Month: July 2022

Lizzo‘s highly anticipated album Special arrived last week, and she’s been celebrating in many ways, from an immersive experience in New York City called Lizzoverse to surprising fans on Jimmy Kimmel Live! by unexpectedly blessing them with her presence, which made most of them scream.

Fans were given headphones to listen to Lizzo’s new music, and as they were listening, the singer changed the lines to describe the fan (“Hey there in the pinstripe vest / Did that piercing hurt on your face?”). This immediately freaked fans out, until Lizzo quietly entered the room and unleashed a yell.

In a recent interview, the “Truth Hurts” performer talked about the downsides of fame. “…Once people knew who I was and it became kind of solidified, they became more comfortable with using me as some sort of punchline or joke, or immediately they want to criticize whatever I’m doing because there’s levels to me that they don’t accept,” she said. “So I’ve found that I’m always going to receive some sort of backlash or criticism whenever I put myself in a public space, just because of who I am and the way I choose to exist.”

Watch Lizzo surprising her fans above.

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

It’s odd to think that Denzel Curry is experiencing the highest point of his career, ten years into his career. But that’s exactly what’s happening. His new album, Melt My Eyez See Your Future, which is out now on Loma Vista, has received nearly universal acclaim from critics, and has been described as his most mature body of work yet. And despite the accelerated and truncated rollout cycles that are the norm, he’s still pushing it, dropping by 30 Rock in New York City to perform lead single “Walkin” on The Tonight Show.

Once again, he was backed by the Cold-Blooded Soul Band from his impressive Tiny Desk Concert, complete with a horn section to replace the vocal sample from the song. Denzel couldn’t be contained to the stage, roaming the studio floor and giving TV audiences a glimpse of host Jimmy Fallon jamming out to the motivational track.

Denzel’s currently on his North American tour to promote the album as well, stopping next at the Hard Summer festival in Los Angeles. After that, he’ll hit Lollapalooza before picking back up his regular schedule in Vancouver, riding out the homestretch through August, September, and October.

Watch Denzel Curry’s Tonight Show performance of “Walkin” above.

Wilco is in the midst of celebrating their iconic 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on its 20th anniversary, as an expanded deluxe edition of the album is set for release this September. Now, though, Wilco is taking things even further with Crosseyed Strangers (titled after an “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” lyric), a new alternate version of the album.

There’s a catch, though: It’s only available in the September 2022 issue of London-based magazine Uncut.

NME notes Crosseyed Strangers features alternate studio takes, live recordings, Jeff Tweedy solo cuts, and the finale from their recent New York performance of the album.

Tweedy told Uncut of Crosseyed Strangers:

“Revisiting Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has been a collaboration with our audience. We are a band that likes to make people happy. The tour, the box set, and now this compilation is all a part of letting everyone in as much as they want to come in.

The songs pulled for this CD come from a variety of places over the years — versions that fans have responded well to. If you ever wondered what a time-travelling-enabled alternate version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would sound like, here’s your chance!”

The good news is that Crosseyed Strangers isn’t unobtainable for US-based Wilco collectors: Uncut subscriptions are available for non-UK readers, while just the September 2022 issue with the CD is available for standalone purchase without a subscription.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Deluxe Edition) is out 9/16 via Nonesuch. Pre-order it here.

Despite being directly inspired by the fictional sport in the Harry Potter books, the real life version of Quidditch is officially changing its name to distance itself from author J.K. Rowling who has been a lightning rod for controversy in recent years. Rowling has been espousing increasingly anti-transgender views, which has put her at odds with fans and the actors in the Harry Potter movies. Now, the sport that she essentially created wants nothing to do with her and has officially changed its name to Quadball.

Via Deadline:

The governing bodies of the real-life sport first profiled in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels and later in its films have said that “Quidditch” will henceforth be known as “Quadball.” The name change is to distance itself from author Rowling;s anti-transgender comments, the organizations said. Beyond that, the organizations said they were switching names because they do not own the “Quidditch” trademark. Warner Bros. Discovery holds that right.

