Month: June 2024

Denzel Curry’s aggressive new single “Hot One” gets a suitably gritty video today, as he, ASAP Ferg (who recently dropped the ASAP), and TiaCorine (fresh off her first-ever headlining tour) take over the block with their crew. Shot in the sort of grainy, lo-fi style of an early Memphis trap video or a mid-90s skate video, the visuals end up perfectly matching the tone of the song itself, which borrows and updates the sounds of early Three 6 Mafia classics. It even samples some old school Memphis rap from Gimisum Family, interpolating their 1993 track “Fear No Evil.”

“Hot One” will appear on Denzel’s upcoming album, King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2, which is slated for release on July 19 with features from 2 Chainz, Armani White, ASAP Rocky, Juicy J, Kenny Mason, Kingpin Skinny Pimp of Gimisum Family, Maxo Kream, Mike Dimes, Project Pat, That Mexican OT, and more. King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2 will drop two years after Curry’s last full-length release, Melt My Eyez See Your Future, and apparently find him returning to the combative aesthetics of his early music after the more introspective material on its predecessor.

King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2 is out 7/19 via Loma Vista. Find more information here.

When Tyler Jordan was young, he was told that playing an instrument went against God’s word. The son of a preacher growing up in Lake Jackson, Texas — a town located about an hour south of Houston known for being the corporate hub of Dow Chemical — he was raised in a “cult-like” Christian sect that subscribed to Biblical literalism. In church, only a cappella singing was allowed. The Devil couldn’t abide a piano or guitar, but the unaccompanied voice, apparently, was copacetic. “Their whole thing is that the commandment is to sing and it doesn’t say anything about playing instruments,” Jordan tells me during a Zoom call last month. “The idea is just that to do only what he asks and no extra.” He smiles and then adds, “They’re weird in a lot of ways.”

As Jordan entered his teen years, he naturally rebelled. He turned 13 in 2000, the year when Napster was at its cultural zenith. He spent his days downloading indie-rock albums and scouring reviews on All Music. This coincided with his parents pulling him out of school and educating him at home. The weirdness surrounded him like a wall. Music was his only escape.

A few years later, “my life really changed” when Jordan saw Spoon play live twice in the same week on television, on The Late Show With David Letterman and Austin City Limits. “I was like, ‘Man, if these guys are from Austin, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. That’s where I need to go,’” he recalled. Several years later, at age 19, Austin is where he went.

This is how Jordan, 37, recounted the origin story for his tangled path in music, which culminates this week with the release of Lived Here For A While, the excellent new album by his four-piece band, Good Looks. Over 10 songs, Jordan writes candidly (and often bruisingly) about his strict religious upbringing, the traumatic abuse doled out by his father, and the indifference in the face of that abuse exhibited by his mother. Sometimes, he does this with devastating directness, like the album-closing “Why Don’t You Believe Me.” But more often, Jordan leavens the lyrics with surging, fist-pumping music that make his autobiographical lyrics feel more universal. On the single “If It’s Gone,” for instance, Jordan references his ongoing familial estrangement (“I already lost my mother / Left my family far behind / And I don’t believe in Jesus / God, or Buddha, or beyond”) in a manner that somehow manages to register like a feel-good Tom Petty road-trip anthem.

The key musical partnership in Good Looks is between Jordan and guitarist Jake Ames, his best friend who suffered near-devastating injuries after being hit by a car at the hometown album release for 2022’s winning Bummer Year. (Ames, thankfully, recovered.) Jordan — who lists Steve Earle as his favorite all-time songwriter — admits that Good Looks would likely hew closer to a more conventional Americana sound if not for Ames, an inventive and largely improvisational player whose soaring leads pull the band toward a more widescreen, War On Drugs-type sound. This is the case even when Jordan, an avowed socialist, takes Lived Here For A While in an explicitly political direction on songs like “Whiteout” (which addresses gentrification in Austin) and “Vultures” (which deals with income inequality). No matter the subject matter, Lived Here For A While strikes an effective balance between lyrical weightiness and musical breeziness, resulting in one of 2024’s most satisfying and well-rounded rock records.

Good Looks has been commonly described as a heartland rock band. Was Springsteen or Petty an actual influence on your songwriting?

I didn’t listen to any Springsteen or any kind of heartland rock growing up. This last year was the first time I ever listened to a Tom Petty record. I think the most heartland rock I am is in the last five years, I’ve become a huge Steve Earle fan. Just fucking love Steve Earle. He’s probably my favorite songwriter now of all time.

When did you start writing songs? You definitely have that melancholy quality to your songs that a lot of the great singer-songwriters from Texas have.

