Category: News

Harry Styles is a busy dude and he’s about to get a lot busier. That’s because the “As It Was” singer just added an entire slate of international concerts to his Love On Tour in support of his new album, Harry’s House. He also added an extra couple of shows in the US for good measure.

Styles just added Love On Tour stops throughout Mexico and South America in November and December 2022, plus an extra stop in Austin on October 3rd and an additional date in Chicago on October 15th. Then in 2023, the Love On Tour goes truly global with full runs throughout Europe and Australia. Wet Leg is the new support act for those 2023 dates.

Check out the complete list of Harry Styles’ Love On Tour dates below and get tickets here.

08/15/2022 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House^
08/16/2022 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena is Harry’s House^
08/20/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
08/21/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
08/22/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
08/26/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
08/27/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
08/28/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/01/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/02/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/03/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/07/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/08/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/10/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/14/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/15/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/21/2022 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden is Harry’s House*
09/25/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~
09/26/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~
09/28/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~
09/29/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~
10/02/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~
10/03/2022 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center is Harry’s House~!
10/06/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/08/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/09/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/13/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/14/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/15/2022 — Chicago, IL @ United Center is Harry’s House#
10/23/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
10/24/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
10/26/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
10/28/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
10/29/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
10/31/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/02/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/04/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/05/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/07/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/09/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/11/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/12/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/14/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/15/2022 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum is Harry’s House+
11/20/2022 — Guadalajara, MX @ Arena VFG *
11/22/2022 — Monterrey, MX @ Arena Monterrey *
11/24/2022 — Mexico City, MX @ Foro Sol *
11/25/2022 — Mexico City, MX @ Foro Sol *
11/27/2022 — Bogota, CO @ Parque Salitre Mágico *
11/29/2022 — Lima, PE @ Estadio Nacional *
12/01/2022 — Santiago, CL @ Estadio Bicentenario de La Florida *
12/03/2022 — Buenos Aires, AR @ Estadio River Plate *
12/04/2022 — Buenos Aires, AR @ Estadio River Plate *
12/06/2022 — Sao Paulo, BR @ Allianz Parque *
12/08/2022 — Rio de Janerio, BR @ Área Externa da Jeunesse Arena *
12/10/2022 — Curitiba, BR @ Pedreira Paulo Leminski *
12/13/2022 — Sao Paulo, BR @ Allianz Parque *
02/20/2023 — Perth, AU @ HBF Park !
02/24/2023 — Melbourne, AU @ Marvel Stadium !
02/25/2023 — Melbourne, AU @ Marvel Stadium !
02/26/2023 — Gold Coast, AU @ Metricon Stadium !
03/03/2023 — Sydney, AU @ Accor Stadium !
03/04/2023 — Sydney, AU @ Accor Stadium !
03/07/2023 — Auckland, NZ @ Eden Park, Mt Smart Stadium !
05/13/2023 — Horsens, DK @ CASA Arena ! )
05/17/2023 — Munich, DE @ Olympiastadion !
05/22/2023 — Coventry, UK @ Coventry Building Society Arena !
05/26/2023 — Edinburgh, UK @ BT Murrayfield Stadium !
06/01/2023 — Paris, FR @ Stade de France !
06/05/2023 — Amsterdam, NL @ Johan Cruijff ArenA !
06/10/2023 — Slane, IE @ Slane Castle !%
06/13/2023 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium !
06/14/2023 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium !
06/20/2023 — Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium !
06/24/2023 — Werchter, BE @ Festivalpark !
06/27/2023 — Dusseldorf, DE @ Merkur Spiel-Arena !
07/02/2023 — Warsaw, PL @ PGE Narodowy !
07/05/2023 — Frankfurt, DE @ Deutche Bank Park !
07/08/2023 — Viena, AT @ Ernst-Happel Stadium !
07/12/2023 — Barcelona, ES @ Estadi Olimpic Lluis Company !
07/14/2023 — Madrid, ES @ Nuevo Espacio Mad Cool !
07/18/2023 — Lisbon, PT @ Passeio Maritimo Alges !
07/22/2023 — Reggio Emilia, IT @ RCF Arena !

