Month: July 2023

In case you haven’t been on the internet over the past few days: Jason Aldean has found himself in hot water over his song “Try That In A Small Town,” due to its allegedly pro-violence and racist lyrics, as well as its music video. Jason Isbell has now entered the chat, and he did not hold back even a little bit.

Yesterday evening (July 19), Isbell tweeted, “Dare Aldean to write his next single himself. That’s what we try in my small town.”

To Isbell’s point, listed as writers of “Try That In A Small Town” in the Spotify credits are Kelley Lovelace, Kurt Allison, Neil Thrasher, and Tully Kennedy, but not Aldean.

Country singer Jake Owen then chimed in today, writing, “Jason, you’re always the first to get behind your keyboard and spout off with this stupid sh*t. In ‘my small town’ you just walk up to the guy and be a man to his face if you want the smoke… not tweet it at him…. Tough guy.” Isbell responded with a screenshot indicating Aldean’s Twitter account had been suspended and wrote, “I tried to tag him but it looks like his account has been suspended. Y’all are the tough guys! I’m just a songwriter.”

After somebody pointed out to Isbell that the account he showed wasn’t actually Aldean’s, Isbell reissued his challenge to the correct account, tweeting, “Ok here ya go @Jason_Aldean I’m challenging you to write a song yourself. All alone. If you’re a recording artist, make some art. I want to hear it.” He added in a follow-up, “Seriously how do you defend the content of a song you weren’t even in the room for? You just got it from your producer. If you’d been there when it was written, you’d be listed as a writer. We all know how this works.”

Aldean has yet to respond to Isbell’s challenge.

Babyface Ray’s grind never stops and his consistent releases are proof of that. At the end of the week, the Detroit rapper will have released his third album in two years with Summer’s Mine. The upcoming project follows Face, which was released at the top of 2022, and Mob which dropped in December. Babyface Ray kicked off the campaign for Summer’s Mine with his “All Star Team” and “Donda Bag” singles, and now we have the album’s tracklist.

Summer’s Mine checks in with 16 songs including the previously released “All Star Team” and “Donda Bag.” The project also presents features from Veeze, Los And Nutty, Vory, King Hendrick$, and Westside Gunn.

Babyface Ray’s Summer’s Mine arrives after he appeared on 03 Greedo’s Halfway There album. It also followed his Courtesy Of The Mob Tour with fellow Detroit rapper Veeze.

You can check out the full tracklist for Summer’s Mine below.

1. “Scarface”
2. “Donda Bag”
3. “Bosses Linking With Bosses” Feat. Veeze
4. “Leaving London”
5. “All Star Team”
6. “Luh Tyler Flow” Feat. Los And Nutty
7. “i75”
8. “Racks N”
9. “Skateland”
10. “Life Full Of Lies”
11. “I Can’t Rap Foreva”
12. “Dancing With The Devil pt2” Feat. Vory
13. “Big Meech Holiday” Feat. King Hendrick$
14. “Jackboys”
15. “Fly Gods” Feat. Westside Gunn
16. “My Thoughts 4”

Summer’s Mine is out 7/21 via Wavy Gang and EMPIRE. Find out more information here.

The real American horror story isn’t until 2024 (the election, am I right, folks?), but FX’s American Horror Story is back soon.

Subtitled Delicate, the Ryan Murphy-created show’s 12th installment is about… well, I’m not sure. The teaser is heavy on vibes, not plot. There’s a group of women in white wigs with spider-like fingers; a bird’s egg fall out of a nest; Emma Roberts and Cara Delevingne wear cool glasses; and Kim Kardashian holds a toddler. It’s like Rosemary’s Baby, if Rosemary’s Baby starred Kim Kardashian. Expect that remake the second strike is over.

Kardashian’s acting chops were called into question by theater legend Patti Lupone, who criticized her for taking a role away “from actors.” The Tony winner added, “Excuse me, excuse me, Kim. You know, what are you doing with your life?” The answer: Tom Brady, allegedly.

American Horror Story: Delicate is the first season of the anthology series to adapt a book, Delicate Condition by author Danielle Valentine. The novel follows an actress named Anna Alcott, who is convinced someone is trying to prevent her from conceiving a child. After failed rounds of IVF treatments, she thinks she’s finally pregnant, only to suffer a miscarriage… at least, that’s what her doctor tells her. Nobody will believe her, but she feels the baby still moving inside her.

American Horror Story: Delicate premieres on FX later this year.

(Via EW)

Chills on chills on chills.

The theme song for season 2 of White Lotus already comes with a classical vibe, opening with angelic harps followed by an operatic voice taking over the synth melody from season 1, but the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra absolutely owns their version. Elevated by soprano Ella Taylor, the song builds to a bombastic, spine-tingling finish worthy of a bend-and-snap standing ovation from Jennifer Coolidge.

