Category: News

When Soldier Boy surfaced during the most recent The Boys season, the show pulled off a Supernatural reunion between Jensen Ackles and showrunner Eric Kripke. Soon enough, the question arose of whether Jeffrey Dean Morgan would find some time to pop over for at least a cameo. When The Walking Dead set an end date, that seemed possible, but then Negan got shuffled off for his spinoff with Lauren Cohan’s Maggie, and Kripke admitted that scheduling might become a problem. A few months later, better news arrived with the show figuring out how to make it happen, so all good on that front.

Now, the world awaits The Boys Season 4, and fans want a first look at the new dude, especially because Morgan is still considered to be playing a mystery role. Well, you’re not gonna get a real first look yet. However, you can see a janky photoshop of Morgan with Homelander and Billy Butcher, as tweeted by the show’s social media team: “Very official, not at all Photoshopped look at JDM in The Boys.”

Sure, that works. And as of now, The Boys has no official Season 4 release date, so we might be in for a wait on a first look. Then again, Ackles posted his “jacked” workout footage, so perhaps we’ll see that from Morgan, too. In the meantime, we can look forward to Spring-Summer release of The Walking Dead: Dead City with Maggie and Negan unwisely heading into Manhattan to show us some of the franchise’s most disgusting Walkers. Then there are two more spinoffs coming in the next year, one with Rick Grimes/Michonne and one with Daryl Dixon.

Hopefully, before all that happens, we’ll see Morgan in costume for The Boys.

Rising alternative R&B singer Yaya Bey has earned her stripes in the genre’s independent scene thanks to releases like 2021 EP The Things I Can’t Take With Me and 2022’s Remember Your North Star. Her cross-genre blends have caught the ear of many Black legacy acts, such as Roy Ayers.

Not even a year after her last album release, the Brooklyn native is back with a new single, “Exodus The North Star,” the lead track off her forthcoming 6-song EP by the same name. The romantic song produced and edited by Bey chronicles the deep emotions that come along with following in love as she sings, “Baby, it’s the way you walk / Baby, it’s the way you walk / And baby, it’s the way you make me feel / Like your girl could get up and fly / And leave this all behind.”

The accompanying video, also self-directed, stars Exaktly as Bey’s romantic interest in this love story. The track’s romantic lyrics are elevated as the video is captured using vintage film with several colleague cuts blending together each scene.

When discussing what fans should expect from the project on Instagram, Bey wrote, “[‘Exodus The North Star’] is my most vulnerable work to date. This is how I see joy and love in the world and what I aspire to feel and be. I have become an expert at turning my pain and grief as a black woman into music. Black people have a masterful way of telling our stories and sharing pain. But we are also masters of joy and imagination. We have always been in a global conversation about how to alchemize our experiences and reimagine our circumstances. From the ties between Lovers Rock and R&B to Gospel and House. Our joy is a collective effort.”

She added, “I rarely write about what I would like my existence to be in this world. This is a new level of vulnerability for me. Proclaiming my desires. What I’ve come to learn, I deserve. This is my thank you to my people, my peers, the elders, and the ancestors for being in this work with me. Cheers to the future.”

Watch the full video above.

Exodus The North Star is out 3/24 via Big Dada. Pre-order it here.

The genre-bending Bakar is back with a vibrant new single. On his new single, “Good News,” the UK singer celebrates a special love in his life, finding joy in the small, intimate moments they share.

The track opens with a soft-acoustic guitar, as Bakar delivers his signature crooning vocals. A kick drum then sets in, giving the song a punchy, heart-thumping feel.

“All along I was feelin’ nothin’ / ‘Til you came along, I started feelin’ somethin’ / Man, I’m just glad you put me amongst it / This feels like good news / I can’t lie, man, I thought I lost it / Then you came along, made it feel like justice,” sings Bakar on the song’s opening verse.

Bakar previously premiered “Good News” at Givenchy’s Fall/Winter 23 Men’s show during Paris Fashion Week, where he served as the show’s music curator and composer.

Last year was a big breakthrough year for Bakar. On top of releasing his second album, Nobody’s Home, he opened for Travis Scott in London and released a fashion collaboration with the late Virgil Abloh. He is gearing up for a busy 2023, as he is set to perform at Coachella in April, as well as drop new music throughout the year.

In the meantime, you can check out “Good News” above.

Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl is one of the most renowned and visually distinct music venues in the world, so seeing a show there is a treat and putting on a performance there is an honor. Well, this summer brings good news for fans and artists alike, as the venue has announced a slew of shows as part of its summer season from June to September.

