Month: June 2023

Blink-182 probably didn’t expect to be part of the narrative surrounding the missing OceanGate submersible, and yet, they are. Brian Szasz — the stepson of British billionaire Hamish Harding, who was on the Titanic voyage — generated some attention by attending a Blink show while the fate of the submarine was uncertain. Szasz wrote at the time, “It might be distasteful being here but my family would want me to be at the Blink-182 show as it’s my favorite band and music helps me in difficult times!”

It appears that amid all this, Szasz actually got a message from Blink drummer Travis Barker.

On his Instagram Story yesterday (June 22), Szasz shared a screenshot of a supposed Insta DM from Barker, in which the artist writes, “Praying for you and your family [folded hands emoji].” Szasz responded across two messages, “Thank you. I will be at the Sd show tonight.”

Szasz recently faced some criticism from Cardi B, who didn’t think he should have gone to the Blink concert. He fired back, “@iamcardib What a pos trashy celeb. Cardi B trying to get clout off me and my families suffering. I went to a Blink 182 concert for coping rather than sitting at home and watching the news. Shame on you Cardi get some class!”

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

Last fall, Carly Rae Jepsen unveiled The Loneliest Time, her sixth studio album. She’s already back with a new single titled “Shy Boy,” a giddy, overflowing pop anthem that’s immediately pulls the listener into its party: “You’re pretty, we’re drinking / So I say what I’m thinking / How come everybody’s dancing but you?”

The singer was teasing the track all week and it precedes her tour with Boygenius. It’s produced by James Ford and comes with a whole music video. She also has a forthcoming tour in Japan this summer and a slot at the Glastonbury Festival alongside acts like Lizzo, Arctic Monkeys, and Lana Del Rey.

In December, Jepsen shared the theme song for Hello Kitty: Super Style! on Amazon Kids+. About it, she told Uproxx in an interview, “I think it is mostly joyful and playful and realizing that fashion can be fun. It can help bring confidence, but the main confidence you always find in yourself. I think that’s really important to know. I think Hello Kitty is about kindness and I love that messaging. It’s something that the world needs a lot of and it’s a message that kids can learn.”

Watch the video for “Shy Boy” above.

Aqua was right: we are living in a Barbie world.

One of the most anticipated (and important) movies of 2023 is being released next month, and with it comes slumber party screenings, limited-edition pink lunchboxes, and viral posters.

A French poster for Barbie features Margot Robbie as Barbie looking triumphant and being held by Ryan Gosling as Ken, giving off unprecedented amounts of “Ken-ergy.” There’s also a tagline — “Elle peut tout faire. Lui, c’est juste Ken,” or in English, “She can do everything. He’s just Ken” — that has a “double-entendre meaning in French slang,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Ken” is slang for “f*ck” in French, so to someone in Paris, the poster reads, “She knows how to do everything. He just knows how to f*ck.”

The wordplay was likely intentionial.

Many began to suspect the poster’s NSFW message was a deliberate act of guerrilla marketing. A closer look at the tagline seems to confirm this. The original, English Barbie tagline is: “Barbie is everything. He’s just Ken.” But the French translation of the first line isn’t “Barbie est tout” (“Barbie is everything”), the literal translation, but rather “[Barbie] peut tout faire” (“Barbie can do anything”), a line that feeds nicely into the slang-y Ken line with the dirty connotations.

“It’s definitely deliberate; there’s no way a French speaker wouldn’t have noticed the dirty pun,” a French marketing executive told the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s sort of genius, really, that they slipped that in.”

So, it’s confirmed: Ken f*cks. Even if it’s unclear what he f*cks with.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Taylor Swift’s Taylor’s Version series of re-recorded albums have been a massive hit, and fans might have Kelly Clarkson to thank for that: Back in 2019, she tweeted, “@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point.”

Clarkson doesn’t want to take credit for the idea to re-record the albums, though, as she told Andy Cohen in an interview, “She’s brilliant, she would’ve come up with that on her own, and she maybe already had before I even tweeted it.”

She also spoke about how, her perspective, it looked like Scooter Braun, who bought Swift’s master recordings, may have taken offense to her suggestion. Clarkson said:

“I think Scooter took offense to it, because we ran into each other, and I think he reached out at the time to my manager. I was like, ‘It wasn’t anything against him.’ I just… when she came out and said that and I heard about it, I was like, ‘Whatever. Re-record them. Your fans will support you.’ Uh, they did! She has like every top record right now in the charts.

He didn’t say anything to me. I think he called my manager at the time, I heard, and I don’t know what happened or what was said, but I think he thought I was attacking him. I was like, ‘I honest to God didn’t even realize who had the [rights].’ I didn’t even know all the information. All I heard was, ‘Man, I really want to own,’ and I was like, ‘Man, that song… She writes everything. It’s so important to her. She’s a businesswoman.’ It felt wrong that she didn’t have the opportunity, right? That’s the thing: If you have the opportunity and you choose to not pay that much money, that’s one thing, but to not have the opportunity to own something that is really important to you [is another].”

