After years of trying to get a solo movie off the ground, Warner Bros. is finally delivering The Flash starring Ezra Miller as the Scarlet Speedster. Miller first appeared as the character in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice before having a more prominent role in Justice League. The Flash also had a brief cameo in Suicide Squad as well as the season finale of Peacemaker, but now, Miller gets to cut loose in a standalone film that will take the classic DC Comics character on a multiversal adventure alongside Michael Keaton’s Batman.
Here’s everything we know about The Flash:
Release Date
The Flash will zoom into theaters on June 16, which is just around the corner. Advance screenings have already happened, so the odds of the film getting tripped up between now and its release are very slim.
Cast
Miller returns as Barry Allen, a police lab technician who becomes empowered with the Speed Force following a freak accident. He now has the ability to move at such incredible speeds that he’s no longer confined by the known laws of physics or… time. In a surprise casting coup, Keaton also returns as his iconic version of Batman, who was last seen in 1992’s Batman Returns. Sasha Calle is also along for the ride as the new big screen version of Supergirl, and Michael Shannon’s General Zod makes a villainous appearance thanks to the film’s reality-breaking story.
Plot
Here’s the official synopsis:
Worlds collide in “The Flash” when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?
If you want to know even more about The Flash, you can check out Mike Ryan’s review of the film.
Secret Ending:
According to reports, Warner Bros. is keeping the ending to The Flash tightly under wraps. The studio has reportedly gone so far as to blur out the movie’s secret ending during advance screenings to prevent spoilers from leaking out. As for what Warner Bros. is hiding in The Flash‘s final moments is anybody’s guess, but this is an unprecedented move. Not even Marvel has gone this far to protect the ending to a film.
Trailer
Here’s the latest trailer for The Flash, and if you weren’t aware that Keaton’s Batman is in the film, you will be now:
But the multi-talented artist is here to help those for whom pleasure doesn’t come as naturally.
Monáe held a private listening party for The Age Of Pleasure in New York City on Wednesday night, June 7, and one of the many visuals to emerge was a “Pleasure Guide.”
“Safety first. Fun next 🙂
Focus on the present
Leave the past behind
Leave the future in the future
Discover something new about yourself
Focus on the feeling
Focus on the beauty around you
(And if you see no beauty make some!)
Dance like somebody’s watching (cause they are!)
Smile at a stranger
Dance harder than your neighbor Float baby float
Celebrate you! You made it here.
Come dry leave wet
Unleash the ‘free azz mothaf*cka’ in you!
Hurry Up and Live!”
Uproxx’s Aaron Williams contextualized the necessity of Monáe’s NSFW Age Of Pleasure era coinciding with a time in this country when Black and queer people are under attack, writing, “She’s still presenting herself as the martyr and messiah, fighting back by being louder, bolder, and brighter than the hatred and those who’d rather see her silent and diminished. That’s not new either. It’s the story of America, of being Black, of being queer, of being non-binary, and always fighting to be seen, to be heard, and to not just survive in a hostile world but thrive.”
The 14-track project will feature Amaarae, CKay, Doechii, Egypt 80, Grace Jones, Nia Long, Seun Kuti, and Sister Nancy. Monáe will support the album with The Age Of Pleasure Tour across North America, beginning on August 30 in Seattle, Washington. See all of their dates here.
Check out more scenes from The Age Of Pleasure playback below.
The Denver Nuggets picked up a 109-94 win in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night thanks in large part to the brilliance of Nikola Jokic. While he’s been great throughout the series, Jokic was out of his mind in Game 3, as he became the first player in NBA history to go for 30+ points, 20+ rebounds, and 10+ assists in a Finals game.
It was quite the bounceback game for the Nuggets, which lost in Game 2 and made it so the Miami Heat would win the title if they could simply win their home games. In a new piece by Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, we learned that Jokic actually spoke up after the game, which DeAndre Jordan said was a “surprise” and “unexpected.” Haynes also got some time with Jokic to ask what he told the team, but apparently, the two-time NBA MVP forgot the whole thing happened.
