Category: News

This past Friday (September 30), Showtime aired a documentary on Sinead O’Connor called Nothing Compares. Named after one of O’Connor’s biggest hits, a song originally written by and for Prince called “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the documentary noticeably does not feature the song.

Toward the end of the documentary, a message appears on-screen, reading “The Prince estate denied use of Sinead’s recording of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ in this film.”

In a statement to Billboard, Prince’s half-sister and co-heir to his estate, Sharon Nelson, explained why the estate didn’t clear the use of the song for the Kathryn Ferguson-directed documentary.

“Nothing compares to Prince’s live version with Rosie Gaines that is featured on the Hits 1 album and we are re-releasing that album on vinyl on November 4th,” she said. “I didn’t feel [O’Connor] deserved to use the song my brother wrote in her documentary so we declined. His version is the best.”

In O’Connor’s 2021 memoir, Rememberings, O’Connor recalled meeting Prince after the success of her version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” According to O’Connor, Prince invited her to his home, chided her for swearing, and asked her to partake in a pillow fight. She remembers feeling an object in the pillow which she believes Prince slipped inside the pillowcase to inflict pain on O’Connor.

Still, she maintained in an interview with New York Times, she said that despite her unpleasant encounter with the man who wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U,” she is still proud of her version of the song.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s my song,” she said.

Check out the trailer for Nothing Compares above.

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

Last night (October 1), Bad Bunny performed at the SoFi stadium in Los Angeles as part of his ‘World’s Hottest Tour.’ While fans were elated to see Bunny perform several of his hits, Bunny kept the surprises going throughout the show. One of the biggest surprises was Cardi B, who made an appearance and performed two hits of her own.

When Cardi arrived to the stage, Bunny thanked her for joining him on the last show of the tour, and cited her as an influence to his own career, as well as Latin music in general.

The two then performed their collaboration, “I Like It,” from Cardi’s debut album, Invasion Of Privacy.

Afterward, Cardi performed her breakthrough hit, “Bodak Yellow.”

Back in August, Cardi spoke to Harper’s Bazaar about Bunny’s star power and his versatility in the realm of music.

“The fact that such a big artist like him can transition into trap, to salsa, to merengue, to any beat and genre that he wants to do … there’s so many different genres of music out there, and yet the number-one artist on Spotify is motherf*cking Bad Bunny.”

Following the show, Cardi took to Twitter noting the concert’s large audience.

“I was just at this stadium for the super bowl not long ago,” she said “…There’s more people here today at bad Bunny’s concert then the Super Bowl! …….Literally artist goal !!!!!”

Check out the performances above.

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

The Saints and Vikings met in one of this year’s NFL London games on Sunday morning, kicking off at 9:30 a.m. on the East Coast stateside from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

It was a slow start, with Minnesota taking a 13-7 lead into halftime, but the two teams picked up the pace in the second half and the fans in England were treated to a furious finish. The Vikings and Saints traded late leads, with Minnesota going up late in the fourth quarter on a Justin Jefferson reverse for a touchdown, but they only led by three after Greg Joseph pushed the extra point wide right. The Saints took advantage of that break by moving it across midfield and having Wil Lutz bang home a 60-yard game tying field goal with 1:51 to play.

Minnesota quickly moved into field goal territory themselves with a big play to Jefferson again, setting up Joseph for some redemption on his fifth field goal attempt of the day, knocking through a 47-yarder with 24 seconds to play.

That, seemingly, was going to be enough, but Andy Dalton found Chris Olave for a big gain across midfield with 12 seconds left, and Minnesota had to call timeout due to an injury allowing the Saints to avoid a hurry-up situation for a spike.

After missing a pair of throws to the sideline to pick up a few more yards, they trotted Lutz out for a 61-yarder to force overtime, who had enough leg but clipped the left upright, then bounced off the crossbar and just landed on the wrong side to give Minnesota the win.

The reverse angle shows how close the field goal was to going through on both bounces, as it barely clipped the upright and then landed almost flat on the middle of the crossbar, but just had enough to bounce towards the end zone instead of through.

It’s the latest example of Double Doink misery, as Bears fans are all too familiar with, and while a Week 4 loss in London isn’t as painful as a playoff loss on such a play, it’s a tough way to drop a game.

