Category: News

Dua Lipa‘s third album remains a mystery. We know the first single is “Houdini” and… that’s about it. There’s no release date or even a title. But on Monday’s episode of The Tonight Show, the “Dance The Night” singer did at least reveal the album’s genre (it ain’t disco).

“I’m going for more of, like, psychedelic-pop vibe,” Lipa told host Jimmy Fallon. “I’m still trying to find the language to talk about the album without talking about the album.”

She continued, “With this new record, I made it with my friends Kevin Parker [of Tame Impala], Tobias Jesso Jr., Danny Harle, and Caroline Ailin, and it was kind of made like a band. Well, for the most part. Most of the songs we did together. And I just wanted to have that kind of really organic element that I had while I was on tour. Because when I was touring for a whole year, I just started to fall in love with the songs and the live element, and I was like, ‘I just want to bring all of that into this new record.’ So I’m very excited.”

You can watch Lipa’s Tonight Show interview above.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most successful video games ever: It’s No. 2 on the list of all-time best selling games, edged out only by the ubiquitous Minecraft. So, yesterday’s reveal of the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer was a huge deal. As of this post, the video has been viewed over 62 million times in the 13 hours since it was uploaded, and that number’s probably a lot higher by the time you read this. Now that the dust has started to settle, fans might be wondering about the music used in the trailer.

What’s the song in the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer?

For the first look at GTA 6 (which is set for release in 2025), Rockstar Games decided to go with a true rockstar, using Tom Petty’s “Love Is A Long Road,” from 1989’s Full Moon Fever, Petty’s iconic first solo album.

It’s a relatively obscure pick: The song was never released as a single. When Uproxx’s Steven Hyden ranked Petty’s 100 best songs, “Love Is A Long Road” made the list, but it wasn’t very high up. Hyden noted, though, “This is a point about Full Moon Fever I’m going to end up belaboring by the end of this list but so be it: ‘Love Is A Long Road’ was not a single. On pretty much on any other Tom Petty album, it would have been the first single. But Full Moon Fever was the ’90s Chicago Bulls of Tom Petty albums, so ‘Love Is A Long Road’ had to ride the bench.”

Petty’s song is a perfect fit for the GTA 6 trailer, and not just because it’s a great tune: Petty is a native Floridian, and the new game is set in the fictional Vice City, which is inspired by Florida.

Tom Petty Easter egg in the GTA 6 trailer

Meanwhile, some eagle-eyed fans noticed a Petty Easter egg in the trailer: At one point in the video, on a door is a sticker that reads “Petty Forever,” with a background that uses the distinct color scheme from the Full Moon Fever album cover art.

Check out the GTA 6 trailer below.

Under The Big Sky Music Festival, outdoor extravaganza will return for the fifth year in 2024. Music festival season has an abundance of programming for hip-hop, rock, pop, R&B, and jazz fans. But this multi-day event is solely for country lovers. Yesterday (December 4), the organizer announced Miranda Lambert as its 2024 headliner. Also, Billy Strings and Turnpike Troubadours are set to return to the multiple-purpose event between July 12 and 14, 2024.

A few dozen miles outside the Canadian border, in Whitefish, Montana, recording artists in Americana, Outlaw country, rock, indie-folk, and bluegrass will descend onto the Big Mountain Ranch grounds. Other notable performers scheduled to perform at the 2024 Under The Big Sky Music Festival include City and Colour, Mt. Joy, Tanya Tucker, Brothers Osborne, Sierra Ferrell, The Revivalists, Paul Cauthen, and Charles Wesley Godwin.

In addition to the musical wing of the festival, attendees can enjoy rodeo showups and other roundups. Also, as a bonus, Under The Big Sky’s partnership with Save Farmland will aid in the protection and promotion of small farms in Montana via the proceeds raised by on-site merchandise sales across the weekend.

Ticket sales will begin on December 8 at noon MT. Under The Big Sky Music Festival is open for all ages (children under six are granted free entry). Find more information here.

Pop-jazz fusion singer Laufey has won over music lover’s hearts with her songs “From The Start,” “Christmas Dreaming,” and the Beabadoobee collaboration “A Night To Remember.” Last week, Laufey teased that she had something up her sleeve for fans. Yesterday (December 4), she shared that she would travel worldwide to share her sophomore album, Bewitched, with supporters across the United States and the United Kingdom.

The 41-date commitment includes appearances at several music festivals, including Ottawa and Montreal International Jazz festivals. In February 2024, Laufey will kick off the massive run with a string of sold-out performances in Dublin, Ireland. Her Bewitched: The Goddess Tour will make stops in all major markets from New York City and London to Toronto. View the full tour schedule below. So far, Laufey has not announced any supporting acts joining her on the road. However, she will perform alongside the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

The presale for Laufey’s Bewitched: The Goddess Tour starts on December 6 at 10 a.m. local time. The general sale will begin on December 8 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information here.

