Month: July 2024

What better way to celebrate your 10th studio album by making it a double LP? Alternatively, what better time is there to make a double LP than for your 10th studio album? Such is the case for Pond, the Australian psych-rockers who check off both of those boxes with Stung!.

Despite being recorded in founding member Jay Watson’s (AKA Gum) backyard studio with members coming and going to lay down parts, Stung! overflows with a band-in-a-room feel. From start to finish, it feels like the ultimate Pond album: flanger-soaked guitars, propulsive drumming, and enveloping sonic details culminate in a stirring accomplishment of a record.

Following the record’s release in June, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist “Shiny Joe” Ryan sat down with Uproxx to talk about Shania Twain, cheese, and buying too many guitars in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Eat more cheese now.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

Well I suppose I’d like our music to be remembered as an example of a kind of egoless, joyful, creative freedom between friends? But even saying that makes me feel weird because as I think about it, all I want is that when you listen to our music your mind can drift off. Like when you’re washing dishes whilst listening to music. When you wash dishes or vacuum or knit or do something with your hands your mind can wonder and it’s a special time. So take that and apply it to 2050. If we even have dishes to wash or vacuuming to be done in 2050. Maybe we’re all in hyperspace on our way to the mars and the dishes have been sent ahead for us as a form of meditation to help us deal with a new planet??

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Favourite city to perform in is Barcelona!!!! But I’m desperate to perform in Ireland, so all ye Irish promoters, hit us up please!

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

I’m playing with them now tbh. My band mates/best friends have always inspired me. But I get inspiration from new artists all the time and not just musical artists. Nice to be inspired by a whole different medium and what you’ve drawn from that you can apply to your music

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

There have been a few unreal meals and they all hold a special place in my mind. It’s hard to pick one, so I won’t think about it too much. I’ll see which one floats to the top…. I’m going with eating NZ Green lipped mussels that we picked from the underside of Jamie’s dad’s jetty and ate immediately with a white wine sauce and some fresh fish that we caught that day out in the straight between the north and south islands of Aotearoa (Māori name for New Zealand)

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended

Hard to say…. so, what jumps out at me now is Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds at Primavera Porto in Portugal. It was my first time seeing them, I had just started to get into Nick and it was unreal!! I was floored and hugely moved by that performance. Still feeling the effects today from that gig.

What song never fails to make you emotional?

There’s a song called “An Buachaill Caol Dubh” and it’s a lament played on the uilleann pipes by Liam O’Flynn. Uilleann pipes are the Irish bagpipe played basically by sitting down and strapping woodfire bellows to your arm while the drones lay over your lap and the chanter is on your knee. Liam is one of Ireland’s greatest uilleann pipers in my opinion and watching him play this song on DVD is how I learned to play the pipes myself. “An Buachaill Caol Dubh” translates to “The Dark Slender Boy” from Gaelic, so, when you type “The Dark Slender Boy by Liam O’Flynn” into YouTube, get ready for an emotional rollercoaster.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?

@Blindboyboatclub on Instagram! Also check out his podcast!!!

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Fuel Watch. It shows where the cheap fuel is so I can fill up my car. It’s a 97 Ford Explorer.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

I once crashed in a lovely wooden, very open, lovely lit house in Wellington, NZ wayback when Pond were playing a festival there called “Camp A Low Hum”. Crashed there when it was dark and when the sun came up we were surrounded by arcade machines in various states of repair and a lovely cup of tea.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I was pretty young, just out of high school, and I had a big row with my parents. I went over to my friend’s house. They played in a doom band called ‘Cease’ and they were good friends with this other band and friends of ours called ‘Sex Panther’. They used to give people panther paw tattoos (only to the most deserving, of course). Their drummer, Jess, offered me a tattoo of one of these panther paws and I said yes and as I was getting it, still quite emotional from the fight I had just had with my folks, all my friends gathered around me and started chanting “one of us one of us” and I’ll never forget it. That was so beautiful and my first tattoo.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

