Year: 2024

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week, we got new music from Hovvdy, Nation Of Language, Spencer Tweedy, and more.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Girl Scout – Headache

While the music of Girl Scout is relatively tame indie rock, the sentiments within are far more caustic. Vocalist Emma Jansson describes the Swedes’ third EP as “AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!” in a press release. Like a migraine that intensifies over the course of a grueling workday, the appropriately titled Headache reckons with the feelings that bubble up until they can barely be contained.

Hovvdy – “Bubba (Julie’s Version)”

Hovvdy’s self-titled double album is a shoe-in for one of the best indie rock records of the year. Right now, they’re on a victory lap, on the cusp of a headlining tour and an EP that reimagines some of that record’s standout tracks called Live At Julie’s. Ahead of its release later this month, the Texas duo have shared “Bubba (Julie’s Version),” a disarming iteration that augments the original’s unvarnished tenderness.

Man/Woman/Chainsaw – Eazy Peazy

Man/Woman/Chainsaw sound like veterans of their scene, but they’re a fresh group of 19- and 20-year-olds that have just arrived with their debut EP, Eazy Peazy. Shifting between lead vocalists and stylistic milieus on the change of a dime, these five songs glow with the self-assuredness of a legacy band. “Ode to Clio” sounds like a Sonic Unleashed song, replete with jubilant violin, but rendered in post-punk. “Maegan” bursts with a tempest of atonal noise in its second half, bringing new meaning to the phrase “quiet before the storm.” Eazy Peazy, despite its brevity, hits with colossal impact.

Claire Rousay – The Bloody Lady

On this year’s Sentiment, electronic auteur Claire Rousay expanded her aural blueprint to lyrical, melodic dimensions. She follows up that record with the atmospheric, ambient The Bloody Lady, a score for Viktor Kubal’s 1980 film of the same name. It’s a record that dials back the more conventional song structures of Sentiment in lieu of meandering passages centered on exploration rather than endpoint. Catering to her strengths as a composer, The Bloody Lady is a gorgeous film soundtrack that also stands as a work of its own merits.

Spencer Tweedy – “Thinking Will Kill You”

Spencer Tweedy is known for being one of indie rock’s go-to drummers, playing with groups like Waxahatchee and Wilco, his dad Jeff’s band. However, “Thinking Will Kill You,” his latest solo single, is drumless. Composed of acoustic guitars, bass, light piano, and supplementary organ, “Thinking Will Kill You” proves Tweedy’s mettle away from the kit.

Georgia Maq – “Tropical Lush Ice”

Last year, the beloved Australian indie rock trio Camp Cope broke up. But vocalist-guitarist Georgia Maq has returned with a new one-off single under her own name. “Tropical Lush Ice,” in Maq’s words, is a paean to “vaping and being a stupid girl.” Mixed by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist Nick Zinner and featuring a gorgeous violin performance from PJ Cartwright, “Tropical Lush Ice” hints at a softer, sparser side of Maq’s artistry. Let’s hope we get to hear more soon.

Nation Of Language – “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”

It’s November, so you know what that means. It’s socially acceptable to release Christmas music now. New-wave trio Nation Of Language seem to know that, too. Their take on Darlene Love’s classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” strips away the ‘80s pop panache of NoL’s typical fare for something more toned down. Distant sleigh bells and synth pads dot the sonic landscape like crystalline snowflakes, serving a fittingly wintry backdrop to Ian Richard Devaney’s soothing vocals.

The Body – The Crying Out Of Things

The Crying Out Of Things, the ninth studio album from experimental metal (or should I say experimetal) duo The Body, opens with roiling, rumbling toms and a distant spoken-word verse. “I don’t have love / I don’t know love / I don’t have hope / I can’t know love,” a muted voice intones, barely intelligible. When everything opens up, vocalist-guitarist Chip King’s howls echo that cryptic despair, and percussionist-gearhead Lee Buford’s drums are as cavernous as the void alluded to in the beginning. Throughout its remaining eight songs, The Body dive headfirst into that void, documenting their discoveries along the way. The Crying Out Of Things acknowledges that, while it may be tempting to push darkness away, it will still linger at the periphery. You may as well confront it.

In the wake of a controversy over whether he really counts as hip-hop or not, Tommy Richman will apparently keep plugging away at promoting his debut album, Coyote, with a full slate of 2025 tour dates. The “Million Dollar Baby” singer went on a mini-tour ahead of the album’s release, but now that it’s out, it looks like he’s garnered enough support to make a full 27-stop tour possible. The Coyote tour begins in February at The Showbox in Seattle, Washington, and will run through April 1st in Saint Paul, Minnesota, before hopping the pond for a handful of dates in Europe.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, November 15 at 10 AM local time, while pre-sales will kick off tomorrow (Wednesday), November 13 at 10 AM local. You can find more information here. You can see the full tour dates below.