^ with Madi Diaz
* with Blood Orange
~ with Gabriels
# with Jessie Ware
+ with Ben Harper
! with Wet Leg

Today is a major day for Britney Spears, as she is just hours removed from releasing “Hold Me Closer,” her new collaboration with Elton John and first new music since the end of her conservatorship. People around the world are thrilled to see Spears returning to music and that includes Drew Barrymore.

On TikTok today, Barrymore shared a video of herself listening to the song and she was clearly moved by it. The video is of her listening to the chorus and upon hearing Spears’ voice, Barrymore is nearly moved to tears as she smiles and closes her eyes before smiling wider and letting out a laugh.

Barrymore’s caption also celebrates the positive reception the song has so far received, as it reads, ‘Hold Me Closer’ is out today and it’s #1 in 33 countries!!”

Earlier this year, Spears called Barrymore one of the “most beautiful” celebrities she’s met. Barrymore offered an emotional reaction to that, saying, “I just have to choose my words carefully. It is such a moment for me. I have so much… I have so many feelings towards her, so much profoundness. So how do you encapsulate that in a post? She managed to do it, now I’ve got to figure it out. But really, when you put your words out there, Britney Spears, we’re all listening. So I’m really excited for your book. I really am.”

Barrymore later said she’d love to have Spears on The Drew Barrymore Show. Spears has shown hesitancy towards doing interviews, but if she did want to do one, it feels like Barrymore’s show would be one of Spears’ top options.

While Donald Trump doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would ever really let you know how he’s truly feeling about any particular situation, he does have some pretty obvious tells. One of them being that when the walls begin closing in all around him — which seems to happen pretty often — he takes to social media and starts posting… and posting and posting and posting. Which is exactly what he did on Thursday.

As Raw Story reports, the former president went on a bit of a posting spree on his own TRUTH Social to proclaim his innocence following the FBI raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago, and take a few potshots at the current president. In a series of posts, Trump declared:

Even though I am as innocent as a person can be, and despite MY campaign being spied on by the Radical Left, the FISA COURT being lied to and defrauded, all of the many Hoaxes and Scams that were illegally placed on me by very sick & demented people, and without even mentioning the many crimes of Joe and Hunter Biden, all revealed in great detail in the Laptop From Hell, it looks more and more like the Fake News Media is pushing hard for the Sleaze to do something that should not be done!

He followed that up with:

Joe Biden said he knew nothing about the Break-In of Mar-a-Lago or, the greatest political attack in the history of the U.S. Does anybody really believe this???

Then got a little wordier:

The Radical Left Democrat prosecutors are illegally trying to circumvent, for purely political gain, the Presidential Record’s Act, under which I have done absolutely nothing wrong. It can not be circumvented, for me or any other President. They illegally Raided my home, and took things that should not have been taken. They even broke into my safe, an unthinkable act!

Followed by:

PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT!

And finished up his rant with:

The Justice Department and FBI are “leaking” at levels never seen before – and I did nothing wrong!!!

While ALL CAPS are a signature Trump move, the triple exclamation points seem to indicate that he realizes an FBI investigation isn’t something he can just brush off or make go away. Nor did he do himself any favors by recently leaking a letter that made him seem even more guilty. On the other hand, he has managed to use the raid as a way to grift about $1 million per day from his supporters, so who knows — it could turn out to be a financial windfall for Trump Inc.

(Via Raw Story)

After guiding the Las Vegas Aces to the WNBA’s best record at 26-10 and the Commissioner’s Cup crown during the regular season, Becky Hammon has been named 2022 Coach of the Year. Hammon was hired this past winter to replace Bill Laimbeer after a lengthy stint as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs.

The Aces entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed and quickly dispatched the Phoenix Mercury in the first round, 2-0. They’ll kick off their second-round matchup against the Seattle Storm on Sunday; the winner of that series heads to the Finals. Since relocating from San Antonio to Las Vegas in 2018, the Aces have made the playoffs three times in four seasons, including a Finals loss in 2020. Hammon is hoping to lead the franchise to its first title across its 26-year history.

