Month: January 2023

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of Titanic becoming the highest-grossing movie ever (until the record was broken by another James Cameron movie), a viral video on TikTok is claiming that the RMS Titanic never sank. Debunked conspiracy theory, dead ahead!

“I was a Titanic kid, meaning I literally knew every single fact about the Titanic,” Mia, who goes by user _mia.w22_, said. “My ass would sit and watch documentaries for hours and hours and hours. But when I heard this theory, everything like made sense.” Will this theory make you sh*t yourself with your mouth wide open? Let’s find out.

“The White Star Line, a super important ship company, built three super notable ships. We have the Titanic, the Olympic, and the Britannic. The Britannic was the first to go. It was a war ship and people say it was struck by like a land mine in the water. But no it wasn’t. It was struck by a torpedo by a German U-boat and it sank. As you can see, she resembles the Titanic. Just like different colors. And you can see where it was hit. And then we have the Olympic and the Titanic. They look identical…”

Mia goes on to explain that because the Olympic was nearing retirement, the White Star Line was like, “Well, it was a lot of money to make the Titanic, and it’s gonna be even more money to repair the Olympic. So what if we just sent the Olympic out instead, sank that hoe, claim some insurance money and then just scrap the Titanic like it was the Olympic for some spare parts.” She also brings up portholes, and the Carpathia (the ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic), and the guests that canceled at the last minute.

“I’m not wrong,” Mia added. Except she is.

I’d like to hear James Cameron’s thoughts on this. He famously loves Titanic theories.

(Via the New York Post)

Just when we thought that January couldn’t be more jam packed in the music world, even more musicians surprised us this past week. Whether it’s the final countdown to a new album release or a surprise announcement for tunes down the line, these pop stars proved they are immensely worthy of attention.

Here is the Best New Pop music from this week.

Kali Uchis – “I Wish You Roses”

Kali Uchis has been keeping fans on their toes after previously teasing that she’s completed two new albums: one in English and one in Spanish. Her new single, “I Wish You Roses,” is a giveaway to which we’re getting first.

“This song is about being able to release people with love,” Uchis said in a statement, per a press release. “It could be a friend, a lover, or someone else, but the point is to celebrate releasing people from your life without being resentful or bitter.”

Ed Sheeran – “F64”

Sheeran’s new “F64” freestyle is an incredibly touching tribute to his late friend, DJ and presenter Jamal Edwards. He had passed away last February, before Sheeran welcomed his child — who he had planned for Edwards to be her godfather. “You would’ve loved loving my little girls / If not for them, I’d be done with the world,” he heartbreakingly notes. The video, filmed in an empty stadium,

Kim Petras – “Brrr”

Petras is back with a brand new single, “Brrr,” that is believed to be on her forthcoming debut album. However, despite what the title suggests, she turns up the heat to one hundred on this one. Featuring a heavy electronic beat that briefly gives listeners a break halfway through, Petras finds herself embracing a “live fast, die young” mentality when it comes to a fiery new relationship.

Sam Smith – “Gloria”

“Demons on my shoulder / Monsters in my head / Shadow in the water / Will you be my friend? / The world revolves around me / As I lay in my bed / Dreaming of more, more,” Smith opens the track on a deep vocal, complimenting the unease of the lyrics. However, the choral presence increases on the track, giving it a gospel feel.

Yaeji – “For Granted”

“When I think about it, I don’t even know how it got to be this way / How it got to be so good,” Yaeji expresses her gratitude for life on her new single, “For Granted.” With creative electronic production and an even more entertaining music video, this is definitely a track to check out — ahead of her announced With A Hammer debut album arriving in April.

Mazie – “It’s Not Me (It’s U)”

“It was the hardest song for me to write. There were so many different attempts at it,” Mazie recently told Ones To Watch about her new single. “And it was just being able to make fun of myself and how hypocritical I am and self-centered I can be in relationships. It was brutal, but I love this song so much.”

Twice – “Moonlight Sunrise”

Twice’s second English single, “Moonlight Sunrise,” is a bubbly ode to falling in love. It opens with dreamy, sparkling synths, before transforming into a fast-paced pop song that replicates the emotion they’re trying to convey. Plus, as someone who loves a good music video, this is definitely a fun one not to miss.