I played piano for a long time and I never really wrote with that, but within two weeks of picking up a guitar I was writing songs. It just came really naturally. In my hometown, I had a band and I was playing at coffee shops from 16 to 19.

One of the things about my writing is that I was always really afraid of sounding dumb. The way that I would protect against that is just by singing about exactly what I know. All of my writing is very literal. It’s all stuff that happened. I had a pretty hard childhood, and there’s a lot of sadness there, and I’m kind of working through that. Even on this newest record, there’s a lot of Mom songs on there. I was so depressed for so much of my life. I feel like I’m in a pretty good place right now, but sad songs came the easiest for sure.

“Day Of Judgement” is an obvious “Mom” song from the new album.

Yep, it is. It’s weird because there weren’t any on the last one, but there were some on the record before that when it was a different project. I thought maybe I had written all of those songs and then they came back up.

What do you think accounts for that?

It just takes a long time to unravel trauma. I think it takes a long time to unravel your childhood. I mean, I’ve been in therapy for 12 years, every week going to therapy, and it’s a long process. The way that that song came up was literally the way a lot of my writing happens — I come up with one line and then it kind of flows and then I edit it afterwards or maybe change things around. But this is just an example of, yes, I had a dream about my mom where she was talking shit to me, so I just started writing that song.

It’s a dark song, but there’s humor there. You talk about your Mom watching Wheel Of Fortune.

That was my Mom’s favorite show when I was growing up. She would always have it on television.

And you have a conversation with her about Vanna White.

There was so much judgment in my childhood and that sect of Christianity, they think that 99.9 percent of people are going to hell. It’s a really weird thing.

Are your parents aware of what you’re doing now?

I haven’t talked to my parents in 12 years, so I don’t have a relationship with them. I have a couple of relatives, like a cousin or something, that I talk to every now and then, so I would imagine that they know on some level, but I don’t know if they listen to the records.

The core partnership in the band is between you and Jake the guitarist. You’re writing these intense, personal songs, and then he lays these big, soaring guitar parts over them. Without Jake, it seems like Good Looks would fall more into the straightforward Steve Earle-style, singer-songwriter lane.

I agree with that. I’m not going to tell him you said that [laughs]. But no, I think that’s fair. He uses a lot of chorus, but in a really interesting way. Most of the chorus effects you hear in indie rock, it’s all post-Mac DeMarco, without any sort of distortion to it. But he uses chorus in a way that is more post-punk, and so it’s more aggressive but distinctive. It’s what makes it chimey.

How long have you known each other?

Just under 10 years. We met each other in 2015, at the Kerrville Folk Festival. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it’s an 18-day-long folk fest that happens just outside of Austin. It’s been going on since 1972. We got to know each other through that, and then just started hanging out a little bit in Austin. I didn’t want a lead guitar player because they take up a lot of space. I’m a control freak, and giving up that sonic territory was always really scary to me. But then he just kept geting better and better, and I was like, “Okay, this guy should probably be in the band.”

Jake’s such a feel player. He improvises everything, and I’m so buttoned down. That is definitely the balance of the band, and it’s a struggle, because he’s my best friend, and then we’re complete opposites. Like, we could not be more different. But I really do think that is the good stuff of what we’re doing. When Jake had the accident a couple of years back, I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to continue playing music. I didn’t know what it was going to look like. I was immediately like, “There’s no Good Looks without him. There’s no way.” There’s no way to replace him. It wouldn’t be the same thing.

Jake was hit by a car, and then in 2023 the band had an accident where your tour van got rear-ended and you lost all your equipment. Have you ever had a moment where you thought, “Maybe we’re cursed?”

That’s the thing: It feels like they’re unlucky situations that we were incredibly lucky in. The fact that Jake is still playing guitar and within six months his brain was pretty much back to normal, that’s crazy. As for the crash, it was the first day of a three-week tour, and we were an hour away on an eight-hour drive day from the venue. The fact that nobody died or had a broken bone in that situation is insane. It could have been so much worse, man.

So you’re not at all discouraged about touring?

My life is a long story of taking really bad things that happened to me and turning them into good. So both of those incidents probably helped us more than they hurt us. Obviously I didn’t want Jake to get hit by a car, but that happening right as the album was released, that got us a lot of press. There was a story to tell. It weirdly helped promote the record.

And then we lost all of our shit. The van burned and we watched all of our gear burn up in front of us. But it made room for all this new stuff to come in, just better gear. It felt cleansing in a way.