“Honestly, I don’t remember that I was talking. So if I was saying something, I don’t remember what I was saying,” Jokic said, per Haynes. “Maybe it was just my emotions at the time. I don’t remember, to be honest. Maybe they’re just all crazy. But I think I’m normal. When I say something, it’s not that I’m trying to be vocal. There’s a purpose. When I see something, I’m going to say it. I’m never going to talk just to talk.”
Fortunately for Jokic, Jordan was able to let Haynes know that he essentially told the team they couldn’t relax and had to lock in more. Jokic very much took his own advice to heart in Game 3.
For calendar purists, best albums lists have become an irritant. Year-end lists go up by early December, weeks before the actual end of the year. And mid-year lists get posted in early June, which again is weeks before the year’s actual mid-point. I recognize this. If you are a calendar purist, I apologize. But to quote Hyman Roth in The Godfather Part II, this is the business we have chosen. And I must conform to the conditions of our various list seasons.
Besides, do we really want to wait another few weeks to talk about our favorite music of the year so far? Surveying the first half of 2023, I came up with 15 albums that I really like. Here they are, listed in alphabetical order. Hopefully you will find something you haven’t already heard and maybe even discover a new favorite along the way.
100 Gecs, 10,000 Gecs
The first three times I played this album, it made me suspicious of people under the age of 25. The fourth time I played it, a strange thought popped in my head: “This is growing on me.” By the fifth time, I started to suspect that 10,000 Gecs might be my favorite record of 2023 so far. Just as the Ramones surveyed the trash culture of their youth and paid homage to it over genius-idiot music, 100 Gecs take everything that is annoying about the internet and elevate it by leaning into every guilty pleasure of our very, very insipid modern culture. On this album, death metal riffs collide with autotune R&B and “Loudness War” era alt-rock in the space of a single chorus, and you could not sandblast the dumbfounded smile off of my semi-melted face as I marvel at the audacity of it all.
Bar Italia, Tracey Denim
The wave of post-punk bands that have poured out of the U.K. in the past several years have tended to lean on the most guttural, talk-y, and dissonant aspects of the music, like Mark E. Smith himself took a massive piss in their cereal bowls every morning. Fortunately, this London band takes an alternate route, favoring the sleek and sexy side of esoteric art rock. On Tracey Denim, I hear echoes of The Cure, early aughts Radiohead, and the underrated Baltimore indie outfit Lower Dens. A very cool record.
Bully, Lucky For You
On the previous Bully records, Alicia Bognanno made music that evoked the sludgiest alt-rock of the SST and Sub Pop bands of the 1980s. On Lucky For You, she’s moves into her “major label grunge” phase. The guitars are shinier, the rhythms are more sinewy, and the melodies are sharper and more inviting than ever. But while Bognanno has made her poppiest record yet, she hasn’t sacrificed any of her gnarly attitude. Instead, she’s achieved an ideal mix of sweet and sour.
Feeble Little Horse, Girl With Fish
Pittsburgh has been an active hive of indie rock activity lately, and one of the more promising bands to emerge from Steeltown is this hooky noise-pop outfit. Like the North Carolina band Wednesday, Feeble Little Horse draw on the dynamics of shoegaze — distorted guitars, deliberate drums, slightly stoned-sounding vocals — in the service of creating a new kind of heartland rock that blends surreal, tragicomic lyrics with bubble-grunge melodies. If you ever wondered what Daydream Nation would sound like if it were written by Rivers Cuomo, you’ll relish Girl With Fish.