The performance took place at the inaugural European Classical Pride event at the Barbican Centre in London. In celebrating “the profound contribution that the LGBTQ+ community makes to classical music,” the program included work from Leonard Bernstein and Tchaikovsky, but Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s White Lotus theme was the only song from a television show.

Conducted by Oliver Zeffman, the performance absolutely explodes in the second half with a full choir joining Taylor and the orchestra, all of them crescendoing wildly with Taylor very clearly rocking out while belting out. Not only is it a stellar performance, it’s filled with an unbridled joy that demands to be put on repeat.

Plus, no one dies! That’s a pretty major bonus, although HBO series does tend to make the most of its dead bodies.

Jimmy Butler is on vacation in China right now. Back in the United States, the Miami Heat are coming off of an appearance in the NBA Finals and want to add some major reinforcements this summer, as the Heat are the only team on Damian Lillard’s list of preferred destinations should he get a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers.

The state of play in a potential Lillard-to-Miami trade hasn’t changed in quite a while — it still seems like Portland is a little leery about accepting an offer from the Heat due to the inclusion of Tyler Herro, who is a bit repetitive with the Blazers’ trio of promising young guards. Perhaps that changes, but for now, everyone is waiting for a domino to fall. And while he’s waiting, Butler made clear that he’s going to have some fun with this, as he hit a jumper during his tour abroad and immediately did the two iconic celebrations everyone associates with Lillard: the wave that he used after his walk-off jumper eliminated the Oklahoma City Thunder from the playoffs in 2019, and his “Dame Time” celebration.

Let this be everyone’s official confirmation that Jimmy Butler is aware that Damian Lillard would like to join his professional basketball team.

After teasing a release window last week, Amazon has finally confirmed a release date for its highly anticipated The Boys spinoff Gen V.

The college-based show set in the wildly raunchy superhero universe will premiere its first three episodes on September 29, according to Variety. From there, the show will switch to weekly drops every Friday until the Season 1 finale on November 3, for a total count of eight episodes.

Amazon also unveiled a new poster for Gen V confirming the release date:

Here’s the official synopsis for the boundary-pushing The Boys spinoff that left executive producer Seth Rogen asking, “Dear God, what are they doing over there?”:

From the world of ‘The Boys’ comes ‘Gen V,’ which explores the training of the first generation of superheroes to know about Compound V, and that their powers were injected into them, rather than God-given. These young, competitive heroes put their physical and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the school’s highly coveted top ranking. They quickly come to learn that ambition comes with sacrifice, and the difference between right and wrong is not as clear as they once believed. When the university’s dark secrets come to light, the students must come to grips with what type of heroes they are going to become.

Gen V premieres September 29 on Amazon Prime Video.

(Via Variety)

Adele is one of the most beloved musicians working today. Her discography is full of No. 1 albums and chart-topping singles like “Easy On Me” and “Hello.” Clearly, she has a lot of fans. Former Oasis member Noel Gallagher, though, is not among them.

That much he made clear on a recent episode of Matt Morgan’s Patreon podcast (as Stereogum notes). In the episode (titled “D’yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?”), Gallagher was asked if he likes any of Adele’s hit songs. His thoughts on that were strong, as he responded, “F*ck off, f*cking hell. Name one. […] They’re f*cking sh*t. It’s f*cking awful. It’s f*cking [late British pop singer] Cilla Black. I find it and that whole thing offensive.”

He also discussed the idea of writing songs for singers like Adele and Lewis Capaldi one day, saying, “If I fall out of love with touring, I could see myself just sitting at home writing songs and sending them to my publishers,” he said. “I might in the future. I’ll be saying, ‘Get Adele to sing that. Don’t call until she’s done the guide vocal.’ I want Lewis Capaldi to murder this song, I want him to shit on it from a great height. Make me rich.”

Find the podcast (which is behind a paywall on Morgan’s Patreon) here.

Every interview with Samuel L. Jackson is a treat. He’s as quotable as the characters he plays. In a conversation with Vulture that published on Thursday, he discussed everything from winning an honorary Oscar (“Didn’t feel honorary, just felt like I was getting an Oscar”) to getting cast as Nick Fury (“Better me than David Hasselhoff — is that what you’re saying? He’s still a little testy about that”) to buying Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds a beehive for their wedding present (“And then one day the bees abandoned the hive or they abandoned the queen or some sh*t”).

