Category: News

The annual Lollapalooza festival is underway, and there is much excitement surrounding many of the acts. The Chicago spectacle is a major celebration of music, and this year is highlighted by BTS’s J-Hope. While BTS’s popularity goes without saying, evidently, J-Hope has a loyal following of his own as a Lollapalooza organizer revealed that he is the biggest draw the festival has ever had as one of the headliners.

In a tweet from earlier today, a fan said they spoke with a Lollapalooza organizer who said that in the festival’s 31 years of operation, no one act has sold as many tickets as J-Hope. He also said that the Sunday lineup is set to have the lowest attendance in their history as well.

Again, this comes as no shock given BTS’s fandom and J-Hope’s solo career foray. The artist recently released his debut solo album Jack In The Box, lead by the single “More” and follow-up “Arson.” BTS’s initial announcement that its members would explore solo careers caused much hysteria, but the group clarified that they are not breaking up. J-Hope was the first of the group to release a solo album, and it seems like the rest will follow.

This headlining set at Lollapalooza is sure to be a major celebration of his hard work, and who knows? Maybe the other members will be present.

Check out the tweet sharing the Lollapalooza organizer’s words above.

Donald Trump isn’t all that into meat. After all, he prefers his steaks cooked to a flavorless crisp, and he’s so into McDonald’s he even offers it to athletes and demands it while in the hospital following a near-death experience. And yet even as it appears he’s being ghosted by Fox News and slammed by the families of 9/11 victims, at least there’s a Trump superfan in Texas who created a burger joint in his honor.

It’s called Trump Burgers, of course, and it’s located in Bellville, an hour or so drive northwest of Houston. As per Houston Chronicle, its exterior is festooned with pro-Trump banners, American flags, and an illustration of the disgraced former president. On the inside is another drawing of Trump, located right next to a sign directing patrons to the restrooms.

The owner is Roland Beainy, a second-generation Lebanese-American born in Boston who spent much of his youth in Lebanon, opened the restaurant in 2020, one year after returning to the U.S. When it first opened, there was controversy, including threatening phonecalls, but those have died down, allowing patrons to enjoy the Trump Tower, listed at some point at $13.99 and consisting of a 12 oz. Angus patty and “fully loaded.” It is one of only two items on the menu bearing the ex-president’s name.

Though Trump Burger has no connection with the Trump Organization, which is currently under investigation, Beainy says a portion of his restaurant’s profits go towards his fundraising campaign. Perhaps he missed the news that self-professed rich guy Trump sometimes uses donations from his supporters on himself.

(Via Houston Chronicle)

In an ideal world, people will always receive credit for the things they do especially when someone else benefits. Unfortunately, the music industry is anything but an ideal world. Though there are proper platforms for songwriters, engineers, and other contributors to be given their acknowledgment, that process is often bypassed. Just this week, Kelis took issue with Beyoncé sampling her on Renaissance without reaching out to her, and now we see ASAP Bari has a similar issue with Playboi Carti.

Yesterday (July 29), Bari took to Instagram story to call out Carti for not crediting him or paying him for “Go2DaMoon” featuring Kanye West. Evidently, the ASAP Mob member played the song for Carti around the time Whole Lotta Red was being made.

“When you play Carti a Kanye song you had in ur phone produce by @wheezy,” Bari said over a clip of Carti listening to the song. “Even tho Carti never paid me or gave me Credit on the album but that go’s to a lot of rapper I’ve helped out but never got Credit for.”

Though this is yet another unfortunate situation commonplace to the music industry, Bari is still in good spirits as Kanye West recently gifted him a brand new Maybach truck days after he wrecked his previous vehicle.

Check out the Instagram clip above.

It didn’t take too long for Britney Spears to announce a tell-all book was on the way after her lengthy conservatorship had come to an end. She made that announcement at the beginning of the year and even shared that she aimed to have the book released by the end of the year. The upcoming memoir is reportedly a part of a $15 million deal with Simon & Schuster. The release date for the book was pushed back a bit to January 2023, but it seems like another delay may be in order thanks to a worldwide paper supply shortage.