Helping to kick things off will be Janet Jackson, whose Together Again tour (with special guest Ludacris) will hit the Bowl on June 10. The 2023 KCRW Festival will also go down at the venue and will include concerts by Maggie Rogers, My Morning Jacket, Fleet Foxes, Alvvays, Portugal The Man, Chicano Batman, Say She She, and Los Auténticos Decadentes, with more shows to be announced.

Elsewhere during the season, Kamasi Washington, Louis Tomlinson, The Beach Boys, and Herbie Hancock are also set to perform. The Hollywood Bowl has a full list of shows on the calendar on their website, so check that out for more performers and more information about tickets.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Chief Content and Engagement Officer Renae Williams Niles said in a statement, “There is no place like the Hollywood Bowl on a summer night, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back for another unforgettable season of music led by the extraordinary vision of Gustavo Dudamel.”

Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel added, “As we look to the next hundred years at the Hollywood Bowl, I am honored and excited to share a season which, to me, speaks of a beautiful future ahead. From timeless music by Mendelssohn, de Falla and Verdi, to modern-day classics by John Williams and Duke Ellington, to the soul-filling sounds of our Pan-American Music Initiative, to the singular energy of Café Tacvba, each of these programs takes us on the kind of magic journey that can only begin at the Bowl.”

Amazon knows a sure thing when it sees it. The streaming service is once again betting big on Bosch by announcing two new spinoffs, one of which is based on a character that hasn’t even been introduced yet. Unlike the previously announced, Bosch: Legacy, these spinoffs will actually focus on someone besides Titus Welliver’s titular police detective.

The two series will revolve around J. Edgar played by Jamie Hector and Renee Ballard, a character from the Bosch books who has yet to appear in the streaming series. At the time of this writing, it’s unclear whether the spinoffs will be available on Amazon Prime Video or Freevee.

Here’s the logline for the untiled J. Edgar spinoff via The Hollywood Reporter:

A police drama following Harry Bosch’s former partner, Detective Jerry Edgar, who is tapped for an undercover FBI mission in Little Haiti, Miami. In this glamorous city, he is forced to balance his new life with the gritty underbelly of the city, while being chased by his mysterious past.

And the untitled Renee Ballard series:

Detective Renee Ballard is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division. Beyond simply investigating unsolved crimes, Renee is dedicated to bringing credibility to the department and justice to the community. Having learned from retired ally and mentor Harry Bosch, Renee does things her way – solving cases in unconventional ways while navigating the politics of being a woman on the rise in the LAPD.

Hopefully, this news will be a calming salve to your dad who’s still reeling from the news that Kevin Costner may be leaving Yellowstone and taking the show down with him. Just pat the big guy on the back and tell him, “Shh, shh, there’s more Bosch coming. You like Bosch, don’t you? Yeah, you do.”

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Sharon Van Etten officially announced that the new Tramp (Anniversary Edition) will drop next month in honor of it being eleven years since her debut record. It includes a previously-unreleased song, “This Is Too Right,” as well as some other possible surprises.

To hold fans over until March, she dropped the never-before-seen music video for her breakthrough song “Serpents.” Directed by Galaxie 500’s Naomi Yang, it places Van Etten at center stage, surrounded by different lights and projected images.

“Upon hearing ‘Serpents,’ I was struck by the emotion in the song, the raw anger. I imagined showing this fury escaping and overtaking the room — Sharon’s rage as expressed in the song manifesting itself in physical space,” Yang shared in a statement. “We made the video on a cold January day in 2012, in an East Village walk-up loft borrowed from friends. It was me, on camera, with Susanne Sasic running the projections she had designed, and Sharon performing. I am delighted to know that now, on the 11th anniversary of Tramp, the ‘Serpents’ video will be seen at last.”

“I may have been just 30 when I made this album, but I was a lost, broken, vulnerable kid,” Van Etten added about the album as a whole. “All of the musicians on this album helped me come to life and perform in ways I never had before.”

Watch Sharon Van Etten’s new “Serpents” video above.

Tramp (Anniversary Edition) is out 03/24 via Jagjaguwar. Pre-order it 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.

Just before we spoke, Rivers Cuomo had been at a mediation retreat for the past several days — not the kind of place one would typically expect a rock band’s lead singer to be spending his time. But Cuomo has a storied history with the practice of meditation, one he references on occasion when answering questions about how Weezer has managed to stay together as a band for three decades.