Las Vegas is headlined by stars such as A’Ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, and Jackie Young. Hammon’s Coach of the Year trophy could kick off a prosperous awards season for the Aces, too. Wilson is vying with Breanna Stewart for MVP, which would be her second in three years, while Young is a favorite for Most Improved Player.

Under Hammon, Las Vegas posted the league’s top offense and dramatically increased its three-point volume. It ranked first in three-point percentage (36.1) and third in attempts per game (26.4). During Laimbeer’s four seasons, the Aces ranked dead last in three-point attempts per game every year. Hammon’s arrival helped modernize their offense, a significant reason they’re six wins away from the franchise’s first championship.

Rema shared the upbeat dance jam “Calm Down” in February of this year ahead of his album Rave & Roses. In music, some songs are so great that they have to be remixed and add another voice, which came in the form of Selena Gomez joining the “Calm Down” remix on Thursday (August 25). Their voices paired together to breathe new life into the record, and the Disney Channel star could not help but express her gratitude for the opportunity.

In a tweet on Monday, Gomez promoted the record with a minute-long video showing her on the way to a Rema show. In the video, she plays the “Calm Down” remix while applying makeup, sings along to her verse in a car, and says, “I’m really excited to see the person that asked me to be on a song that I couldn’t be more honored to do. The song’s fun, I hope people like it. That’s all I want.”

The video continues with Rema entering a room and hugging Selena Gomez. Rema shares in the excitement for this collaboration as well, saying, “I’m so happy, I’m literally shaking right now,” before Gomez encourages him to have a good show. The moment is clearly a big deal for both of them.

Listen to the “Calm Down” remix above.

To the surprise of pretty much no one, Donald Trump‘s social media company is not doing so great. In an extremely on-brand move, Truth Social has reportedly stiffed its web hosting company to the tune of $1.6 million. In fairness, the former president’s social media platform initially made its first three payments, but then after that, it did what its boss does best and completely ghosted when it came time for the bill.

Via Fox Business:

In October, RightForge announced it entered into an agreement to host Truth Social, which Trump helped create after he was banned by Twitter following the Jan. 6 riots. RightForge now contends that Truth Social has reneged on its contractually obligated monthly payments for setting up the platform’s web-servicing infrastructure, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

RightForge is reportedly threatening legal action, but it’s going to have to get into a very long line. Truth Social is already under investigation by the Feds, and it just took another significant hit from the US Patent and Trademark Office, which shut down the social media site’s application to trademark its name.

According to Insider, the patent office found the name Truth Social to be “confusingly similar” to other platforms like Vero – True Social and the Christian radio station Truth Network. In a nutshell, there are just way too many platforms out there with the word “truth” in them, and Trump probably should’ve chosen something more original. The former president’s social media company has until February 2023 to appeal the decision, but it seems like he has much larger problems on his tiny hands.

(Via Fox Business, Insider)

Rey Mysterio has accomplished more than he could have ever imagined when he was growing up in Tijuana. One of the most illustrious professional wrestling careers of all time — 20 years in WWE, the first father to win WWE’s tag team titles with his son, etc. — Mysterio has done just about everything there is to do.

The latest subject in A&E Network’s “Biography: WWE Legends” series, which debuts on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Mysterio’s career takes center stage from humble beginnings to wrestling’s biggest stage.

From a young age, Mysterio was drawn to the world of professional wrestling, where he began training with his uncle, Rey Mistero Sr., and an up-and-coming wrestler by the name of Konnan.

“My wife and I always say, ‘God first, then Konnan,’ for the illustrious career that I’ve had because I could have been a local wrestler, hometown hero if it weren’t for Konnan,” Mysterio told Uproxx Sports. “Konnan opened up many doors. Of course I did the work and proved myself, but if you don’t have that connection you’re never going to make it. He not only did it in Mexico, but the fact that he kept opening doors for me everywhere he went — at ECW and then he went to WCW and did the same thing there.”

It was Konnan who, after being impressed with Mysterio’s rapid rise, helped introduce him to the ECW audience and later to management at WCW for a tryout match.

