Plenty of people making their way through the music industry have some family members who have already fared well in it. Among those is 15-year-old Grace Franklin, whose grandmother is the iconic Aretha Franklin. She auditioned for the current season of American Idol, but, despite her lineage, she did not make it past the audition stage.
In a pre-taped segment, Franklin said, “I feel like people expect me to sing exactly like her, but I am my own artist and I have my own voice.” She then got to showing off that voice with a rendition of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” (inspired by the Lauryn Hill cover). While Lionel Richie was happily reminiscing about Aretha before Franklin sang, he commented on her perceived nervousness after the song. Meanwhile, Luke Bryan thought the performance was “sleepy and subdued” and Katy Perry called it “soft.”
Perry encouraged Franklin to take another crack at it, so she tried again with her grandmother’s “Ain’t No Way,” which she sang with more force than she used for “Killing Me Softly.” Perry was more receptive of that performance and so was Bryan, although he wasn’t completely swayed. Both Richie and Bryan encouraged Franklin to develop her voice more.
When it came time for the vote, Perry gave Franklin the go-ahead, while Richie and Bryan both passed, even after Perry’s fervent campaigning and playfully storming off set in disagreement.
After a record-breaking number of delays, Morbius starring Jared Leto as the title character/classic Spider-Man villain will finally make its way into theaters on April 1. To herald its arrival, Sony has released a final trailer for the film, which has led to one nagging question following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home: How the heck is Michael Keaton in this thing?
Granted, Michael Keaton’s Vulture popped up in the very first Mobius trailer, but his presence is the all more confusing considering No Way Home did not smash together the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe as expected. An end credits scene featuring Tom Hardy’s Venom made it clear that the MCU and Tom Holland’s Spidey will remain in separate film universes. This creative decision will only make things more awkward for Sony as it continues to make movies about Spider-Man villains in a film universe where he doesn’t even exist.
However, again, this raises the question of how Keaton’s Vulture is in Morbius considering he’s a part of the MCU. An easy explanation would be that Morbius is now set in the MCU, but there’s a problem there: The previous trailer included numerous references to Venom who is not a part of the MCU. If those references are removed from the final film, that could solve the puzzle and might be what’s happening. Back in November, Keaton revealed that he was filming some “Vulture stuff,” which could be new scenes to massage Morbius into the MCU.
The other option is that somehow Keaton’s Vulture in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. If so, his presence in Morbius would highlight that the multiversal clean-up at the end of No Way Home wasn’t so tidy after all. A fact that we know is true thanks to the latest trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that heavily suggests Strange and Spidey did some serious damage to reality.
Elden Ring is fun. Every time there is positive momentum the game creates an incredible feeling. When a boss is felled there’s an adrenaline rush that few games can achieve. Exploration is rewarding in a way that few open-world games are able to accomplish. Despite this world being so large, it is also so incredibly dense. The game expects the player to spend a lot of time in this world — which is made obvious by the fact that the first major boss kicks everyone’s face in since they’re under leveled. At a road block? Go explore more. There’s always something to do. There are generous respawn points that can be fast traveled to spread throughout the world. This is the most approachable game From Software has ever made and is likely going to bring many newcomers into their Souls line of games. It’s just unfortunate that the rest of us are bound to bounce off of it.
Elden Ring has quickly earned massive accreditation across the video game industry for being an immediate game of the year contender and is already being heralded as one of the best games ever made. To be clear, Elden Ring has earned every single bit of acclaim it has received. The developers at From Software have created the game they wanted to make and done so masterfully. Combat feels the way it should, bosses constantly create that “just one more” feeling, and the world is gorgeous to look at. Exploration is always rewarded with something whether it’s a new area to explore, treasure to find, or a new way to die.
Death is going to be common in Elden Ring. Get used to it, but grind it out long enough and most challenges can be overcome. For some players, this makes for a perfect video game, but for others this probably all sounds like a headache. A game that demands dozens of hours of your time so you can master a single boss, get past a challenging area, or simply move on to something new is not exactly the easiest thing to commit to for a casual player. The truth about Elden Ring is that it’s not approachable at all to anyone that dislikes the combat and style of previous From Software games like Dark Souls, Sekiro, or Bloodborne.