You don’t need all those guitars. Oh, and buy as many Rhodes and Wirlitzers as possible and flog ’em now for a stupid amount of money haha.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

I can draw pretty well, but I don’t do it so often, which is something I’m trying to change at the moment.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

When I was younger, I would’ve said I’d give it all to their kidney foundation, because I only have one kidney. Worst pain of my life – kidney failure – apart from heartbreak, but now I’m getting older and my last one doesn’t show any signs of quitting, so I guess I’d honestly have to talk to some local community figures and see where the money is needed. It could do a lot of good around here in Perth and there’s heaps of causes, heaps of people in need, so I’d have to research and see where it’s actually needed before I can answer that.

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

Bring it on haha. I’m not worried.

What is your pre-show ritual?

Usually, start listening to a bit of AC/DC or Midnight Oil on the speaker in the green room. But, on the last tour I rediscovered that ‘I see you baby’ song by Groove Armada/ Gramma Funk and that was pretty fun. Basically just trying to get a bit of movement in, stretch out the legs, move the arms, sort of fire up without getting too fired up.

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

Taking my partner to Ireland finally!

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Shania Twain.

What is your biggest fear?

The fear of not trying something because I might fail. And getting taken by a crocodile.

Stung! is available now via Spinning Top Records. Find more information here.

The best part about game shows is getting to see other people lose a lot of money on TV in order to feel better about your own self. Hey, things might not be great, but at least you didn’t lose $5K and a new Honda on syndicated television. So when celebrities are the ones losing money, it only adds more to the drama and suspense.

Celebrity Family Feud, and more importantly, Steve Harvey, have been an important part of game show culture since it first began, and we are well into season 10. So far, this season has been packed with stars, including Megan Thee Stallion, USA Olympians, Meghan Trainor, Bachelor Nation and the folks of The Golden Bachelor. And it’s only the beginning!

Season 10 episode 4 features singer Robin Thicke vs comedian and actor Anthony Anderson, and country singer Walker Hayes vs actress Rachel Bilson. The episode aired Tuesday, July 23rd but luckily for you, there are tons of ways to catch up on Celebrity Family Feud.

You can watch past episodes of Celebrity Family Feud on ABC.com, Hulu or Disney+, in addition to weekly on ABC. Clips and highlights are also uploaded on YouTube.

The rest of the season teases appearances by Daughtry, Papa Roach, Katharine McPhee, Clay Aiken, Flavor Flav and more. Check out how The Golden Bachelor crew did earlier this season…. before their divorce.

The USA men’s basketball team enters the Paris Olympics a perfect 5-0 in their tune-up games in Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi, and London, but even with an unblemished record, they have not looked as dominant as many expected. They needed LeBron James to takeover late against Germany to win on Monday, and last Saturday they needed both late-game heroics from LeBron and some shot luck to escape with a 1-point win over South Sudan.

That performance led to an awful lot of takes about Team USA, including some unfortunate, xenophobic comments from Gilbert Arenas on his podcast in which he made a number of remarks about the South Sudan team and went as far as to say Joel Embiid (who is Cameroonian) was “throwing games for his cousins.” Embiid was asked about Arenas’ comments, and while he said he hasn’t seen them, he noted that if they were as negative as they seemed, they were “disappointing” and “really unfortunate,” citing how negative the world often is right now.

“I’m African first and foremost. I might be playing for Team USA, but I’m Cameroonian first and foremost,” Embiid said. “If it was that negative, it’s just disappointing. Because you see what African basketball has done for us to be in this position to be able to make some sort of impact. Even the position that I’m in, still have a lot of impact where I’m from and the whole continent of Africa and that’s never going to stop. It’s really unfortunate, especially in the world we live in right now so much negativity.”

Arenas’ comments crossed a line, and Embiid made it a point to highlight the positivity of the moment, particularly with the rise in African talent in the world of basketball.

In 2019, Karen O and Danger Mouse linked up for a collaborative album, Lux Prima. Now, as the project turns five years old, the two are celebrating by announcing a reissued edition of the album. Alongside that is a new song, “Super Breath.”

