Month: May 2023

Dua Lipa will make her film-acting debut in Greta Gerwig’s forthcoming live-action Barbie movie, but first, she contributed to the film in the best way she knows how: Providing the movie’s reported theme song, “Dance The Night,” a shimmering pop hit primed to dominate airwaves all summer.

“Dance The Night” arrived alongside a predictably dance-heavy video last week. Upon its arrival, Mark Ronson shared that the song originated in his Instagram DMs.

“It started with a DM (swipe)… So over the moon excited that our song from this incredible movie is finally out today,” Ronson captioned an Instagram post. “Produced with my brothers in song, @wyattish and @picardbrothers and written with @carolineailin [pink heart emoji] @barbiethemovie.”

Instagram users who follow Ronson’s direction to swipe are met with a screenshot of a message Ronson sent Lipa on March 31, 2022, which can be read in full below:

“Hey! I’m doing the songs for the bArbie [sic] movie with Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. It’s [directed] by Greta Gerwig (Little Women, Lady Bird) and it’s maybe the funniest script I’ve ever read, like [redacted] funny… there’s a song with a huge 60 person dance number with the whole cast – I only have the track so far, as they started rehearsals, but I would f*cking love if you would consider co-writing and starring on it. I honestly think the movies going to be incredible [redacted].

If you’re interested, I’ll send u a little vid of them all rehearsing so yyou can see the scope of it all x the songs not coming til late 2023.”

Last Thursday, May 25, the entire Barbie soundtrack was exclusively revealed by Rolling Stone. Ronson is the soundtrack’s executive producer, and it’s as stacked as the movie’s cast with Lipa, Ava Max, Charli XCX, Dominic Fike, Fifty Fifty, Gayle, Haim, Ice Spice, Kali, Karol G, Khalid, Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, PinkPantheress, Ryan Gosling, Tame Impala, and The Kid Laroi.

Lipa recently discussed her role in Barbie with Dazed and shared that she was drawn to the blockbuster because Gerwig’s “films never really feel like the male gaze.” The three-time Grammy winner added, “Barbie, the doll, has this idea of what perfection should be. The film — and there’s a lot of diversity in the cast — is touching exactly on the buttons that maybe it presses, and shows a different story.” (If you were wondering, Lipa had Barbie dolls as a child, but she didn’t play with them in a conventional manner.)

The main Barbie trailer also released on May 25. Watch it below, and watch Lipa’s “Dance The Night” video above.

Barbie is due out in theaters 7/21.

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

Succession ended on a shocker: If you watched the pilot and put a bet on Tom Wambsgans inheriting Waystar Royco, congrats, you’re very rich now. But well before that all went down, there was a scene that went down as an all-timer: The three biological children of the late Logan Roy had a good ol’ hang in their biological mom’s kitchen. They even made a truly disgusting-looking smoothie, which Jeremy Strong’s Kendall drank. The committed actor that he is, Strong claims he really did drink it, for art.

Strong appeared on HBO’s official Succession podcast, where he and host Kara Swisher discussed that beverage, dubbed a “Meal Fit for a King,” and which is comprised of milk, hot sauce, knobbies (bread loaf ends), a little Tabasco, eggs (including shells), pickles, and who knows what else. In the scene, Kendall takes a big gulp of it before his siblings pour it over his head.

“We did it only a few times. I went outside and wretched and jumped in the ocean and got it off my hair,” Strong said of the “Meal Fit for a King” beverage, adding, “Yeah, I did drink it. Yeah.”

When Swisher called him a “real Method actor,” he replied, “I wouldn’t know how not to drink it. He wants it that badly he’s going to drink whatever that is. But it was disgusting.”

Why did Kendall drink that repulsive smoothie? At the time, the three had decided that Kendall should be Waystar Royco’s lone CEO. One of them later changed her mind, but at the time it was a cause for celebrating. The three were staying at their mom’s beachside estate in Barbados, and, starving, they tucked into the shockingly meager offerings in her kitchen, joking around as only siblings can do.

“It was wonderful,” Strong said of shooting a scene that feels lived-in. “Kieran [Culkin] and Sarah [Snook] and I have been through so much together. I love them so much. I respect them so much. Their work this season has just blown me away. But often Kendall is at variance with them or there is so much tension and friction and that’s something I need to take on board myself.”

Strong clearly enjoyed being able to cut loose and not be at loggerheads with his onscreen siblings. What’s more, he revealed that that’s the last thing they shot for the show. Clearly they went out on top, with a gag-inducing smoothie, no less.

You can listen to the Succession podcast here. Talk of the smoothie begins around the 39-minute mark.

