Month: August 2022

In July, Kendrick Lamar launched The Big Steppers Tour, which started on July 19 in Oklahoma City. A couple of major shows on the trek supporting Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers are coming up: two concerts at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on August 5 and 6. Ahead of that, what songs has Lamar been performing on his 2022 tour?

Setlist.fm, the most comprehensive resource for concert setlists available online, has the answer: Per their data (as of August 4), Lamar has a dozen songs tied for most-played — including “Humble,” “m.A.A.d City,” and “Backseat Freestyle” — while he’s only played “Auntie Diaries” and “Lust” once so far. The site also shows that when it comes to album representation on the tour, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is No. 1, followed by Damn; Good Kid, m.A.A.d City; and To Pimp A Butterfly.

Setlist.fm also has an “average setlist” for The Big Steppers Tour, which is based on setlists from previous shows, so it’s an indication of how an upcoming Lamar show might be structured.

Find Lamar’s most played songs on The Big Steppers Tour below, as well as the tour’s average setlist. Check out Lamar’s upcoming tour dates here.

T1. “Alright” (12 performances)
T1. “Backseat Freestyle” (12)
T1. “Count Me Out” (12)
T1. “DNA” (12)
T1. “Element” (12)
T1. “Humble” (12)
T1. “Loyalty” (12)
T1. “m.A.A.d City” (12)
T1. “Money Trees” (12)
T1. “N95” (12)
T1. “Savior” (12)
T1. “Silent Hill” (12)
T13. “B*tch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” (11)
T13. “Love” (11)
T13. “United In Grief” (11)
T16. “Family Ties” (Baby Keem cover) (10)
T16. “King Kunta” (10)
T16. “Purple Hearts” (10)
T16. “Rich Spirit” (10)
T16. “Worldwide Steppers” (10)
T21. “Crown” (9)
T21. “Die Hard” (9)
T21. “Father Time” (9)
T21. “Mirror” (9)
T21. “Mr. Morale” (9)
T26. “I” (2)
T26. “Institutionalized” (2)
T26. “Poetic Justice” (2)
T26. “Swimming Pools (Drank)” (2)
T26. “The Art Of Peer Pressure” (2)
T26. “The Blacker The Berry” (2)
T32. “Auntie Diaries” (1)
T32. “Lust” (1)

“Savior (Interlude)” (played from tape)
“United In Grief”
“N95”
“Worldwide Steppers”
“Backseat Freestyle”
“Element”
“Rich Spirit”
“m.A.A.d City”
“Father Time”
“Humble”
“Purple Hearts”
“King Kunta”
“B*tch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”
“Die Hard”
“Money Trees”
“Lust” (played from tape)
“DNA”
“Alright”
“Count Me Out”
“Love”
“Loyalty”
“Mirror”
“Silent Hill”
“Family Ties” (Baby Keem Cover)
“Crown”
“Mr. Morale”
“Savior”

While HBO Max and Netflix are going through some things, Paramount+ continued to rack up subscribers to give its parent company one heck of a second quarter. The streaming service picked up 3.7 million subscribers during the quarter, and that’s after losing 1.2 million from a disconnect in Russia. According to the latest earnings report, Paramount+ now sits at 43.3 million subscribers. Even better, revenue for the streaming service doubled to $672 million, which coupled with Top Gun: Maverick‘s dynamite box office, is making Paramount look very good compared to its competitors who have not been having the best of luck.

“Our deep and growing library of valuable IP, coupled with the strength of our best-in-class assets, ensures we are well-positioned to continue to maximize value for our shareholders,” CEO Bob Bakish said in a statement.

Via Variety:

The pickup for Paramount+ comes as growth for other streamers has been flat or down. Netflix shed nearly 1 million subs in Q2 (though that was fewer than expected), while paid customers for NBCUniversal’s Peacock was flat for the period at 13 million and Peacock’s overall active accounts dropped by 1 million. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO Max and Discovery+, reports Q2 earnings Thursday after market close, and Disney is set to release results Aug. 10.

As part of its strategy of pulling from its parent companies deep bench of TV shows films, Paramount+ has been going big on its upcoming Beavis and Butt-head revival. In preparation of new episodes premiering this week, the streaming service has been working to get original seasons onto the platform. According to Comic Book, seasons four through eleven of the classic Beavis and Butt-head series are now available for your bingeing pleasure.