The Lux Prima reissue comes with the new song, along with a cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” the pair recorded previously. It’ll also include a 16-page booklet about “Encounter With Lux Prima,” which a press release describes as “a four-day immersive event that served as a communal listening experience.”

This follows a period of renewed activity from Karen O’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who released the album Cool It Down in 2022 and then spent some time performing live. Uproxx’s Josh Kurp wrote of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Austin City Limits set in 2023, “There are two kinds of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans: those who think ‘Maps’ is their defining song, and those who believe it’s ‘Heads Will Roll.’ As someone who remembers when the group’s self-titled EP came out in the early 2000s, I belong to the former camp. But for my 20-year-old half-brother, who was in attendance at ACL this year, it’s the latter. Both camps were content when Yeah Yeah Yeahs played both songs back to back to close their satisfying set.

Listen to “Super Breath” above and pre-order the Lux Prima reissue here.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Heis is not the direction many expected Rema to go for his second album, frankly because it’s such a sharp turn away from his debut Rave & Roses. The 2022 album was a massive success that brought Rema worldwide recognition and helped to place him at the pinnacle of modern-day afrobeats. It’s also home to “Calm Down,” the highest-charting afrobeats song in Billboard Hot 100 history.

These are the accomplishments that make the dramatic shift in sound that is Heis even more impressive. There’s no joy in playing it safe and with Heis, Rema proves that he has no interest in being conventional. An album like Heis is a risky move, as mixed reviews have proven it to be, but truthfully, it’s just the polarizing jolt that afrobeats needs.

While Rave & Roses is feel-good and bright, promoting good times and soundtracking what feels like a summer party, Heis is sinister, rebellious, and mischievous. It soundtracks all forms of chaos – from the exciting highs of a party to the stressful lows of a fight – to perfection. Think of the most thrilling scene from your favorite action movie; there’s a song on Heis that can replace it and capture the same energy.

Heis opens in an aggressive sprint with “March Am” as he emphatically chants “I dey march am” – a Nigerian Pidgin phrase that essentially means pressing forward and putting your foot on the gas. It closes with waning violin strums before steering into “Azaman,” a lavish account of riches and the pursuit of more. “Benin Boys” recruits fellow Nigerian artist Shallipopi for a tough-talking warning to enemies and a gritty reminder to the industry. “Ozeba,” an early fan-favorite from Heis, is an erratic and fast-paced declaration from Rema that promises to wreak havoc on the game on his way to the top. As one of one afrobeats’ top artists, this approach is necessary for the sake of keeping diversity and continued life in the genre.

What makes Heis so special is how deeply-rooted it is in the African sound and culture. Though the globalization of afrobeats has brought well-deserved attention to the genre, it has also led to its dilution as well. Rema spoke about this in a recent interview on Apple Music. “Everyone is chasing something that the whole world can enjoy,” he said. “I feel like with the success that has come, I feel like we’re listening to the voices of the world too much and we gotta listen to the voices back home to just keep our roots.” He continued, “This project is helping me bring back that essence, bring back that energy, and place a reminder not just for the fans, but for the creators.”

That reminder is necessary because the globalization of afrobeats happened without compromising for the sake of success. The genre in its purest form is good enough, exciting enough, and entertaining enough to reach opposite ends of the world. Afrobeats is at its best when the home continent, its culture, and its natural sounds are at the forefront of the creative process. This approach is also important as the genre becomes more and more of a mainstream entity. It’s up to the artists within afrobeats to preserve the authenticity of the genre as new listeners arrive to explore the sound and learn its values. The lessons learned will stick with these listeners, who may even become the new artists of the next generation. At the very least, a standard will be kept and upheld for any artist that enters the genre. It’s the preferable approach compared to others who said afrobeats has “no substance to it” because artists have “no real-life experiences” while promoting an album that diluted the afrobeats sound in favor of one that catered to the Western appetite.