For years, music fans have debated whether it’s right to “separate the art from the artist,” as it is often phrased. If a musician does deplorable things in their personal lives, should people still support them by consuming their creative output? For Nick Cave, that’s a more complicated question than it seems to be for many people.

Yesterday (May 28), Cave and Sean O’Hagan spoke at an event in Wales to discuss their book, Faith, Hope And Carnage (as The Line Of Best Fit notes). During the conversation, Cave noted, “Making art — especially making music — it prevents you from becoming the worst aspects of your character, and that’s why I very much think we need to be very, very careful about the music we don’t think people should listen to anymore because of what the artist who has made that music may have been like.”

He added, “We need to understand that the songs themselves are the best of them [the artist],” saying that consumers’ actions shouldn’t “eradicate the best of these people in order to punish the worst of them.”

This comes shortly after Timbaland shared his thoughts on R. Kelly, saying, “R. Kelly’s the king of R&B. We all know that, man. […] His art is his art. I’m not going to bash the man’s art. […] To me, we have to learn how to… I think, as a culture, we have to learn how to separate that.”

You would assume that Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake being married since October 2012 — and together since 2007 — is knowledge acquired in Pop Culture 101, but if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that no assumption is safe.

On May 15, Timberlake responded to a TikTok comment congratulating him because his “girlfriend looks like Jessica Biel.” Timberlake’s TikTok showed him lowering his sunglasses to give the illusion that he’s reading the comment and whispering, “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” He captioned the post, “From now on I’m only going by ‘Jessica Biel’s Boyfriend.’” The 10-time Grammy winner also updated his TikTik bio to “Jessica Biel’s boyfriend,” just in case anyone else is confused. (Timberlake’s TikTok is approaching 22 million views as of Monday morning, May 29.)

Biel joined the fun last week with an Instagram selfie of her and Timberlake seemingly on a golf course alongside the caption, “My boyfriend.”

Timberlake commented, “I know this sounds crazy but, will you marry me? [hearts-as-eyes emoji]”

Biel and Timberlake share sons Silas, 8, and Phineas, who was born during summer 2020 and later described by Biel on Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s Armchair Expert podcast as her “secret COVID baby” (as noted by People). Hopefully, when they’re older, they can appreciate their parents’ internet savvy.

Recently, Ice Cube declared that one of his songs is the best diss track ever, and while that’s a big claim to make, it turns out that Snoop Dogg agrees.

In an interview on the Earn Your Leisure podcast, Cube and the hosts discussed his top diss tracks. When it was said that Cube’s “No Vaseline” is “one of” the best ever, Cube interjected, “…the top,” adding, “And it’s not even close.” He went off to list some other good ones, saying, “I mean, I would go with, you know, ‘Hit ‘Em Up’ [by Tupac] is a good one. ‘Ether’ [by Nas] is dope. I would go with ‘The Bridge Is Over’ [by Boogie Down Productions], and I don’t know, I think I gotta go with ‘Let’s Go’ [Kool Moe Dee].”

Snoop later agreed, commenting on the video, “Hands down he does. Nothing comes close.”

“No Vaseline” sees Cube going after his former group NWA and their manager, Jerry Heller. Lyrics include, “The N****s With Attitudes? Who you foolin’? / Y’all n****s just phony / I put that on my mama and my dead homies.”

Cube said back in 2021, “[NWA] came with another couple of little disses. So I said, ‘OK man, I’m tired of this. I’m going to end this real quick. We gon’ set it all the way off.’ So that’s when I wrote ‘No Vaseline’ and recorded it. I put it on that ‘Cinderfella’ track, that Dana Dane track… we flipped it, and it became a smash.”

Earlier this month, Tony Hawk, an alternative music hero thanks to the soundtracks of his classic Tony Hawk Pro Skater video games, linked up with Trent Reznor for a cover of “Wish.” The two apparently got to talking about upcoming projects while spending time together, because Hawk made a reveal about what Reznor is working on.

In a recent episode of his and Jason Ellis’ Hawk Vs Wolf podcast (as NME notes), Hawk revealed that Reznor and musical partner Atticus Ross are scoring the upcoming film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which is set for release on August 2.

Director Jeff Rowe later took the opportunity to confirm the news, tweeting, “Well now that my teenage hero @tonyhawk has leaked that my music heroes are doing this I can add that the score is absolutely AMAZING. Exhilarating, terrifying, heartbreaking, full of sounds I didn’t know existed. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe it. I love it so much.”

In the movie, the turtles are voiced by some fresh faces: Nicolas Cantu, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., and Brady Noon. Elsewhere, the cast includes Jackie Chan as Splinter, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Seth Rogen as Bebop, John Cena as Rocksteady, Hannibal Buress as Genghis Frog, Rose Byrne as Leatherhead, Ice Cube as Superfly, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom, Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut, and Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman.