(Via Variety)

Mxmtoon turned in a solid sophomore album earlier this year with Rising, and now she’s returning with a little bit more: Today, she announces Rising (The Deluxe), an expanded version of the album that comes out in September and includes two new songs. Those are “Plastic Pony” and the lush and rhythmic “Kaleidoscope,” the latter of which was shared today.

In a statement, Mxmtoon wrote of “Kaleidoscope”:

“i don’t think it’s any secret that societal expectations of women are limiting, one-dimensional, and completely absurd. i grew up in a family that encouraged my creativity and individuality, but that didn’t shelter me completely from the sexism of the outer world. as i’ve grown up, i’ve had time to reflect on my journey so far and the identities i’ve held throughout it. being a woman is something i feel immensely proud of, but it’s also something that the world at large has relentlessly held against me and so many others. women are a diverse and beautiful group of people who embody perseverance and bravery, and i wanted to honor that with ‘kaleidoscope.’ i have bent my being until i’m broken for the sake of fitting a mold set for me by others, and i know i’m not the only one. my hope is that this song can embody the softness, strength, fierceness, and ever-expanding nature of what it means to be a woman and celebrates us!”

She also wrote of the deluxe album, “rising is everything i love packaged into a project, and what better way to expand and build upon that than by releasing deluxe tracks to go with the original twelve. i know that my sense of who i am is ever evolving, and i hope to get that idea across to the people that listen to my music as often as i can. both tracks being added serve the function of building on more to the story of me. ‘kaleidoscope’ being about the wildly vast facets of self that we as people can inhabit, and ‘plastic pony’ covering the realization that life can sometimes slip through our fingers. both lend themselves to the narrative rising tells, while leaving the next chapter of mxmtoon open for exploration! enjoy xo.”

Listen to “Kaleidoscope” above and find the Rising (The Deluxe) art and tracklist below. Also revisit our recent interview with Mxmtoon here.

1. “Mona Lisa”
2. “Learn To Love You”
3. “Victim Of Nostalgia ”
4. “Sad Disco”
5. “Frown”
6. “Florida”
7. “Scales”
8. “Growing Pains”
9. “Dizzy”
10. “Haze”
11. “Dance (End Of The World)”
12. “Coming Of Age”
13. “Plastic Pony”
14. “Kaleidoscope”

Rising (The Deluxe) is out 9/16 via AWAL Recordings. Pre-order it here.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s Instagram page is largely teasers for whatever new movie he’s promoting, videos of him working out in the gym, and photos of his cheat-day meals, often accompanied with a hashtag. There’s pancakes (“#PancakesAndWong”), there’s more pancakes (“#SundayGluttony”), and there’s… even more pancakes (“#CheatMealSunday”). So, yeah, The Rock really likes pancakes, but he also enjoys burgers, even going so far as to dub himself a “cheeseburger connoisseur.”

I call BS on this (please do not beat me up, Mr. The Rock). Before this week, this supposed expert of steamed ham had never tried In-N-Out Burger, one of the best fast food chains in the country — with some of the most polarizing french fries.

Is The Rock in or out?

“A #cheatmealsunday for the history books! My first time ever eating @innout. A solid start with a bite of good fries… as we know shitty fries can ruin the whole experience,” he wrote on Instagram. He paired the main course of two burgers with his tequila, of course. The verdict? Thumbs up emoji. “This cheeseburger connoisseur will now add In & Out to ‘the list.’ Enjoy your cheat meals, my friends,” he added.

Expect Vin Diesel to share his fondness for rival Shake Shack any day now.

(Via Instagram/The Rock)

If you’re at a Harry Styles concert and you ask him nicely, there’s a non-zero chance that he’ll help you out with something. He helped a fan at Wembley Stadium come out in June, and during a July 31 performance in Portugal, he gave a fan an assist with a proposal.

A fan-shot video of the moment with the couple, identified as Carl and Marianna, captures a pause in the show with Carl asking Styles, “Can I sing two lines to my girlfriend?” (They presumably had Styles’ attention due to a sign saying “help me propose” Marianna can be seen holding later in the video.) Styles has some fun with them, asking how long they’ve been together and added, “If this is like a two-week thing, no chance I’m giving you the microphone.” Carl said it had been “a little more” than a year. Harry asked the audience, “Do you get the microphone for a little more than a year? I’m not sure, personally.”