Foo Fighters, But Here We Are
A comeback record in more ways than one. After the death of Taylor Hawkins, it was briefly uncertain whether Dave Grohl would continue the band that originated as a one-man side project in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s sudden passing. But not only have Foo Fighters carried on, they have re-emerged with their strongest album in nearly 25 years. While Grohl has attempted to shake up his sound on recent records with mixed results, But Here We Are evokes the classic alt-rock sound of late ’90s albums like The Colour And The Shape and There Is Nothing Left To Lose. Lyrically, this must be counted as the most emotionally candid release of Grohl’s career. Throughout the album, you feel him grieving in real time, in a way that feels relatable even for us non-rock stars.
Jason Isbell, Weathervanes
After 2020’s fraught Reunions, there’s an appreciably looser and jammier vibe this time around, with several songs on Weathervanes knowingly evoking the southern-rock style of Isbell’s old band, Drive-By Truckers. (He refers to three songs in this vein — which rank among the album’s strongest — as “The Old Assignment” suite.) Throughout the record, he writes perceptively about the struggles of adult relationships as well as canny character studies about school shootings, forgotten bar-band musicians, racist patriarchs, and runaways who find love on the road while hiding out at a KOA campground.
Kara Jackson, What Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
This Chicago-based singer-songwriter has a legitimate literary pedigree — she was the National Youth Poet Laureate back in the late 2010s. That was before the release of her full-length debut, What Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?, a beguiling collection of jazz-folk fantasias that melds Leonard Cohen with Alice Coltrane. Throughout the record, the combination of the music’s languid pacing and the dreamy, poetic ruminating of the lyrics creates a disorienting effect, like the songs might drift off like a mist and dissipate in the ether. But Jackson’s husky, expressive voice ultimately grounds the album. A truly one-of-a-kind experience that feels like a world unto itself.
Lankum, False Lankum
Can I interest you in a traditional Irish folk record put through a post-rock filter? False Lankum basically is like if the Pogues sounded more like Sunn 0))). I don’t know how to explain it but there’s something metal about this record even though it’s not metal at all. Maybe it’s because of the album cover, which makes them look like a Profound Lore band. But the songs themselves emit a sort of centuries-old doom. This is especially true of their rendition of the traditional folk song “Go Dig My Grave,” which floats like an ancient, evil spirit that crawled out of an unmarked cemetery plot to stalk present-day sinners and punish them accordingly.
Liv.e, Girl In The Half Pearl
Broadly described as “avant R&B,” Liv.e’s music is actually next to impossible to categorize without creating a word salad of references. It’s Sade as produced by Trent Reznor! It’s Brian Eno remaking Joni Mitchell’s Blue! A song cycle about a failed romantic relationship, Girl In The Half Pearl is really good at evoking a mix of desire, despair, wonder, and anger musically as it is unpacking those feelings lyrically. Each time I put it on, I pick up something new.
Superviolet, Infinite Spring
Following the dissolution of the Ohio emo band The Sidekicks, lead singer Steve Ciolek has rebooted as a canny singer-songwriter with a mastery of power pop and heartland rock styles. His first album as Superviolet has echoes of Big Star, Summerteeth-era Wilco, Figure 8-era Elliott Smith, all eras of Sloan, and scores of other lesser-known practitioners of melancholic guitar music with whip-smart minds and sad-sack hearts. As sad as it was to see the Sidekicks depart — check out 2012’s Awkward Breeds if you haven’t already — it appears that Ciolek might be onto something even better as Superviolet.
The Tubs, Dead Meat
This British band plays strummy and zippy jangle rock that’s immediately reminiscent of bands like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, though Owen “O” Williams’ vocals add another texture to the mix. Because he sounds a bit like Richard Thompson — or like Bob Mould doing his Richard Thompson impersonation on Workbook — Dead Meat has a pleasing British folk flavor. While the tunes deliver a jolt with their rapid BPMs, the melodies would shine just as brightly if played at half the pace.