Bewitched: The Goddess Tour schedule

02/10/2024 — Dublin, IE @ The Academy (Matinee)
02/10/2024 — Dublin, IE @ The Academy (Evening)
02/11/2024 — Glasgow, GB @ SWG3 Galvanizers
02/14/2024 — Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
02/15/2024 — London, UK @ EartH
02/16/2024 — London, UK @ EartH
02/17/2024 — London, UK @ EartH
02/20/2024 — Paris, FR @ Le Trianon
02/21/2024 — Brussels, BE @ La Madeleine
02/23/2024 — Hamburg, DE @ Grosse Freiheit 36
02/25/2024 — Stockholm, SE @ Nalen
02/26/2024 — Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
02/27/2024 — Berlin, DE @ Astra Kulturhaus
02/29/2024 — Milan, IT @ Magazzini Generali
03/03/2024 — Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks
03/05/2024 — Cologne, DE @ Carlswerk Victoria
03/06/2024 — Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
03/09/2024 — Reykjavík, IS @ Eldborg Harpa
03/10/2024 — Reykjavík, IS @ Eldborg Harpa
03/13/2024 — London, UK @ Roundhouse
04/08/2024 — Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
04/09/2024 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
04/12/2024 — San Francisco, CA @ Masonic Theatre
04/13/2024 — San Francisco, CA @ Masonic Theatre
04/15/2024 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
04/18/2024 — Dallas, TX @ Winspear Opera House
04/19/2024 — Austin, TX @ Bass Concert Hall
04/20/2024 — Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall
04/22/2024 — Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle
04/23/2024 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
04/25/2024 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
04/28/2024 — Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
04/30/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
05/03/2024 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
05/06/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
05/07/2024 — Boston, MA @ Wang Theatre
05/16/2024 — London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall
06/25/2024 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts*
06/28/2024 — Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Jazz Festival
06/29/2024 —Montreal, QC @ Montreal International Jazz Festival
08/07/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ TBA

* with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Tacko Fall has found a basketball home in China. After spending the start of his professional career bouncing back and forth between the NBA and the G League, Fall made the decision to head overseas and play in the Chinese Basketball Association in 2022. And after one year with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, Fall opted to change teams this offseason and join the Nanjing Tongxi Monkey Kings.

One thing that Fall is especially good at is using his size to impose himself on basketball games, and thanks to a clip that is making its way around the internet from a game last week, we got a glimpse of that. Fall went up against a Shanghai Sharks team that features a number of ex-NBA players recently, and early on in the game, Fall set a screen, dove to the rim, and had only one 6’2 player standing between him and a bucket. For reasons that I do not understand, the opposing player decided to test the 7’6 Fall at the rim, and You’ll Never Believe What Happened Next*.

(* — you will 100 percent believe what happened next)

It is nothing short of remarkable that any guard would try to slow Fall down at the rim, but this is about what you’d expect to happen here. Anyway, fortune favors the brave, and while the dunk and subsequent poster went against the Sharks, they went on to win the game, 98-95.

Over the weekend, hard rock music legends KISS concluded their The End Of The Road Tour at Madison Square Garden. The series of sold-out New York City shows marked their final live performance, as we know. Yes, that’s right, KISS is set to retire from touring. Instead of the group pushing their bodies to the limits on the road, they’re launching digital avatars to do the heavy lifting for them. So, what are the KISS digital avatars?

The KISS digital avatars are elevated motion-captured visuals of the band in all their glory. AP said the initiative was birthed through a partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group (co-owned by Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus) and George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic.

In a statement provided to the outlet, Pophouse Entertainment’s CEO Per Sundin preached that the innovation will allow KISS to further their live show legacy without physical limitation. “Kiss could have a concert in three cities on the same night across three different continents,” said Sundin. “That’s what you could do with this.”

KISS frontman Paul Stanley and bassist Gene Simmons spoke about the decision behind developing the digital avatars in the video documentary A New Era Begins.

“What we’ve accomplished has been amazing, but it’s not enough,” said Stanley. “The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are. It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”

Simmons added, “We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before. The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”

As KISS enjoys their retirement from performing, their digital avatars will pick up where they left off.

Next weekend sees the release of Wonka, a prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (or, as the 1971 film version was called it, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) that offers an origin story for children’s lit’s most popular chocolatier. Both that and Tim Burton’s 2005 version Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were movie musicals. So what’s the deal with Wonka?

The answer is, yep, it sure is a musical. Timothée Chalamet is no professional singer, and yet there is, warbling up a storm as the young Wonka. (Then again, neither Gene Wilder nor Johnny Depp, Chalamet’s Wonka predecessors, were crooners either, and they did just fine.) The film’s director, Paul King, thinks he’s got pipes. He even compared him to no less than Bing Crosby.