Rema’s Heis is the talk of afrobeats right now, and it’s for all the best reasons. With “Benin Boys,” “Ozeba,” “Hehehe,” and other tracks leading the way, the intentionality that Rema put forth absolutely paid off. The hope is that other artists in the genre – from top artists like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Asake, Tems, and Ayra Starr to other emerging stars – take the baton from Rema to run off with his message and apply it to their own music. Asake seems to be doing this as he brought British rapper Central Cee to Nigeria for their “Wave” collaboration while Burna, Davido, and Wizkid can showcase this on their upcoming albums. The beauty of afrobeats must be preserved and it’s artists like Rema who will make sure that happens. The genre is perfect as is and so much success has been attained in its natural state. Heis, regardless of what it achieves in the world’s eyes in the short-term, should and will be remembered as one of the most important albums in afrobeats’ current era.

Heis is out now via Mavins Global Holdings Ltd/Jonzing World Entertainment/Interscope Records. Find out more information here.

You probably just stopped replaying Nicolas Cage’s memorable performance as Longlegs in your head, but Neon doesn’t want you to forget about this guy anytime soon, so there’s some more creepy Cage content to startle you once again.

In Longlegs, Nic Cage plays the titular killer who has both a satanic fixation and a knack for bursting out into song. Now, one of those songs can be yours to listen to in the comfort of your own home where hopefully Longlegs can’t find you. Hopefully.

Neon has released a new track titled “Fire Fire Fire, Hiss” which is described as “the last known musical recording by Dale Ferdinand Kobble (later known as Longlegs) before the voices took over.” The gritty rock track features Cage’s mumblings over some psychedelic guitar reminiscent of the movie’s time period. It’s not that surprising, considering Longlegs has his own Lou Reed poster hanging out in his lair.

The song begins with Cage reciting, “Mr. Downstairs at your door, on the radio, in my skull,” a reference to his friend “the man downstairs,” a.k.a. The Devil/Satan/ however you want to interpret it. It’s unclear who else played on the track, though the score from the movie was made by Zilgi, a.k.a. Elvis Perkins, director Osgood Perkins’ brother.

Check out the full song above.

In 2023, en route to their first championship as a franchise, the Denver Nuggets looked like a juggernaut in the playoffs. Their starting lineup was a buzzsaw, mowing down the opposition with their crisp execution and seemingly unflappable resolve, particularly down the stretch of games. Their bench, led by Bruce Brown, was able to tread water in non-Nikola Jokic minutes, which was more than enough to support the dominance of their starting and closing units.

This past postseason, there was something different about the way Denver looked. Their starting lineup, unchanged from the year before, wasn’t dominating in the same way. Jokic, coming off his third MVP season, was still great but wasn’t shooting the ball very well, and Jamal Murray, coming back from injury, struggled to find a consistent rhythm. With their two stars not at their best, the Nuggets were more vulnerable and, ultimately, collapsed in the fourth quarter of Game 7 against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round.

That they were ever even in that position was fairly remarkable to begin with, as they trailed in all five games of the first round against the Lakers, and got blown out of the water in the first two games at home against the Wolves. As Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who left Denver for Orlando this summer in free agency, explained to Draymond Green recently, even the Nuggets were shocked to have made it that far, saying the Lakers should have beaten them because they had “no gas.”

As KCP notes, the Nuggets made an aggressive late season push for the No. 1 seed, as homecourt advantage has meant more in Denver than any other NBA arena. However, coming off a championship run the year before, expending that much effort in March and April left the Nuggets gassed and they just didn’t have their legs for a repeat run. It’s also very funny how quickly and strongly Draymond Green agrees with KCP saying the Lakers should’ve won that series. Alas, the Lakers did not and then went into this offseason and promptly have done…nothing. The Nuggets, meanwhile, have also gotten worse by losing KCP and adding just Dario Saric and Russell Westbrook to the roster.

Although hip-hop as a genre is no stranger to the concept album as a format, there would be little resistance to the assessment that there’s been a bit of a drought of such projects over the past few years. As the industry seeks to game algorithms, chase trends, and otherwise appeal to contracting attention spans and expanding options for occupying that attention, there have been fewer rap albums looking to pushing the envelope, tell a story, or explore a specific theme.