Wednesday, Rat Saw God
This band sounds like it was produced in a lab by scientists who were determined to cater to a person with my tastes. Do you also love Southern Rock Opera, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, and Siamese Dream so much that you wish you could listen to all three albums at the same time? Are you thrilled by the prospect of pedal steel guitar put through a distortion pedal? Are you intrigued by the premise of a band that’s so good it doesn’t need MJ Lenderman to contribute any songs? Shouldn’t more country tunes be eight and a half minutes long and conclude with a woman screaming about Mortal Kombat? This record answers every question in the affirmative, as would I.
Westerman, An Inbuilt Fault
The British soft-rock singer-songwriter Will Westerman has been putting out hooky, haunting singles since the late 2010s. But it took until 2020 for him to finally release his debut full-length album, Your Hero Is Not Dead. While I like that record, he really turned a corner with this month’s An Inbuilt Fault, which takes the central idea of his project — “What if Sting made a Bon Iver record?” — and makes it sound as smooth and strange as that description suggests. I would love for somebody to give this guy $2 million and access to the studio cats who made Gaucho so we can see what he really can do.
Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World
When you compare them to their contemporaries from the ’90s indie world, it’s hard to argue that anyone did it better than Yo La Tengo. And they just keep going! This Stupid World is their 17th record, and I think it’s my favorite since at least 2006’s I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass. Whereas their recent work leans more on the spacier side, This Stupid World brings back the “song-y” elements of classics like Painful and I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. If you’re new to Yo La Tengo, this record might actually be a perfect introduction.
Yves Tumor, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
It’s not quite radical enough to qualify as “experimental” and not quite catchy enough to work as a full-on pop move. But sonically it’s one of the best-sounding indie albums of early 2023. With the assistance of Noah Goldstein, an engineer who worked on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Alan Moulder, who’s one of the great architects of ’90s alt-rock, Praise A Lord invites you to get lost in its grooves. Possibly the best headphone record of 2023 so far.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
But the multi-talented artist is here to help those for whom pleasure doesn’t come as naturally.
Monáe held a private listening party for The Age Of Pleasure in New York City on Wednesday night, June 7, and one of the many visuals to emerge was a “Pleasure Guide.”
“Safety first. Fun next 🙂
Focus on the present
Leave the past behind
Leave the future in the future
Discover something new about yourself
Focus on the feeling
Focus on the beauty around you
(And if you see no beauty make some!)
Dance like somebody’s watching (cause they are!)
Smile at a stranger
Dance harder than your neighbor Float baby float
Celebrate you! You made it here.
Come dry leave wet
Unleash the ‘free azz mothaf*cka’ in you!
Hurry Up and Live!”
Uproxx’s Aaron Williams contextualized the necessity of Monáe’s NSFW Age Of Pleasure era coinciding with a time in this country when Black and queer people are under attack, writing, “She’s still presenting herself as the martyr and messiah, fighting back by being louder, bolder, and brighter than the hatred and those who’d rather see her silent and diminished. That’s not new either. It’s the story of America, of being Black, of being queer, of being non-binary, and always fighting to be seen, to be heard, and to not just survive in a hostile world but thrive.”
The 14-track project will feature Amaarae, CKay, Doechii, Egypt 80, Grace Jones, Nia Long, Seun Kuti, and Sister Nancy. Monáe will support the album with The Age Of Pleasure Tour across North America, beginning on August 30 in Seattle, Washington. See all of their dates here.
Check out more scenes from The Age Of Pleasure playback below.
Prominent televangelist and Christian media mogul Pat Robertson has died at age 93. Despite losing the 1988 primary race to George W. Bush, the longtime host of The 700 Club was an influential figure in the Republican Party for decades where he stoked the fire of culture war issues that persist to this day. In later years, Robertson became more infamous for his controversial remarks following the 9/11 attacks and the devastating earthquakes in Haiti.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Roberson and fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell were harshly condemned for appearing to put blame on abortion doctors, feminists, gay people and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Robertson came under fire in 2010 for falsely claiming that the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that year was caused by enslaved Black people who made a “pact with the Devil” in the 18th century as they fought for liberation from French colonizers.