Tommy Richman 2025 Tour Dates: Coyote

02/19 —— Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
02/20 —— Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
02/22 —— San Francisco, CA @ August Hall
02/24 —— Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre
02/27 —— San Diego, CA House of Blues
02/28 —— Mesa, AZ @ Nile Theatre
03/02 —— Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre
03/05 —— Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room & Garage
03/07 —— Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall – Downstairs
03/08 —— Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
03/11 —— Orlando, FL @ The Plaza Live
03/12 —— Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
03/14 —— Charlotte, NC @ The Underground
03/15 —— Atlanta, GA @ The Loft Theater
03/18 —— Washington, DC @ Howard Theatre
03/21 —— Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club – Music Hall
03/22 —— Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
03/24 —— New York, NY @ Webster Hall – Grand Ballroom
03/27 —— Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
03/28 —— Detroit, MI @ Shelter
03/29 —— Chicago, IL @ Avondale Music Hall
04/01 —— Saint Paul, MN @ Amsterdam Bar & Hall
04/29 —— Berlin, DE @ Holzmarkt – Säälchen
05/01 —— Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg Old Room
05/02 —— Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode, BE @ Botanique – Orangerie
05/03 —— Paris, FR @ Maroquinerie
05/05 —— London, UK @ KOKO

The wait for Apple TV+‘s Severance has not been smooth for those who are eager to find out exactly what will be in store for Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro). And it’s no wonder why curiosity prevails: the first season ended with three Innies taking a forbidden voyage into the Outie world, and Milchick’s (Tramell Tillman) tackle left an audience hanging on how “work-life balance” would continue.

During that gap, the tech giant’s streaming service has been growing its sci-fi/thriller supply, but for now, let’s piece together clues on what to expect from Severance second season.

Plot

Never before have red herrings been more appropriate (and dare I say acceptable) than with Severance. Were the core four going to remain in the same Lumon department after communicating the reality of severance to the Outie world? Regardless of whether you or I were hoping that would be the case, Apple TV+ did encourage devotees to envision Mark and Helly in the same room with a clip that shows them together and reacting to Gwendoline Christie’s foreboding character declaring that they “should have left.”

Yet a new teaser trailer, which arrives with a “[t]hings look a little different around Lumon” warning, builds upon other previous suggestions of Mark glitching and running around with welcome-back balloons, which are actually supplied by Milchick, who isn’t dancing anymore but is still clearly in control of the situation and the control room.

That teaser trailer reveals that Mark takes off running through Lumon’s maze of corridors only to discover that he does not recognize his three cubicle-mates (one of whom is now portrayed by Alia Shawkat), and this sliver of a synopsis surfaced: “Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.”

Now that he’s back at Lumon, Mark must figure out if his “dead” wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachmen), is still alive as Ms. Casey after it sure looked like she was being led somewhere worse than the break room. Additionally, Mark’s budding romance with Innie Helly has now turned into a troublesome love triangle, since Innie Mark didn’t realize that he was still married. As a result, Ben Stiller has suggested that the idea of leaving severance is now more complicated. To be fair, though, leaving severance was probably never an option after Mark’s learned of Petey’s (Yul Vasquez) suspicious death after departing.

Ideally, the audience will receive some concrete answers as a reward for waiting nearly three years for a second season, but is it possible that the show will carry on for a third season? Severance writer and co-executive producer Mohamad El Masri recently told Indiewire that Stiller and series creator Dan Erickson have “mapped out” the full series run, and it sounds like third-season plans (and perhaps more) do exist:

“There was always a thinking ahead to future seasons. Even in Season 2, we were talking about, what is the end game and how does this show end? A lot of work was talking about that. I think there’s a natural overlap that happens, especially with the second season of a show, that you’ve got to keep [the momentum] going. People are interested, people are watching, and now with Season 2, you really have to sort of think about, not just what is Season 2 going to deliver in a satisfying way, but how does this set up Season 3 and beyond?”

Stiller, for his part, admitted to Variety that he’s in unfamiliar territory with delivering a second TV season because “[e]verything I’ve done has gotten canceled back in the day.” He added that he understands why viewers re “frustrated” by the wait. That’s why — and Stiller has been through social media hell with this ongoing thread revealing countless people telling him to “work faster” — he and Erickson aimed to truly deliver a followup that would be worth the wait. Stiller also promises that they’ve painstakingly arrived “where the characters really start to have a life and the actors understand the characters so well, and it grows into something more.”

