Month: June 2022

While the critical response to HBO’s new limited series The Staircase has been overwhelmingly positive, with Uproxx’s Carrie Whittmer describing it as a “masterpiece that redefines true crime,” not everyone is enamored of the dramatic retelling of the 2001 murder of Kathleen Peterson, and the subsequent trial of her husband, Michael.

Shortly after the eight-episode series, which stars Colin Firth and Toni Collette, premiered, director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade—who spent 14 years embedded with the Peterson family and Michael’s legal team to tell the story of his legal roller coaster—told Vanity Fair that he felt “betrayed” by Antonio Campos, who created the scripted series.

De Lestrade, who is portrayed in the series by French actor Vincent Vermignon, believes that Campos’ narrative suggests that the documentarian and his team—including Sophie Brunet, who entered into a romantic relationship with Peterson—crafted and edited their docuseries in a way that might help exonerate Michael or help with his appeals, a charge he adamantly denies. “I understand if you dramatize,” de Lestrade told Vanity Fair. “But when you attack the credibility of my work, that’s really not acceptable to me.” But as Campos told The Wrap, that was never their intention:

I have nothing but a deep respect and admiration for Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and for Sophie and for everyone involved in this documentary. And from the beginning, we were always doing something that was a dramatization inspired by true events. We approached everything in this story with as much care and love as we possibly could and infused that into their characters and had nothing but respect and admiration for the characters that we were creating of them…

None of us would dispute that the documentary is a masterpiece. And that’s how we perceive it. The characters in our story were making something that is a masterpiece.”

“The product that we made is, I think, very much, earnestly an homage to the thing that they created,” added executive producer Maggie Cohn.

Also: The owl did it!

(Via The Wrap)

(Warning: The above audio contains profanity, albeit of the untranslated Russian variety.)

Behind the scenes, Vladimir Putin’s inner circle is really not thrilled with his war on Ukraine, and we’re slowly hearing more about this internal mess. That includes word of a few significant developments: (1) Putin’s inner circle is reportedly maneuvering to install a successor based upon the ongoing dismal invasion; and (2) U.S. intelligence officers claim to have viewed documents showing that Putin’s “rule is no longer absolute” (also partially due to his health and an assassination attempt).

Not only that, but previously leaked audio showed how Russian troops are so fed up with this war that they nearly blew up their general, and yup, there’s more of the same coming to show that Putin’s Army officers are peeved with what he’s having them do in Ukraine, too. You can listen to the non-translated audio footage above, in which Russian colonels call Putin the c-word and a “host of f*ckers.”

Via Business Insider, the audio also features these officers going off on a close Putin ally, Russia’s minister of defense Sergei Shoigu, who signed onto Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine months ago. The colonels (one of them being Lieutenant Colonel Vladimirovich Vlasov) described Shoigu as “completely fucking incompetent” and “just a f*cking showman, for f*ck’s sake.” In addition, Vlasov goes off on Gen. Alexander Dvornikov (who has apparently been off the scene for weeks, and he’s not alone, since Putin’s been firing military leaders like crazy) as a “brainless f*cking idiot.”

So, it sounds like this imperialistic war isn’t going nearly as smoothly as Putin had hoped, but that’s also what one gets when one messes with molotov cocktail-wielding grandmas and the will of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who refused to be airlifted out. And NBC News is now reporting that, 100 days into this war, the Ukrainian people are more committed than ever to stand their ground and take their whole country back from Vladimir Putin.

(Via Business Insider)

Is hypocrisy an inherited trait? If one were to use the Trump family as the basis for a case study, it would certainly seem so. While Papa Trump is busy promising to Make America Great Again, he has long relied on foreign workers to make his businesses run, while factory workers in Ivanka Trump’s now-shuttered clothing company regularly complained about abusive work conditions and “poverty pay.” Now, Jimmy Kimmel is calling out self-proclaimed patriot Donald Trump Jr. for employing the same practices.

On Thursday night, while discussing the general hypocrisy of the Republican party—and how no one even seems to realize it or care—Kimmel took aim specifically at the former president’s perpetually amped-up adult son:

Donald Trump Jr., he’s always talking about China. Very anti-China. ‘My father was tough on China.’ ‘Hunter Biden’s in bed with China.’ Well, I happened to be scrolling through his website, because this is what I do. He’s got an online store with, really, some wonderful products like [a] ‘F**k Joe Biden’ hat that is ‘designed and embroidered in the USA. Ok, well, it may have been embroidered in the USA, but we ordered one of the hats. Boy, you’re not going to believe this: it was actually made in China. You won’t find that on his website though.