However, more recently, Robertson has espoused some surprising thoughts for a conservative thought leader. He notably instructed the Republican Party to “move on” from Donald Trump following the 2020 election and even went so far as to call the former president “erratic.” A few months later, Robertson took a bold stance by calling out the police officer who shot Daunte Wright. The 700 Club host didn’t buy the officer’s excuse that he accidentally mistook his gun for a taser.
Despite those deviations, Robertson fell back in line with the Republican orthodox and would later come out of retirement in February 2022 to claim that Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” to invade the Ukraine.
Following the news of Robertson’s death, the televangelist began to trend on Twitter where his incendiary remarks on hot button issues were clearly not forgotten. You can see some of the reactions below:
The left isn’t “dancing on Pat Robertson’s grave” we’re just having a nice little drag show on it.
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) June 8, 2023
Pat Robertson has died. He said gay people caused hurricanes and wore special rings which spread AIDS, and that gay marriage was worse than murder. He’s survived by this poster on the wall of Mike Pence’s bedroom pic.twitter.com/Shf5NThGZk
It’s ok to express your joy that Pat Robertson is dead. He was a devout Christian who believed that he would get his just reward – and I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) June 8, 2023
Pat Robertson was a hateful hypocrite and voice of Christian nationalism. He blamed 9/11 on gay people (because Pat’s God was so angry with them He wanted to murder thousands of Americans) and he scolded his followers about gambling even though he owned racehorses. Good riddance. https://t.co/Rx9qt6AOJW
For calendar purists, best albums lists have become an irritant. Year-end lists go up by early December, weeks before the actual end of the year. And mid-year lists get posted in early June, which again is weeks before the year’s actual mid-point. I recognize this. If you are a calendar purist, I apologize. But to quote Hyman Roth in The Godfather Part II, this is the business we have chosen. And I must conform to the conditions of our various list seasons.
Besides, do we really want to wait another few weeks to talk about our favorite music of the year so far? Surveying the first half of 2023, I came up with 15 albums that I really like. Here they are, listed in alphabetical order. Hopefully you will find something you haven’t already heard and maybe even discover a new favorite along the way.
100 Gecs, 10,000 Gecs
The first three times I played this album, it made me suspicious of people under the age of 25. The fourth time I played it, a strange thought popped in my head: “This is growing on me.” By the fifth time, I started to suspect that 10,000 Gecs might be my favorite record of 2023 so far. Just as the Ramones surveyed the trash culture of their youth and paid homage to it over genius-idiot music, 100 Gecs take everything that is annoying about the internet and elevate it by leaning into every guilty pleasure of our very, very insipid modern culture. On this album, death metal riffs collide with autotune R&B and “Loudness War” era alt-rock in the space of a single chorus, and you could not sandblast the dumbfounded smile off of my semi-melted face as I marvel at the audacity of it all.
Bar Italia, Tracey Denim
The wave of post-punk bands that have poured out of the U.K. in the past several years have tended to lean on the most guttural, talk-y, and dissonant aspects of the music, like Mark E. Smith himself took a massive piss in their cereal bowls every morning. Fortunately, this London band takes an alternate route, favoring the sleek and sexy side of esoteric art rock. On Tracey Denim, I hear echoes of The Cure, early aughts Radiohead, and the underrated Baltimore indie outfit Lower Dens. A very cool record.
Bully, Lucky For You
On the previous Bully records, Alicia Bognanno made music that evoked the sludgiest alt-rock of the SST and Sub Pop bands of the 1980s. On Lucky For You, she’s moves into her “major label grunge” phase. The guitars are shinier, the rhythms are more sinewy, and the melodies are sharper and more inviting than ever. But while Bognanno has made her poppiest record yet, she hasn’t sacrificed any of her gnarly attitude. Instead, she’s achieved an ideal mix of sweet and sour.