For Cuomo, who grew up surrounded by the practice in an East Coast ashram, meditation keeps him grounded. “It really helps me stay calm and roll with the changes,” he told Variety. But changes are never something Cuomo shies away from. In fact, he welcomes it in his music. “Very often I’ll finish an album and want to do something totally opposite for the next one,” he said to the LA Times. And with Weezer’s latest project SZNZ, the band couldn’t have made more changes to the way they approached their music.

The album is composed of four separate-but-related EPs: SZNZ: Spring, SZNZ: Summer, SZNZ: Autumn, and SZNZ: Winter. “Each album has its own primary emotion and each album has its own primary musical genre,” Cuomo explains to Uproxx over the phone. On SZNZ, those emotions are optimism, anger, anxiety, and sadness, respectively. Using an emotion to guide each project was inspired by the feelings evoked by Antonio Vivaldi’s four-part composition The Four Seasons. But the band brought the concept into the modern age by trying out specific genres for each project, pulling inspiration everywhere from early Weezer — yes, the breezy sounds on SZNZ: Spring call back to the Green Album era (specifically “Island In The Sun,” listen to “A Little Bit Of Love” and I guarantee you’ll hear it) — to early aughts dance-y alt-rock like Franz Ferdinand.

“Each album also had its primary historical period,” Cuomo continues. “So I tried to focus on a particular historical period in my lyrics on any given season.” SZNZ: Winter, the project that aptly dropped on the winter solstice, is of course the most languid effort of the four EPs. There are a ton of references to the Northeast and Revolutionary War period, which Cuomo confirms during our conversation by pulling up a spreadsheet he would reference when songwriting. Its plucky chords on tracks like the opener “I Want A Dog” and existential prose on “Dark Enough To See The Stars” capture the turmoil and quiet misery of ‘90s singer/songwriters like Elliott Smith.

By dipping into the past, both with their historical references and genres popularized by earlier songwriters, Weezer were able to create something both timeless yet inventive with SZNZ. No other band has written an album in this kind of way — by meditating on a specific emotion, time period, and genre to build separate worlds for each EP to live in — and neither has Weezer. But that’s the point. For a band that’s been around for three decades, they know there’s no use in writing the same kind of album over-and-over again. Instead, they’re looking ahead. As Rivers Cuomo says in our conversation below, he’s always writing with half his heart in the future.

There were a lot of homages to early Weezer and also nineties songwriters like Elliott Smith on your EP Winter. And there are a few songs reinterpret some early Weezer demos, like the bridge to “Iambic Pentameter” takes from an early demo, and same with “I Want A Dog.” Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Well, the “Iambic Pentameter” was an accident. I remember, because I have this folder of ideas, MP3s, and it has 1500 MP3s in there. And usually once I use an idea, I take the idea out of the folder so I won’t reuse it. Now, in this case, years ago I used it in a song called “Prom Night,” and then I forgot to take the idea out. Now this “Prom Night” song, it’s a real rarity. It’s just a Japanese bonus track from the White Album. And then when I was writing “Iambic Pentameter,” I needed a bridge. I heard the idea in the folder and I was like, “This is amazing. I can’t believe I’ve never used this before. It sounds so familiar.” But I was flipping through all the Weezer songs and I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I was like, “Okay, I guess I’ll use it. Maybe I should ask the fans and play it for them and see what they say.” But I didn’t, if I played it for them, they would’ve said, “Yeah, you used that on a Japanese B-side.” But I went ahead and used it, and they caught me. But it was too late to do anything about it.

You said you have 1500 MP3s on your computer?

Yeah, it sounds like a lot, but when you think about it, I’ve been making demos since 1987 probably. So if you divide, how many years is that? 35? I don’t know, but 1500 divided by 35. It’s not a lot. I mean, I’m not very productive, but they add up.

I wonder if you ever are looking through your folder and listening to things and you’re like, wow, this is amazing. Who wrote that? And then remember that you, in fact, wrote that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s such a cool thing. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is so good. I love this, but I don’t remember where it came from or how I did it.’ It’s like collaborating with myself. Here’s a past version of myself suggesting an idea.

On Twitter, you shared how you used an AI chatbot and put the lyrics to “I Want A Dog” and the result ended up being something a little similar, but overall a little bit happier and a little bit peppier than the song that you originally wrote. And AI is a topic that’s pretty hot right now — between people using those AI face apps and the chatbot — so I was wondering what your stance is on AI and if you’ve ever considered using it as a songwriting tool?