New releases from Blxst, Eminem, Lupe Fiasco, and more may have broken that trend, bringing the rap concept album back in a big way in 2024.

First, let’s define a concept album, to determine just what criteria these projects have met and why there have been so few concept albums in hip-hop over the past few years. While there’s no objective consensus or definition, critics generally accept that a concept album “is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually,” which is usually accomplished through a narrative tying the songs together. For our purposes here, let’s think of something like Kendrick Lamar’s debut album Good Kid, MAAD City, which tells the story of a day in its protagonist’s life in the city of Compton.

A more recent, albeit overlooked, example would be Skyzoo’s The Mind Of A Saint, which recounts the events of the gangster television series Snowfall from the perspective of its lead character, Franklin Saint. A concept album doesn’t always need to tell a complete story, but in general, this is one of the easiest ways to recognize one and a common trait of the albums we’re comparing here. Relatedly, Skyzoo’s last project also exemplifies why it feels like there’s been such a dearth of such projects recently. Indie and underground rappers like Sky (and peers such as Ka, Open Mike Eagle, and Armand Hammer) have generally been the main ones pushing this format, so concept albums usually go overlooked and underrepresented in the mainstream.

Even Googling something like “rap concept albums 2020s” only generates a list 13 albums long… in a four-year span that’s seen hundreds of new albums released (yes, Google kinda sucks now, but it’s saying something that there are so few albums that could easily be recognized as concept albums since the pandemic). Among the modern crop of rappers, there was at one point a wealth of artists crafting projects around the exploration of a singular theme or narrative — Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, and Shabazz Palaces, were all artists who released concept albums I’ve covered here at Uproxx, but lately, there have been fewer and fewer of such projects in favor of 20-plus-track single-paloozas that make great party records or cruising records or “cleaning the house” records.

Which brings us to 2024 and the sudden explosion of albums organized around central narratives, such as Blxst’s debut, I’ll Always Come Find You, Eminem’s The Death Of Slim Shady, and Lupe Fiasco’s Samurai, all released within the last month. With I’ll Always Come Find You, Blxst explores themes of legacy, loyalty, and self-sufficiency through the story of Birdie, a young man who inherits a chauffeur car service when his father dies suddenly, and through the experience finds the life lessons that his patriarch imparted to him reinforced as he encounters fake friends, fair weather flings, and tough choices as he comes of age and accepts his responsibilities. The story is told both through skits that literally depict Birdie’s conversations with various characters, and through the topics of songs like “Too Many Friday Nights,” “Bad Idea,” and “Better Off Friends.”

Likewise, The Death Of Slim Shady relates exactly the tale suggested by its title, as Eminem describes how he came to create the mischievous identity that drove his early success — and how getting lost in it nearly cost him everything. Over the course of the album (so much so that he told fans how important it is to listen in order), Eminem examines the effects his alter ego has had on his life, wrestling with Slim directly on “Guilty Conscience 2,” and reflecting on darker potential outcomes on album closer “Somebody Save Me.” Of course, some fans have determined that the album works just as well in reverse order, ending with the demise of Eminem himself as Shady triumphs, while others perceive a cyclical nature to the battle between the two, with the album’s outro leading into its intro on repeat listens.

Then there’s Lupe Fiasco’s Samurai, which might have the most bugged-out theme of all. Described by Lupe as a tribute to Amy Winehouse, the album expands on a vignette from the documentary chronicling the late soul singer’s life. In a phone call with producer Salaam Remi, Winehouse shares an ambition for battle rap, metaphorically comparing the skill to the martial arts practiced by samurai warriors. Lupe turns the metaphor literal (metaphorically speaking), imagining an alternate history for Winehouse as exactly that: A battle-rapping samurai who manages to face down her demons rather than being consumed by them.