Cast

Lumon will introduce a new crop of workers, although they might not be new to severance. As Deadline reported, characters portrayed by Gwendoline Christie and Alia Shawkat, Stefano Carannante, Robby Benson, Merritt Wever, John Noble, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson will report to the office.

Returning cast members will include Dichen Lachman (although we do not know whether she will be aware of being Mark’s wife, Gemma, or whether she will appear in the office solely as wellness counselor Ms. Casey). Tramell Tillman, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, Michael Chernus, and Jen Tullock are expected to return to some degree, and of course, we should expect to see the main quartet — Adam Scott, John Turturro, Britt Lower, and Zach Cherry — who might or might not be working together again.

Release Date

January 17, 2025 will see the debut of a 10-episode second season.

Trailer

The aforementioned teaser trailer for your viewing confusion:

And there’s never a wrong time to revisit Milchick’s dancing:

The 2025 nominees for the Songwriters Hall of Fame have been announced, and hip-hop is well represented thanks to nominations for Eminem and NWA. Five members of the latter are specifically up for induction: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella. Meanwhile, Janet Jackson is also included in the list of 26 nominees, as well as three members of The Doobie Brothers (Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, and Patrick Simmons), Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, and Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. Of the 26 nominees, only six will be inducted into the Hall, which currently includes Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and more.

According to Billboard, the list of nominees includes three Grammy winners: producers Dr. Dre, Narada Michael Walden, and Walter Afanasieff. Meanwhile, Crow, Eminem, Jackson, George Clinton, Mike Love, Steve Winwood, the Doobies, and NWA are all members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

A songwriter with a catalog of notable songs qualifies for induction 20 years after their first significant commercial release of a song. Eligible voting members have until midnight, December 22, to turn in their ballots. Each ballot can name up to three nominees in each of the two categories: Songwriters and Performing Songwriters. Billboard provided a full list, which you can see below:

Songwriters

Walter Afanasieff – “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Hero,” “License to Kill,” “Love Will Survive,” “One Sweet Day”

Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan – “Secret Agent Man,” “Eve Of Destruction,” “Where Were You When I Needed You,” “You Baby,” “Can I Get to Know You”

Mike Chapman – “The Best,” “Love Is a Battlefield,” “Ballroom Blitz,” “Stumblin’ In,” “Kiss You All Over”

Sonny Curtis – “Love Is All Around (Theme from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”),” “I Fought the Law,” “Walk Right Back,” “More Than I Can Say,” “I’m No Stranger to the Rain”

Tom Douglas – “The House That Built Me,” “Little Rock,” “I Run to You,” “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” “Love Me Anyway”

Franne Golde – “Dreaming of You,” “Nightshift,” “Don’t Look Any Further,” “Don’t You Want Me,” “Stickwitu”

Ashley Gorley – “I Had Some Help,” “Last Night,” “You Should Probably Leave,” “Play It Again,” “You’re Gonna Miss This”

Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins – “Say My Name,” “The Boy Is Mine,” “You Rock My World,” “Déjà vu,” “Telephone”

Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter – “One Tin Soldier (Theme from “Billy Jack”),” “Don’t Pull Your Love,” “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” “It Only Takes a Minute,” “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet In L.A.)”

Tony Macaulay – “Baby Now That I’ve Found You,” “Build Me Up Buttercup,” “Don’t Give Up On Us,” “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All,” “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)”

Roger Nichols – “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” “Out in the Country,” “Times of Your Life”

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham – “I’m Your Puppet,” “Cry Like a Baby,” “A Woman Left Lonely,” “Out of Left Field,” “It Tears Me Up”

Narada Michael Walden – “How Will I Know,” “Freeway of Love,” “You’re a Friend of Mine,” “Baby Come to Me,” “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?”

Performing Songwriters

Bryan Adams – “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” “Heaven,” “All for Love,” “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?,” “Summer of ‘69”

George Alan O’Dowd p/k/a Boy George – “Karma Chameleon,” “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” “Time (Clock Of The Heart), “Love Is Love,” “Miss Me Blind”

George Clinton – “Atomic Dog,” “Flash Light,” “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” “I’d Rather Be With You,” “Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)”

Sheryl Crow – “All I Wanna Do,” “Soak Up The Sun,” “If It Makes You Happy,” “A Change Would Do You Good,” “Everyday Is a Winding Road”

Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald and Patrick Simmons p/k/a Doobie Brothers – “Listen to the Music,” “Takin’ It to the Streets,” “Black Water,” “What a Fool Believes,” “Long Train Runnin’”

