Month: October 2022

For most sane people, having an unhinged personality like Marjorie Taylor Greene as a colleague would be a nightmare. But most people don’t have the cool-as-the-other-side-of-the-pillow demeanor of Pete Buttigieg, who has an uncanny ability to totally annihilate his political opponents without breaking a sweat.

Case in point: On Tuesday night, Buttigieg was a guest on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show, where he was asked about a nonsensical comment Greene recently made at a Trump rally in Michigan, in which she accused the transportation secretary of “trying to emasculate the way we drive” by supporting more eco-friendly transportation options. Which is sort of like saying that healthy foods shouldn’t be an option for people who want them.

While Buttigieg’s face pretty much said it all (see above), his unperturbed demeanor while delivering a calm-but-scathing response to what he thought “of her wording” was really a lesson Ultimate Takedowns 101:

I literally don’t even understand what that means. I mean, my sense of manhood is not connected whether my vehicle is fueled by gasoline or whether it’s fueled by electricity.

While Buttigieg attempted to move on, Cavuto — trying to point out that the comment seemed homophobic without saying it seemed homophobic — wanted to know if Mayor Pete was “offended” by the statement, noting that “even people who share her politics didn’t share that view.”

Buttigieg, deftly sidestepping the comment’s baked-in ignorance, simply said that “it was a strange thing to say.” Then he really dropped the hammer when he admitted that: “To be honest, there are other members of congress that I pay more attention to when I’m thinking about opinions that really matter or ideas that are going to be critical to engage with.”

Ultimately, Buttigieg did address the elephant in the congressional hall when he said that:

I do think we need to zoom out a little bit. I know people want to make this ideological, they want to make it political. When we’re talking about something like electric vehicles, we’re talking again about a very practical matter. Which is how we get from Point A to Point B. And if industry, and the world, are moving in a direction that adopts a new technology, you know, the real question is: Are we going to let China lead that? Or are we going to lead that here in the United States of America?

And that, friends, is how you excoriate Marjorie Taylor Greene in 60 seconds or less.

In a February interview before Beatopia was announced, Beabadoobee said of the album, “I don’t know how to explain it, but it sounds very 2006 [laughs]. I feel like this new album is what I am meant to sound like.” Now, she has pulled from about that era for her latest cover, a rendition of Vanessa Carlton’s 2002 hit “A Thousand Miles.”

While Carlton’s original recording is based on an airy and iconic piano melody, Beabadoobee leans more into her rock sensibilities for the Live Lounge cover, conveying that melody via distorted electric guitar instead. Aside from the genre shift, though, Bea’s rendition is mostly faithful to the source material.

Also in the Live Lounge, Beabadoobee performed her own Beatopia highlight “The Perfect Pair.”

Meanwhile, Beabadoobee is in the midst of a world tour. It kicked off in July with a handful of US shows before heading to Europe and Australia. She’s getting ready to start a run of UK dates, which will be followed by a more extensive stretch of North American concerts from late October to early December.

As far as new material, she popped up on “Cyberkiss 2 U,” a recent single from Blackstarkids.

Find Beabadoobee’s renditions of “A Thousand Miles” and “The Perfect Pair” above.

Herschel Walker took another major hit this week after a woman came forward with allegations (and receipts) that the pro-life senate candidate impregnated her in 2009 and paid for an abortion. Walker, who’s been campaigning on his support for a total abortion ban with no exceptions, has denied the allegations. However, Walker’s son Christian turned on the following NFL star after the abortion news broke and spent several hours calling out his father on Twitter.

“You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” Christian tweeted. “I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you.”

As Walker continued to do damage control on Wednesday, he appeared on Fox News for an interview with Brian Kilmeade. However, instead of getting a sympathetic reception from the conservative network, Kilmeade grilled Walker over his son dragging him on Twitter. Via Mediaite:

“So he saw [the report] and says you’re lying, Herschel,” Kilmeade noted. “What do you say about your son? Is he telling the truth?”