What makes this mini-explosion of concept albums notable is not just their proximity to one another, all dropping in the span of a few weeks, but that they are also coming from some of the biggest names in rap. Blxst is an exciting newcomer with plenty of appeal for younger audiences, while Lupe Fiasco is a respected veteran still closely tied to contemporaries like Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar. Eminem, of course, is the biggest name in rap (especially for certain audiences) and his album has topped the Billboard 200 in a year in which the biggest hit so far is an aggressive battle rap aimed at the most prolific hitmaker of the past decade. And all that’s before you add in under-the-radar contributions like Heems’ Lafandar, Kyle’s Smyle Again, and Vince Staples’ Dark Times.

That these albums are seeing such heights of success opens the way for more rappers to get deep on future projects, expanding the boundaries of what hip-hop can and should be. While there’s plenty of room for party music and battle rap, there should always be a space for hip-hop’s high-art aspirations, too. And in 2024, that space has not only grown, it’s proving to be very fertile.

Grieving in the technology age is uncharted territory.

I’ll take you back to Saturday, June 9, 2012. At 8:20 a.m., my 36-year-old husband was pronounced dead at a hospital just outside Washington, D.C.

By 9:20 a.m., my cellphone would not stop ringing or text-alerting me long enough for me to make the necessary calls that I needed to make: people like immediate family, primary-care doctors to discuss death certificates and autopsies, funeral homes to discuss picking him up, and so on. Real things, important things, time-sensitive, urgent things.

At 9:47 a.m., while speaking to a police officer (because yes, when your spouse dies, you must be questioned by the police immediately), one call did make it through. I didn’t recognize the number. But in those moments, I knew I should break my normal rule and answer all calls. “He’s dead??? Oh my God. Who’s with you? Are you OK? Why am I reading this on Facebook? Taya, what the heck is going on?”

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Facebook? I was confused. I hadn’t been on Facebook since the day before, so I certainly hadn’t taken the time in the last 90 minutes to peek at the site.

“I’ll call you back”, I screamed and hung up. I called my best friend and asked her to search for anything someone might have written and to contact them immediately and demand they delete it. I still hadn’t spoken to his best friend, or his godsister, or our godchild’s parents, or a million other people! Why would someone post it to Facebook SO FAST?

While I can in no way speak for the entire planet, I certainly feel qualified to propose some suggestions — or, dare I say, rules — for social media grieving.

How many RIPs have you seen floating through your social media stream over the last month? Probably a few. Death is a fate that we will each meet at some point. The Information Age has changed the ways in which we live and communicate daily, yet there are still large voids in universally accepted norms.

This next statement is something that is impossible to understand unless you’ve been through it:

There is a hierarchy of grief.

Yes, a hierarchy. It’s something people either don’t understand or understand but don’t want to think or talk about — yet we must.

There is a hierarchy of grief.

Hierarchy is defined as:

1. a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority, and
2. an arrangement or classification of things according to relative importance or inclusiveness.

What does this mean as it relates to grief? Let me explain. When someone dies — whether suddenly or after a prolonged illness, via natural causes or an unnatural fate, a young person in their prime or an elderly person with more memories behind them than ahead — there is one universal truth : The ripples of people who are affected is vast and, at times, largely unknown to all other parties.

A death is always a gut punch with varying degrees of force and a reminder of our own mortality. Most people are moved to express their love for the deceased by showing their support to the family and friends left behind.

In the days before social media, these expressions came in the form of phone calls, voicemail messages, and floral deliveries.

If you were lucky enough to be in close proximity to the family of the newly deceased, there were visits that came wrapped with hugs and tears, and deliveries of food and beverages to feed all the weary souls.

Insert social media. All of those courtesies still occur, but there is a new layer of grief expression — the online tribute in the form of Facebook posts, Instagram photo collages, and short tweets.

What’s the problem with that? Shouldn’t people be allowed to express their love, care, concern, support, and prayers for the soul of the recently deceased and for their family?

Yes.

And no.