“At the time, I just wanted to travel and have the opportunity to wrestle in different parts of the world. Konnan had always been my mentor, so him going to WCW for the first time, I remember him coming back to Mexico and we were on a tour for AAA and he said, ‘I think it’s gonna be pretty close that I’ll be able to get you in there,’” Mysterio said. “He was able to get me a tryout and told me I was gonna be wrestling Dean Malenko. I’m thinking a tryout, non-televised, maybe a dark match. And sure enough, my tryout match was the opening match for the Great American Bash.”

Mysterio would be welcomed with a standing ovation from the boys in the back after his debut. That was only the beginning of his success in the promotion, as his career would grow with and without his famous mask.

“I don’t believe I was ready to lose the mask,” Mysterio said of his unmasking in 1999. “But of course it happened, it was a decision that was made and we were all on board. Going back and thinking about that moment, I truly believe the ‘giant killer’ character wouldn’t have been (without losing the mask). The following night (after losing the mask) I had a one-on-one against [Kevin] Nash and that’s the night that Nash put me over. It was like a new beginning for Rey Mysterio and I don’t know if this had anything to do with WWE’s vision to eventually put me against bigger guys. But I want to say that possibly gave them the idea to say ‘ok, let’s try him in there with the Big Show, the Undertaker.’ I’ve had an incredible career in WWE because of that little man-big man story and I truly believe that’s because of me facing the bigger guys in WCW.”

Mysterio would go on to join WWE in 2002, years after the company’s acquisition of WCW. And it’s where he’s thrived for the last two decades, building a resume that includes numerous runs as the heavyweight champion and the ability to wrestle alongside his real-life son, Dominik.

While Mysterio was passed down the mask and Mysterio monicker from his uncle, Rey Misterio Sr., he says that he’s unlikely to do the same for his son.

“Dominik, at some point, he definitely wants to separate and create his own road and he wants the fans to know him for who he is not because he’s my son. And I think we’re getting ready to part ways and have him create his own path,” Mysterio said. “We’ve both taken advantage of the fact that he’s been wrestling by my side for the past two years. And now it’s time to cut the strings and have him go his way and have myself go my way, in different directions.

“Obviously I’m very proud of him. I’m very excited to have shared these last two years with him and have been able to see his growth and teach him the way,” Mysterio continued. “I want to say that I created only friendships throughout my 20 years of being with WWE and haven’t had any negative feedback whatsoever from any of my peers. And I think that puts my son in a good position as well. He’s a very respectful young man who knows and understands the respect that comes with this business. And I think that is gonna take him a long way. Now all he has to do is put in the work and grind it out every single day, so he can carve his own destiny.”

As for what he has left to accomplish, Mysterio isn’t setting a time frame on when it’s time to hang up his boots. While he continues to recover from years of damage to his body with stem cell treatment, he seems happy to stay active as long as he can.

“The fact that I was given an opportunity to be part of the WWE roster was special within itself,” Mysterio said. “I was able to cross all these obstacles that were presented my way from Day 1 at the age of 14. I’ve had a very Illustrious and very special career. I think that I was blessed enough to open up doors, not only for myself but for the future superstars that maybe one day thought that it wasn’t possible. I’m very thankful for all of that.

“And now the fact that I’ve been able to share the ring with my son, the fact that we’re in the WWE history books of becoming the first father and son tag team champions. I don’t think I could ask for anything else as long as God gives me a good farewell, and I’m able to retire healthy and that I’m able to continue watching my son put into work for his old man after I’m done.”

Keanu Reeves is a dream wedding guest, even when he isn’t technically invited.

While taking a break from filming a docuseries about F1 for Disney+ in Northamptonshire, England, The Matrix star ended up attending a couple’s wedding ceremony. “My husband saw him in the bar area and told him he’d just got married and invited Keanu to come over to say hello and have a drink with us if he wanted to,” Nikki Roadnight told Newsweek. “He was very friendly and said he would later on. We didn’t know if he would or not, but it was cool that my husband had spoken to him!”

It’s the first time “we saw you from across the bar…” actually worked, because an hour later, an employee at the wedding venue approached Nikki and told her that a “very special guest” was waiting for her outside. It was Keanu, being his kind, awesome self.

“It was all very exciting and I went to say hi and introduce myself, and I offered him a drink but he declined that and said he’d just had a long flight so wouldn’t stay long but he was so kind and friendly and congratulated us on our wedding,” she said. “He was kind enough to do some pictures and our wedding photographer was able to capture some too! Then he took the time to speak to some of our guests and have more photos done!”