This isn’t to say that From Software should have made a completely different game to cater to more people. They came in with the goal of making this exact game and should be celebrated for it, but when a game gets as big as Elden Ring and draws the rave reviews it has, it’s going to bring in people out of curiosity. Plenty who haven’t played any games in the franchise before will want to see if this is the one for them, and a fair warning that you will need to be willing to invest a lot in it to get much of anything out of the experience.
Elden Ring/From Software
Elden Ring is challenging, and not just with regular bosses but with normal enemies. Dying happens a lot and the best advice anyone can give is to never get attached to the runes used to level up. They’re dropped upon death and if you don’t make it to them before dying again then they’re gone forever. So be wary of that. It would be nice if there was a difficulty setting that allowed players the ability to keep their runes upon death, but that’s not an option as there are no difficult settings of any kind in Elden Ring.
From Software games have never been shy about how challenging they can be. The first Dark Souls became a bit of a meme with how often other challenging games were getting compared to it, but it’s a shame that with so many other approachability options added to the game that this one continues to be ignored. The game is what it is and the only way to make anything easier is to over level, but even that can be hard to do with how challenging the game feels at the start. People who do not like overly challenging games are going to find that Elden Ring is just as hard as previous From Software games and it is not shy about it.
Since Elden Ring is so difficult, that means it’s going to require the player to really invigorate themselves and learn the mechanics. This can feel rewarding because the player gets to watch themselves become better at it, seeing that sense of progression on the screen. The problem is that progression can take many hours, especially for people who have not played a Souls game before. The first major boss is one that most players will be able to reach, but everyone has been talking about how it immediately kicked their teeth in, mostly due to being under leveled.
What the developers were going for here is obvious; they want the player to go back into the world and explore it. Discover every nook and cranny, go explore a hidden dungeon, geat some field bosses, earn a few skills, and really dive into the world and see what it has to offer. The problem with all of this is that some folks just do not have the time to do that. Players sticking to the main path because they want to see what Elden Ring has to offer are going to be sorely disappointed because that option isn’t really there. Thankfully the exploration is fun, but forced exploration for the sake of it isn’t.
Adding to that frustration for new players is that, with all of the other quality of life choices, they chose to not have a quest log. Find an NPC that makes a request of you? Write it down somewhere, because Elden Ring is going to make no indication that a quest has been offered and that the player can complete it. For some this is going to be fun because there is a Dungeons & Dragons like aspect to writing down quests and keeping tabs on what you’re doing. It’s a minimalist game design choice that makes sense in a world like Elden Ring.
Of course, for anyone that isn’t into that kind of thing they’re just going to move on to the next interesting thing they see and forget about it after a few playthroughs. This is Elden Ring once again asking the player to devote a significant amount of their personal time to diving into its world. For the players that fall in love with it? That is going to be right up their alley. For those that don’t, they’re going to find it to be just another annoyance getting in the way of playing the video game.
Elden Ring/From Software
Elden Ring is a great game. It’s going to deservedly win multiple Game of the Year awards and get talked about for the next decade if not longer. That is why it is so disappointing that a significant portion of people will likely never be able to experience the full game because of its design choices. This might be the most approachable game From Software has ever made, but that does not mean it’s for everyone. For a game that’s as big as this one that’s fairly disappointing to say.
Wet Leg might be the buzziest indie band in the world right now. The charmingly cynical UK post-punk duo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, has seemed to have found lightning in a bottle with their music. Today, they dropped “Angelica,” the fifth single ahead of the April 8th release of their self-titled debut album.
In a similar catchy, quirky, and witty mold as tracks like “Chaise Lounge” and “Wet Dream,” “Angelica” offers up more lyrics that make you smirk. A harmonious cacophony of guitars and drums are preceded by “I don’t want to follow you on the ‘gram, I don’t want to listen to your band. I don’t know why I haven’t left yet? Don’t want none of this.”