Marshall Mathers p/k/a Eminem – “Lose Yourself,” “Stan,” “Mockingbird,” “Houdini,” “Rap God”

David Gates – “Everything I Own,” “Make It With You,” “Baby I’m-A Want You,” “The Guitar Man,” “If”

Janet Jackson – “Black Cat,” “Together Again,” “Again,” “Got ‘til It’s Gone,” “Rhythm Nation”

Tommy James – “Mony Mony,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” “Sweet Cherry Wine,” “Tighter, Tighter”

Mike Love – “California Girls,” “Good Vibrations,” “The Warmth of the Sun,” “I Get Around,” “Fun, Fun, Fun”

Alanis Morissette – “You Oughta Know,” “Ironic,” “Hand in My Pocket,” “Thank U,” “Uninvited”

Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella p/k/a N.W.A – “Express Yourself,” “Dopeman,” “Fu*k Tha Police,” “Gangsta Gangsta,” “Straight Outta Compton”

Steve Winwood – “Higher Love,” “Gimme Some Lovin’,” “I’m a Man,” “Valerie,” “Roll With It”

High Water Festival is returning to South Carolina. The 2025 event, which will take place at North Charleston’s Riverfront Park from April 26 to 27, 2025, is led by headliners Arcade Fire and Lord Huron. Other acts include Mt. Joy, Counting Crows, The Backseat Lovers, Trampled By Turtles, Amos Lee, Flipturn, Julien Baker & Torres, Waxahatchee, Joy Oladokun, and The War & Treaty.

Beyond the music, High Water Festival also describes itself as “a haven for foodies, showcasing the tastiest flavors around,” including food and drinks from local and regional eateries.

Tickets for High Water Festival 2025 are available for purchase beginning Thursday, November 14, at noon ET, and includes general admission, GA+, Stono Stage bleacher ticket VIP, and the platinum package. You can find more information, including how to get the passcode for the pre-sale, here.

You can check out the full lineup and poster for High Water Festival 2025 below.

High Water Festival Saturday (April 26) Lineup

Lord Huron
Mt. Joy
The Backseat Lovers
Amos Lee
Julien Baker & Torres
Joy Oladokun
Medium Build
Evan Honer
Darren Kiely
Easy Honey

High Water Festival Sunday (April 27) Lineup

Arcade Fire
Counting Crows
Trampled by Turtles
Flipturn
Waxahatchee
Wild Rivers
The War and Treaty
Gigi Perez
Goldie Boutilier
Ethan Tasch

High Water Festival 2025 Poster

The annual Stand Up For Heroes charity event has been running since 2007, and Bruce Springsteen has been a regular presence at the shows. Sure enough, he turned up at yesterday’s (November 11) event, where he played an acoustic four-song set featuring “The Power Of Prayer,” “Land Of Hope And Dreams,” “Dancing In The Dark,” and “Long Walk Home.”

Given the comedic nature of the event, Springsteen typically regales the crowd with jokes between songs, and this year, he busted out a couple of sex jokes.

One was about a couple at a doctor’s office:

“Guy and his girl go to see the doctor, and the doctor says, ‘Congratulations, she’s pregnant.’ Guy gets a moment alone with the doctor, he says, ‘Doctor, that’s impossible. I am religious about safe practicing safe sex. I always use protection, never had a rip or a tear,’ you know. Doctor says, ‘Son, son, let me tell you a story.’

‘There’s a hunter. The hunter carries his gun everywhere he goes. One day, he gets up and decides to take his umbrella instead of his gun. On that particular day, a lion leaps out of the bush and stands right in front of him. By instinct, he raises the umbrella. It goes, ‘Bang!’ Lion falls over dead.’

Guy says, ‘Doc, Doc, that’s impossible. Some other guy must have shot the lion.’”

Springsteen’s other joke was about a woman bringing her husband to a strip club, so check out videos of both jokes below.

It’s “Sexiest Man Alive” season for People, and Benny Blanco has been part of the rollout, as he got a featured article and photoshoot of his own. This drew a loving reaction from girlfriend Selena Gomez.

Sharing one of the photos on her Instagram Story, Gomez wrote (as Billboard notes), “Not only do you love me unconditionally.. You always get me my Taco Bell Mexican pizza.” In a second post, she tagged Blanco and shared a poem from William C. Hannan, which reads, “I still haven’t figured out how to sit across from you / And not be madly in love with everything you do.”

For People, Blanco spoke about times he cherishes with Gomez, saying, “I’m a real morning person. It’s my favorite time to spend with Sel, because we both wake up really early. It’s like our moment before the rest of the world wakes up. I have a true best friend that I get to do everything in the world with, and every day is the best day of my life.”