After the teasing, though, Styles did hand over the microphone, Carl started singing Elvis Presley’s 1961 classic “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” and how good Carl’s voice was seemed to surprise Styles. The audience sang along with Carl, who then pulled out a ring, got down on one knee, popped the question, and got an enthusiastic “yes!” from his now-fiancée.

It’s a lovely moment, so check it out above.

If Fox News can make time “for a loser and a coward like Mike Pence,” then why can’t they give some airtime to a loser and a coward like Rudy Giuliani? That’s the question the former New York City mayor seems to be asking in his never-ending quest to get back on the Fox News airwaves.

As Raw Story reports, Rudy—who should be more worried about his own Dominion lawsuit—is still railing against Fox News, more than eight months after they effectively banned him from appearing on the network. On Wednesday, the former New York City mayor appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room program (which seems to be just the only place he’s still welcome to show his face, with the exception of Cameo) to rail against the ban.

The way Giuliani sees it, Fox News is just marching to the orders of some leftists. As he told Bannon:

“Would Roger Ailes have tolerated — the other day, Donald Trump returns to Washington, D.C. for the first time since he left, to give a keynote address on law and order and anarchy in our major cities. Mike Pence gives a seventeen minute bromides for a high school kid, cut and paste, absolutely ridiculous, they cover seventeen minutes and they blow a commercial break, which is like a mortal sin over at Fox, right? They blow a commercial break to cover all of it. Why do they have a thumb on the scale for a loser and a coward like Mike Pence, and they’re up against, trying to defeat again, Donald J. Trump?”

But Rudy’s outrage wasn’t about Trump or Pence. It was about Rudy! “That whole thing with Roger [Ailes] was a setup because they thought they were going to have to move to the left, so that’s where they are now. I mean, how could they not have me on on September 11th? They went through September 11 as if I never existed. I mean, it’s amazing. They’re part of the make-up-history-the way-they-want-it-to-be-network.”

Giuliani — if you haven’t heard — was mayor of New York City during the September 11th attacks and celebrated around the world for his response to the tragedy, which basically amounted to just showing up. Still, it was enough to get him christened “America’s Mayor” and see him featured on the cover of TIME as its Person of the Year. But none of that old news matters to Fox News right now.

Fox News had made their point pretty clear: Giuliani is a major liability. The network is currently embroiled in a “nightmare” $1.6 billion lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, the company that provided voting machines to 28 U.S. states during the 2020 presidential election, for letting guests like Giuliani and his fellow Big Lie-pushing cronies throw up bullsh*t conspiracy theories all over their airwaves without any sort of proof and really no questions asked. By the way: It’s a suit that many legal experts think Dominion can win, which will make a huge dent in Fox’s checkbook (and they thought the estimated $13 million they had to fork over to make Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment claims go bye-bye was a lot). Until they feel that they can allow Rudy onto a show and be assured that he’ll act like a big boy and not get them sued, they’re keeping him at bay. Which is where many people seem to prefer him.

(Via Raw Story)

Vladimir Putin’s projecting the image of a shirtless, swaggering, Botox-filled imperialist who cannot be stopped, but behind the scenes, his Ukraine war logistics aren’t going well. Amid increasing global sanctions against Russia, Putin’s been secretly funding his disastrous war by stealing gold from Sudan, and a reported half of the Russian army has been killed or injured during the Ukraine invasion. Troops also threatened to blow up their general, and Putin’s in need of fresh blood (both literally and metaphorically).

The massive number of Russian casualties has made Putin so desperate for battlefield bodies that he’s turned to prisons to fill the gaps. Never mind that Putin’s troops are also going to jail after refusing to fight for their leaders’ “total disregard for human life.” Over 100 of those soldiers expressed frustration and feeling appalled by their commanders’ tactical blunders, so it’s awfully convenient that Putin’s using prisons as a revolving door to fuel his war.

According The Mirror, Russia’s finding willing recruits because he’s pilfering from notorious “hell hole” prisons, and The Independent details how Putin has no other choice, lest he start recruiting from the general Russia population:

Vladimir Putin is recruiting convicts from Russian jails to fill gaps in his fighting force in Ukraine left by “incredibly high” fatalities and injuries, Western officials believe.