The story I like to tell is that we were at the hospital, because everybody was having crazy muscle spasms. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a crazy car wreck, but that’s what happens. As soon as the adrenaline wears off, you start seizing up a little. So we decided to go to the emergency room just to get checked out. And I was already like, “Okay, so we’ve got to rent a van, and we’ve got to…” I’m running through the checklist of things we need to do to get back on the road. And our drummer, Phil, is like, “I don’t have fucking shoes right now,” because he had lost his shoes in the crash. He was just barefoot. And he’s like, “I don’t want to fucking think about going back out there right now.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. This is too soon.”

You identify as a socialist. What was your path to that?

I voted for Obama and I was just a liberal for most of my twenties. I was actually on the phone for Obamacare, and I think it was a radicalizing moment. They put me on hold for two hours trying to sign up that first time. And it just gave me all this time to think. I was like, “OK, so the government is requiring me to get health insurance through a private corporation, which they’re subsidizing with tax dollars. And this is my team? I need a new fucking team.” And then also with the Black Lives Matter movement, I started looking for places to put effort to work on oppressions and socialism just tied all of the oppressions that I care about.

The last record was mostly written between 2015 and 2018. We recorded it in 2018, and it was done by 2019, and then as we were ramping up to put it out with Keeled Scales, the pandemic happened. And so we sat on it for a few years. But basically in that time period, I was in this smaller Trotskyist kind of socialist group. So Bummer Year is directly related to that work in socialism. “21” is about the labor theory of value. And I mention Marx in “First Crossing,” in that section about water rights. It informs a lot of how I think about the world.

In the song “Bummer Year” I was writing about friends from back home and people that I used to know that went the other way. They went libertarian and radical in the other direction, and I was so depressed and just trying to make sense of that. A lot of people mistook that song as a “we should all get along” song, but in my brain, it’s actually like, “No, as a socialist, we need to win these people over.” I always think our job is to organize as many people as possible because there’s so many people in this country that vote against their interests and support Trump when he does nothing but make their lives worse. You don’t win by dunking on those people. You don’t win by shaming those people. You win by meeting them where they’re at. You win by trying to bring them onto your side and show them how the world’s really organized.

To me “Bummer Year” stood out, not as a “we should get along” song, but as a “Trump supporters aren’t necessarily monsters” song. Which seems very unique, and I suspect that perspective comes from living in Texas rather than one of the coasts.

Well, and I just think about my life, too. I went from a really, really conservative background and believing all these really crazy things, and my brain just totally changed. So it’s possible for folks to move and shift. I haven’t always been a socialist. I was much more of a centrist and maybe even on the right. I hate to use the term “cancel culture” because it makes you sound like Joe Rogan. But I do think that there was a lot of really black and white thinking on the internet about a lot of issues when the reality is it’s always gray. There’s so much stuff in the middle, and people are so complex that I think there is comfort and control in being able to put people in their boxes. But the reality is not there.

A strength of the album is that the personal and political content is layered into this feel-good rock sound. How do you strike that balance, between making your point and delivering a really good rock record?

When I write politically, I always try to avoid most buzzwords. I think a lot of what happens is there’s the signaling that goes on where when you say a certain thing that signals to the other side, like, “Oh, he’s on their team. I know what box to put them in.” I try to be sneaky about it because I think that’s how you get to people. You get past the defense. You just tell the human story of it more than you say the buzzword, and then you have an actual chance.

Last week, Eminem released “Houdini,” the first single from his upcoming album The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup de grâce). The track, which revives the trollish persona for comedic effect, wasn’t as well-received by some rap fans online due to its treatment of some of its subjects, but that isn’t stopping the hardcore Eminem faithful from giving it strong streaming numbers. Are those numbers enough to pull it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for the sixth No. 1 hit of his career?

According to Forbes (for some reason), many of the predictors of such things point to at least a top 5 showing for the self-declared Rap God, with social media accounts like Talk Of The Charts billing it for as high as a No. 2 debut. However, even the might of Eminem’s army of loyalists is meager when compared to the onslaught of support from country fans and the pop appeal of Post Malone. His country-leaning new single “I Had Some Help” with resurgent crooner Morgan Wallen is trending toward yet another appearance at No. 1.

It’s kind of ironic, when you consider the accusations of cultural appropriation that have been leveled at both artists, that it’s Post Malone, who upsets Eminem — and with a non-hip-hop song, no less.

You can check out the video for Eminem’s “Houdini” above.