He also discussed their dating life, saying, “I go all out for every date. We go all out for each other. One time Sel was like, ‘Oh, I want to take you on a date.’ We drove somewhere and she had rented out a whole botanical garden for me. She also likes something so simple. For Valentine’s Day, I got her Taco Bell, I made her movie-theater nachos, I found her favorite pickles from Texas and I deep-fried them for her. Then [I had] all her candies and Hot Cheetos. It doesn’t mean spending your entire bank account. The No. 1 thing you need to do on a date is just listen to what the person’s saying. Don’t talk about yourself the whole time. No one cares.”

Over the summer, SNL cast member Bowen Yang was asked to name the “worst SNL host behavior” he’s seen during his time on the show. “This man who — this person, this host — made multiple cast members cry on Wednesday before the table read because he hated the ideas,” he said, adding that he was “terrible.”

Yang didn’t name names, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, fellow cast member Chloe Fineman did.

“OK, I just saw some news article about Elon Musk being like butt-hurt over SNL and his impression, but I’m like you’re clearly watching the show, like what are you talking about?” she said in a since-deleted TikTok video. “And I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna come out and say at long last that I’m the cast member that he made cry. And he’s the host that made someone cry.”

Fineman initially wasn’t going to say anything, “but I’m like, no, if you’re gonna go on your platform [X] and be rude, guess what? You made I, Chloe Fineman burst into tears because I stayed up late writing a sketch. I was so excited, I came in, I asked if you had any questions and you stared at me like you were firing me from Tesla and were like, ‘It’s not funny.’” She continued:

“I waited for you to be like, ‘Ha ha, jk.’ No, then you started pawing through my script, like flipping each page, being, like, ‘I didn’t laugh once, not one time.’” Despite the absence of laughs, the sketch made it on the Musk-fronted show, “and it was fine,” she added. “I actually had a really good time and I thought you were really funny in it. But, you know. Have a little manners here… sir.”

Elon wasn’t being a jerk. He was, uh, going method as Wario.

Coldplay is currently making its way through Australia and New Zealand on the Music Of The Spheres tour. The band generated a bit of attention for their November 10 performance, when they unexpectedly busted out a brief rendition of Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps,” with Chris Martin calling it his favorite of Scott’s songs (here’s a video).

The moment made its way back to Scott, who seems to have enjoyed it: He shared the clip and wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “This got it. [goat emoji].”

Scott has long had reverence for the band, going as far as to reference Coldplay on multiple songs. On 2016’s “Way Back,” he says, “Hopped in the Bronco, skrrt off like OJ / Flew with that sound, n****, got that Coldplay.” He again nodded to the band on last year’s “Til Further Notice”, saying, “I been bumpin’ more Coldplay, the world cold as sh*t / I know one thing ’bout the old one, can have more fun with it.”

In other Music Of The Spheres tour news, Martin recently had a bit of an on-stage gaffe, when he fell into a hole in the stage. He played it off, saying, “That’s, uh, not planned. Thank you for catching me, so much, thank you guys. Holy sh*t, that’s going to be a YouTube moment.”

In less than a year’s timespan, Doja Cat fans were treated to two albums (Scarlet and Scarlet 2 Claude). Despite the plethora of music, the “Paint The Town Red” rapper was notable missing from the 2025 Grammy Awards’ nomination list.

But that hasn’t put a damper in Doja Cat’s spirits. In fact, she has already begun to tease new music on X (formerly Twitter). Yesterday (November 11) that streak continued, this time with a collection of unreleased song titles.

In a screenshot captured by Pop Crave (viewable here), Doja Cat listed thirteen records; “Cards,” “Break My Heart,” “Take Me Dancing,” “Anything,” “Acts Of Service,” “Ain’t News,” “Make It Up,” “Turn The Lights On,” “Slow Burn,” “Wood Holly,” “Did I Lie,” “Crack,” and “Appreciation.”

It is unclear if these records are Scarlet leftovers, previously vaulted tracks, or the complete tracklist for her next body of work. However, did confirm that tracks were a cohesive collection. “Songs are in no particular order,” she wrote. “Starred my favorites.”

Those lucky tracks include the songs “Cards,” “Acts Of Service,” “Make It Up,” “Did I Lie,” and “Crack.” Of which, “Crack” appears to be at the top of Doja’s like list as it was playing at the time of Doja’s screenshot.

If past actions serve as a barometer, Doja Cat’s next album may not drop until mid 2025. As far back as March 2023, Doja Cat began sharing breadcrumbs about Scarlet, which wasn’t officially released until September 2023.