Last week, a strange story was reported: Bruce Willis had allegedly sold his likeness to Deepcake, a company that creates those meddlesome things called deepfakes. As such, it was reported, the beloved actor — or a “digital twin” of him, at least — could live on in perpetuity, used for movies and TV shows and commercials and whatnot into the deepest future. If that sounded disturbing to you, then here’s some good news: It’s not true.

As per BBC, both Willis and Deepcake have both denied that this ever happened. A spokesperson for Willis said there was “no partnership or agreement” to sell his likeness to a company to create fake videos of him. Deepcake, meanwhile, said only Willis has the right to his face.

Over the summer, it was revealed that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia, a rare disorder that affects speech and comprehension. He announced his retirement after decades of acting, prompting an avalanche of tributes to a long and storied career.

If a deepfake version of Willis had gone through, it wouldn’t have been the first time technology recreated an actor’s likeness. A version of the late Peter Cushing, who passed in 1994, appeared in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which also featured a young incarnation of Carrie Fisher. Recently, AI technology allowed the makers of Top Gun: Maverick to recreate the voice of Val Kilmer, who lost his to throat cancer. Incidentally, soundalikes and deepfakes are very dangerous, as this Radiolab episode lays out, and should be brought to an end before they’re exploited by dangerous people, such as authoritarian world leaders.

(Via BBC)

JJ Watt’s commitment to the game of football has never been in question, as the former Texans and now Cardinals star defensive lineman has battled through a number of injuries in his career to get back onto the field. Watt has dealt with a dislocated elbow, herniated disc, abdominal tear, broken leg, torn pec, torn labrum, torn bicep, and various strains throughout his career.

However, this week Watt will be playing after something a bit scarier than a muscle or ligament injury, as he explained in a very matter of fact tweet on Sunday. According to Watt, he went into atrial fibrillation on Thursday and had to get his heart shocked back into rhythm after dealing with an irregular heartbeat, but the star still intends to play on Sunday afternoon in Carolina as the Cardinals take on the Panthers.

Issues with the heart are not something to be trifled with, but Watt has apparently been cleared by the team doctors and his own after this week’s scare, but one would think he’ll be monitored closely on Sunday and in the coming weeks. He seems adamant about his ability to play and wanted to get out in front of the situation before it got reported, but there’s still plenty of concern from fans about his health status entering Sunday and beyond.

This past weekend, Solange debuted her original score for the New York City Ballet. She composed the score for a performance called Play Time, which was choreographed by Gianna Reisen.

Yesterday (October 1), Solange’s sister, Beyoncé, took to Instagram to congratulate her on her remarkable feat.

“My beloved sister, there are no words to express the pride and admiration I have for you,” said Beyoncé in the post’s caption. “You are a visionary and one of one. Congratulations on being the first African American woman to compose for the New York City Ballet. The piece you composed is phenomenal. I love you deep.”

She continued in the post, saying, “Might I suggest you don’t f*** with my sis,” referring to her Renaissance cut, “Cozy.”

Solange has since responded to Bey’s post, saying “I love you sooo muchhhh! you inspire me sooo much! so grateful to have a sister like youuu.”

On the night of the score’s debut, Bey was present to watch her sister celebrate her huge milestone, along with their mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson. The score was performed by the City Baller Orchestra featuring a soloist from Solange’s ensemble.

Play Time will continue to run on October 8, 11, and 16, and May 2, 11, 13, 17, and 18 at Lincoln Center.

SNL returned for its 48th season last night, and with it came its first Weekend Update since May. A lot has happened since then. A lot has happened this week alone. Hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che slipped back into the swing of things, taking on such hot button issues as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hurricane Ian, and one of the more bizarre GOP candidates in ages.

First things first: Jost roasted Vladimir Putin, who delivered a bonkers speech in which he decried the U.S. for alleged “Satanism” and its embrace of what he called “many genders.” Said Jost, “It was a hateful, unhinged speech which has many Americans calling him ‘electable.’”

Hurrican Ian, meanwhile, laid waste to parts of Florida. The state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, took a break from tricking refugees into going to Martha’s Vineyard to do work with the president he regularly derides, calling the storm a “500-year flooding event.” Cracked Che, “it’s such a historic tragedy that DeSantis won’t let them teach about it in Florida schools.”