Well, I love ChatGPT, and it actually, I’ve been using it ever since that post. If you look at my Twitter replies, so you can see I’m replying to about 30 people a day. And that’s all fueled by ChatGPT. Now, as a songwriter, I was excited to try it out, and it’s definitely on my list of tools I can use. So far, I haven’t actually used anything it’s generated. I guess it has inspired a few things, but I don’t love the results. It may just be the kind of writer I am, because I’ve never even really gotten into a rhyming dictionary. I remember back in the nineties, first discovering a rhyming dictionary. “Well, this is incredible, look at all these cool words. Oh, this is going to be great.” But then I was never felt emotionally satisfied by the lyrics that would generate. And I realized: I think, part of why I write songs is the feeling that I kept digging into myself until I realized what it was that I’m feeling, and what I really need to say to the world. And it’s not easy, but the fact that I’ve dug deep and discovered something and then articulated it in my own words, that’s really rewarding. I don’t know if that has anything to do with how successful a song is but that has everything to do with how much I end up loving it.

In terms of touring, Weezer has done a lot of creative things that aren’t just a classic tour. Of course, you guys have done a classic tour, but you’ve also did the Weezer Cruise and planned a Broadway show. This project in general is inspired by the idea of a symphony. Are there any “out there” ideas that you’ve been wanting to try in relation to your music, akin to a Weezer Cruise or something?

Well, I have something I’m really excited to try. It doesn’t have to do with a venue or anything, but I’m excited. I think our audience is ready for me and the band composing new music. Not songs, but interludes and transitional passages and epic instrumental pieces that happen in between songs, or from time to time throughout the set. And then playing a longer set, like 90 minutes, and having it be a real journey instead of just a cool three-minute song after another. Because that’s something rock bands can do really well. Not necessarily alt rock bands, but I think Weezer can do it. And you’re not going to get that at a pop show, country show, or a hip-hop show. And I think, it’ll be a uniquely fulfilling ride for the audience.

In listening to this album and thinking about the historical references, like Shakespeare and Vivaldi, it really got me thinking a lot about how art exists in the future. For Antonio Vivaldi, his symphony was discovered long after his death. And same with Shakespeare. You can argue that Shakespeare didn’t really reach his (or her, possibly) height of fame until hundreds of years in the future. So thinking about Weezer’s legacy, with your music in the future, how would you say you would want to be remembered?

I’ve always had half of my heart in the future and have been writing for a future audience. And I don’t know about a hundred years from now, but 50 years from now, I’d love for people to be discovering some of the great things that are kind of buried in the dark recesses of the Weezer catalog. And I know that they don’t necessarily have a chance in today’s music environment where so much is about the virality of what you’re making; 15-second clips that are extremely catchy for one reason or the other. But it’s okay, I wouldn’t want to switch my focus exclusively to that and forego the exploration of the deep stuff that may only be appreciated years from now, if ever.

Bring back the deep dive in the future!

I think it’s going to happen. Where society’s going, we’re having to deal with these innovations in technology that have fragmented our attention so much. But I think at some point we’re all going to miss the deep stuff enough that we’ll figure out new ways to circumvent that and get back to some real deep thinking, deep work.

Before this call, I saw that you were involved in Fall Out Boy’s latest music video. You were standing on the street, a car pulls up, and you get into a fake attempted kidnapping situation. Can you tell me what it was like filming that?

It was super fun. Normally, I don’t like making videos. It’s rare that Weezer will make a video now. It’s just such a boring process standing around all day, and then lip syncing or whatever. But I love the Fall Out Boy guys. We have the same manager and just seemed like a cool thing to help them out with this. And in part paying them back, because Pete Wentz did a whole Weezer video for us once. So I went there and it was super fun, and I don’t know why. Just the whole thing was fun for me, and maybe because I don’t feel any pressure, because it’s not my thing, so I can just goof off and it’s fun hanging out and talking to those guys. I liked the character I was playing.

Well, I’m glad you didn’t get actually kidnapped so that we can be here and have this conversation.

Yeah, and you know what, I like physical acting. If it’s just lip syncing or walking down the street or something, it’s a little dull. But this is serious wrestling and fighting off the Fall Out Boy guys, and fans scrambling to try to rescue me. It was very intense and physical, so it got my blood flowing.

SZNZ is out now via Crush Music/Atlantic. Get it here.