Mr. Walker gave the same answer he gave when his son first started blasting him on social media: “Well I love my son unconditionally and that’s where I’ve always been. I always loved him unconditionally.” This did not answer Kilmeade’s question, and the Fox host followed up “But he’s doing tremendous damage to you by coming out with those statements. Do you know why he’s saying this?”

Kilmeade continued to press Walker even further by bringing up more of Christian’s tweets, including one where he admits to staying “silent as the atrocities committed against my mom were downplayed.” When Kilmeade asked Walker to respond to those remarks, the Georgia senate candidate continued to dodge the subject and said he still loves his son “unconditionally.”

(Via Mediaite)

Although a sizeable chunk of Freddie Gibbs’ 2022 has been consumed with beef with Benny The Butcher, during a recent interview, Gibbs explained how he ended his other long-running feud with Jeezy after crossing paths at an airport. As Fred told Bootleg Kev on the DJ’s podcast, the Gary, Indiana rapper ran into his former label boss (Gibbs briefly signed to Jeezy’s CTE World in 2011, but left the label sometime in 2012) and his wife Jeannie Mae and said the two “shook hands and hugged and was just like, ‘Man, salute.’”

Gibbs called it “a relief for both” after years of tension stemming from how Gibbs left CTE and lyrical jabs the two had exchanged in the time since. He said, “We exchanged numbers and we both got on a plane and that was it. It was one of the most beautiful things ever. I been put it behind me, but I had to see him. And then when you look back, man, it wasn’t really nothing. That was f*cking a music disagreement. I didn’t really have nothing against Jeezy; I looked up to Jeezy. Jeezy is one of my favorite rappers. I learned a lot from him. I learned how to really carry myself in this rap game by being around him. So I think that was just a misunderstanding, a miscommunication.”

Fred took responsibility for his part in how things escalated, saying, “I think what really set me off is when they asked him about me publicly. I wish he would have just deflected that. But then I took that sh*t too far. I look at that situation as another learning experience.” More recently, though, he credited Jeezy with showing him “I could be a f*cking boss” on the song “Rabbit Vision” from his new album Soul Sold Separately, which is out now on Warner Records. You can watch the full Bootleg Kev interview up top and listen to his new album here.

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

Jax Teller did not make it out of Sons of Anarchy alive. That seemed incredibly clear on multiple fronts, including how Jax decided to drive straight into a green-screened, 18-wheel Mack truck in the final moments of the series. Mayans M.C. began their ride by acknowledging that they’re living in a “post-Jax Teller world” with a promo showing off a makeshift memorial to the former SAMCRO president.

Zero debate about Jax’s death exists in the universe, but that hasn’t stopped Charlie Hunnam from teasing that something that could (at some point) be in the works. I’m stumped on what this could be, since it’s too late to double back for a baby-faced Jax prequel, so maybe there’s Zombie Jax in the works. Don’t question the Reaper, man! Seriously, though, I never considered the possibility that there could, you know, be more Jax in any reality, so I never broached the subject during our recent interview about Apple TV+’s upcoming Shantaram. Yet he’s apparently talked about it already, and then he followed up with Entertainment Tonight:

“Oh, did that get a little bit of traction,” quipped Hunnam. But when pressed on whether there’s a concrete idea or if reprising his role as Jax will come in a series or film, Hunnam played coy.

“I can’t, I can’t tell you. No, no,” said Hunnam with a bit of a grin on his face. “There’s nothing I can say at all, other than if it happens, it’ll happen.”

If this sounds like the very English Charlie Hunnam is “taking the p*ss,” as the English say, well, maybe he is! But he also said this to Access Hollywood, via Comic Book:

“I have an idea that I’m exploring in its infancy where that could be a possibility,” Hunnam explained. “It would be something that I would be incredibly excited about, so we’re sort of, like I said, in the infancy of exploring the viability of the idea.”