Eventually the segment got to Herchel Walker, the footballer-turned-improbably Senate candidate, whose campaign has been marred by bizarre revelations and creative gaffes. Kenan Thompson played him, alongside James Austin Johnson’s Mitch McConnell, who pretended to be okay with a candidate he has previously brushed off as, well, terrible. At one point Che brought up one of his more out-there claims: “Our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, the bad air got to move.”

“I’ll slow down so you can understand,” Thompson’s Walker explained. “We all know air, right? Air Bud, Air Jordan… Erin Brokevich. Science don’t understand. Everybody talking about climate, but what we really should be focusing on is putting Hawaii closer…. bring that climate over here.”

You can watch Thompson tackle Walker in the video above and watch other portions of Weekend Update below.

Last night (October 1) The Killers performed their second of two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. The concert followed the release of the band’s two 2021 albums, Imploding The Mirage and Pressure Machine. During the encore portion of the show, The Killers brought out a special surprise guest — Bruce Springsteen.

The band and Springsteen performed two of Springsteen’s hits, “Badlands” and “Born To Run.”

Springsteen also joined them in a performance of his Killers collaboration, “Dustland.”

Before Springsteen arrived onstage, The Killers’ lead vocalist Brandon Flowers admitted he was feeling some jitters.

“Everybody gets a little nervous when their boss shows up for work, right?,” Flowers said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but me and my friends have been sweating bullets up here all night, because The Boss is here. Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen.”

The Killers and Springsteen have long been admirers of each other’s work. In 2021, upon the release of “Dustland,” Flowers credited Springsteen in an interview with Rolling Stone for helping him grow into the songwriter he is today.

“I attribute my discovery and absorption of his music with helping me become a more authentic writer,” he said. “He helped me to see the extraordinary in everyday people and their lives. And in this case, it was my parents who were under the microscope. Their faith and doubts, their search for salvation in the desert. It sounds Biblical. It also sounds Springsteenian.”

Check out the performances above.

Last month, Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theatres’ ad turned one year old. As the pandemic cooled, the movie theater chain paid a fortune for the Oscar-winning actress to woo audiences back to multiplexes. It’s proven so popular that they’re even doing a sequel. And when SNL returned for its 48th season, you better believe they sent it up.

Chloe Fineman does her best Australian accent as Kidman, mostly sticking to the script. One difference? Unlike in the ad, she’s not alone. First, Kenan Thompson joins her, sitting a few seats away until he’s creeped out by her loud monologuing. Soon others — including new cast members Molly Kearney and Michael Longfellow — join her.

Kidman’s AMC ad has been known to inspire Rocky Horror-style participation; sometimes audience members even recite the lines. SNL’s sketch runs with this idea. When Kidman gets to perhaps the most famous line — “Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this” — people start standing up and saluting the screen. Once people start chanting it over and over, Kidman gains supernatural powers, levitating above the seats as lightning shoots from her eyes.

As it happens, SNL’s first host of the season was in the biggest blockbuster of the summer: Top Gun: Maverick’s Miles Teller. He kicked off the show by doing a scarily spot-on impersonation of Peyton Manning.

You can watch the sketch in the video above.

In his second performance of the night, Kendrick Lamar performed “Father Time” on the Saturday Night Live stage.

During the performance, Lamar raps in a bedroom set-up, complete with a bed, a nightstand, and a chair. A man is seen in the chair with his back turned. The man is later revealed to be Sampha, who joins in and sings the song’s chorus.

“Father Time” is one of the more confessional songs on Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. In an interview with GQ, producer Sounwave said working with Lamar on this album was therapeutic, especially after feeling isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m a perfectionist,” Sounwave said. “So that whole 2020 of me locked in, making music with just me and my thoughts, I hated everything. ‘This is terrible. Nobody will ever like this. Who would ever sing on a song like this?’ I didn’t have that one person to be like, ‘No, this is good!’ I missed that. I didn’t realize that. And Kendrick is king of that. Even if it’s something terrible, he can hear something small in there and flip that to where it actually makes sense. A lot of our songs in the past came from that. When you take that element out, you get lost in your head where you kind of go mad.”

Check out a clip of the performance above.