Other items Kimmel procured included a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt that had been thoughtfully made in Nicaragua. And as for a Let’s Get Biden To Quit tee, presented in the colors of the rainbow flag, just in time for Pride Month? That came from El Salvador.

“And why doesn’t he have the shirt made here?,” Kimmel wondered—already knowing the answer. “Because they cost about 30 percent more to have them made here.” (For the record: Kimmel also showed off the tags of his own T-shirts promoting The Jimmy Kimmel Show and, lo and behold, they actually are made in America.)

You can watch the full segment, beginning around the 4:30 mark.

Muna are floating in the space between indie up-and-comers and pop stars as they prepare to release their next, self-titled album, which has “Anything But Me,” their biggest song since their hit “Silk Chiffon.”

Today, they’re showing admiration to one of the most important pop stars of the past couple of decades — Britney Spears — by sharing a cover of her “Sometimes” from her 1999 classic LP …Baby One More Time. They make the song their own by adding a lush texture, sporadic beats, and Katie Gavin’s distinct voice; it’s dance-ready, but also has a sense of melancholy.

This bittersweetness is similar to their song “Home By Now,” about which they said: “‘Home By Now’ is the song on the record that we feel might be closest to our first album in that it’s a dance song with brutal lyrics and an emo bridge. It’s a breakup song that’s a bit more full of longing and doubt than ‘Anything But Me.’ While a lot of this album does seem to be about trusting my instincts, this song acknowledges the pain of not knowing if I left a relationship that I was meant to be in.”

Their cover of “Sometimes” is on the soundtrack to Fire Island, which is streaming now on Hulu. Listen to it above.

Johnny Depp agreed with his attorney that “nothing on this earth,” including “$300 million and a million alpacas,” would get to him to play Jack Sparrow again. But that was before Amber Heard was found guilty of defamation against her ex-husband. Now, a former-Disney executive is certain Depp will return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

“I absolutely believe post-verdict that Pirates is primed for rebooting with Johnny as Capt. Jack back on board,” an unnamed “former Walt Disney Studios executive” told People. “There is just too much potential box-office treasure for a beloved character deeply embedded in the Disney culture.” They continued:

“With [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer riding high on the massive success of Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, there is huge appetite for bringing back bankable Hollywood stars in massively popular franchises,” the insider adds. A spokesperson for Disney has not responded to People‘s request for comment.

There hasn’t been a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie since 2017’s bloated Dead Men Tell No Tales, but Jack Sparrow is still a presence at Disney properties, including the Pirates of the Caribbean dark ride at Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, among other parks. There has been talk of a Bruckheimer-produced Pirates reboot starring Margot Robbie, however, with “lots of girl power.” People spoke to another Hollywood insider who believes Robbie would play Jack Sparrow’s daughter, and “likely have a cameo with [Depp] as a test.” So much for the girl power.

(Via People)

Last month, it was revealed that Jack Antonoff had put together a ’70s-inspired soundtrack for Minions: The Rise Of Gru. When that news was revealed, a name that surely came immediately to the minds of informed music fans was St. Vincent; Her latest album, 2021’s Daddy’s Home, was very directly inspired by the era, which was made clear by both the sound of the music itself and St. Vincent repeating that point in interviews and promotional materials.

Sure enough, she was involved in the project, which is mostly covers of ’70s songs. For her contribution, St. Vincent offered a cover of Lipps Inc.’s enduring classic “Funkytown” (which was actually released as a single in 1980 but first appeared on the band’s 1979 album Mouth To Mouth, so it’s still a ’70s tune). It’s hard to make such a distinct song sound fresh but St. Vincent took a pleasing approach here, delivering robot-icized vocals over a funky and psychedelic performance of the song.

The full soundtrack comes out on July 1 and other covers to look forward to include Thundercat doing Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” Phoebe Bridgers doing The Carpenters’ “Goodbye To Love,” and Brockhampton doing Kool & The Gang’s “Hollywood Swinging.”

Listen to St. Vincent’s cover of “Funkytown” above.

Minions: The Rise Of Gru (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is out 7/1 via Decca Records. Pre-order it here.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

There was never any real question of whether or not Barry Johnson would fully dedicate himself to Joyce Manor; he knew it, the band knew it, and the hype surrounding the leaked copy of their self-titled debut eventually settled the matter. Yet, Johnson admits being spooked at the time by a frightening vision of his mid-30s — burnt out on music and barely employed, spending his waking hours playing video games with only the daily beer run breaking up the monotony. This future had indeed come to pass for Johnson over the past two years and he couldn’t be happier — but only because leading a highly successful pop-punk band had done the opposite of extending Johnson’s adolescence.

“We had no home life,” Johnson explains, having spent nearly all of his 20s “in Joyce Manorland 24/7” — “you’re either unemployed or out on the road being an alcoholic Chuck E. Cheese cartoon.” The need for a hiatus and the fear that a hiatus might jeopardize the band’s livelihood were rendered moot by the pandemic. So, after a brief stint bartending in Long Beach, Johnson took advantage of California’s generous unemployment benefits and renowned community college system to get caught up on his unwasted youth. “This is exactly how it was when I was 8 — I’m in school, playing video games, I have three friends, I’m doing homework,” he beams from his Long Beach home while he and his girlfriend wait for a Doordash order. And then he qualifies a bit — “I didn’t do any homework when I was a kid, but I’m doing it now.”

Despite being Joyce Manor’s first studio album in four years, 40 Oz. To Fresno arrives more like a sigh of relief than a painstakingly constructed comeback. But it’s still a statement of intent, that after a decade of increasingly professional and proficient albums, Joyce Manor has earned the right to revel in a bygone, SoCal pop-punk delinquency. The title itself — taken from an autocorrected text about Sublime’s debut album — is the sort of in-joke that Johnson used to propose to the band before retracting at the last minute, i.e., Born Again In The USA, Self-Titled II, and Songs From Northern Torrance, a Teenage Fanclub spoof that ended up gracing their 2020 singles compilation. Still, 40 Oz. To Fresno was significantly less in-jokey than the previous frontrunner — Hungover Again. Johnson decided not to evoke his band’s 2014 masterpiece, but only shortly before the record pressing. So there will be an alternate version with the original cover: Johnson, indeed hungover again, eating a burrito.

It’s unlikely that 40 Oz. will unseat Joyce Manor or Never Hungover Again as a consensus choice for the band’s definitive work, but that was kind of the point; since signing to Epitaph in 2014, Joyce Manor albums have often been accompanied by extensive profiles that both celebrated their success and tried to unravel the mysteries of why they had yet to reach the rarefied commercial peaks of, say, Blink-182 or Weezer, bands which they’ve covered. By 2018’s Million Dollars To Kill Me, Johnson acknowledges, “It seemed like we were trying to make it or transcend the genre, like we were trying to become a big radio rock band, which isn’t really true because I know how ridiculous that is.” Nevertheless, Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz claimed it was one of the best albums ever released on his label, right up there with Rancid’s …And Out Come The Wolves. As with Never Hungover Again and Cody before it, Million Dollars To Kill Me saw Joyce Manor playing to bigger rooms without cracking KROQ — they headlined the Hollywood Palladium twice, accompanied by Tumblr-era day ones like Jeff Rosenstock, Tigers Jaw and AJJ. But Johnson had begun to feel like Joyce Manor’s pivot towards power-pop had reached a dead-end — “I wanted to make a weirder Joyce Manor record.”

From the moment 40 Oz. To Fresno’s details were revealed, there was a safe bet that Johnson would make good on his word. After two records which started creeping towards a half-hour, 40 Oz. is classic Joyce Manor time management — nine songs, 17 minutes. It begins with a cover of new wave icons OMD’s “Souvenir,” which is followed by “NBTSA,” a 73-second blast of melodic hardcore originally recorded on 4-track for a 2017 Polyvinyl series. The album ends with “Secret Sisters,” a B-side from Never Hungover Again that Johnson debated releasing as a standalone single or tacking onto Songs From Northern Torrance. Neither option satisfied, and while “Secret Sisters” didn’t fit the timeline of Songs, it sparked a desire to revisit the days when Joyce Manor veered more towards “Teenage Dirtbag” than Teenage Fanclub. “We’ve never tried to make a specific sounding record, but I thought maybe it’d be cool to make a record that all sounded like that,” Johnson says. “It slams…like an emo, fuck this slams.”

Lead single “Gotta Let It Go” is the one song Johnson abides by that goal, but otherwise, 40 Oz. To Fresno still demonstrates the breadth of Joyce Manor’s craft and their dedication to brevity. “Reason To Believe” honors the Britpop influence of their previous two albums and the concision of their first two. Broadly inspired by our collective schadenfreude at fallen indie stars, “You’re Not Famous Anymore” is a throwback to the adolescent spite of Joyce Manor cuts like “Call Out” and “Leather Jacket.” “Don’t Try” serves as proof of concept for 40 Oz., a quintessential “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” heater that Johnson claims was “Frankensteined from four songs in the Joyce Manor graveyard,” with producer Rob Schnapf adding guitar to a new bridge.

The puzzle-piece approach to “Don’t Try” and 40 Oz. as a whole immediately recalls that of 2012’s Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired — an oddball in the Joyce Manor discography that experimented with a Buggles cover, Smiths fanfic and raw, acoustic folk-punk, bridging the time between Joyce Manor and their signing to Epitaph. Johnson had described it in the past as a form of self-sabotage, a way to get a step ahead of the backlash he anticipated after Joyce Manor’s unanimous acclaim. It only sorta worked. If Of All Things is the least-loved Joyce Manor album, it’s the most passionately defended by those who do love it; sometimes, including Johnson himself. But while its 10th anniversary came and went without much fanfare, Johnson began to recognize how Joyce Manor had lost touch with that mischievous streak amidst two-year cycles of releasing an album to polite acclaim and touring until it was as loved as the one before it. “I just wanted to make sure we weren’t on autopilot like, ‘Oh that record sucked? How are ticket sales doing? Really bad? We really f*cked up?’”

Million Dollars To Kill Me holds up pretty well four years later, though it’s clearly the work of artists who couldn’t quite articulate their visions. “I really needed a break and we probably should’ve taken one between Cody and Million Dollars To Kill Me,” he admits. Here was a conundrum that flipped his original fears of what dedication to Joyce Manor would mean for his security; that stepping away from the band would be a surefire way to torpedo any kind of financial stability he could hope to achieve. “I was starting to feel like we were in perpetual motion — ‘You got a good thing going! Don’t let it slow down!” Johnson had initially intended some of Million Dollars’ songs for a solo album before taking Matt Skiba’s non-Alkaline Trio projects as a cautionary tale. The band might have indeed taken a hiatus before they linked up with Pat Graham, drummer from the erstwhile, sorely underappreciated pop-punk rippers Spraynard. “He’s a killer drummer and a great guy and it’s like, ‘Let’s do some tours with Pat. And then we started writing with him and it’s like, ‘Let’s do a record.’” The band brought in Converge’s Kurt Ballou to produce, and Johnson envisioned a gnarly rejoinder to Cody, which was helmed by Schnapf, a seasoned vet best known for his work on Mellow Gold, Elliott Smith’s X/O and several The Vines albums. Meanwhile, Joyce Manor had reminded Ballou of hearing The Cars in constant rotation while growing up in Boston. “I was hoping he was gonna make it scarier but he thought, ‘I get to not do the thing I always do,’” Johnson recalls. “And I was like… aw, man… do the thing you always do!”

After the touring cycle for Million Dollars ended, Johnson eventually convinced the remaining original members — bassist Matt Ebert and guitarist Chase Knobbe — that taking a step away from the band was in the best interest of everyone’s mental and creative well-being. Ebert, who Johnson credits with being the brains and hustle behind the Joyce Manor operation in its earliest days, became a day-to-day manager for bands at Sargent House. Meanwhile, Joyce Manor found ways to stay busy with their catalog, bundling their formative singles and EPs into Songs From North Torrance and releasing a 10th-anniversary version of Joyce Manor last year, one of the most radical remasters I’ve heard in a long, long time. “Wouldn’t you like to hear what this would sound like if it was recorded on earth?” Johnson asks, albeit rhetorically. “Apparently not. People were deeply offended by it.” While he sees both projects as creatively rewarding, he’ll allow that they also provided them to buy some time while they plotted LP6. “When the pandemic’s over will anyone care about Joyce Manor? Is this still something people are gonna fuck with?”

Looking to reintegrate themselves into 24/7 Joyce Manorland without the anxieties of obsessively following hard ticket sales, the band took an opportunity that hadn’t been on the table for at least a decade — opening for one of their peers. Johnson has nothing but positive things to say after finishing a deeply satisfying one-month run with The Story So Far, a modern pop-punk institution that Johnson describes as a “bizarro version of us.” They do have most of the important stuff in common — both are from California, emerged as teens from late-aughts hardcore scenes, and have similar influences, though Johnson notes “they’re more New Found Glory and we’re more Blink-182.” But while Joyce Manor have received widespread critical acclaim and outranked Watch The Throne and The War On Drugs on Pitchfork’s 2010s album list, The Story So Far have been virtually ignored by every indie-leaning publication and have about twice as many monthly Spotify listeners — “The big difference is that they did Warped Tour,” Johnson shrugs. “We didn’t want to be a Warped Tour band, we were really self-conscious about that.” Granted, it’s easier to be nostalgic for the Warped Tour when it can’t be actively problematic, but for Joyce Manor and many other punk bands, its symbolic weight seems absurd as the pandemic continues to accelerate the music industry’s collapse. “That’s what I was worried about? Cred? Something I’m not doing making me cool? Get some real problems.”