Feeble Little Horse, Girl With Fish
Pittsburgh has been an active hive of indie rock activity lately, and one of the more promising bands to emerge from Steeltown is this hooky noise-pop outfit. Like the North Carolina band Wednesday, Feeble Little Horse draw on the dynamics of shoegaze — distorted guitars, deliberate drums, slightly stoned-sounding vocals — in the service of creating a new kind of heartland rock that blends surreal, tragicomic lyrics with bubble-grunge melodies. If you ever wondered what Daydream Nation would sound like if it were written by Rivers Cuomo, you’ll relish Girl With Fish.
Foo Fighters, But Here We Are
A comeback record in more ways than one. After the death of Taylor Hawkins, it was briefly uncertain whether Dave Grohl would continue the band that originated as a one-man side project in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s sudden passing. But not only have Foo Fighters carried on, they have re-emerged with their strongest album in nearly 25 years. While Grohl has attempted to shake up his sound on recent records with mixed results, But Here We Are evokes the classic alt-rock sound of late ’90s albums like The Colour And The Shape and There Is Nothing Left To Lose. Lyrically, this must be counted as the most emotionally candid release of Grohl’s career. Throughout the album, you feel him grieving in real time, in a way that feels relatable even for us non-rock stars.
Jason Isbell, Weathervanes
After 2020’s fraught Reunions, there’s an appreciably looser and jammier vibe this time around, with several songs on Weathervanes knowingly evoking the southern-rock style of Isbell’s old band, Drive-By Truckers. (He refers to three songs in this vein — which rank among the album’s strongest — as “The Old Assignment” suite.) Throughout the record, he writes perceptively about the struggles of adult relationships as well as canny character studies about school shootings, forgotten bar-band musicians, racist patriarchs, and runaways who find love on the road while hiding out at a KOA campground.
Kara Jackson, What Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?
This Chicago-based singer-songwriter has a legitimate literary pedigree — she was the National Youth Poet Laureate back in the late 2010s. That was before the release of her full-length debut, What Does The Earth Give Us People To Love?, a beguiling collection of jazz-folk fantasias that melds Leonard Cohen with Alice Coltrane. Throughout the record, the combination of the music’s languid pacing and the dreamy, poetic ruminating of the lyrics creates a disorienting effect, like the songs might drift off like a mist and dissipate in the ether. But Jackson’s husky, expressive voice ultimately grounds the album. A truly one-of-a-kind experience that feels like a world unto itself.
Lankum, False Lankum
Can I interest you in a traditional Irish folk record put through a post-rock filter? False Lankum basically is like if the Pogues sounded more like Sunn 0))). I don’t know how to explain it but there’s something metal about this record even though it’s not metal at all. Maybe it’s because of the album cover, which makes them look like a Profound Lore band. But the songs themselves emit a sort of centuries-old doom. This is especially true of their rendition of the traditional folk song “Go Dig My Grave,” which floats like an ancient, evil spirit that crawled out of an unmarked cemetery plot to stalk present-day sinners and punish them accordingly.
Liv.e, Girl In The Half Pearl
Broadly described as “avant R&B,” Liv.e’s music is actually next to impossible to categorize without creating a word salad of references. It’s Sade as produced by Trent Reznor! It’s Brian Eno remaking Joni Mitchell’s Blue! A song cycle about a failed romantic relationship, Girl In The Half Pearl is really good at evoking a mix of desire, despair, wonder, and anger musically as it is unpacking those feelings lyrically. Each time I put it on, I pick up something new.
Superviolet, Infinite Spring
Following the dissolution of the Ohio emo band The Sidekicks, lead singer Steve Ciolek has rebooted as a canny singer-songwriter with a mastery of power pop and heartland rock styles. His first album as Superviolet has echoes of Big Star, Summerteeth-era Wilco, Figure 8-era Elliott Smith, all eras of Sloan, and scores of other lesser-known practitioners of melancholic guitar music with whip-smart minds and sad-sack hearts. As sad as it was to see the Sidekicks depart — check out 2012’s Awkward Breeds if you haven’t already — it appears that Ciolek might be onto something even better as Superviolet.