According to TMZ, Britney’s upcoming book is complete, but the shortage of paper and other materials has affected publication plans meaning that the January 2023 release date may not be met. There is no time estimate for how long the paper shortage may continue and Simon & Schuster has yet to share an alternate release date for the untitled memoir.

Back in March, Publishers Weekly shared a report about the paper shortage and said that multiple factors are responsible for the paper shortage. They include increased interest in books as a result of the coronavirus pandemic as well as labor shortages impacting production, something we’ve seen go down in multiple industries.

Billie Eilish has a lot to celebrate. At just 20 years old, she has won seven Grammy awards, is the youngest artist to win in all four of the Grammy’s general categories, holds two Guinness World Records, and RIAA has deemed her one of the most successful artists of the 2010s. Thus, it makes sense her July 2021 album was named Happier Than Ever. To celebrate her sophomore LP and all of its success, Eilish surprised Amoeba Music attendees by dropping through the Hollywood location with an acoustic performance.

Her brother and songwriter, Finneas O’Connell, sat beside her strumming the guitar while they ran through songs such as “Billie Bossa Nova,” “Getting Older,” “TV,” and “Happier Than Ever.” The pop star was both visibly and audibly excited for the moment, saying “This is so cute…You guys are just the best, and it’s been the most amazing year. You guys have been so sweet and respectful about this album and I just love you.”

Billie even took requests from the audience, but jokingly turned down those calling for “Everybody Dies” because it is “such a downer.”

Though she took the moment to give herself flowers, the work hasn’t stopped for the LA artist as she shared two records, “TV” and “The 30th,” earlier this month.

Watch the cozy Amoeba Music set above.

Donald Trump hasn’t been in office for a year-and-a-half, but he’s not enjoying a chill post-presidential life. Instead, he wants to run again, even as he’s plagued with lawsuits and an investigation by the Justice Department. He’s even found time to enrage 9/11 survivors and families of victims, who are righteously angry that he’s hosting a Saudi-backed golf tournament, a mere six years after blaming Saudi Arabia for the World Trade Center attacks. But on top of being a massive about-face, even for him, the shindig appears to be yet another Trump failure.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the first day of the tournament on Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. There they found “light crowds” and golfers who “weren’t exactly supercharged.” What’s more, it didn’t seem like matters would improve. Tickets for Saturday’s events, WSJ reported, were not quite in high demand, going for a mere $1 on the ticket re-seller service StubHub.

There were some people adjacent to the tournament, though, who did seem supercharged:

Not far from the course, the families of 9/11 victims assailed those associating with the circuit. When Phil Mickelson teed off in the opening round, a fan appeared to yell: “Do it for the Saudi royal family!”

Trump himself has been cruising around the grounds, in a golf cart emblazoned with the presidential seal. Oh, and about that: On top of all of his other legal and financial woes, the former president may have set him for up to six months in prison for illegally using said seal.

(Via WSJ)

There’s been a recent uptick in celebrities being criticized for the frequent and often unnecessary use of their private jets. It all started with Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott posing in front of their individual jets. That led to the discovery of Kylie’s 17-minute ride across a California suburb which would have only been a 45-minute drive. Drake was next after he was slammed for taking a 14-minute flight from Toronto, Ontario to Hamilton, Ontario, however, he offered an explanation for it. Taylor Swift was next as she was labeled as the celebrity with the most private flight CO2 emissions in 2022.

Days after this was revealed, a spokesperson for Taylor shared a statement to explain the singer’s high CO2 emissions from her private jet. “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals,” the spokesperson said to E! News in their statement. “To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.”

Taylor’s own criticism came after the Twitter account @CelebJets, which also brought Kylie and Drake’s plane usage to light, revealed that Taylor’s private jet has put forth 170 trips and 22,923 minutes of flight time in 2022. The latter number is equivalent to 16 days in the air. A study conducted by marketing firm Yard said her private jet has emitted 8,293.54 metric tons of carbon in the last seven months. The study said that the number is “1,184.8 times more than the average person’s total annual emissions.” The @CelebJets Twitter account also noted that the average time for Taylor’s private jet had an average flight time of 80 minutes with its shortest flight being a 36-minute trip from Missouri to Nashville, Tennessee.