Gonna call this now: the mystery project will certainly be a story about grown-up hellion Abel, who will be visited by the other-dimension spirit of Jax, who’s now riding his bike in the sky. Or maybe — since we never saw the body (!) — Jax picked himself up off the highway and left those crows with their blood and bread, only to stagger off into the desert and build himself a new life on the straight and narrow. This sounds ridiculous, but so does driving into a green screen. It’s all made up, so maybe we just roll with it and watch Shantaram.

(Via Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood & Comic Book)

Following the release of Sharon Van Etten‘s We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong album in May, she has since announced that a deluxe version is on the way. It will include a handful of new songs, including “Never Gonna Change” — which dropped today. (The full deluxe album is out November 11.)

Van Etten dropped a lyric video for it. “Never Gonna Change” is an emotionally-charged song that captures listeners with the drum line. It also features lines about struggling. “Same old thoughts awake / Shame the voice and try to trace the chains,” she sings.

“[It’s] about managing depression and anxiety in the midst of isolation,” Van Etten said in a statement, according to Stereogum. “Coping with recurring fears throughout adulthood, acknowledging that flaws, fears and triggers can’t be overcome, they are a constant part of one’s identity to learn to be at peace with.”

In addition, the deluxe version will include other songs, such as “When I Die,” as well as Van Etten’s previous single releases of “Porta” and “Used To It.”

“For most of my adult life I have struggled with bouts of depression and anxiety and coping mechanisms, and I sometimes let those dark moments get the best of me,” she shared about “Porta” in a press release. “During this time I felt very dissociated. Not connected to my body and I felt out of control.”

Watch the lyric video for “Never Gonna Change” above.

The deluxe version of We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is out 11/11 via Jagjaguwar. Pre-order it here.

Very few people are amused by Kanye West’s “White Lives Matter” stunt, but a former collaborator of his is wanting to do their best to counter the damage he has done. Singer and songwriter Esthero — who worked with Ye on his fourth studio album, 808s & Heartbreak — has expressed desire to donate her royalties to Black Lives Matter, an organization that West publicly called a “scam.”

Esthero — who co-wrote “Love Lockdown,” “Street Lights,” and “RoboCop” — took to Twitter yesterday amid the backlash following Ye’s “White Lives Matter” shirt, along with his attack on Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson.

“I would like to donate my portion of the publishing from the 808s and Heartbreak album to @BLMLA [Black Lives Matter Los Angeles],” Esthero said in a tweet. “Please get at me so we can start the process. #blacklivesmatter.”

She followed up the initial tweet shortly after, encouraging other Ye collaborators to donate as well

“Let me be crystal clear where I stand on this,” she said, “I invite the other co-writers to do the same.”

Esthero has long been vocal about her disdain toward Ye’s pro-Trump stance.

Back in 2020, she tweeted, “Anyone else miss the ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’ Kanye,” referring to his infamous exclamation on live TV in 2005 during a telethon benefiting victims of Hurricane Katrina.

At the time of writing, Esthero had not yet updated her followers as to whether or not the process had begun, nor if other co-writers had expressed if they were donating to Black Lives Matter.

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.

Of all the factors that are considered when planning the release of an album — booking promotional interviews, plotting the support concert tour, picking which band photo looks the least awkward — the most underrated element is seasonal.

Too few artists are self-aware about the time of year when their music hits most effectively. Beyoncé, of course, gets it — she put out her latest LP, the upbeat dance-obsessed fantasia Renaissance, in the heart of the summer. That’s precisely where it belonged. Big Thief, on the other hand, released one of the finest road-trip albums of modern times, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, in February. Clearly, this is a record that demanded to arrive in April or May, in the dewy midst of spring, a time of year when the road inevitably beckons.