Instead of saying “cheese” when photos were taken (which you can see here), Nikki’s mom instructed everyone to yell “Speed,” which is an endearingly corny mom-on-a-wedding-day thing to do. Keanu Reeves brings out the wholesomeness in everyone.

(Via Newsweek)

As improbable as it may sound, it’s impossible to overstate Jay-Z’s impact on rap music and hip-hop culture. No matter how much praise fans heap on him, it’ll never be enough to really capture how truly important he’s been to the culture’s growth over the past 20 years. Yet, every so often, he returns with a reminder, giving fans another reason to re-affirm his greatness and declare him one of rap’s Greatest Of All Time.

The latest is Jay’s four-minute verse on DJ Khaled’s new album God Did. In the title song, which also features Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, and John Legend, Jay-Z reiterates all of his accomplishments, from reaching billionaire status to launching the careers of even more billionaires (Kanye West and Rihanna) behind him to touring the world after surviving the rough-and-tumble hallways of the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. He even boasts about his efforts in social justice, claiming his REFORM Alliance lawyers are willing to work pro bono based on his stature.

Listeners are taking his messaging to heart, taking the opportunity to praise Jay with comparisons to LeBron James, calling the verse his greatest ever, and calling him the embodiment of Black excellence, even 30 years into his career. Naturally, many are already clamoring for him to record and release a new album ASAP. Should that be the ultimate outcome, may we respectfully suggest that DJ Khaled play executive producer on it? The track record’s immaculate.

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.

“Life isn’t about optimizing every part of it,” Australian songwriter Julia Jacklin says over Zoom. She’s right, but the cult of optimization and life hacking is hard to escape from. The billion-dollar self-help book industry pushes the idea that optimizing your life can lead to winning influence, friends, that big promotion, and even “mastering your mind” (whatever that means). The idea of life hacking is meant to be beneficial, but when everything is seen as a problem that needs to be fixed or improved, when do you know you’ve solved it? How can we ever enjoy something when it always feels like there’s more work to be done?

Jacklin was thinking a lot about this idea of optimizing, particularly when it came to her emotions, and how it kept her from living in the moment when working on her masterpiece of a third studio album, Pre-Pleasure. She realized she had become so concerned with figuring herself out, it was hard to actually enjoy all the hard-earned success and acclaim the past few years had brought her.

She had spent much of her late 20’s traveling the world and sharing her music, only to feel burnt out by giving away her raw emotions on stage each night and being away from her hometown for months at a time. That is, until she suddenly found herself with a lot of free time on her hands, more than she’s ever had in her life. And as someone who needs to be busy to feel creative, Jacklin began reflecting on her constant urge to move on to the next thing; whether it be the next career highlight or bit of personal growth. Finally, Jacklin realized it was time to stop feeling like she needed to work on all these aspects of her life, and simply enjoy them. This realization is weaved through her 10-track project Pre-Pleasure, an album that explores pleasure, boundaries, and the art of finally living in the moment.

The title Pre-Pleasure speaks to the difficulty of reaping the rewards of hard work. “I realized in the record I was talking a lot about my relationships — with people and with my own sexual pleasure — and this constant grappling for understanding,” Jacklin says. “I’m always thinking that I need to work on all these aspects of my life, and that one day I’ll be able to just sit around and enjoy them. I’ll have a really healthy relationship with my sexuality, family, friends, and everything will be great, but first I have to do all this work.” The term “pre-pleasure” sums up what she was feeling: always on the brink of happiness, but never actually experiencing it. “You have to just enjoy where it is at the moment, and not keep expecting it to improve all the time.”

One way Jacklin began enjoying life was reconnecting with pop greats who inspired her early love of music. “Coming into making this record, I was listening to a lot of pop music from my childhood; music that just is engineered to make people feel good,” she says. “I love my genre of music, but it’s an intense genre to listen to exclusively.”