Vérité – “Temporary”

The electronic beat on “Temporary” is easily one of the most addictive parts of the song while simultaneously creating a feeling of tension. Then, towards the end of the track, the instrumental disappears, leaving listeners suspended in the air — wondering when we’ll come back down.

Zolita – “Ashley”

Reminiscent of a Y2K rom-com soundtrack mixed with hints of emo, Zolita’s “Ashley” is a somber-but-sweet love song. “I usually play it cool,” she admits over an acoustic guitar line.

Nell Mescal – “Homesick”

“I wrote ‘Homesick’ on a trip to LA,” she told Clash Magazine about the nostalgic “Homesick” song. “It’s about when I first moved to London from Ireland and really missed home, but also being determined to stick it out so it doesn’t look like I failed at moving away.”

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

Belle And Sebastian have announced that the North American tour they had planned for this year has been cancelled. Today (January 24), the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Stuart Murdoch took to social media to reveal the news, citing health reasons.

“While I am hoping that I will improve over the coming months, we felt it would be a safer route to cancel this tour and leave a clear path to recovery, rather than take a risk and have to cancel at the last minute,” said Murdoch.

Back in October of 2022, Murdoch revealed he is living with Myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Find Murdoch’s statement below.

“Hi folks,

It’s Stuart from Belle And Sebastian here. We are sorry to have to announce the cancellation of our North American tour for 2023.

As you might be aware my health took a dive around November 2022. While I am hoping that I will improve over the coming months, we felt it would be a safer route to cancel this tour and leave a clear path to recovery, rather than take a risk and have to cancel at the last minute.

We had a great plan in place to release our second LP in six months and hit America up again! While the record made it out, we’re going to have to wait a bit longer until we can tour it.

We apologise again for the inconvenience we have caused you.

Sincerely yours
Stuart.”

Just when you thought you might have heard the last lie to come out of George Santos’ mouth, along comes a bizarre video — shot in December as part of an interview with a Brazilian podcast — in which Santos shares what are likely some tall tales about almost being murdered and having his shoes stolen (in two separate incidents).

As Mediaite reports, Rachel Maddow obtained the video and shared parts of it on Monday night. In it, Maddow says that “Santos says he is the victim of an attempted murder. An attempted murder that resulted in him being put under police protection, because the murderer might come back for him after missing him the first time.”

But Santos’ fabulism didn’t end there. In the same video, he spoke about someone stealing his shoes in the middle of Fifth Avenue—“specifically, at the corner of 55th Street and Fifth Avenue,” which is just one block away from Trump Tower— in broad daylight. Maddow clarified that the shoe-robbers were “not the same people who were trying to murder him — apparently that was separate — but who can say?”

When even the host of the podcast seemed to express some surprise over this story, Santos — who was a drag queen, but may have attended the Stop the Steal rally in a stolen scarf — essentially replied that that’s just the kind of crime-ridden place New York City has become. He added that the actual mugging wasn’t even “the worst of it. Nobody did anything. Nobody did anything. The fear is real. It’s surreal what we live through here.”

Maddow reached out to Santos about the claim but did not receive a reply. The podcast host, too, asked for a report of the alleged mugging and did not receive a response. So Maddow has done the same and, so far, has not been provided with anything.

(Via Mediaite)

Chlöe has finally unveiled the title and release date for her long-awaited debut solo album (one of the year’s most anticipated R&B projects). Her new record, In Pieces, has fans feeling that exact way with this announcement.

She dropped a new video on social media today (January 24) that finds her donning a powerful red dress and posing with some scaled weights.

“When did it all get so heavy,” she asks in the audio snippet.

Given she also changed her Twitter layout to seemingly fit the album’s energy, it appears this is going to be a fiery era. Before the official announcement, Chlöe had dropped a handful of solo singles, including “Treat Me” and “Surprise,” that had fans hooked.