Obviously, the real life players of the game formerly known as Quidditch aren’t flying through the air on magic brooms, but what they have created is something akin to a mash-up of rugby and dodgeball. According to Deadline, the sport took off in 2005 and is played in “40 countries among nearly 600 teams.” It’s become so popular that it has governing bodies, which all agreed to the name change that takes effect this summer.

“This name change is a game changer for us, and we are looking to make the most of it,” Major League Quadball wrote in a statement to players.

(Via Deadline)

Joe Pera Talks with You, the nicest show on TV, was canceled by Adult Swim, but Joe Pera has already found his next gig: playing James Bond.

Pera appeared on Wednesday’s episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, where host Seth Meyers asked him if he has anything lined up following Joe Pera Talks with You ending after three seasons. “Just the following week, I got a phone call,” he said. “They asked me to be the next James Bond.” It’s a different direction for 007. Instead of being a British sex fiend, Bond will now be a “celibate American.”

Bond now “lives in Philadelphia, he eats pre-wrapped Boar’s Head sandwiches for breakfast and lunch, he’s learning to play the guitar off of YouTube, and he’s very afraid of dogs,” Pera said (Ana de Armas is thrilled). He gives the Bond folks “a lot of credit for trying to refresh this… They’re taking a risk, but I don’t see how it doesn’t work out.” Pera also debuted the first clip from the upcoming movie. I already like it more than Spectre.

You can watch the Late Night with Seth Meyers clip above — and all of Joe Pera Talks with You on HBO Max. Treat yourself. You deserve it.

Over the past 230-plus years, individuals have opted to run for president of the United States for all sorts of reasons—the best of them benignly, if not somewhat naively, hoping they can make our world a better place. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is banking on the idea that living in the White House could keep him out of the big house. And Seth Meyers, for one, seems fairly taken aback by the whole notion—though not at all surprised.

On Wednesday night, the Late Night host—after comparing Trump’s antics to a Dairy Queen employee “sticking his doink in the soft serve machine” (you’ll have to watch and see)—noted that “Trump apparently is quite afraid of the various criminal investigations into his activities on January 6th. Which is reportedly one of the reasons he’s likely run again and wants to announce soon. He thinks being a candidate, and specifically president again, will protect him from going to jail.”

Meyers had plenty more thoughts on what MSNBC’s Chris Hayes described as “the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card” (in Trump’s mind at least):

So Trump’s plan apparently is to run for president again because he thinks that will protect him from being indicted by any of the various legal entities investigating him. And Trump knows he’s the one on the hot seat because, to state the obvious, none of this would have happened without him. All the various crimes documented by the committee flow from him. He’s the kingpin.

Even if one of his cronies broke the law at his direction, that implicates him, too. I mean, it’s not like these random dudes just got together and hatched a plan to for a coup without him. It wasn’t a surprise birthday party. There wasn’t a magician there. And if there was, Trump would’ve tried to rope the magician into the coup, too.

Meyers went on to point out that it was Trump himself who assembled this gang of criminal goons that includes Mike Lindell, Steve Bannon, and aspiring Diet Dr. Pepper spokesperson Sidney Powell specifically in an attempt to stage a coup and try to overturn the results of a totally legitimate election. Where he went wrong, Meyers noted, is that “this is the kind of crew you put together for Ocean’s Eleven if the goal was to get caught.”

You can watch the full clip above.

Last year, Julien Baker unveiled her stunning studio album Little Oblivions, which was followed by a remix EP featuring Half Waif, Gordi, Thao, and Jesu. She’s back today, right before she kicks off a tour with Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten, with an EP of B-sides from that LP.

The EP is three tracks: the previously released “Guthrie,” and the brand new “Vanishing Point” and “Mental Math.” The songs are as vulnerable and visceral as you’d expect, with intense imagery and unfiltered feeling: “Hanging on a ledge, outside of your house / Trying not to freak out, staring at the ground / Doing math in my head, how far is it down? / Not too good to beg for you to try to talk me down,” she lulls over twinkly guitars.