Thankfully, the Canadian dream-pop band Alvvays appears to be attuned to their unique seasonal appropriateness. On their first two records, 2014’s Alvvays and 2017’s Antisocialites, they established themselves as the finest contemporary practitioners of what I’ll classify as sweater-weather music. There are two ways to define sweater-weather music — first, it’s the kind of song that somehow conveys a certain melancholy chilliness while also sounding warm and engaging, typically via a mix of an emotionally restrained vocal, laidback and vaguely retro instrumentation, and an indelible melody. Second (and more succinctly) sweater-weather music sounds at least a little like Yo La Tengo’s “Autumn Sweater.”

All of this is to say that the third Alvvays album due on Friday, Blue Rev, is perfectly timed for early October. I have played my promo stream many times in the past several weeks, and I swear the album has steadily improved as the temperature has steadily declined. Watching the leaves outside my office window change color has added new shadings to the songs. The necessity of wearing an extra layer of clothing whenever I venture outside has seemingly made the music sound more layered. I think you catch my drift. This is sweater-weather music through and through.

Accentuating the autumnal pleasure of it all is the passage of time between Alvvays releases. Waiting five years for Blue Rev undoubtedly makes it seem more special, even if the album doesn’t sound like it took five years to make or, really, all that radically different from what Alvvays has always done. If you know the first two records, you will not be surprised by the third. It’s true that the basic tracks — per the instruction of producer Shawn Everett, best known in indie circles for his sterling work with The War On Drugs and Alabama Shakes — were recorded live with a new and energetic rhythm section, which makes Blue Rev the hardest rocking Alvvays album to date. (I realize this might seem like a meaningless distinction, like describing Diet Mountain Dew as the healthiest form of toxic waste. But the guitars on this record really are heavy in the relative sense.)

This is most apparent on the spitefully surging “Pomeranian Spinster,” in which singer Molly Rankin insists “I’m going to get what I want / I don’t care who it hurts” with her best Justine Frischmann-esque sneer. You can also hear this feisty new ‘tude in the pre-release single “Very Online Guy,” a droll and discordant character study about a familiar type of internet nitwit who “likes to hit reply / he’s incredibly vigilant / hair with the feathered wings / he likes to pull the strings.” On one of the album’s best songs, “Velveteen,” Alvvays even take on the arena synth-rock sheen of another past collaborator of Everett’s, The Killers, with unprecedented swagger.

But for the most part, Alvvays remain very good at sounding like Alvvays. The formula is simple but effective — reverb-heavy guitars that jangle and sprawl, a wiry bassline, sighing synths, a chorus that lifts out of the verse in a manner that can only be described as shyly grandiose, a vocal that sounds sampled from a long-lost radio hit from 1965, and (hopefully) one well-placed reference in the lyrics to pop culture ephemera. On Blue Rev, there are nods to Tom Verlaine of the legendary post-punk band Television, Angela Lansbury’s character on the TV detective show Murder, She Wrote, and the 1987 Belinda Carlisle smash hit “Heaven Is A Place On Earth.” Somehow, these allusions perfectly encapsulate the band’s aesthetic of self-effacing bookish cool.

While Alvvays was an acclaimed and indie-popular band on the first two records, the understated music and Rankin’s unassuming public-facing persona have made them an easy band to take for granted. But in the five years since Antisocialites, they have evolved into something wholly unexpected: a legacy act. As a wry chronicler of young-adult ennui in an age of social media and late capitalism, Rankin slightly predates the generation of singer-songwriters — Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Japanese Breakfast, Julien Baker — who have codified this style into the predominant sound of modern indie. Soncially, Alvvays is now a common touchstone for emerging bands who, perhaps, have been fooled into thinking that what Alvvays does is easily replicable. As my colleague Ian Cohen has observed, so many young indie groups dabbling in shoegaze guitars and oldies radio songcraft sound like “Alvvays without the tunes.” They are, in other words, less good at sounding like Alvvays than Alvvays.