Remember when Roger Stone almost went to prison? Back in 2019, the longtime GOP fixer — currently in hot water again over involvement in the events of Jan. 6 — was dramatically scooped up by the feds over his attempts to obstruct Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. He was convicted on five counts and sentenced to 40 months in prison. He didn’t serve a single day. Donald Trump wound up commuting his sentence and later pardoning him. And now we know that Stone knew he didn’t have to worry.

The Washington Post unearthed damning video evidence of MAGA lawmaker Matt Gaetz assuring Stone he’d be fine a month before a grand jury ordered him to the slammer. “The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” said Gaetz, referring, of course, to Donald Trump. “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”

Stone, Gaetz told him, would be found guilty, which he was, but assured him he wouldn’t “do a day,” which he didn’t.

Gaetz didn’t go into details, because he didn’t want to have someone accidentally pick up his admission. “Since there are many, many recording devices around right now, I do not feel in a position to speak freely about the work I’ve already done on that subject,” he told Stone.

So how did Gaetz unwittingly wind up speaking into a microphone? Because he was conversing with someone who was miked. Stone had once again allowed documentarians to follow him around, and he had a microphone on his lapel, recording his every interaction. Lo and behold, the guy who would soon be under federal investigation for ties to a sex trafficking ring was suddenly incriminating himself. Whoops!

Meanwhile, documentary footage that presumably shows Stone trying to overturn the 2020 election is being sought by the Jan. 6 committee. Maybe he stop hiring film crews to document him and others doing underhanded things?

(Via The Post)

The Buffalo Bills are expected to compete for a Super Bowl this year. After losing one of the best football games of all time in the playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs this past season, the Bills made it a point to add reinforcements all over the place, and as a result, Las Vegas views them as the favorites to lift the Lombardi Trophy in February.

One of the players the team brought on was beefy defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, who joined after spending the last few years with the Arizona Cardinals and should provide some heft to a defensive line that only sacked Patrick Mahomes once in the aforementioned game against Kansas City. Phillips drew some attention on Saturday afternoon during a preseason practice for getting into it with Pro Bowl signal caller Josh Allen. The pair had to be separated by a number of teammates after a play near the goal line that appeared to lead to Allen — who was quite riled up at how things went down — giving Phillips a shove.

The fracas apparently led to the end of practice.

The Bills will begin their regular season on Thursday, Sept. 8 with a trip to Los Angeles to take on the defending Super Bowl champion Rams.

This year could very much be the year that Paramore finally releases their long-awaited sixth album. If it drops before 2022 comes to a close, it would be the band’s first album in five years following 2017’s After Laughter. In the time since, the lead vocalist Hayley Williams has worked on her solo career, releasing albums — Petals For Armor and Flowers For Vases/Descansos — in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Drummer Zac Faro also released work with HalfNoise during this time. Later this year, Paramore will hold their first tour in four years, and ahead of those shows, Williams took a moment to share some details about the band’s upcoming sixth album.

The comments about the band’s next album came during Williams’ Everything Is Emo podcast and she started by showing love to English rock band Bloc Party and their 2005 album Silent Alarm. “We loved this band, me and all my friends, we were really into that album and it always reminds me of getting my driving license,” she said. “I paid my mom money that I got from a publishing advance we got from our first album to buy out the remainder of the car notes that she had for this old Mazda 626.”

She continued, “I think I paid $3000, I named her Miss Anne, I covered her in stickers. Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm was always on in the car. It was a favorite, and there’s really not a bad track on it.” Later on in the episode, Williams spoke directly about Paramore’s next album, saying, “From day one, Bloc Party was the number one reference because there was such an urgency to their sound that was different to the fast punk or the pop-punk or the like, loud wall of sound emo bands that were happening in the early 2000s.”

She added, “They had their own thing and it was so unique and so dynamic, and it really stuck with us. And I’m really really thankful for this band, I’m so thankful that they’re back, they’re playing shows they’re putting out great songs, and it just makes me feel even more excited to get back out into the world, and maybe cross paths with the band that has been a huge part of our story from day one.”

You can listen to the full Everything Is Emo podcast here.

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