About themes that often come up in her lyricism, Baker told Uproxx, “I always talk about it in the context of not being able to accept love because it’s almost more painful for a person to show you graciousness or mercy when you know that you have failed or hurt them in some way. I find myself, often, wishing for punishment because that would make sense in my brain.”

Listen to “Vanishing Point” above and “Mental Math” below.

Rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert rarely misses a chance to poke fun at what she perceives as lapses in intelligence from other people. Of course, this generally gives her plenty of reason to step into a minefield of jokes, given that Boebert didn’t graduate from high school and only secured her GED mere months prior to her her House election. She doesn’t study up on the U.S. Constitution (but she’s a fan of the Bill of Rights because of the Second Amendment and her love for guns). And she can’t resist taking swings at Democrats, no matter the social media consequences.

Boebert found a new target on Wednesday when Joe Biden ended up having a brain fart and mistakenly suggesting that he has cancer. He has had a form of skin cancer in the past, and the brain fart derailed an entire speech, which was meant to highlight prior environmental hazards (oil on windshields) in Biden’s home state of Delaware. Yes, the whole thing turned into a mess (because the way that Biden tried to make his point was not great), and Boebert latched onto some low-hanging fruit.

“People keep talking about Biden saying he has cancer,” she tweeted. “No one is talking about that he claims he got it from windshield wipers.”

This came back to her pretty swiftly with people wondering why she’s taking the time to get so partisan that she’s making light of cancer.

And then came the real comebacks, which involved people pointing out how Donald Trump randomly went on tirades against wind turbines. He declared that their noise called cancer, and then, right in the middle of speeches, he’d start imitating perceived noises from said turbines.

Again, both presidents made very little sense with their claims (or their delivery), but it really makes one marvel at how Boebert’s raking in $174,000 per year to serve the Amercian people and still has plenty of time to fire shots on Twitter.

Next week, Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance will be here, and now we’re starting to get a better idea of what the project looks like. Yesterday, Beyoncé shared the LP’s tracklist, and after some digging, we also know which artists are credited as composers on the album.

The track-by-track list of credited composers can currently be seen on the album’s page on Apple Music (by viewing the page source on an internet browser); Popular Beyoncé Twitter fan account BeyLegion also shared an incomplete version of the credits. Notable contributors include Drake, Jay-Z (credited as S. Carter), Skrillex, Tems, Big Freedia, The Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), Mike Dean, Labrinth, Lucky Daye, Syd, 070 Shake, The-Dream, Raphael Saadiq, No ID, Hit-Boy, BloodPop, and AG Cook.

It’s not clear which of these artists, if any, will be given feature credits on their respective songs, as the tracklist does not currently indicate any featured artists.

BeyLegion also notes that sampled on the album are Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, James Brown, Teena Marie, Twinkie Clark, Kilo Ali, and Moi Renee.

Check out the full list of Renaissance composer credits below.

1. “I’m That Girl”
Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Kelman Duran, Mike Dean, Tommy Wright III, and Andrea Yvette Summers.

2. “Cozy”
Beyoncé, Nija Charles, Honey Redmond, Christopher Lawrence Penny, Luke Francis Matthew Solomon, Mike Dean, Dave Giles II, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, and Curtis Alan Jones.

3. “Alien Superstar”
Beyoncé, Honey Redmond, Christopher Lawrence Penny, Luke Francis Matthew Solomon, Mike Dean, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, S. Carter, David Debrandon Brown, Dave Hamelin, Timothy Lee Mckenzie, Danielle Balbuena, Rami Yacoub, Leven Kali, Atia Boggs, Levar Coppin, Saliou Diagne, Robert Francis Anthony Manzoli, Richard Peter John Fairbrass, John Michael Holiday, Kim Cooper, and Peter Rauhofer.

4. “Cuff It:
Beyoncé, Nile Rodgers, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Raphael Saadiq, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, Morten Ristorp, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Mary Christine Brockert, and Allen Henry McGrier.