If there is a key to cracking the code of what makes Alvvays special in a sea of superficially similar imitators, it really does seem to come down to the tunes. Recently, I had some friends over for a backyard hang and “Archie, Marry Me” from the self-titled Alvvays LP came on. (Alvvays, admittedly, also sounds great in the summer.) One of my friends didn’t know Alvvays or the song, but he swore he heard it somewhere before. Is it Camera Obscura? Broadcast? A Lesley Gore tune on a malfunctioning cassette tape? A lot of Alvvays songs are like that — Rankin and her co-songwriter, guitarist Alec O’Hanley, are truly gifted when it comes to writing tunes that already seem familiar the first time you hear them without ever directly ripping off an older classic song.

Nothing on Blue Rev quite meets the timeless standard of “Archie, Marry Me.” But I’m already prepared to identify at least two tracks, “Many Mirrors” and “Bored In Bristol,” as functionally perfect pop-rock tunes. I could tell you what they sound like, but I think I’ve already done that. They sound like Alvvays. And sounding like Alvvays is high praise, indeed.

Clipse fans have been hounding the brother act for a reunion for over 10 years, since the release of their fourth and to date, final album, Til The Casket Drops, in 2009. Since then, there have been a few performances reuniting Pusha T and No Malice over the years, including a couple this year on Nigo’s album I Know Nigo and Pusha’s album It’s Almost Dry. So, those fans were undoubtedly delighted when the duo took the stage at last week’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, which aired last night.

During Pusha T’s solo performance, which opened with a rendition of his It’s Almost Dry cut “Diet Coke,” the beat to Clipse’s breakout 2002 hit “Grindin’” blared over the speakers, and Malice emerged on stage. Naturally, the crowd went wild, with audience closeups showing nearly everyone in the building reciting the iconic, 20-year-old verses nearly word-for-word. The brothers Thornton looked like they were having the time of their lives — especially younger brother Pusha, who appeared more amped than anyone to see No Malice spitting the verses that “Grindin’” a lunch table favorite at high schools across America in 2002.

With the duo performing together for the first time in over a decade at Pharrell Williams’ Something In The Water festival earlier this year, as well as reuniting at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, fans’ hopes for a project are looking more positive than ever. Still, even if they don’t record another album together, the seal has been opened, and it probably won’t be long until we see them grace the stage as a group again.

Donald Trump is well-known for his love of McDonald’s, but in 1995, he agreed to star in a commercial for another fast food chain: Pizza Hut. Turns out, McDonald’s wasn’t the only one he was betraying. At the time, Trump was married to Marla Maples after a bitter divorce from his first wife Ivana, who was understandably not thrilled that he had an affair with Maples. If you recall Trump’s infamous commercial for Stuffed Crust Pizza, it also stars Ivana. The whole thing makes it seem like they’re having a torrid love affair, which Trump never told Maples about until after he filmed the ad.

According to Maggie Haberman‘s new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Maples puked her “guts out” after she learned about the commercial. Via Business Insider:

It hints at a tryst between Trump and his ex-wife, with the couple saying it’s “wrong” but “feels so right.” After a pause, the two whip out a pizza box and agree to “eat our pizza the wrong way,” meaning crust-first.

They then poke fun at their divorce, with Ivana Trump reaching for the pizza box and asking, “May I have the last slice?”

“Actually,” Donald Trump says in the commercial, “you’re only entitled to half.”

In classic Trump style, the story gets way worse. Not only did Trump film the ad in Trump Tower while Maples was at Mar-a-Lago with their daughter, Tiffany, but he bragged to two of his executives that she got sick after he came clean about the commercial.

“The poor kid. I started to tell her and she got sick. She said she had to go,” Trump said before using a “nasal falsetto” to mock Maples’ voice and sharing that she had to “puke her f*cking guts out.” Incredible that their marriage didn’t last.

(Via Business Insider)