Clarkson, by the way, has a new album, Chemistry, out today (June 23).

Check out the interview clip above.

Kelly Clarkson is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Once it was confirmed that the Titanic-exploring submersible that went missing on Sunday with five people on board suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing everyone on board (including a teenager who reportedly didn’t want to be there), CNN spoke to James Cameron about what happened.

The frequently aquatic director of Titanic, The Abyss, and Avatar: The Way of Water, who traveled to the deepest part of the ocean in 2012 in a vessel that didn’t require a video game controller, told Anderson Cooper that once he heard the sub had disappeared, he knew what the outcome was going to be.

Cameron reached out to members of “the deep submergence community,” and with their help, “tracked down some intel that was probably of a military origin, although it could have been research — there are hydrophones all over the Atlantic — and got confirmation that there was some kind of loud noise consistent with an implosion event. That seemed to me enough confirmation. I let all of my inner circle of people know that we had lost our comrades. And I encouraged everybody to raise a glass in their honor on Monday.”

Cameron was “hoping against hope” his conclusion was wrong, “knowing in my bones that I wasn’t (wrong),” he said Thursday. “I couldn’t think of any other scenario in which a sub would be lost where it lost comms and navigation at the same time, and stayed out of touch, and did not surface.”

You can watch the CNN interview with Cameron above.

(Via CNN)

It was announced last year that Once Upon A One More Time, a new Broadway musical based on the songs of Britney Spears, was on the way. Now, it has arrived and Spears herself has revealed that, despite not being involved in the creation of the show, she’s a fan.

In an Instagram post shared yesterday (June 22), Spears wrote, “Good luck to the hardworking cast and crew of ‘Once Upon a One More Time’ on opening night tonight !!! I’ve seen the show and it is so funny, smart and brilliant !!!”

The show’s website describes the musical, “When our storybook heroines gather for book club, they always discuss the same book, Grimms’ Fairy Tales — because as far as they know, it’s the only book that’s ever been written. That’s until a rogue fairy godmother drops The Feminine Mystique into their corseted laps. From now on, ‘happily ever after’ will never be the same. Once Upon a One More Time weaves the chart-topping hits of the undisputed Princess of Pop, Britney Spears, into a brand-new kind of fairy tale.”

Deadline notes that the songs in the show were “fully authorized and licensed by Britney post-conservatorship,” per production notes. The publication also says of the musical, “Smart, funny, splendid to look at and all with a beat you can dance to, this tribute to the Brothers Grimm, the sisters of the Second Wave and, not least, the indomitable Ms. Spears, is a delight.”

The Charlotte Hornets held the first real decision of the 2023 NBA Draft, as they had to decide between Scoot Henderson and Brandon Miller with the second overall pick after the Spurs took Victor Wembanyama. Ultimately, Charlotte chose Miller, the 6’9 sharpshooting forward out of Alabama, as he is a clearer fit alongside LaMelo Ball than Henderson.

While most evaluators had Henderson as the best player available, Miller is certainly a strong prospect given his size and skills as a shot-maker. He did have some questions coming in for teams to dig into, namely about a deadly shooting in Tuscaloosa back in January where police claimed he brought the gun to teammate Darius Miles that was ultimately used in the tragic event. After the Draft, Hornets GM Mitch Kupchak was asked what made Charlotte comfortable with Miller, a question seemingly pointing to both his on-court skillset and the off-court incident, and Kupchak gave an incredibly bizarre answer that he stopped mid-thought after deciding better of it.

“Well, everything that we…every answer we got to every question,” Kupchak says. “I would say, he is a freshman, right? So he’s a little bit, I would say younger than…excuse me I wouldn’t even say younger — Nah, I better not even go in that direction actually. I’ll just back off.”

Alright! That’s certainly a number of words that Kupchak put together into almost sentences.

Kupchak had stated earlier that Miller was their “favorite all along,” although there was “spirited discussion” debating whether to take Miller or Henderson before landing on Miller.

Prior to the Draft, Kupchak confirmed the final decision on the pick would be Michael Jordan’s, even though Jordan is in the process of selling his majority stake in the franchise and won’t be the primary owner when the season rolls around. When paired with Kupchak’s odd answer here to a fairly straightforward question (and one he should’ve been expecting), one can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t all-in on Miller given his apparent difficulty offering a coherent defense of the pick.

Last week, Young Thug announced a mysterious release titled “Business Is Business” with a countdown timer set to end the following week. True to its word, the countdown concluded with the release of Thug’s new album Business Is Business. It arrived with 15 songs and features from Drake, Future, Travis Scott, Yak Gotti, 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert, BSlime, Lil Got It, and Nate Ruess. The album opened with a record titled “Parade On Cleveland” which features Drake, and on it, Thug delivers a quick message from jail.

Following a verse from Drake, the Toronto rapper presumably accepts a collect call to the Cobb County Adult Detention Facility from Thug himself. “Wassup my brother, talk to me, what’s the word?” Drake asks and Thug replies, “Uh, I ain’t doin’ sh*t, man. Just pushin’ more Peter, more sweeter, more completer than any Peter pusher around. See what I’m sayin’ Slime?”

For what it’s worth, it seems like Thug is in good spirits based on that phone call, which is good to hear considering that the rapper has been in jail for over a year now.

You can listen to “Parade From Cleveland” in the video above.

Business Is Business is out now via YSL/300 Entertainment/Atlantic Records. Find more information here.

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

We are less than a month out from the movie event of the summer. In tandem with its in-theater premiere, Barbie will be accompanied by a star-studded soundtrack called Barbie: The Album. Tonight (June 23rd), Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice have shared the latest taste of the soundtrack with their sweet and spicy collaboration, “Barbie World.”

On “Barbie World,” Ice’s producer and frequent collaborator RiotUSA takes a sample of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and gives it a Brooklyn drill update for the times. Minaj and Ice go back-to-back delivering bars, matching each other’s fiery energy.

“I’m bad like the Barbie / I’m a doll but I still wanna party / Pink ‘Vette like I’m ready to bend / I’m a ten, so I pull in a Ken / Jazzie, Stacie, Nicki / All of the Barbies is pretty / All of the Barbies is bad / It girls, and we ain’t playin’ tag,” the two rap line-by-line in the song’s chorus.

Barbie: The Album promises to be a hit so far, especially as songs by Karol G, PinkPantheress, and Dua Lipa have garnered many streams.

You can listen to “Barbie World” above.

Barbie: The Album is out 7/21 via Atlantic. Find more information here.

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

For the past month, we have known that the San Antonio Spurs were going to take Victor Wembanyama with the first overall pick in Thursday night’s NBA Draft. That was their reward for winning the lottery back in May, and the rest of the teams in the top-14 have spent the remaining time trying to game out who might be available when they’re picking and building out a board for every scenario.

What I suggest is the NBA embrace chaos and deliver a television spectacle unlike anything else in sports by holding the lottery at 7:30 p.m. ET on Draft night, still starting the Draft at 8 p.m. ET. This is an idea I tweeted out as I watched ESPN’s pre-Draft coverage talk about the same things we’d been talking about for a month and realized this could all be so much crazier, and thousands of people seem to agree with me.

Imagine the tension in the air if we’d gotten all the way to Draft night waiting to find out where Wembanyama was going, and then the fallout for teams like Portland, Detroit, and others who had to make more sudden pivots and shifts with what they wanted to do. It’d be sensational.

I also don’t think it would really change too much of the pre-Draft process for these teams, who already invite 60-plus players to their facilities for workouts. It would mean top guys would have to do more visits than they do currently, but otherwise, these teams are already putting together big boards and profiles on everyone, just in case they have opportunities to move up and down. Everyone is already planning on various outcomes and contingencies, what’s a few more added to the mix. Let’s see what front offices and scouting departments are really dialed in, and embrace some chaos to get the festivities going.

This year’s Draft featured a top-10 filled with teams that everyone knew wanted to move out, and the result was, like in 2021, a mostly stagnant start as teams struggled to find the deals they wanted. Maybe with less time to get paralysis by analysis, we’d free things up for some moves as we’ve seen that when teams are presented with a deadline, they tend to move quicker and a little looser — just look at the three-team deal from the other night where, with 90 minutes to salvage a Kristaps Porzingis trade, the Celtics made an even bigger deal by sending Marcus Smart to Memphis.

In a perfect world, we get all 30 GMs in the same room and have it be like NBA Wall Street, haggling with each other on the Draft floor to make deals and try to move up and down to land the player they wanted. Instead of having to hear from Shams and Woj about who was talking to who and what deals might be on the table, imagine if we could just see Sam Presti walk over to Rob Pelinka and start having a chat.

I’m not saying this is a perfect idea — and you can bet the teams have no interest in this change — but the time in between the lottery and the Draft, we lose a little bit of the juice and this would make for an incredible night. Teams can still do all their preparation they normally do, just casting a slightly wider net. You’d still see the same trades happen, because those typically involve picks later in the first round that are already set, as has been the case so far this offseason. Trades involving lottery picks usually don’t happen til those teams are on the clock, anyways, as everyone wants to see who will be available.

The NBA is an entertainment product first, something they remind us of all the time. Let’s embrace that and really kick the tension of Draft night up a few notches by doing the lottery right before it.