A new era in the life of Ariana Grande’s stellar seventh album Eternal Sunshine is here as the singer returns with a video for “The Boy Is Mine.” The track, which interpolates Brandy and Monica’s 1998 song of the same title, is undoubtedly one of the standout records from the project. The visual features Penn Badgley as Mayor Max who appears early in the video for a news conference promising to cure the city’s severe rat infestation problem. Brandy and Monica also appear in the video and news anchors. All in all, the devious video is straight out of a You scene, capturing Grande’s obsessive crush on Mayor Max and the lengths (injecting him with a love potion) she’s willing to go to make him fall in love with her. In the end, the potion is not needed as the two go on to live happy ever after in a house full of cats.

Grande spoke about Badgley’s contribution to “The Boy Is Mine” music video during a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “The video stars Penn Badgley, who I’ve been a fan of my entire life,” she said. “It was so amazing to work with him. Super honored to work with him.” Fans first suspected that Badgley would appear in the video after Grande posted a TikTok of the You actor dancing to the song’s chorus.

In addition to speaking about Badgley’s role in the video, Grande also delivered a performance of “The Boy Is Mine” backed by The Roots while on a rooftop set.

You can watch the video for “The Boy Is Mine” as well as her performance of the song on The Tonight Show above.

Eternal Sunshine is out now via Republic Records. Find out more information here.

Truly, the end of an era is upon Wheel of Fortune devotees with the arrival of Friday’s episode, which will be Pat Sajak’s final spin after 40+ years and over 8,000 episodes. The record-busting game-show frontman has already received an emotional farewell from co-host and letter turner extraordinaire Vanna White. In a video message to ABC viewers (you can watch it here), Sajak also expressed his pre-final-show farewell message:

“Well, the time has come to say goodbye. I have a few thanks and acknowledgments before I go, and I want to start with all of you watching out there. It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year, decade after decade.”

What will Sajak do next? As Variety reports, he will be hitting the stage in a play at Honolulu’s Hawaii Theatre, where he will star in Prescription: Murder alongside KHON-TV Hawai’i news host Joe Moore. If that title sounds familiar to Columbo viewers, there’s a good reason:

The 1962 mystery-thriller “Prescription: Murder” was written by William Link and Richard Levinson, who turned the play into the TV series “Columbo.” The plot to “Prescription: Murder” was adapted for the “Columbo” first episode.

In the Hawaii Theatre version, Sajak will play “brilliant psychiatrist Roy Flemming, who hatches a plot with a perfect alibi to murder his neurotic and possessive wife.” Moore will play Lt. Columbo, “the seemingly bumbling detective who engages the psychiatrist in a cat-and-mouse battle of wits right up to the play’s surprising climax.”

Sajak and Moore have already teamed up for a few handfuls of plays over the decades, so they’ll roll into their next project quite naturally. Before Pat leaves his decades-long day job, however, he’s been getting weird before handing the keys over to Ryan Seacrest, who has been pretty frank about his poor spelling abilities, so it remains to be seen how awkward that will be, but at least it won’t be as awkward as this recent moment. You know it’s true.

Also, here’s the first in a series of Pat interview snippets conducted by his daughter, Maggie Sajak, who is giving quite the sendoff: “You made what could have been just hangman into a cultural phenomenon.”

(Via Variety)

Eminem is outside for the summer. The Detroit previously made his way back to the spotlight with the announcement of his upcoming album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) and the release of its lead single “Houdini.” Eminem have his live debut of the song during the “Live From Detroit: The Concert At Michigan Central” show which celebrating the reopening of the refurbished Michigan Central, a historical landmark in Detroit. The show itself was co-executive produced by Eminem and his longtime manager Paul Rosenberg. It also featured performances by Diana Ross, Jack White, Big Sean, Fantasia, Jelly Roll, Common, Slum Village, the Clark Sisters, Kierra Sheard, and Melissa Etheridge.

Eminem was not originally on the bill of performers for the night, but it’s no surprise that he joined in on the fun to perform a few songs. Eminem’s surprise set included the live debut of “Houdini,” a performance of “Not Afraid” and “Welcome To Detroit” with Trick Trick, and a special rendition of “Sing For The Moment” with Jelly Roll who stepped in to sing Steven Tyler’s parts on the classic record.

“Timing worked out for us fortunately great because we just dropped a single — that wasn’t always the case when we agreed to jump on board,” Rosenberg said about Eminem’s performance according to Billboard. “We weren’t sure we were going to have new music out. It happened to work out great, and it became an opportunity to perform a new song.”

The “Live From Detroit: The Concert At Michigan Central” was livestreamed on Peacock and will be edited into a one-hour NBC special at 7pm PST/EST on June 9. As for Eminem, he’s weeks away from the release of em>The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace) which Billboard says will arrive on July 5.

You can watch Eminem’s performances of “Houdini” and “Sing For The Moment” in the videos above.

