deep into the Texas night sky, and hope that there’s much more yet to come. – Adrian Spinelli

The Linda Lindas — Growing Up

Viral moments are terrific for getting a young act off the ground, but it also takes more than that to maintain liftoff. So, after “Racist Sexist Boy” vaulted The Linda Lindas to internet stardom (and a record deal with Epitaph), they got to work on Growing Up, which is just a flat-out good rock album, no qualifications necessary. With how adept and confident the group is here, it’s easy to forget that they’re all in their teens. Well, except for drummer Mila de la Garza, who turns 12 this summer. Growing Up is a substantially stronger creative product than the vinegar-baking-soda volcanos and copy-pasted middle school essays most of us were making at that age. – D.R.

MJ Lenderman — Boat Songs

The reference points for this album — early Wilco, “ditch” era Neil Young, all periods of Jason Molina — might seem pretty standard for an alt country-leaning singer-songwriter. But as is the case with his regular band, the rising North Carolina twangy shoegaze outfit Wednesday, Lenderman has a way of taking the familiar in new and refreshingly irreverent directions, like in the song “Dan Marino,” which references the former Miami Dolphins quarterback and an obscure quote from The Last Waltz over a lo-fi guitar rumble that sounds like side two of Tonight’s The Night. – S.H.

Nilüfer Yanya — Painless

This buzzy British singer-songwriter was a breakout artist back in 2019, thanks to an eclectic amalgam of influences suggesting that Yanya ultimately wanted to fuse the slinky grace of Sade with the sort of chunky and lovably punk anthems associated with Blink-182 and Libertines. But she really raises her game with this album, in which she channels mid-period Radiohead through the lens of ecstatically dark-hued millennial pop. – S.H.

Orville Peck — Bronco

The gravelly-voiced gentleman of the lowlands, one Orville Peck is back with his second full-length album. Though Peck plays into the traditional cowboy and country tropes in some ways, he also subverts them in just as many; Peck is a South African musician based in Canada, so he’s twice removed from the American west. Maybe that’s part of what helps him see the humor and mystery in the great outdoors, and all three subjects are laid bare within his baritone blues, fringed mask intact. Bronco is an expansion of the queer themes that his debut album, Pony, explored and proves that Peck is anything but a one-trick musician. – Caitlin White

Porridge Radio — Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To The Sky

Porridge Radio rose in the music scene for their unafraid expression of complicated feelings, which continues on their new album Waterslide, Dive Board, Ladder To The Sky. Their powerful honesty can best be exemplified by “Birthday Party,” in which vocalist Dana Margolin sings, “I don’t want to be loved” 57 times. The instrumentals are as massive and evocative as ever, but this time around there are also gentler moments, allowing for intensity to be conveyed through smallness in a way that is truly beautiful and resonant. – D.C.

Say Sue Me — The Last Thing Left

The South Korean indie favorites got a lot of folks on their side with their 2017 self-titled debut album and have been building up a nice discography for themselves since then. They added to it this year with The Last Thing Left, which, like many exemplary albums, is a mixed bag. As far as the overarching aesthetic at play, though, it’s best summarized by songs like “Around You,” relentlessly sweet and joyful on its surface but with more emotional depth if you pay attention to what’s being said. – D.R.

Sharon Van Etten — We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

Deviating from the usual album release cycle, Sharon Van Etten didn’t release any singles ahead of her album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. Even still, her monumental sixth studio effort was worth the wait. Departing from her rocking 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten’s latest effort is far less guitar-driven. Translating the restlessness and anxiety of the last two years into music, the album revolves around themes of coexistence and motherhood over sprawling beats and atmospheric production. – C.D.

The Smile — A Light For Attracting Attention

This side project for Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood presents itself as the most un-Radiohead-like of propositions — a guitar-driven power trio! — that happens to sound, tantalizingly, like a version of Radiohead that Radiohead no longer is apparently interested in being. Given the dearth of actual Radiohead albums since A Moon Shaped Pool, it’s almost too easy to regard A Light For Attracting Attention as the next best thing, a kind of musical methadone for Kid A nation. – S.H.

Soul Glo — Diaspora Problems

Philadelphia group Soul Glo didn’t hold back on this new album Diaspora Problems, a collection of eclectic songs whose common denominator is relentlessness. From the start, the opener “Gold Chain Punk (Whogonbeatmyass?)” melds together metallic riffs with chaotic rap and piercing screamo; the album brilliantly balances humor with seriousness, grappling with capitalism, police brutality, and the complicity of leftists, all under clever song titles like “We Wants Revenge” and “F*cked Up If True.” It might be the loudest, most unafraid album of the year, but it doesn’t want to be; it wants others to scream, to pick up their instruments and shred, and to use their voices to the fullest possible capacity. Along with bands like Turnstile, Soul Glo is expanding the meaning of hardcore music and creating space for others in the scene. – D.C.

Toro Y Moi — Mahal

Everything Toro y Moi does these days exudes coolness. With Mahal, he’s dug deeper into his Filipino roots, by cruising around in a vintage jeepney and probing the influence and evolution of ’60s mod rock and ’70s global funk. The utter psychedelia of “Déjà Vu” sees these inspirations converging, whereas on “Magazine,” he brings on Salami Rose Joe Louis for a hypnotic duet. But it’s on “The Loop” where the sleek veneer and fashionable lean of Toro’s Chaz Bear shines the brightest. It’s the sound that galvanizes skater kids, hip-hop heads, audiophiles, and mouth-breathers alike. And it hardly feels like the lesson in vintage rock and roll history that it is. – A.S.

Wet Leg — Wet Leg

When was the last time an indie band released six tracks before the album came out that were actually worthy of being singles and not just some boardroom marketing play? With their blend of tongue-in-cheek Britpop lyrics with downright electric rock and roll guitar riffs, the Isle of Wight duo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers have been this year’s true lightning-in-a-bottle indie band. And yes, it’s not just “Chaise Longue,” “Wet Dream,” “Too Late Now,” “Oh No,” “Angelica,” and “Ur Mum” that go extremely hard. Enjoy the ride. – A.S.

Wilco — Cruel Country

Wilco rose from the ashes of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo and the band retained that twangy sound early in its life. They eventually strayed from it, but now the prodigal son has returned, as Wilco has gone back to country for its twelfth album, the indicatively titled Cruel Country. The result is an album that’s mostly understated on its surface but not undercooked, bringing Jeff Tweedy and company’s collective wisdom to the aesthetic by which their younger selves were most immediately enamored. – D.R.

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