The Tubs, Dead Meat
This British band plays strummy and zippy jangle rock that’s immediately reminiscent of bands like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, though Owen “O” Williams’ vocals add another texture to the mix. Because he sounds a bit like Richard Thompson — or like Bob Mould doing his Richard Thompson impersonation on Workbook — Dead Meat has a pleasing British folk flavor. While the tunes deliver a jolt with their rapid BPMs, the melodies would shine just as brightly if played at half the pace.
Wednesday, Rat Saw God
This band sounds like it was produced in a lab by scientists who were determined to cater to a person with my tastes. Do you also love Southern Rock Opera, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, and Siamese Dream so much that you wish you could listen to all three albums at the same time? Are you thrilled by the prospect of pedal steel guitar put through a distortion pedal? Are you intrigued by the premise of a band that’s so good it doesn’t need MJ Lenderman to contribute any songs? Shouldn’t more country tunes be eight and a half minutes long and conclude with a woman screaming about Mortal Kombat? This record answers every question in the affirmative, as would I.
Westerman, An Inbuilt Fault
The British soft-rock singer-songwriter Will Westerman has been putting out hooky, haunting singles since the late 2010s. But it took until 2020 for him to finally release his debut full-length album, Your Hero Is Not Dead. While I like that record, he really turned a corner with this month’s An Inbuilt Fault, which takes the central idea of his project — “What if Sting made a Bon Iver record?” — and makes it sound as smooth and strange as that description suggests. I would love for somebody to give this guy $2 million and access to the studio cats who made Gaucho so we can see what he really can do.
Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World
When you compare them to their contemporaries from the ’90s indie world, it’s hard to argue that anyone did it better than Yo La Tengo. And they just keep going! This Stupid World is their 17th record, and I think it’s my favorite since at least 2006’s I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass. Whereas their recent work leans more on the spacier side, This Stupid World brings back the “song-y” elements of classics like Painful and I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. If you’re new to Yo La Tengo, this record might actually be a perfect introduction.
Yves Tumor, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
It’s not quite radical enough to qualify as “experimental” and not quite catchy enough to work as a full-on pop move. But sonically it’s one of the best-sounding indie albums of early 2023. With the assistance of Noah Goldstein, an engineer who worked on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Alan Moulder, who’s one of the great architects of ’90s alt-rock, Praise A Lord invites you to get lost in its grooves. Possibly the best headphone record of 2023 so far.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
As the latest cover star of Spin, the Atlanta-bred artist and activist reflected on being signed to Columbia Records early in his career.
“My first record deal damaged me,” Killer Mike told the publication. “It made me afraid, it pulled me back. I hadn’t done terribly on the major. I just, you know, I came out the same year as 50 [Cent] selling 10 million f*cking records. I sold, you know, 500,000.”
Writer Khari Nixon contextualized that as “lukewarm at best” in 2003 because Killer Mike had just won a Grammy as a contributor to Outkast’s Stankonia album, even though 500,000 album units represents the higher end of the spectrum in today’s music landscape.
Killer Mike’s experience on Columbia crystalized for him that he belonged “in independent circles,” and his actions backed up his verbal commitment to life as an independent artist, as revealed elsewhere in the cover story:
“It wasn’t before long that [Cuz] Lightyear had an official job title on the project: A&R. With that job came a salary. Killer Mike paid it out of pocket. By the time they’d brought the project to No ID to transform it from mixtape to album, Mike was over a quarter-million dollars in the hole. As things developed, that number ballooned to over a half-million. This type of bill would normally place an artist in hot water with their label. At the time, Killer Mike was a free agent. He would eventually strike a deal with Loma Vista Records, which has distributed records by Denzel Curry and Action Bronson, to distribute Michael upon release. The advance from that deal would reimburse Mike for the money he’d invested into making the album.”