“I am just so eager for the fans to hear the songs and the music, and I hope they love it when it finally comes out into the world,” she told Uproxx in a cover story last summer. “I’m a brand new artist and I haven’t had a body of work out [yet], so it’ll be the first thing people hear from me, really. So I think that’ll be surprising in itself.”

Continue scrolling for some fan reactions to Chlöe’s debut solo album announcement.

In Pieces is out in March via Parkwood. Pre-save it here.

King of country music and well-documented cannabis connoisseur Willie Nelson is using his concert organizing skills to coordinate an epic birthday for himself. To commemorate the musician’s 90th birthday, the guitarist will bring his Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90, A Star-Studded Concert to the Hollywood Bowl in California.

Willie Nelson’s birthday concert is set to take place across two days, April 29th and 30th. Although Nelson is known for his signature country sound, the lineup will feature performances by a range of other musical artists, including Kacey Musgraves, The Chicks, Neil Young, and Snoop Dogg.

Other rumored guests for the concert include Allison Russell, Beck, Billy Strings, Bobby Weir, Charley Crockett, Chris Stapleton, Edie Brickell, Leon Bridges, Lukas Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Margo Price, Miranda Lambert, Nathaniel Rateliff, Norah Jones, Orville Peck, Particle Kid, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Sturgill Simpson, The Avett Brothers, The Lumineers, Tom Jones, Tyler Childers, Warren Haynes, and Ziggy Marley.

General admission tickets go on sale beginning Saturday, January 28 at 1 p.m. ET. However, Capital One, Visa, and Mastercard holders will have access to a pre-sale on Wednesday, January 25 at 1 pm ET. To purchase tickets, click here. For more information about the event, weekend bundles, and more, click here.

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

The Senate Committee hearing on Ticketmaster’s business practices has concluded and the big takeaway is that the ticketing company (and parent Live Nation) has definitely damaged the music industry in the eyes of the assembled Senators. The second biggest takeaway is that no matter what party they represent, everybody seems to love Taylor Swift, whose concerns about Ticketmaster at least partly prompted the hearing in the first place.

Many, many references were made to this effect as the Senators apparently couldn’t help themselves and just had to let their corniest Taylor jokes fly. Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar recounted her own experiences going to Led Zeppelin concerts in high school and expressed concerns that modern teens have been priced out by Ticketmaster.

She concluded her comments with a reference taken from Swift’s 2012 album Red, remarking, “You can’t have too much consolidation, something that unfortunately for this country… We know ‘All Too Well.’”

Meanwhile, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut (also a Democrat) went for a more recent reference: “May I suggest, respectfully, that Ticketmaster oughta look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me’?” he said, quoting from Swift’s 2022 mega-hit “Anti-Hero.”

For what it’s worth, even Live Nation’s own top officers had to apologize for the miserable failure of Ticketmaster’s rollout for Swift’s The Eras Tour tickets. Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold said, “We apologize to the fans. We apologize to Ms. Swift. We need to to better, and we will do better.”

We’ll see, but for now, can we all just appreciate that people we elected are grilling the makers of a huge monopoly with the lyrics of a woman who was once reviled in the industry and is now pretty much the avatar of artists’ rights? Bravo.

Sometimes in sports, an all-time great athlete comes around and changes the entire fabric of a franchise, upending the definition of success. This is why, in the world of sports, there is nothing more difficult than being the person that follows after someone like that because the expectations are impossibly high. In a way, they’re almost pre-destined to fail.

This is what it feels like when looking at the monumental expectations that everyone has for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Not only is it one of the first direct sequels we’ve gotten from Zelda since Spirit Tracks, but it’s following up a game that in every way shape and form broke the established 3D Zelda formula. Ever since Ocarina of Time first flashed on TV screens in 1998, there was an established formula that every mainline 3D Zelda title followed for almost 20 years. Breath of the Wild changed that. It did away with everything from the themed dungeons to the plethora of items, and even the bombastic overworld theme. It was an entirely different game and everyone adored it.