“It’s laced with disenchantment,” Chambers says of the song in a statement. “Even though the chorus is ‘good times, all the time.’ That’s just impossible, isn’t it?” There’s something so carefree and off-the-cuff about the Isle of Wight duo’s songwriting that has made all of their tunes thus far wildly approachable and relatable. “Part of making music is just learning to put things down, to say things are done,” she recently told Uproxx. “Some things are done straight away and it’s obvious, and some things are done and you’re not satisfied with them, but that’s okay. They’re still done. It is what it is. Move on.”
Wet Leg have also beefed up their previously sold out US tour dates with some venue expansions and additional dates. Check them all out here.
Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.
Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of February below.
Beach House — Once Twice Melody
Once Twice Melody is Beach House’s first album since 2018’s 7, and now the expansive project has gotten an expansive vinyl box set edition; check it out in the unboxing video above. In her review of the album, Uproxx’s Caitlin White notes, “Once Twice Melody might expand their palette a bit, but it’s no experimental reach or brand new direction. Why mess with perfection? Their gauzy soundscapes are vague enough to sustain quite a bit of emotional projection, but there’s depth of meaning lurking within the songs that few other bands yield.”
Tkay Maidza — Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2 & Vol. 3
Vinyl Me, Please
The Last Year Was Weird trilogy came to an end with the final two volumes, which are now available in a gorgeous gold pressing, exclusive to Vinyl Me, Please. Maidza recently told Uproxx of naming the series, “The term ‘weird’ is the way I described the plunge of going into the deep end and knowing that where I was. What I wanted was like a big leap forward, but I would have to start from nothing again. I was at that lowest point every day: ‘What the hell is going on?’ But in a way, I always had a feeling that it would work out because this was the only way it could be.”
Paul McCartney And Wings — Wild Life (50th Anniversary Limited Edition)
UMe
Last December was the 50th anniversary of the debut album from Paul McCartney’s Wings, a major project in the immediate aftermath of The Beatles’ dissolution. To mark the occasion, the album gets a fresh reissue, with this edition having been mastered at half speed for supreme audio quality.
Yusuf/Cat Stevens — Harold And Maude (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
A&M/Cat-O-Log/UMe
Harold And Maude has become one of the defining films of its era, and Yusuf/Cat Stevens played a part in that with his soundtrack. That first came out 50 years ago, and now this vinyl reissue of it combines Stevens’ songs with dialogue from the film for the first time.
In June 2004, Pixies took to London’s Brixton Academy for four sold-out shows that marked their UK reunion, and now those shows are preserved in a new box set. This eight-LP release marks the first time these recordings are officially available, and on top of that, they’ve also been freshly remastered.
Sturgill Simpson has been in a productive stretch that most recently featured the 2021 album The Ballad Of Dood And Juanita. Now, it’s finally available on vinyl, and since this may be the final Sturgill Simpson album, this one’s worth grabbing.
Keef’s debut album was a big moment in hip-hop in that it helped popularize drill music. Vinyl Me, Please has now honored the album by making it one of their rerelease picks for March, which marks the first time the record has ever been made available on vinyl.
Modest Mouse — The Lonesome Crowded West (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)
Vinyl Me, Please
Modest Mouse is going on tour this year, but if you’re unable to catch one of those shows but still want to throw a few bucks at a cool Modest Mouse experience, Vinyl Me, Please has a fresh reissue of one of their iconic albums, The Lonesome Crowded West. This version comes pressed on “Bottom Of The Sky”-colored vinyl and is accompanied by fresh listening notes.
Sasami got a Haim co-sign as she’s heading out on tour with the sister trio, and indeed, her new album is worth checking out. It’s a diverse effort that touches on everything from nu-metal to folk to classical, and now it’s available on a gorgeous translucent red vinyl pressing.
Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard curated a collection of Yoko Ono covers for the new Ocean Child project, and now the endeavor is available to grab on vinyl. It’s a strong get if you want to add some variety to your vinyl library, as the collection features recordings by Death Cab, Japanese Breakfast, Sharon Van Etten, David Byrne, and a heaping handful of others.
That all is likely not right in the mind of Vladimir Putin is hardly breaking news. Yet while former president Donald Trump continues to swoon over how “smart” and “sexy” “savvy” the Russian president is for starting a war with Ukraine, much of the rest of the world isn’t as impressed with the ex-KGB officer’s brute tactics. While some GOP leaders have refused to condemn Trump’s pro-Putin comments (we see you, Tom Cotton) and instead attack Joe Biden’s response to the Russia Ukraine War, Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who has broken with his former puppetmaster Trump in calling out Putin’s actions.
On Sunday night, the Florida senator sent out a series of kinda cryptic tweets about Putin and his current state of mind. And while he clearly has more information that he’s able to share (that’s part of what being a vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee requires), he was clearly trying to send up a smoke signal that all might not be well in Putin’s brain.
This is the most dangerous moment in 60 years#Putin’s is facing a humiliating military fiasco & he has triggered extraordinary consequences on #Russia’s economy & people that will not be easy to reverse
And his only options to reset this imbalance are catastrophic ones
The main point Rubio seemed to want to make is that something has changed in Putin. And while he freely admitted that “the old Putin was a cold-blooded but calculating killer,” he claims that “this new Putin is even more dangerous.” He hinted at knowing more when he tweeted that “I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin.”
As The Washington Post reports, Rubio is far from the only political leader who has reason to communicate or mingle with Putin on occasion to notice a shift in his demeanor. Former national security adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served under President George W. Bush and has sat in for meetings with Putin on several occasions, says the Vlad the world is seeing now is “a different Putin” who seems to have “an ever-deepening delusional rendering of history.”
Rubio had more to say about the Russian leader to CNN’s Jake Tapper as well, though when shared in Twitter-sized bites, it sounded a lot like another (now former) president we all know and many loathe.
Interesting from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl, vice chair of Senate Intel Committee, who notes that Putin “has created a system of people not telling him bad news or facts that contradict his preferences.
“He also appears to have some neuro/physiological health issues…
2/ “But most telling is this is a man who has long prided himself on emotional control. His recent flashes of anger is very uncharacteristic and show an erosion in impulse control.”
The first round of talks between Russia and Ukraine have now ended, with CNN reporting that both delegations have returned to their capitols “for consultations.”
Sonic fans did not take kindly to O’Shaughnessey, who’s also the voice of Tails in the video games, being left off the cast list. But she, along with actress Tika Sumpter (Maddie Wachowski), were added to an updated poster following an outcry.
The original version of the Sonic 2 poster featured the names of James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Idris Elba, and Jim Carrey. Many fans took issue with the fact that while Schwartz and Elba were named on the poster, O’Shaughnessey’s name was excluded, despite her voicing another main character in the form of Miles “Tails” Prower… Similarly, Sumpter went unnamed on the original Sonic 2 poster, despite it featuring her character, Maddie Wachowski. Much to the delight of social media, however, the revised Sonic 2 poster names Marsden, Schwartz, Sumpter, O’Shaughnessey, Elba, and Carrey, in that order.
When the world is heavy—and it is right now, very much so—it’s wise to try to balance digesting the 24/7 news cycle with some positive things. Not because we should ignore reality or turn a blind eye to tragedy, but because we are human beings with emotions and psyches, and focusing on what’s going wrong all the time isn’t good for us.
In fact, joy and laughter can be incredibly healing, even in the midst of struggle or sadness. That’s really the whole point of these weekly roundups—to provide some wholesome, healthy endorphin-pushing delight when you need a little lift.
Fair warning: At least one of the things in this list might evoke some unexpected emotions, so you might want to grab a tissue. Not sad tears, just … well, you’ll see. Totally worth it, I promise.
And with that, off we go.