Michael was officially announced in late April. Killer Mike has released singles “Don’t Let The Devil” alongside El-P and “Motherless” featuring Eryn Allen Kane. He’s also teased “Scientists & Engineers” featuring André 3000 and Kane, which almost didn’t make the tracklist.
Mike will support the album this summer with a solo headlining North American trek, The High & Holy Tour. See all the dates here.
Michael is out 6/16 via Loma Vista Recordings. Find more information here.
Prominent televangelist and Christian media mogul Pat Robertson has died at age 93. Despite losing the 1988 primary race to George W. Bush, the longtime host of The 700 Club was an influential figure in the Republican Party for decades where he stoked the fire of culture war issues that persist to this day. In later years, Robertson became more infamous for his controversial remarks following the 9/11 attacks and the devastating earthquakes in Haiti.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Roberson and fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell were harshly condemned for appearing to put blame on abortion doctors, feminists, gay people and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Robertson came under fire in 2010 for falsely claiming that the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that year was caused by enslaved Black people who made a “pact with the Devil” in the 18th century as they fought for liberation from French colonizers.
However, more recently, Robertson has espoused some surprising thoughts for a conservative thought leader. He notably instructed the Republican Party to “move on” from Donald Trump following the 2020 election and even went so far as to call the former president “erratic.” A few months later, Robertson took a bold stance by calling out the police officer who shot Daunte Wright. The 700 Club host didn’t buy the officer’s excuse that he accidentally mistook his gun for a taser.
Despite those deviations, Robertson fell back in line with the Republican orthodox and would later come out of retirement in February 2022 to claim that Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” to invade the Ukraine.
Following the news of Robertson’s death, the televangelist began to trend on Twitter where his incendiary remarks on hot button issues were clearly not forgotten. You can see some of the reactions below:
The left isn’t “dancing on Pat Robertson’s grave” we’re just having a nice little drag show on it.
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) June 8, 2023
Pat Robertson has died. He said gay people caused hurricanes and wore special rings which spread AIDS, and that gay marriage was worse than murder. He’s survived by this poster on the wall of Mike Pence’s bedroom pic.twitter.com/Shf5NThGZk
It’s ok to express your joy that Pat Robertson is dead. He was a devout Christian who believed that he would get his just reward – and I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) June 8, 2023
Pat Robertson was a hateful hypocrite and voice of Christian nationalism. He blamed 9/11 on gay people (because Pat’s God was so angry with them He wanted to murder thousands of Americans) and he scolded his followers about gambling even though he owned racehorses. Good riddance. https://t.co/Rx9qt6AOJW
Are you ready for The Original Beef of Chicagoland to return? Make that The Bear, as the restaurant was rechristened in the first season finale of The Bear.
All the Chefs are back in place to reopen the joint in a slightly classier incarnation, and FX has followed up on that spectacular spaghetti feast and a plot-heavy Season 2 trailer with a teaser that promises that the sleeper series’ mood will not change.
In other words, get ready to relive the vibe of that unyieldingly stressful penultimate episode again, and then realize that this vibe is somehow still irresistible like a truly toxic but heady brew. Will Richie get stabbed again this season? I think that should happen every year. Make a different character do it each time. People will enjoy it, and he deserves it. Here’s that teaser, by the way, with no stabbing included:
Hmm. Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy looks like he showered a few times before group sharing, and that’s promising, but of course, his grunged-up appeal will hopefully loom large over most of the sophomore season. Ideally, Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney will continue to put smartass dudes (like Richie) in their places, and if we don’t see Jon Bernthal make a flashback cameo, the Chefs in the audience may not be satisfied. We won’t have to wait long to find out.
The Bear will officially be back on June 22.
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