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

It’s not often that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson isn’t the most famous person in the room, but that was the case on Sunday during the 2023 Grammys. Attendees includes Beyoncé, Taylor Swift (who worked with the wrestler-turned-actor for her “The Man” music video), Bad Bunny, and Adele. “Someone that I’ve never met that I think I would actually cry is The Rock,” the “Easy on Me” singer once admitted. Her wish came true at the Grammys, providing one of the night’s more delightful moments.

Johnson told Variety how he pulled off the surprise.

“We wanted to do something special for Adele,” he said. “I know that she is a very big fan of mine and has made that clear publicly many times. But I’ve got to tell you, I am a huge fan of hers, as well — her music, her journey, her openness and directness in how she speaks. I’ve always admired that about her.” The Rock went to “great lengths to make sure that Adele was authentically surprised in the moment, and she was.” He also called Adele “a special iconic brilliant inspiring artist who has inspired a generation and who will continue to inspire generations to come. I love that woman.”

If she slips a bottle of Teremana into her next music video, he’ll love her even more.

(Via Variety)

According to the National Chicken Wing Council, Americans are projected to eat 1.45 billion chicken wings this Super Bowl weekend, spurred on by prices that are down 22% from last year. But hey, I’m not a wing economist. I’m not investing in chicken futures. I’m just a guy covered elbow-to-fingertips in buttery orange sauce.

Why so buttery? Well, seeing as how chicken wings are to Super Bowl weekend what turkey is to Thanksgiving, I thought this would be a great time to test out some of the internet’s most popular chicken wing recipes and… maybe see if we could improve on them.

When people think NFL and wings, they naturally think Buffalo Wings (maybe some day people will hear “Buffalo” and think “Super Bowl,” but alas…). Unlike a lot of our favorite foods (pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, apple pie) Buffalo Wings are a food with a lineage that can be traced back specifically to the USA. Teressa Bellissimo, a Sicilian-born bar owner in Buffalo (so the story goes), invented the Buffalo Wing at Anchor Bar back in 1964, when, rather than using them for stock or tossing them out as people often did with chicken wings back in those days, she deep fried some and served them up with a sauce made from cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter.

These days, you could make a case that Buffalo Wings are actually a more popular export than American football itself.

The “original” Buffalo Wing was deep fried and unbreaded, and the ratio of bone-to-meat does make the wing uniquely suited to being fried. Ever tried frying a turkey leg? Takes forever to get the inner meat cooked and by the time you do, the outside is burnt and drying out. Chicken wings are idiot-proof by comparison.

These days, a “Buffalo Wing” is just one variant of the overall wing phenomenon. Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon, got famous for their Vietnamese fish sauce wings. Hot Sauce and Panko, in San Francisco, is one of many wing joints specializing in Korean-style fried chicken (which some claim made its way to Asia by way of Black American soldiers). And of course, fried chicken joints like Popeye’s et al have been slinging wings for years.

The beauty of the wing is that you can cook it in all sorts of ways and it’s usually pretty good. Unbreaded is the “original” Buffalo style, but it’s hard to turn down a breaded wing. You can also bake them, baste them in a pan… hell, that’s why we’re here, right? It’s time to compare and contrast!

For this piece, I decided to find the most popular wing recipes from Google, YouTube, and TikTok to prepare them, rate them, and then maybe see if we could improve them. I was worried that I’d be splitting hairs, but it just so happened that each recipe had its own unique cooking style, allowing us a decent cross section of wing-cooking methods without going too crazy.

As with virtually all online recipes, you can read on to go on this beautiful journey of self-discovery with me, seeing how I arrived at each decision, or you can metaphorically spit in my face and just scroll all the way to the bottom for my hacked recipe(s). Whatever, man, it’s your life.

The TikTok Recipe – AKA, “Double Breaded, Double Fried”

As of this writing, The Golden Balance on TikTok here has about 294,000 views on this wing recipe. Putting aside the lack of specifics (no video descriptions here) and Gen Z house style (brashly obnoxious, with barely-justified act-outs, hair dangling foreword across the forehead), this is actually a pretty solid recipe.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Cliff’s Notes

-Marinated overnight in seasoned buttermilk
-Double breaded in seasoned breading — rice flour and potato starch
-Double fried: once at 315 for six minutes, then rested and refried for “just a couple more minutes” at 375.
-Sauced with a mix of Sriracha, honey, and Kewpie mayonnaise, and chives

Pros & Cons

PRO:

The overnight marinade (in a pretty traditional southern buttermilk brine) is a smart move. I’m of the belief that if you can season your meat overnight, you should pretty much always do it. He doesn’t specify spice blend, but I used a pre-made seasoning blend that had onion, garlic, pepper, and MSG.