5. “Energy”
Beyoncé, Skrillex, Tyshane Thompson, BEAM, Almando Cresso, Jordan Douglas, Tizita Makuria, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Mary Christine Brockert, Allen Henry McGrier, Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, Adam James Pigott, and Freddie Ross.

6. “Break My Soul”
Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Christopher A. Stewart, S. Carter, Allen George, Fred McFarlane, Adam Pigott, and Freddie Ross.

7. “Church Girl”
Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Ernest “No I.D.” Wilson, Elbernita Clark Terrell, Jimi Stephen Payton, Dion Lamont Norman, Derrick Robert Ordogne, James Brown, Orville Erwin Hall, Phillip Glen Price, Ralph MacDonald, and William Salter.

8. “Plastic Off The Sofa”
Beyoncé, Sabrina Claudio, Sydney Bennett, and Nick Green.

9. “Virgo’s Groove”
Beyoncé, Leven Kali, Solomon Fafenson Cole, Daniel Memmi, Dustin Bowie, Darius Dixson, Jocelyn Donald, Jesse Wilson, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, and Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney.

10. “Move”
Beyoncé, Richard Isong, Ariowa Irosogie, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, Temilade Openiyi, and Ronald Banful.

11. “Heated”
Beyoncé, Aubrey Drake Graham, Matthew Samuels, Jahaan Sweet, Rupert Thomas Jr., Sean Seaton, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, and Ricky Lawson.

12. “Thique”
Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Chauncey Hollis, Jr., Atia Boggs, Julian Martrel Mason, Jabbar Stevens, and Cherdericka Nichols.

13. “All Up In Your Mind”
Beyoncé, Jabbar Stevens, Mike Dean, Cherdericka Nichols, Michael Tucker, Alexander Guy Cook, Jameil Aossey, and Larry Griffin, Jr.

14. “America Has A Problem”
Beyoncé, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Mike Dean, S. Carter, Andrell D Rogers, and Tino Santron Mcintosh.

15. “Pure/Honey”
Beyoncé, Michael Tucker, Raphael Saadiq, Darius Dixson, Michael Pollack, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, Moi Renee, Eric Snead, Jerel Black, Vejai Marcel Alston, Michael D. Cox, Andrew Richardson, and Count Maurice.

16. “Summer Renaissance”
Beyoncé, Leven Kali, Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Mike Dean, Brittany “@Chi_Coney” Coney, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Atia Boggs, Lavar Coppin, Saliou Diagne, Ricky Lawson, Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Peter Bellotte.

Renaissance is out 7/29 via Parkwood/Columbia. Pre-order it here.

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

Adam McKay’s Oscar-nominated satire Don’t Look Up may have bitten off more than it can chew, but parts of the film are all too real.

Last week, British meteorologist John Hammond gave a grave warning about an upcoming heatwave on GB News. “By early next week, you can scratch 20 degrees [Celsius, or 68 degrees Fahrenheit]. It could very well be 40 degrees [Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit]. I think there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of excess deaths next week. The charts that I can see in front of me are frightening,” he said.

Hammond’s forecast came true: Europe is currently suffering through a historic heatwave, leaving hundreds dead. But host Bev Turner refused to take him seriously, not unlike Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry’s Fox News-esque personalities ignoring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in Don’t Look Up.

“So John, I want us to be happy about the weather, and I don’t know whether something has happened to meteorologists to make you all a little bit fatalistic and harbingers of doom,” she said. “Because all of the broadcasts, particularly on the BBC, every time I’ve turned on, anyone is talking about the weather and they’re saying there’s going to be tons of fatalities. But haven’t we always had hot weather, John?” Hammond replied, “Uh, no” before explaining just how bad things are going to get.

Twitter user @benphillips76 noticed the parallels between the GB News clip and Don’t Look Up, and he combined them in a tweet that’s gone viral. You can watch it below.

Let the countdown for real life ending the same way as Don’t Look Up begin!

(Via Deadline)