As for Wonka’s bona fides as a musical, Variety’s Owen Gleiberman says it’s so old-fashioned it “may be the squarest big-scale Hollywood musical in decades.” He added:

How square is it? In an era that has given us such visionary next-level musicals as “La La Land,” “Moulin Rouge!,” and the shockingly underrated “The Greatest Showman,” as well as such hip and vibrant Broadway adaptations as “Chicago,” “Hairspray,” “In the Heights,” “Mamma Mia!,” “Les Misérables,” and “Rent,” “Wonka,” as directed and co-written by Paul King (who made the “Paddington” films), plays like a more visually limber version of some singing-and-dancing relic from the late-studio-system era of “Oliver!” (1968) and “Scrooge” (1970). It’s so square it makes “Mary Poppins Returns” look edgy.

So there you go. Wonka isn’t just a musical. It’s a square musical. With a guy who hasn’t sung onscreen before. But if Chalamet really is like Bing Crosby, wait till you hear him sing like Bob Dylan.

The 2023 NFL season has been a strong one for the Jacksonville Jaguars, but the team’s fortunes were thrown into the realm of uncertainty on Monday evening. The Jaguars hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in a nationally televised clash and, with the score tied at 28-28 in the fourth quarter, Jacksonville was driving for a potential go-ahead score with Trevor Lawrence at the helm. However, Lawrence suffered an apparent leg injury after he was stepped on by an offensive lineman during a drop-back on third down.

Lawrence was visibly frustrated and clearly hampered, reacting strongly as soon as the play was over. Ultimately, he went to the locker room immediately and needed help to do so.

To make matters worse, the Jaguars missed a go-ahead field goal attempt on the next play, placing the game in further peril. Beyond the impact on Monday’s game against Cincinnati, however, Jacksonville simply is not the same team if Lawrence is sidelined for any length of time. At the time of this post, there are scant details on the nature of the injury, but Lawrence is the most valuable piece on Jacksonville’s roster and members of the franchise and its fanbase are undoubtedly experiencing anxiety as a result.

With just a few more weeks left in the year, late-night staple The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon is pulling out the stops for its last rounds of in-studio entertainment. There was nothing to write home about during last week’s airings (excluding Offset and Don Toliver’s performance of “Worth It“). This week is a complete about-face.

Here are the musical guests for The Tonight Show this week (December 4 through 8). All performances are subject to change.

Dua Lipa — Monday, December 4, 2023

On Monday, “Houdini” singer Dua Lipa will serve as the musical guest. In addition to Dua Lipa’s appearance, Oppenheimer actor Benny Safdie and Brad Paisley are scheduled to grace the show’s set.

Busta Rhymes — Tuesday, December 5, 2023

On Tuesday, Leave the World Behind actor Julia Roberts and comedian Hasan Minhaj will join Fallon for interviews. As for musical entertainment, Busta Rhymes is set to perform tracks from his latest album, Blockbusta, alongside special guests Cie, Trillian, and Rai.

J. Balvin — Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Wednesday’s episode is relatively light compared to the rest of the week. The Last Tycoon actor Matt Bomer will join Fallon for an interview. Meanwhile J. Balvin is set to be the musical performance for the night.

Olivia Rodrigo — Thursday, December 7, 2023

Thursday’s episode will feature two musicians. Ashley McBryde and Olivia Rodrigo are scheduled to appear, but only Rodrigo is confirmed as a performer for the evening. The highlighted interview for the broad will feature the finalists from Squid Game: The Challenge.

No Performer — Friday, December 8, 2023

For its final episode of the week, The Tonight Show will broadcast a cooking demonstration with Chef Daniel Humm instead of a musical performance. The episode will be filled with interviews with Eileen actor Anne Hathaway, Memory actor Peter Sarsgaard, and comedian Fumi Abe.

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

The Cincinnati Bengals entered Monday night’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with Jake Browning under center, as Joe Burrow is out for the season due to an injury. Browning, a veteran backup in the league, had never started until Burrow went down, but looked rather comfortable going up against the Jacksonville Jaguars on the road.

This is what makes the fact that the team had Tyler Boyd, who is a wide receiver, throw a pass all the more insane. While Boyd had thrown five passes over his NFL career coming into Monday night, he had never thrown an interception. But his sixth pass, which came on a first-and-10 in the third quarter with the ball deep in Bengals territory, was destined to fail from the jump. Here’s what happened.

I think the idea here was to have Browning throw it back to Boyd, who then threw to Ja’Marr Chase down the field. That didn’t happen, while the Jags made it a point to take out Browning, which took away any chance for Boyd to throw the back to him. It appears that Boyd then noticed that Joe Mixon had blockers and a ton of space, so he attempted to get it over to him, but Boyd threw it on a rope instead of lofting it over Josh Allen, which meant that Allen had one of the easiest picks of his career. And a few plays later, Trevor Lawrence was able to make Cincinnati pay by reaching into the end zone for a touchdown.