She means, of course, the indie rock genre. More specifically, the kind of music that can controversially be labeled “sad girl music,” a category her debut LP Don’t Let The Kids Win and 2019 opus Crushing are oftentimes be lumped into. Jacklin has found her genre of music can be pretty pretentious; there’s a lot of pressure to be “cool,” “irreverent,” and “full of sarcasm.” There can be certain aversion to earnestness, something Jacklin found herself wanting to combat the best way she knew how: by listening to the likes of Celine Dion and Kylie Minogue. “I think I’ve just been trying to uncomplicate [songwriting] over the last little while and remember that it’s just music. It’s meant to be fun.”

Jacklin was able to keep making music fun for her by switching up the way she writes songs. The exuberant, ’70s folk-infused piano pop number “Love, Try Not To Let Go” was the first song Jacklin ever wrote on the keyboard. “It was like, ‘How do I reconnect with songwriting and be able to remove some of the pressure out of my own head?’” After touring her intimate and personal album Crushing, Jacklin was left emotionally drained. “Guitar brings with it a lot of baggage,” she says. “You can get stuck in the same string patterns and you just feel like it’s quite easy to write the same song over and over again.”

So she instead turned to piano, an instrument she knew next to nothing about, to relieve some of the self-imposed pressure of songwriting. “I’m not proficient in any way. I think that made me feel a bit more excited at myself, excited at things that I was doing, because it just felt new and different,” she says. “Whereas the guitar was just starting to make me feel a bit sad. We’d been through too much together, so I think playing the piano was a fresh element.” Her experimentation paid off, as “Love, Try Not To Let Go” is one of the more buoyant songs on the album. Jacklin’s voice reverberates over a delicate, swirling melody. The chorus breaks down to a frantic mix of fuzzy guitars and hurried snares before floating back to the piano-driven beat, like a wave swelling then lulling back on itself.

“I Was Neon” is another danceable number on the album. It shows how Jacklin was letting go and having fun with music. An upbeat, fuzzy riff establishes a jaunty tempo while Jacklin’s lyrics find her appreciating who she is at this current moment. “Am I gonna lose myself again? / I quite like the person that I am,” she repeats. Whereas her more sanguine songs on Crushing were still, well, crushing at times, tracks like “I Was Neon,” “Lydia Wears A Cross,” and “Be Careful With Yourself” maintain a joyful quality while not losing Jacklin’s unique ability to speak directly from her soul.

While several songs on the album reflect her current state of mind, tracks like “Lydia Wears A Cross” and “Ignore Tenderness” unpack lessons learned in her youth. Like most women, Jacklin had a lot of learning — and unlearning — to do about her sexuality as an adult, which was only magnified by her Catholic school upbringing. “Lydia Wears A Cross” lays out a realistic vision of indoctrination, with a young girl going through the motions of prayer and praise without fully grasping its meaning. The girl sees her Catholic school uniform simply as a dress to feel pretty in, and thinks listening to the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack is a pious act.

Meanwhile, “Ignore Tenderness” is a lesson on combating society’s lessons on what sexuality should be for women. “There was no [sexual education] in school or family, it was just like zero information about anything to do with sex as a young person,” Jacklin recalls. Any messaging she’d get about sex as a teenager was from an abstinence-only framework, which has time and time again been proven harmful, or disingenuous sex tips from Cosmopolitan designed to be more scandalous than insightful. “Living within rape culture and living in the early-mid 2000s, which was when I was a teenager, I thought that as I got older, I would naturally shed all of that. But it’s been a lot harder to shake all of that shame and stigma. That stuff is fused into your psyche.” “Ignore Tenderness” addresses this early messaging, with lines about watching porn and getting “conflicting advice” like “be naughty but don’t misbehave.”

While Jacklin has done a lot of work from unpacking her religious upbringing to unlearning those weird Cosmo sex tips, she still hasn’t fully figured herself out. And that’s okay. For now, she’s content in liking the person she is in this moment, and trying not to over-analyze it — especially in her music itself. “I think if songwriting was super cathartic, songwriters would be like a happier group of people,” she says. “It’s important to put your feelings down on paper or in a song, but there’s so many other things you need to do to live a fulfilling life.” For Jacklin, part of that fulfillment comes from conquering “pre-pleasure” and finally living in the moment.

Pre-Pleasure is out now via Polyvinyl. Get it here.