[This post contains spoilers about the Barry series finale]

“Oh wow.” Those were the final words spoken by Barry Berkman, and also what I said out loud multiple times during the Barry series finale.

The first time came during the shoot-out at Nohobal, where NoHo Hank and his men — who have taken Sally and her son, John, hostage in an attempt to lure Barry out of hiding — faced off against Fuches’ crew. Nearly everyone is killed, including fashion icon NoHo Hank, who dies holding the hand of Cristobal’s golden statue. (Big night for depressing hand holding on HBO.)

The second “oh wow” came when Barry is looking for Sally and John after being reuniting with them. He shows up at Mr. Cousineau’s house, where he expects to find them, but instead, he’s greeted by Tom who tells Barry to hand himself over to the cops. “Gene is in a desperate situation,” he says. “Gene’s gonna go to jail. He’s being accused of all the things that you did. You’re the only one who can save him.” The weight of his actions finally seem to weigh on Barry, but it’s too late: in the best cut to black in an HBO finale since The Sopranos, he’s shot and killed by Mr. Cousineau, who’s sentenced to life in prison. Meanwhile, in death, Barry is seen as an American hero.

It’s a bleak ending for basically everyone on the show, except Sally, sort of, but especially the guy who gets turned down by Sally. Also, NoHo Hank. I’ll miss him, and in his inability to recognize people in disguise, most of all.

(Succession finale spoilers will obviously be found below.)

Did everyone pre-grieve ahead of the Succession series finale? I think Roman can tell everyone how that tends to go.

Beyond the ultimate question of CEO succession for this “dear world” of a show, people loved watching the maneuverings and various connections between characters during the finale. In particular, people enjoyed watching Tom and Greg go at it, physically speaking, after Greg spilled the beans to the Roy siblings early on in the evening, but even more so, people adored watching the three central siblings actually bond during this episode. (At least while it lasted.)

This went down after Shiv found out that Matsson intended to throw her by the wayside, and she came together with Roman and Kendall in Caroline’s kitchen. They resolved to support Kendall as CEO and then proceeded to make a “meal fit for a king,” which ended up all over Kendall’s head, but people loved seeing these three really show us what they were like during their younger years. No more competition stirred between the trio, at least on a temporary basis, and it hit everyone right in the heartstrings.

In fact, several people quickly stepped up to declare this their “favorite” new scene of the whole show. It’s a fine selection. A “meal fit for a king,” if you will.

‘Succession’ is currently streaming in full on HBO Max.

(Succession finale spoilers will obviously be found below.)

Did everyone pre-grieve ahead of the Succession series finale? I think Roman can tell everyone how that tends to go.

Beyond the ultimate question of CEO succession for this “dear world” of a show, people loved watching the maneuverings and various connections between characters during the finale. In particular, people enjoyed watching Tom and Greg go at it, physically speaking, after Greg spilled the beans to the Roy siblings early on in the evening, but even more so, people adored watching the three central siblings actually bond during this episode.

This went down after Shiv found out that Matsson intended to throw her by the wayside, and she came together with Roman and Kendall in Caroline’s kitchen. They resolved to support Kendall as CEO and then proceeded to make a “meal fit for a king,” which ended up all over Kendall’s head, but people loved seeing these three really show us what they were like during their younger years. No more competition stirred between the trio, at least on a temporary basis, and it hit everyone right in the heart strings.

In fact, several people quickly stepped up to declare this their “favorite” new scene of the whole show. It’s a fine selection.

‘Succession’ is currently streaming in full on HBO Max.

Quinnie is one of indie’s rising stars. While all eyes are on legends within the genre, such as Foo Fighters and Stevie Nicks, due to their big comeback. This newbie should certainly be on lovers of rock’s radars.

Quinnie is slated to drop a deluxe version of the project to celebrate the warm reception of the singer’s debut album Flounder. While “Fade” was the first sampling of what’s to come, “Shape” is undoubtedly the most striking. As a bare-bone track, “Shape” displays Quinnie’s delicate vocals and piercing songwriting abilities. Produced by Jake Weinberg, the song is an emotional recounting of healing from a past intimate encounter.

The second verse stanza, “Now my love carries the task / Of handling the aftermath / Can you smooth the looping lines / Of fingerprints before your time / Patience with the jagged grooves / Of relics that I cannot rеmove / One thing, washing up to you / Kiss me till thе cells are moved,” propels the progress Quinnie made to the forefront.

In an Instagram post, when discussing the deluxe album, Quinnie penned, “My hope is that the songs released on the deluxe version paint a more comprehensive picture of the period of my life that Flounder encompassed.”

Listen to the full track above.

Flounder is out now via Columbia Records. Find more information here.