After a brief Sportscast on the media meltdown over Caitlin Clark’s early stint in the WNBA, Steven and Ian have perhaps the least likely conversation in Indiecast history about Ian going to a Sarah McLachlan concert (!) and seeing a fight almost break out (!!). They also talk about Steven’s upcoming book event on June 11 at Book Soup in LA that Ian is hosting.

From there, they talk about the new album from Texas band Good Looks, Lived Here For A While, which is one of 2024’s best indie rock records along with being one of the easiest to root for. They also talk about Brat, the new album by Charli XCX, as well as a larger conversation about how “indie pop” became known as “middle class pop.” Finally, they conclude with a discussion of The Killers’ Hot Fuss, which turns 20 this week.

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the emo band Southtowne Lanes while Steven recommends the Indianapolis band Everything, Now!.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 192 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

A Hot Girl Summer continues. Over the past few weeks, the ladies of rap have been dropping heater after heater. And tonight (June 7), this pattern continues with a remix of Latto‘s “Sunday Service.” Joined by Megan Thee Stallion and Flo Milli, Latto takes the scorching diss track to the next level.

Flo Milli pops in with her brand of pretty girl magic, questioning why someone would bring their man to an event “if you know he thirsty.”

On Meg’s verse, she is well aware that she is the standard, even if her opps try change the rules of the rap game when she reaches unbeatable heights.

“I meet the goalposts, b*tches move it, they say I can’t, then I do it / Your favorite rapper might not like me but his boo gon’ jam my music,” raps Meg.

As the ladies have been known to do in their individual records, they deliver on bars, as well as pure, carefree fun. Eliminating the need for the competition the game tries to put them in, the girls display a sense of collaboration, uplifting each other and bringing each artist to brand new heights.

You can listen to the “Sunday Service” remix above.

The ultimate rule-breaker hasn’t lost her momentum. Last year, RAYERAYE Delivered A Jazzed-Up Rendition Of ‘Escapism’ On Her Debut ‘Saturday Night Live’ Performance released her debut album, My 21st Century Blues, after nearly decade-long battle with her previous record label. Tonight (May 7), she kicked off a new chapter with a new song, “Genesis.”

“Genesis” is a seven-minute long track, on which, RAYE shows she is a master of a multitude of genres. Over the course of the song, she displays her rap chops, over orchestral and instrumentation, and later showcases powerful R&B vocals.

“I see a sad little sinner, in the mirror / The devil works hard, like my liver / I don’t wanna be alive, but I don’t wanna die / A fist full of pills and rivers in my eyes / I’ve nothin’ left to lose, dear God in the sky / Hear my cry, hear my cry / When it’s too dark to see / Let there be light.

RAYE has been working on this song for quite some time. She’s performed versions of the song — which was previously nicknamed “Let There Be Light” by fans — at festival appearances, and earlier this year on Saturday Night Live.

“There is a Nina Simone quote, ‘It is an artist’s duty to reflect the times’. This quote is everything to me and I believe the best way I can try to do this is through my art and my music,” said RAYE in a statement. “There is so much darkness and pain in this world we live in, and I wanted to create something both as deeply personal and as raw as I could find myself to be about my own mind and the world I see around me. The song is a 7-minute piece that I have crafted and scrutinized over the last year and a half, experimenting with different genres and sonic expressions, beneath all the layers and the lyrics, the underlying message is ‘Let There Be Light’. It is a prayer and a plea and a cry for help and I really hope this song will be able to bring some hope, the way this music does for me, to those who need it most.”

You can listen to “Genesis” above.

Omar Apollo is dancing the pain away. Tonight (May 7), the queer heartbreak king has shared “Less Of You,” the latest single from his upcoming sophomore album, God Said No.

On “Less Of You,” Apollo recalls a special encounter while overseas. As days go by, he feels a connection with this person, however, he can slowly feel the other person distancing themselves from him. Apollo handles this hurt in the best way he knows how — by writing a smash.

“I can’t let you go / I see you everywhere / I’m seein’ less of you / I’m still undressing you
Am I depressing you? / Felt like a blessin’, you,” he sings on the song’s chorus.

Over a pulsating euro-influenced beat, Apollo experiments with his sounds, taking his brand of lyrical healing to the next level. According to a press release, the song was partly inspired by his exploration of London’s nightlife.

But while Apollo isn’t afraid to tap into these raw emotions, it certainly won’t be a sad boy summer for him. In July, Apollo is set to embark on the God Said No Tour.

You can listen to “Less Of You” above.

God Said No is out 6/28 via Warner. Find more information here.