Well, almost everyone, there was a sect of fans who were not happy with those changes. The reason Zelda didn’t bother changing the formula for almost 20 years is that it worked. Fans relished the chance to play through that familiar formula all over again. They didn’t want them to rebuild the wheel, they just wanted to solve puzzles, explore extensive dungeons with a themed item at the end, and then beat the big bad at the end of the game. It was simple and addictive, but Breath of the Wild went away from that. This begs the question: where does Tears of the Kingdom go from here?

The options are clear: do the impossible and follow the path of one of the most beloved open-world games in recent memory, or pull back and try to recapture the tried and true Zelda formula that BOTW went away from? Considering this is pretty much a direct sequel to the original we can probably safely assume that it is going to mainly focus on giving us more of what that game gave us, meaning Tears of the Kingdom is likely to solidify the gameplay of BOTW as the new normal.

Does this mean that there is no opportunity for the game to appeal to both Zelda factions? No way, there are plenty of things that Tears Of The Kingdom can do to try and recapture some of that classic Zelda spirit without breaking what made BOTW so popular. For starters, the biggest change has to be in the game’s major dungeons. A criticism that even huge fans had for BOTW was how its four major dungeons, the Divine Beasts, were all too similar and short. This was obviously designed to help complement the freedom players had to go wherever they wanted, but since none of them curved for difficulty or progress it led to players feeling underwhelmed instead of accomplished.

Another addition they can make to recapture some of that classic 3D Zelda nature is bringing back items in a big way. We already know that this game is going to allow us to traverse the skies, and hopefully, that will mean new items to explore with.

Of course, bigger dungeons and new items would be a great way to appeal to longtime fans, but there are still many fans who loved everything about BOTW and want to see a continuation of that. For starters, let’s talk about the density of the game world. It won’t be surprising to see a lot of locales reused throughout Hyrule, so make them feel alive. A more dense world will freshen the experience even as players re-explore familiar settings. The skies playing a larger role should also allow for some new locales on top of any reused areas. Perhaps we’ll even get an opportunity to go underground if the first teaser trailer is any indication.

No matter what Nintendo does with Tears of the Kingdom though, it feels like a certainty that it’s going to be one of the best games of 2023. It’s definitely one of the most anticipated. Even the worst Zelda games are considered good by any regular standard, it’s when we start comparing them to the entire franchise that the conversation deepens. Unfortunately for Tears of the Kingdom, its legacy is going to always be associated with how it followed up one of the best games ever made. An impossible act to follow, but one fans fans will enjoy all the same.

As James Gunn continues to tinker with his 10-year plan to tell a “connected” story across the DC Universe, the writer/director — and now studio chief — has been fielding fans questions and concerns on Twitter. One prominent topic has been casting, especially in light of Gunn axing most of the actors who portrayed DC heroes in the “Snyderverse.”

Gunn has been quick to shoot down rumors, but he’s also been transparent about the filmmaking process and all of its intricacies. He has, however, grown testy with “disrespectful” critics of his DC Studios plans, and some of that irritation can be felt in his latest response to a fan who implored Gunn not to use Marvel actors for DC projects.

“.@JamesGunn please do not encourage #GotG cast to follow you to DCU,” user Kollin Leisinger wrote. “Find fresh actors that can craft brilliant characters and forge new memories for audiences, instead of swimming in the same muddy pond. I know I am not alone in feeling this way. Rebirth, not reuse. Please.”

Gunn actually took the time to respond to the request, and in the process, he explained the simple logistics: There are tons of characters to play and only so many actors.

“We have hundreds of roles to cast,” Gunn said. “As I’ve always done, some will be brand new faces, some will be actors I’ve worked with before, & some will be actors you know who I’ve never worked with. What matters most is the actor fits the role & they’re easy to work with.”

Cross-pollination between Marvel and DC Comics has already been happening for years now. In fact, Gunn recently cast Peacemaker star Chukwudi Iwuji as the High Evolutionary in his final project for Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3. As Gunn noted on Twitter, at the end of the day, all that matters is finding the right actor for the part and whether they’ve been in a Marvel movie or not should never be a factor.

Plus, let’s face it, there’s like a million Marvel movies. Statistically, all of us will be in one by the end of the decade.

(Via James Gunn on Twitter)