It is thought that the Russian president is turning to prisoners and private military companies because of a fear of political opposition in Russia if he attempts to draw on the wider population with a general mobilisation.

Life in Russia already isn’t fantastic right now. On a superficial front, the McDonald’s replacement isn’t going well, and that’s only one of countless companies who now refuse to do business there in light of Putin’s imperialistic invasion. On a more serious front, Russian military wives are fed up and demanding answers about what has happened to their husbands, and Putin appears to want to eliminate such questions in the future by recruiting prisoners who (sadly) probably won’t be missed. And the war appears to have no end in sight, so expect things to get more dismal, but at least Putin has vowed to not resort to using nukes, so that’s something.

(Via The Mirror & The Independent)

Powerhouse producer Mike Dean who’s worked with acts like Kanye West and Beyoncé was on the roster for Kid Cudi’s fall festival Moon Man’s Landing, which also includes Playboy Carti, Haim, Pusha T, and more. However, Dean has taken to social media to announce he’s off the lineup.

“Looks like I won’t be playing moon man’s landing this year. Someone cancelled me. Lol. Thanks. That’s all. #immature,” he tweeted last night.

This left fans with questions in the replies, some of which he engaged with.

“Like cancel culture canceled??” one user asked. He answered, “lol. No one can cancel me like that! Just some baby kid baby sh*t.” Someone else wrote, “did he cancel the whole deal or did he really just throw you off the lineup??? cause I was coming to see you and Push.” He responded, “Just me. Weirdos.”

Looks like explanations are owed. It’s worth mentioning that in April, Cudi declared unresolved beef with the Donda rapper, a notable client of Dean’s, via Twitter, writing, “Hey! So I know some of you heard about the song I got w Pusha. I did this song a year ago when I was still cool w Kanye. I am not cool w that man. He’s not my friend and I only cleared the song for Pusha cuz thats my guy. This is the last song u will hear me on w Kanye -Scott.”

By now, it’s well known that Metallica’s “Master Of Puppets” has experienced a revival here in 2022 due to the 1986 single being used in a pivotal scene from the latest season of Stranger Things. The band clearly loves this, as they’ve been fully on board with acknowledging the show and showing love for it and the newfound attention it has brought the rock icons. Now, they’re leaning into it even further my teaming up with Netflix for a killer new line of merch.

The line consists of a t-shirt, raglan shirt, and hoodie all with the same design, a modified version of the Hellfire Club shirt from the show but with the Metallica logo on top. All items are availabe to order now via Metallica’s webstore, Metallica’s other webstore, or Netflix’s webstore.

Announcing the new offerings on Twitter, the band wrote, “We’re having the most metal meeting ever of The Hellfire Club so we’re scouting out “lost sheep” and outsiders to join. Do you think you have what it takes? Then suit up!”

Ever since the “Master Of Puppets” resurgence, Metallica have welcomed new fans with open arms, seen the song hit the Hot 100 chart for the first time, and jam with Eddie Munson actor Joseph Quinn backstage at Lollapalooza.

Fans of Brendan Fraser (so, everyone) were disappointed to learn this week that DC’s Batgirl is being shelved so Warner Bros. reportedly can save a few bucks.

The Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah-directed film, starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon, wasn’t “big enough to feel worthy of a major theatrical release” or “small enough to make economic sense in an increasingly cutthroat streaming landscape,” so the only place it will be seen is on lists of other unreleased movies. The news came “two days before [Warner Bros. Discovery’s] quarterly earnings to take advantage of a ‘purchase accounting’ maneuver available to the conglomerate,” according to Deadline, which also reported how much the decision to shelve Batgirl will save the company.

Some of our sources scratch their head at that reasoning: How much money did Warners stand to save here? $15 million-$20 million at the most some say — which is nothing when you’re aiming at $3 billion. Furthermore, if Batgirl went straight to HBO Max, how could anyone determine if it was a success or failure?

$15 million-$20 million is nothing to sneeze at (unless the thing making you sneeze is 20 million dollars worth of cocaine), but it’s not that much money in the entertainment industry. That’s, for instance, Joaquin Phoenix’s salary for Joker: Folie à Deux, which was added to the release date calendar after the Batgirl news broke. Interesting timing!

You can still catch Barbara Gordon on HBO Max’s Harley Quinn — for now.

(Via Deadline)