PRO:

It’s hard to beat a breaded wing. And double-frying is a great way to ensure the wing is cooked well but also cooked evenly. It’s a beautiful marriage of crisp and moist. I’ll never forget the way Top Chef‘s Shota Nakajima explained his chicken karaage to me:

I would say double frying is the biggest thing. I think of it almost as a steamed dish(…). You want to make sure the batter is on the outside correctly(…). If it’s coated, that means there’s this whole layer of breading on the outside, and the ingredient itself isn’t touching any cooking heat. It’s steaming on the inside. So that’s how you keep it juicy. But once you cook and you let it rest, that’s when the moisture gets pulled out. So you want to let it rest and get that moisture to get pulled out more and then fry it so you can hold that crispy edge.

PRO:

The sauce is great, a nice mix of spicy, sweet, and creamy (without any butter) and, unlike Buffalo sauce, I had no trouble keeping it emulsified.

These wings are also HEAVILY breaded and extremely crispy, to the point that I thought they would destroy the roof of my mouth. Without the sauce, they definitely would. But this sauce softens the breading just enough so that it’s still crunchy but won’t draw blood.

CON:

Double breading is too much breading.

Clearly, I got a little messier than the TikTok guy.

That’s a lotta breading, yo.

That whole “wet dry, wet dry” thing he describes sounds a lot breezier than it actually is. When I did that, I ended up with like half an inch of breading on the chicken. And with a half rice flour batter, that seemed… daunting. I thought this was going to be like biting into a chicken who had covered his wings in glue and broken glass like some kind of chicken Bloodsport situaish.

That mayo-based sauce isn’t just a condiment here, it’s a safety precaution.

CONS:

Frying is still a pain in the ass. When you fry, you’re going to be dealing with a bunch of frying oil, a frying vessel, a draining setup… etc. I got rid of my deep fryer a few years back so I had to use a cast iron fry pan, but even with a home deep fryer, you’re only going to be able to get, what, six wings in there, max? Plus, with a fry pan there’s a lot of guesswork with the temp. I put them in at 340 or so and then the temp goes down before 300 so I’m cranking it back up… it’s a lot of fiddling.

Was it worth it? We’ll get to that in a sec.

The Google Recipe — AKA, Hammered & Buttered.

This recipe, from CafeDelites, was a top result and a top-rated recipe on Google.

The Cliff’s Notes:

-Lightly breaded in baking powder (aluminum-free), garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
-Option to season overnight
-Tossed in traditional Buffalo sauce (half cayenne pepper sauce, half butter)
-BAKED on a wire rack at 450F, for 30 minutes per side.

Pros & Cons

PRO:

Baking is probably the easiest, least equipment-intensive method of cooking wings. You can do a lot at one time and the cleanup is pretty easy.

PRO:

A light, baking powder-based breading left to dry overnight does an adequate job mimicking a fried, unbreaded wing. They came out with a really roasty, rendered chicken skin flavor. They taste golden brown.

PRO:

Traditional Buffalo sauce is indeed delicious. You can get fancier with sauces, but it’s hard not to love a butter-and-hot-sauced-drenched wing. You’re always going to eat more of them than you tell yourself.

CON:

I don’t know if the CafeDelites people had much bigger chicken wings than I did, but at 50 minutes (I actually pulled these earlier than the recipe suggested) these wings were absolutely hammered. They were nice and crispy but definitely sort of dry and stringy.

White meat needs to be lower, but for a darker meat like chicken wings, most barbecue guys will tell you that an internal temp of 185-190 is ideal for chicken wings. In this case the thermometer bore out what my eyes were already telling me: these were overdone.

CON:

I set my smoke alarm off a lot. My oven does have particularly paltry venting, but even so, the fat melted off the wing and hit the aluminum foil, and started to burn, smoking the hell out of my kitchen. I spent the whole time apologizing to my baby and dogs.

CON:

Sauce broke a lot. The only guidance the recipe offered on the sauce, which consists of Frank’s Red Hot, melted butter, and sugar, was “Whisk it all together until combined” and then pour over the baked wings. That’s not a lot of tips for an emulsion, and mine broke quite a bit when the hot wings hit them.

The YouTube Recipe — AKA: Gordon Ramsay’s Frenchified Bullshit

Gordon Ramsay’s “Hot Ones Inspired Wings” recipe has 5.6 million views and counting on YouTube. I was actually excited to try this one because it seemed like a unique (to me), potentially great and easy way to make wings.