Why? Because there are no established “rules,” and people have adopted their own. This isn’t breaking news, and you’re not trying to scoop TMZ. Listen, I know you’re hurt. Guess what? Me too. I know you’re shocked. Guess what? Me too. Your social media is an extension of who you are. I get it. You “need” to express your pain, acknowledge your relationship with the deceased, and pray for the family.

Yes.

However…

Please give us a minute.

We are shocked.

We are heartbroken.

Give the immediate family or circle a little time to handle the immediate and time-sensitive “business” related to death. In the minutes and early hours after someone passes away, social media is most likely the last thing on their minds. And even if it does cross their mind, my earlier statement comes into play here.

There is a hierarchy of grief.

Please pause and consider your role and relationship to the newly deceased. Remember, hierarchy refers to your status and your relative importance to the deceased. I caution you to wait and then wait a little longer before posting anything. This may seem trivial, silly, and not worth talking about, but I promise you it isn’t.

If the person is married, let the spouse post first.

If the person is “young” and single, let the partner, parents, or siblings post first.

If the person is “old” and single, let the children post first.

If you can’t identify the family/inner circle of the person, you probably shouldn’t be posting at all.

Do you get where I’m going with this?

In theory, we should never compare grief levels, cast the grief-stricken survivors into roles, or use words like status and importance. But maybe we need to at this moment (and for the next few weeks and months).

The “RIP” posts started hitting my timeline about an hour after my husband’s death, and I certainly didn’t start them. This created a sense of confusion, fear, anxiety, panic, dread, and shock for the people who knew me, too. What’s wrong? Who are we praying for? Did something happen? Did someone pass? Why are there RIPs on your wall and I can’t reach you? Call me please! What’s going on?

That’s a small sample of messages on my voicemail and text inbox. I had to take a minute in the midst of it all to ask a friend to post a status to my Facebook page on my behalf.

Your love and expressions of support are appreciated and needed, but they can also be ill-timed and create unintended additional stress.

The person is no less dead and your sympathy no less heartfelt if your post, photo, or tweet is delayed by a few hours. Honestly, the first couple of hours are shocking, and many things are a blur. Most bereaved people will be able to truly appreciate your love, concern, prayers, and gestures after the first 24 hours.

I’ve learned this from the inside — twice within the last four years. And I assure you that if we each adopted a little patience and restraint in this area, we would help those who are in the darkest hours of their lives by not adding an unnecessary layer of stress.

A few extra hours could make all the difference.

This article originally appeared on 05.07.19

Conan O’Brien might not seem like the jealous type, but he is also somewhat of a chaotic wildcard, so you never know what you’ll get with him.

In the latest episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, the comedian was joined by Lisa Kudrow, whom he had dated from 1988 to 1993. Again, you never know what you’re gonna get with this guy!

Even though the exes remain friends, O’Brien admitted that at one point during their relationship, he was jealous of Kudrow’s Friends costar, Matthew Perry.

“You started doing that show and you called me up, and you were raving about Matthew and you were saying, ‘He’s so funny,’ and there was part of me that was jealous,” O’Brien told Kudrow. At first, O’Brien shrugged it off. “Like, I was, ‘Okay. I make you laugh pretty hard.’ And you were like, ‘No, you don’t understand. This guy’s really [funny].’” This is when his ego took a hit.

He added, “There was part of me that was like [jealous],” he said, but then admitted that once he saw Perry, he understood just how funny he was. “And then I was watching him and going, ‘Yep.’” Kudrow didn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings, so she quickly confirmed that O’Brien is also “one of the funniest people I know,” but the pain was still there.

The two had been chatting about Friends , and Kudrow admitted that she had been watching more and more since Perry died last fall. “After Matthew died, I could start watching the show again because it wasn’t about me. It had to do with him for some reason.”

She admitted that, much like the rest of the world, she often gets sucked into Friends marathons. “There are marathons on, and I have spent, at times, since he died, all day long watching the show. Everyone is phenomenally hilarious to me,” she added. Hopefully that didn’t sting O’Brien too much. His episodes of The Simpsons are funny, too! That counts for something.

(Via EW)