But in the process of deconstructing the pop-punk orthodoxy that had governed his life to this point, Johnson had to confront the root cause — “I kinda thought secretly deep down, maybe I’m kinda dumb.” Johnson had never been much of a student, which he feels is largely responsible for his predisposition to the genre’s tropes. Even though Epitaph Records is built on a foundation of bands with literal PhDs and Graham enrolled in law school after departing Joyce Manor, “pop-punk isn’t known for attracting brainiacs,” Johnson jokes. “Lemme tell ya, there’s some fucking dolts out there that do what I do.” But as the pandemic dragged on, Johnson enrolled at Pasadena City College and excelled in online courses with names like “Explorations in Quantitative Reasoning.” Johnson is quick to note that Rivers Cuomo infamously followed a path from Los Angeles community college to Harvard. And, he’s even quicker to joke about it — “That’s what I’m gonna do, things worked out for him — he seems pretty normal.” Still, as much as he enjoyed acing tests on the logic behind calculating loans and mortgages, Johnson laughs that “after a year of that, I’m sick of fucking homework.”

“I’d love to rip a gig and crush a beer, that really sounds a lot more fun.”

40 Oz. To Fresno is out 6/10 via Epitaph Records. Pre-order it here.

Gucci Mane met his now-wife Keyshia Ka’Oir Davis back in 2010. Since then the two have been side-by-side through their respective ups and downs. After an arrest in 2013, and an eventual plea deal where he accepted a charge for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, Gucci Mane would go on to spend two years behind bars. Through it all, Ka’Oir stayed by his side. A year and a half after his release, Gucci and Keyshia would go on and get married, and three years later, the two gave birth to their first child as a couple, a baby boy they named Ice Davis.

It’s all these occurrences and more between the couple that has Gucci Mane eternally grateful for his companion in his new song “Mrs. Davis.” Gucci sings his praises about his wife with lines like “Had to buy her two rings, ’cause we got married twice / A million dollar push present ’cause she carry ice.” The track also arrived with a matching video that captures the couple’s lavish love as sip champagne on a plane and spend time with their song Ice.

Gucci’s “Mrs. Davis” continues what’s been an active year for him. Prior to the new single, he released “Serial Killers,” “Blood All On It,” and “Rumors” with Lil Durk.

You can watch the video for “Mrs. Davis” above.

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

At the beginning of last month, Doja Cat released “Vegas,” which stood as her first single of the year. She uses the record to talk down on a past lover who underestimated her worth. The track is also one that’s set to appear on the soundtrack for the upcoming film Elvis which is set to premiere in theaters later this month on June 24. With weeks to go until the movie arrives, Doja returns with a vibrant music video for the track. Her feistiness and fierce spirit are on full display as she dismisses her ex-lover. She also passionately dances around an old-style room as she airs out her grievances.

The past month has been a tough one for Doja. She was forced to undergo surgery on her tonsils and it requires months of recovery, which she is still in the midst of. As a result, she had to back out as an opener for The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour later this year. Despite this, some good news would come her way. Doja racked in the most nominations for the upcoming 2022 BET Awards and she helped to bring back Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza which returned to store menus last month.

As for the upcoming Elvis soundtrack, Doja is not the only big name who will contribute to it. Eminem, Denzel Curry, Gary Clark Jr., Jack White, Jazmine Sullivan, Kacey Musgraves, Nardo Wick, Stevie Nicks, Swae Lee and Diplo, Tame Impala, and more will also contribute to the project.

You can watch the video for “Vegas” above.

Polo G announced his new single “Distraction” with a comical trailer on Instagram where famed TikToker Kai Cenat is shown going mad trying to find the source of a song playing. He ultimately finds his headphones and places them on his ears only to then be blown away by the music that pierces through them. It is now clear why he was so consumed, as the new visual shows Polo G in the back of a police car after being arrested, graduating, beating up an online streamer, and performing surgery all before enjoying dinner with a woman. The refrain closes with “Bring out the best in me or be a distraction,” bringing the messaging of the record and accompanying video full circle.

“Distraction” is Polo’s first proper 2022 release after the Billboard 200 chart-topping success Hall Of Fame from last summer, notably beating out the Migos’ Culture III which arrived that same weekend. The Chicago rapper then released the deluxe version, Hall Of Fame 2.0, less than six months later. Though the video for “Don’t Play” featuring Lil Baby from the deluxe did release this year, the 23-year-old otherwise stuck to collaborations with Fivio Foreign and PGF Nuk before unloading the new, focused single.

Check out “Distraction” in the video above.