The Cliff’s Notes:

-Seasoned liberally with garlic powder, smoked paprika, and salt
-Pan fried/butter basted in a pan and then finished in the oven
-Sauced with a mix of “pan sauce,” butter, and “your favorite hot sauce.”

As I said, I was excited to try this one. It’s quicker than the baked recipe and doesn’t require a sheet pan, and seemed to streamline the saucing process. I also finished reading Bill Buford’s latest book about moving to Lyon to learn how to cook French not too long ago, in which Buford basically identifies butter basting as France’s unique contribution to European cuisine (which was otherwise largely invented by the Italians during the Rennaissance). I’d never considered applying it to chicken wings. When I taught myself Peking Duck, it involved using boiling water to pre-render the fat and tighten the duck skin so that it would crisp when baking. This seemed like basically the streamlined, butter-based version of that.

PROS:

Basically, all the stuff mentioned above. A streamlined cooking process.

PRO:

Chef Ramsay measures his butter in “knobs,” which is also British slang for “penis.” I liked the idea of measuring out “four penises of butter.” It’s good to have fun when you cook.

PRO:

The meat came out very moist, much juicier than the baked wings, and almost as moist as the fried ones.

CON:

The smoked paprika-heavy seasoning didn’t really scream “American chicken wings” to me. It was still good, it just had a distinctly European flavor to it and I didn’t like it nearly as much as the other two.

CON:

I wanted this method to work so badly, I actually tried it twice. But it seemed no matter how hot I got my pan, the skin never got very crispy. Letting it soak in all those butter penises, both while basting and baking, and leaving the wings partially submerged while finishing in the oven, seemed to keep the skin on the wings from crisping fully.

Who Wing’d It Better?

I don’t think you’d throw any of these wing recipes out of bed, but there were pluses and minuses to all of them. The TikTok recipe was crunchy, nicely moist, and with a tasty sauce, but over breaded and impractical for a big group.

The YouTube recipe was also very moist and with a streamlined cooking process, but had flabby skin and the sauce lacked a little of that wingy yumminess (despite requiring the most butter penises).

The Google recipe had nicely rendered skin and roasty flavor and a tasty traditional Buffalo sauce (I tested these on my wife and 9-year-old stepson, and this was my stepson’s favorite), but the meat was dry and overcooked and set my smoke alarm off.

Wing Hack Part 1: Battered And Fried Wings

If you’re committed to doing fried wings (which for the most part, do reward you), this recipe was already pretty good, so it was an easy fix. How do we fix a double-breaded wing that’s too breaded? You guessed it, Einstein, don’t double-bread it.

I found that a single breading worked just fine.

The Soak

• Chicken Wings
• Enough Buttermilk To Cover – I used 2% milk-fat buttermilk.
• About a tablespoon* of your favorite seasoned salt — OR salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder.
• *Just taste your marinade before you pour it on the chicken. It should be pretty salty, but not inedibly so. Think pickle juice or seawater and then dial it back a couple notches.
• Leave it to soak overnight.

The Dredge

• About 1/4 cup potato starch
• About 1/4 cup rice flour (corn starch works too if you can’t find it)
• About a teaspoon same seasoning as above
• Whisk it together on a plate, or, if you want to keep it old school, in a paper bag.
• Take your chicken straight out of the marinade, let the excess liquid drain off, roll it around in the dredging mixture (Wet-Dry) — or shake it up in a bag — and set it on a wire rack while you bread the rest.

The Fry

• In a cast iron fry pan, heat peanut oil (what I used), shortening, lard, or whatever oil you’re using to 340 or so, or set your deep fryer t0 315.
• In my cast iron fry pan, I could do about 3-4 wings at a time without the temperature dropping too much (hopefully not below 300)
• Fry for six minutes until golden brown and remove.
• Let rest for 5-10 minutes while you make the sauce.

The Sauce

• 1/3 cup Sriracha
• 1/3 cup Kewpie mayo (or regular mayo with a pinch of MSG)
• Squirt of honey (call it a teaspoon)
• Whisk it together.

Fry Part 2

• Set your deep fryer to 375 or heat your pan oil to 380-390.
• Drop your rested wings in 3-4 at a time and fry for 1-2 minutes, removing before they get too much color.
• Rest the wings for another five minutes, then drop them in your sauce, mix, and serve!

I didn’t mess with this recipe too much because… it was already pretty good! This one definitely has a more Asian feel to it, with the potato starch and the Sriracha, but I think most people who enjoy fried chicken and/or Buffalo wings would love this one. I just dialed back the breading a little.