Who broke this cat and why is this so funny?
The way this cat eats.. pic.twitter.com/b0xatDFXUG
I’ve had over a dozen cats in my lifetime, and I’ve never once seen any of them do anything like this. Seriously, what? And the way it falls over backward? Hilarious.
Journalist’s mom interrupts him while he’s working and it’s too precious.
Myles Harris is an Ohio-based journalist for ABC and he shared this video of his mom Sandi’s drive-by hello. “HI BABY!!!” People loved it. Sandi is everyone’s mama.
Middle schoolers’ homemade boat sailed all the way from New Hampshire to Norway.
A group of middle schoolers in New Hampshire launched a homemade boat into the ocean in October 2020. Miraculously, 462 days and 8,300 miles later, a group of Norwegian sixth graders found it. Amazing. Read the full story here.
Oh, this little sweetheart big brother and his big feelings.
When you first watch this video, it may not be apparent that it’s computer generated, but if you see how perfectly it loops from the end back to the beginning, it’s pretty clear. Still a super cool video. Read the full story about it here.
Did you know baby x-rays are the cutest thing ever?
Scroll through and wook at dose widdle bones in the widdle hand! And the widdle bones in the widdle footsy! And the kid in the x-ray machine? Oh my goodness.
Don’t you just hate it when you get the static hair flyaways?
Itu2019s so dry in hereu2026Humidifier, Hello?! pic.twitter.com/VjDiWk8pDs
You think it’s just an unbelievably cute puppy standing next to a painfully cute chick, and then the puppy starts falling asleep (which isn’t even fair), and then the chick tucks itself under the pupper’s chin, and then you pass out because no one can handle this much cuteness.
There you go, friends. I hope that brought a little brightness to your day and a little joy to your weary hearts.
Dr. Dre has already been having a busy year. After joining Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige on stage at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, his song “Still D.R.E.” with Snoop Dogg became their first video to reach a billion views on YouTube. A couple of weeks before that, he collaborated with Eminem for a GTA Online Song “Gospel.” Now, he’s working with EPMD’s Erick Sermon, also known as the Green-Eyed Bandit, according to Sermon’s recent Instagram post, which gave shoutouts to a bunch of his friends and collaborators he’s been in the studio with.
“I got to L.A a day before the #superbowl ..then 2 days after that was his bday…after that .. the #sagacontinues,” he wrote. We worked on my new project #DYNAMICDUOS […] Thanks for the opportunity. We were friends for over 30 and never worked together.. a lot of ppl has been waiting on this to happen. Well .. here it is […] Thank @focus3dots @coachbernard @mikecity ….. @rance1500 @saweetie @thebrandengine @joellejames […] My mental health has been a factor for awhile .. thank u @drdre for changing that. # beautiful blessings.”
It’s their first time working together after 30 years of friendship. Hopefully this project Dynamics Duos will be finished and released sometime soon.
We mostly see Zendaya as an actor these days, but she’s had some success in the music world, too. She put out a self-titled album in 2013 that spawned a top-40 single in “Replay.” She and Zac Efron also sang “Rewrite The Stars,” one of the two singles from the beloved The Greatest Showman soundtrack (the other of course being “This Is Me”). She gets to flex her musical skills on Euphoria sometimes, too, like she and show composer Labrinth have done on the new soundtrack cut “I’m Tired.”
A Zendaya-less version of the song was actually released earlier this month after appearing in an episode, but that iteration of the song has since been removed from streaming services. This new tune is part of what has become something of a tradition for Euphoria, as the show’s first season also ended with a song from Zendaya and Labrinth, “All For Us.”
The song wasn’t the only musical takeaway from yesterday’s season finale of Euphoria: Dominic Fike, who entered the show playing Elliot this season, spent five minutes on the show singing a song, which left some viewers in love with the emotional moment and others scratching their heads at the oddity of it.
Listen to “I’m Tired” above.
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We recorded this in Hester’s living room. HOPE YOU LIKE IT DUDES 