Jackson also discussed the “acting contest” he went through to get the part of Jules Winnfield in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

“I was doing Fresh for Lawrence Bender, who was the producer of Pulp,” he said. “Quentin sent me the script, told me, ‘Jules is yours.’ I went in and they just wanted to hear the character. I read it, and they were like, ‘Amazing. Job’s yours.’ I come to New York, do Fresh.” That’s when he heard someone else, a “good actor from New York” named Paul Calderon, was also up for the role.

Jackson continued:

“I shoot Fresh on a Saturday and I got on a plane that night, take the red-eye to LA. And I’m on the plane doing all the sh*t that I normally do when I get ready to do a job. I’m breaking down the f*cking role. I’m breaking down the sentences. By the time I get there, they’re not even there. They’ve gone to lunch or some sh*t. They come back and everybody’s like, “Hey, Sam.” And some dude, the last dude that came in, right behind me. He was going, ‘Hi. Mr. Fishburne. Glad to meet you.’ I was like, ‘What the f*ck? Who is this motherf*cker?’”

Jackson performed the “English, motherf*cker, do you speak it?” and diner scenes during the audition and killed it, obviously. When he was done, “I slammed the script down. I slam the door and leave.” Bender later told him, “We were so going to cast this other kid until you did that last speech in the diner.” Jackson’s response: “Really, motherf*cker? So I had to go through all that, after you told me I had a job?” He’s the best.

You can read the interview here.

(Via Vulture)

Every so often a collaboration emerges that’s simultaneously surprising, radical, and makes total sense. Such is the fantastic news that Shinichirō Watanabe has teamed with Chad Stehelski and jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington on a new anime series called Lazarus. It’s a project brimming with promise not just because of the names involved but the high concept premise itself.

According to Polygon, the series takes place in 2052 following the release of a miracle cure that eradicates all illness forever. It’s great news! Until the inventor proclaims that it’s actually a slow-acting poison that should kill everyone who took it. A group codenamed Lazarus is dispatched to find the inventor and save the world.

Lazarus is set to air on Adult Swim, but no release date has been made public yet.

With Watanabe at the helm, Stahelski designing action sequences, and Washington crafting music (alongside British electronic musicians Floating Points and Bonobo), it’s a stacked team for an intriguing, potential-ridden show. Naturally, this come after the premature cancellation of the live-action Cowboy Bebop, so if this becomes a hit, Netflix can option it for a live-action run and then kill it right when it’s getting popular. It’s the circle of life, people.

(via Polygon)

Are you the parent your child goes to first after being emotionally or physically hurt? Do they bug you first when their iPad needs charging? Do you accompany your child to most of their doctor’s appointments? When the school has a problem, are you the first person they call?

If you’ve answered “yes” to most of these questions, you are most likely your family’s default parent, which can be a real problem.

Amber Thornton, Psy.D, writes in Psychology Today that default parents (who are most often female) are likely to experience four common psychological problems associated with their position in the household, including chronic fatigue and burnout, feelings of resentment toward their partners and children, diminished ability to care for oneself and a significant decline in mental health.

Dr. Thornton argues that women are often put into this position due to a “systemic” problem where they are expected to provide primary care for parenting and home-related tasks.

I’m tired of being the default parent pic.twitter.com/5i010Tfkec

— ▫️The V Show▫️ (@sweet___soul) July 14, 2023

A recent study by Kristy Buzard, Laura K. Gee and Olga Stoddard revealed that schools play a significant role in promoting women as default parents in heterosexual couples. Their study of over 30,000 schools across the U.S. involved fictitious parents leaving a message with a principal asking to discuss school placement and requesting their call to be returned.

The study posed three scenarios that proved the bias toward casting women as default parents.

In the first scenario, the person leaving the message asked the principal to call either the mother or the father. In this scenario, 59% of principals called the mother. In the second scenario, the message said the dad had “a lot of availability,” and he was called 74% of the time versus the mom, who was called 26%.

In the third scenario, the caller said the mother had “a lot of availability,” in that case, she got 90% of the calls, whereas the dad was called just 10% of the time. “If you indicate that mom is more available, they almost always call mom; that’s less true when you indicate dad is available,” author and economist Emily Oster writes in her “ParentData” Substack newsletter.

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A post shared by Emily Oster (@profemilyoster)

Even though the schools currently appear to be promoting an antiquated view of gender roles, they can also be a big part of paving the way toward equality. Oster believes we can quickly overcome this institutional bias by implementing a very simple solution in America’s schools: letting parents inform tell schools who they should call first.

“It would be great if schools and child care centers would ask parents who should be called first. Every year, at the start of the year, we all fill out a million forms for our school or childcare settings. One of those forms should ask who the school should call as a first step,” Oster writes on her Substack.

“This change doesn’t really need to be motivated by a need for household equality, either,” she adds. “It’s just efficient! Calling the parent who will never pick up is not helpful.”