For me this was the ideal amount of breading. Still crunchy, but now I don’t feel like I’m going to die if I eat more than two. The wing did just what Chef Shota described — steamed inside a crispy shell. The chicken comes out super moist, and the batter is crackly-crunchy. In fact probably too crunchy, but with the sauce applied it’s just right.

Wing Hack Part 2: Baked Buffalo Wings

Of the two “baked” wing recipes tested, one came out too dry and the other the skin came out too flabby. I tried to combine the two to see if we could get the best of both worlds. Basically, to the Google recipe, I added a little more baking powder and some corn starch, then I incorporated the YouTube sear and went back to the Google bake for half the cook time.

The Wings

• 4 pounds chicken wings
• 1.5 tablespoons corn starch
• 1.5 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• Pinch black pepper (OR, just use your favorite seasoned salt blend)

Put your wings in a bowl. Mix your spices and corn starch/baking powder in a small bowl. Pour the dry mix over the chicken and massage it together. It should create a very light paste on the exterior of the chicken. Refrigerate uncovered overnight.

The Cook

• Arrange a sheet pan covered in aluminum foil and put your wire rack on top. Preheat the oven to 450F.
• Heat a thin layer of oil in a pan on the stove at about medium-high.
• Once the oil is almost to smoking, brown the wings in batches.
• A few at a time, put the wings into the hot pan with the oil and turn until well coated. You don’t have to get too much color on them, but you should see the skin visibly tighten — that’s what we’re looking for, a little pre-render.
• Remove them to the wire rack and bake about 10 minutes on each side.

(Yes, after a week of wing testing I was starting to run short on wings).

The Sauce

Traditional Buffalo sauce is delicious. My stepson loved it, even when I couldn’t keep my emulsion from breaking. I’ve read all sorts of tips online for how to keep your Buffalo sauce emulsion from breaking, from using an immersion blender to adding honey. A lot of them didn’t really work.

So I reached out to longtime friend of Uproxx, Michelle Doll, author of Essential Tools, Tips & Techniques for the Home Cook and one-time beater of Bobby Flay to see if she had any suggestions. Doll suggested heating the hot sauce, and then adding the solid butter to that, chunk by chunk, whisking the whole time. That worked great. Ergo…

• 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot
• 1/2 cup salted butter

Heat the hot sauce in a pot. Add the butter, a tablespoon or two at a time, to the heated sauce, whisking as you go.

The Finish

Dip your baked wings in the sauce, return to the wire rack, turn the oven down to 350F and bake for five more minutes.

This seemed to give the wings a nice balance of crunchy, roasty, rendered-fat flavor from the pan-prepping, but a much moister, juicier interior thanks to the reduced cooking time. Was it as good as the fried wings? Well, I don’t know if anything is better than a deep-fried wing, but these were easier, with less cleanup, and I could cook a lot more at a time.

I think the breaded, deep-fried wings were a shade better, but I would put these up against unbreaded fried wings any day!

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his recipes here.

Pink and Kelly Clarkson are both known for having powerhouse voices that can belt at incredible ranges but also soften for a sweet ballad. Put the two of them together, and…well, dang.

On Feb 6, Clarkson featured Pink on her daytime talk show, in which she often sings with musical guests. The two superstars sang several acoustic duets with pitch-perfect harmonies, prompting fans of both artists to clamor for a collaborative album.

One song they sang together was Pink’s “What About Us?” Pink previously described the song to The Sun in 2017: “The world in general is a really scary place full of beautiful people. Humans are resilient and there’s a lot of wonderful—like I said in the song—’billions of beautiful hearts’ and there are bad eggs in every group. And they make it really hard for the rest of us.”

In the intro to their duet, Clarkson asked Pink about the impetus behind her writing the song.

“We’re not listening to each other right now. And it’s so loud, and so gross, and so angry and people are being forgotten,” Pink shared. “People are being counted out and their rights are being trampled on just because a group of people doesn’t believe in them.”

“Like, I don’t understand how so many people in this world are discounted because one group of people decided they don’t like that,” she continued. “And I won’t—I won’t have it. One of the most beautiful things that my dad taught me was that my voice matters and I can make a difference, and I will.”

The lyrics of the song seem to address the political leaders and decision-makers who hold people’s lives in their hands as they pull the levers of power. It’s a beautiful song with an important message wrapped up in gorgeous two-part harmony.

Enjoy: