Month: June 2022

Meghan Trainor is “takin’ it back” to the old school sounds with which she first stepped onto the scene. This morning, Rolling Stone announced that Trainor fourth studio album, Takin’ It Back, will arrive this October.

The album will feature collaborations with Natti Natasha, Arturo Sandoval, and Teddy Swims, the latter of whom will feature on the album’s lead single, “Bad For Me,” out this Friday (June 24).

On Takin’ It Back, Trainor will detail her life as a new mother and a wife, as well as her journey to finding confidence in her new body.

When speaking of the album to Rolling Stone, Trainor revealed that in addition to returning to the retro sounds of pop tracks set to live instrumentation, Takin’ It Back also refers to her taking back the power she felt she lost during the pandemic.

“I just felt like anything I ever achieved is all gone,” Trainor said. “I haven’t been out in public and [for] so long trying to be safe, and it crippled me a little bit with my confidence. And so coming back with music, I was also so hard on myself. I thought all these songs were trash. Every idea I would come up with, I would say, ‘Is this trash or amazing?’ ‘Is this garbage or is this dope?’ And everyone was like, ‘This is your best work yet.’ I think when I started seeing [and] hearing people that don’t have to be nice to me tell me that this music is good, that’s when I was like, ‘Maybe I do have something special.’

Check out the Takin’ It Back album artwork below.

Takin’ It Back is out 10/21 via Epic.

Late on Wednesday night, a report from Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report provided the first indication that the San Antonio Spurs were willing to trade All-Star guard Dejounte Murray.

Per Fischer, the Spurs have had discussions with the Hawks about a deal that would send John Collins back to San Antonio and pair Murray with Trae Young. However, the Spurs unsurprisingly want a lot for the All-Star as he enters his prime years, and have apparently set their bar at the Jrue Holiday trade package Milwaukee sent the Pelicans (which included three first round picks). With plenty of teams wanting point guards and a few big names potentially available, headlined by Malcolm Brogdon and D’Angelo Russell, it’ll be interesting to see if any team is willing to meet those demands.

In the meantime, Murray seems to be enjoying all the rumors — or at least is embracing the chaos of it all — as he posted this reaction to Twitter to Wednesday night’s report.

Every player handles rumors differently, as some try to ignore them all while others can’t help but read everything about what their future may hold. It’s a difficult place to be, a limbo of sorts not knowing where you might end up, as moving is a headache for everyone, even NBA players. Murray seems to be taking a pretty light approach to it all which is good to see, and we’ll see if he’s willing to provide any updates himself on the proceedings.

The NBA’s silly season has arrived in full, as the days leading up to the Draft always feature a bevy of rumors as teams, players, and agents all look to leverage their various positions against each other.

After the Blazers landed Jerami Grant in a trade from the Pistons for a future first rounder, the NBA’s hot stove kicked into high gear, as further posturing and intel leaked out into the public. There was Portland’s desire to land OG Anunoby with the seventh pick, plenty of rumblings about teams looking to move up and down on draft night, and maybe the most interesting news of them all came late in the evening as word broke another All-Star might find his way onto the market.

Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report offered up a new notebook of info he’s heard that included the first indication that the Spurs were open to discussing trade offers for All-Star guard Dejounte Murray, for a steep price, with the oft-mentioned Atlanta Hawks as the team that’s gone the furthest down the road in discussions, as they continue to shop John Collins.

The Spurs are fielding offers for Murray and have told multiple interested teams it would take a “Jrue Holiday-like package” for San Antonio to part with the 25-year-old floor general, setting a rough benchmark of three first-round picks for any suitor to pry Murray free. San Antonio’s most significant discussions regarding Murray have seemed to occur with the Atlanta Hawks, in a framework that would send Collins back to the Spurs, league sources told B/R.

Holiday’s trade to the Bucks rather famously broke the trade value scale league-wide, as Milwaukee was backed into a corner amid the failed Bogdan Bogdanovic deal to salvage something and get a deal done — which ultimately worked out in bringing a title to Milwaukee. Murray is a fascinating player, coming off a breakout year that saw him make the leap into All-Star form, with tremendous defensive chops and an ever-growing array of offensive skills. Still, he’s not a particularly good shooter (46.2/32.7/79.4 splits last year) so the ideal situation seems to be on a team with an elite shooter. That’s not an issue in Atlanta, where the Hawks would love to pair Trae Young with a defensive minded guard who can alleviate some ball-handling duties, and Murray would be an apparently snug fit in that role. The question, of course, is whether Collins’ inclusion in the deal would lower the Spurs’ request of three first round picks, and that is surely the hold up keeping these discussions from getting particularly serious.

For Murray’s part, he’s doing what he can to drum up some buzz thanks to his eye emoji tweet from Tuesday, a tried and true classic for NBA players to draw attention in the offseason.

From the Spurs perspective, getting Collins would not seem like a move made with a long rebuild in mind and would be a bit curious, but the big man was linked to San Antonio a year ago in free agency and so the interest between the two has long been established. If the Hawks move Collins elsewhere, as is expected on draft night, plenty of other teams would love to add Murray, but it remains to be seen if anyone is willing to give up the haul of picks San Antonio is seeking this summer.

After a week-long break from posting, Britney Spears has returned to Instagram. On the ‘gram, she revealed that she and her husband Sam Asghari have moved into their new house and that their vision is finally coming to life.

Spears noted in an Instagram caption that the two moved into their home around the same time as their wedding earlier this month.

“Not the smartest thing to do,” said Spears. “Oh well it’s coming together … it’s so weird I wake up and everything is new … new pool … new kitchen … new bed … I think I’m in shock !!! Figuring out a couple of things … I definitely like being outside but I also like being inside too … my yard is sick so my dogs are in pig heaven !!! Change is so great … as my kids say … that’s fetch !!!”

Fans can look forward to receiving more updates on Spears and Asghari’s new home, as she says she plans to “keep sharing.”

As they’ve settled into their new home, Spears has enjoyed going swimming in their new pool, and riding on its “hella fast” slide. She has also cut her hair short since moving in, and today, she enjoyed a steak, as prepared and cooked by Asghari. “Life is good,” she said.

Arguably the strangest candidate in American politics right now is Herschel Walker. The former footballer is running for Georgia’s Senate seat, but he, well, you know, keeps saying stuff. Some of the stuff is untrue, like how he said he was valedictorian at both high school and college…then said he never said he graduated from college. Some of the stuff is, to put it lightly, not terribly smart. Some of the stuff makes not a lick of sense. Then there’s the fact that reporters keep discovering he has multiple kids he’s never discussed publicly and never sees.

None of this has damaged his credibility with Republican voters, not even the business about his secret kids. This probably won’t either: On a recent rightwing podcast, Walker a) wasn’t sure how many states there were in the United States of America, and b) guessed it was something like 52. Why not!

Walker was on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, where he was railing against Stacey Abrams comments about Georgia being “the worst state in the country to live.” It made Walker mad that someone running for elected office would want to improve what she saw as deplorable living conditions for citizens. And he went off.

“If you don’t believe in the country, leave and go somewhere else,” Walker said. “If it’s the worst state, why are you here? Why don’t you leave ― go to another? There’s, what, 51 more other states that you can go to?”

I mean, who can blame him? America is always adding states! Initially there were 13 colonies — they didn’t even call them states then. Now there are 50. That’s like almost 40 more! Granted, the most recent state, Hawaii, didn’t become part of the nation until 1959. Maybe Walker — who, just to stress, will play a key part in the federal lawmaking process should he beat incumbent Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock — just figured Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. had been promoted to state from unincorporated territory and federal district, respectively.

When asked about the rather sizeable gaffe, a Walker spokesperson told HuffPost, “Herschel misspoke ― he obviously knows there are 50 states.” But rarely has the word “obviously” seemed less obvious.

(Via HuffPost)

It’d been a little while since we saw Justin Timberlake take over a stage for a performance. One of the last moments came back at the beginning of 2021 when he performed with Ant Clemons for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. That drought ended when Pharrell invited Timberlake to perform with him during day two of his Something In The Water Festival last weekend. Pharrell’s near-two-hour set also included appearances from N.O.R.E., T.I., and Clipse, who reunited for their first performance together in ten years. While the aforementioned names’ appearances were memorable for their performances, there was a little more to it for Timberlake.

During his time at Something In The Water, Timberlake showed off some dance moves that were quite awkward, to say the least. With thousands of people watching, both at the festival grounds in Washington D.C. and at home through a livestream, it was no surprise that fans had plenty of reactions to Timberlake’s dance moves. After reading the comments over the past few days, the singer took to Instagram to issue an apology.

“D.C., I want to apologize to you for two reasons: here and here,” he said in a video he posted on his Instagram Story as he zoomed in on his feet. “I had a long talk with both of them, individually, and said, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again.’” Timberlake added that his khaki pants could be the blame for his dance moves as they were “a real khaki vibe.” In the end, he promised to “get it right” in the future and then added a bunch of memes to show that he was not offended by the social media jokes.

You can view Timberlake’s video above and some of the reactions to his dancing below.

Last March, Jon Stewart was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for America Humor, surrounded by some of the biggest names in the business that included more than a few Daily Show alum that owe their careers to him. Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Steve Carrell, and many more gathered at the Kennedy Center to praise and mock Stewart’s contributions to humor and America. You can see the whole event on PBS through July 19th, but one of the standouts of the standups was SNL-ruiner and rumored massive dong-haver Pete Davidson, who married tame chop-busting with tearful praise for Stewart’s political activism.

“Jon is really such an exceptional person that, you know, he really could be President tomorrow, and he’s smart enough to not want the job,” Davidson said. “But he is a leader. In 2019, he testified before Congress about our government’s shameful lack of healthcare for the men and women who responded to the events of September 11th. People like my dad who ran into the towers that day, but instead of, you know, giving their lives in a moment, they walked away with a lifetime of illness and pain. And Jon sat with those responders behind him and Congress before him, and gave the least funny speech he’s ever made.”

The clip of Stewart’s emphatic, emotional plea to Congress was a fitting capstone to the speech, tying together Stewart’s wit, wisdom, and his passion for badgering our elected officials into finally doing the right thing.

Davidson then closed out by saying he appreciated Stewart “as much as whoever this f*cking Mark Twain guy is.”

If there’s one thing that we need to learn to be paranoid about in 2022, it’s people smiling at us. We’ve spent years cooped up, forgetting how to politely ask someone to move out of the way so we can reach the alcoholic fizzy water, so why not just send our antisocial vibes right over the edge? We’re already practically running away from strangers being nice to us, so Smile is all set to send us back indoors for another year.

As the official synopsis states:

“After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.”

It’s like It Follows with joyful grins instead of slow-moving old ladies, and the final shot of the trailer really points its bloody bat at the bleachers. The film was written and directed by Parker Finn, who made a splash with another therapy-based terror — Laura Hasn’t Slept — as part of the Telluride Shorts program. The happy-faced horror also features Jessie T. Usher, Kal Penn, Rob Morgan, and Kyle Gallner. It hits theaters on September 30th, but it will likely be available to stream on Paramount+ in time for Halloween.

Ahead of their upcoming reunion tour, The Gaslight Anthem played a surprise show at Crossroads, a live music venue in Garwood, New Jersey. This marked their first show as a group in over four years.

Before the band took the stage, fans believed they were seeing the last of lead vocalist Brian Fallon’s three-night solo shows. Over 200 fans were surprised to see The Gaslight Anthem as they performed several fan favorites, including, “Howl,” “Mullholand Drive,” and “American Slang.” The band also played a cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.”

Earlier this year, Fallon spoke with Uproxx about The Gaslight Anthem’s upcoming tour, coming back from a hiatus, and potentially recording a new album after tour.

“I’ve always been like a fan of writing more than you need,” said Fallon. “So, right now I’ve got maybe five or six songs, and I would want to have 30 to pick through and make sure that we’re actually good. The shows will come first, and then hopefully by the end of the year the record will be written to the point where we could pick 11 or 12 songs and then record. So, that would be early next year, early spring.”

Check out The Gaslight Anthem’s surprise show here.

Earlier this week, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot made a little discovery: Donald Trump had invited a documentary crew to film his failed 2020 reelection campaign. Apparently few in his inner circle knew about this, and upon learning that cameras were there for some, shall we say, surely unflattering moments — and that those moments were heading the committee’s way — there was a fair amount of freaking the hell out.

But it won’t only be congressfolk who see it. As per The Wrap, the docuseries, entitled Unprecedented, has been picked up by Warner Bros. Discovery, who plan to air it on discovery+ later this summer. Made by former BBC producer Alex Holder, the series runs three parts and, per a Discover spokesperson, features “never-before-seen footage of the Trump family on the campaign trail and their reactions to the outcome of the election.”

Holder was given “unprecedented access” by the Trump team, and he wound up speaking with everyone: Trump, Don Jr., Ivanka, Jared Kushner, even Mike Pence. When news of the docseries’ existence was first made known, one former Trump official messaged Rolling Stone, writing, “What the f*ck is this?” Who knows what’s in the footage, which, again, was okayed by a then-president on the cusp of starting a failed insurrection.

Meanwhile, the existence of the footage inspired the Jan. 6 committee to postpone their next hearing all the way until July, so that they can properly review it. But the hearings have already inspired one GOP congressperson to jump Trump’s ship, though that may only pave the way for the ascension of one of his former pals.

(Via The Wrap)