Category: News

Last summer, the National Music Publishers Association honored Taylor Swift with the Songwriter Icon Award. It’s unclear how Swift was declared the recipient of that prize, but however that process went, Damon Albarn probably wasn’t involved, as he doesn’t believe that Swift actually writes her own songs.

In a new Los Angeles Times interview, the Gorillaz leader spoke about how he finds that playing in a band (as opposed to performing solo) is “not hard,” saying, “You can’t hide behind anything. You learn whether the songs are any good or whether they were popular at the time because of the sound and the attitude.”

That prompted a conversation about artists relying on “sound and attitude” and the interviewer mentioned Swift (as somebody who isn’t that way), calling her “an excellent songwriter.” Albarn replied, “She doesn’t write her own songs.” The interviewer retorted, “Of course she does. Co-writes some of them.” To that, Albarn replied by disagreeing and noting that he likes Billie Eilish and Finneas as songwriters:

“That doesn’t count. I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I’m not hating on anybody, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes. Doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really great. And some of the greatest singers — I mean, Ella Fitzgerald never wrote a song in her life. When I sing, I have to close my eyes and just be in there. I suppose I’m a traditionalist in that sense.

A really interesting songwriter is Billie Eilish and her brother. I’m more attracted to that than to Taylor Swift. It’s just darker — less endlessly upbeat. Way more minor and odd. I think she’s exceptional.”

Check out the full interview here.

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

The explosive docuseries Secrets Of Playboy premieres tonight on A&E, and it reportedly details years of abuse, blackmail, and trafficking by legendary Playboy honcho Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Hefner’s exes and former Playboy mansion residents are featured in the four-part mini-series, remarking all of the terrible things the Playboy founder did. Holly Madison, who starred in the reality series Girls Next Door, spoke out about her time living with Hefner, and how she believes she developed Stockholm Syndrome while living with him for nearly a decade. “I felt like I was in this cycle of gross things and I didn’t know what to do.”

Other disturbing allegations, including beastiality, are brought to light by former playmates Miki Garcia and Sondra Theodore. “It was a manipulation from the beginning. [He] groomed us all.” Theodore stated. “Really, he was a monster.”

Theodore, who met Hefner when she was 19, said he also used to film ‘everybody’ and use the tapes for blackmail. “He had tapes on everybody. The first time I looked up at the two screens he had for the TV in the bedroom and I realized it was me, I’m like, ‘Whoa, what are you doing?’ And when we started bringing other people into the bedroom, some girls had the same reaction.” Hefner was also famously close with Bill Cosby.

Hefner, who passed away in 2017, supposedly trapped models into “unfair contracts.” Jennifer Saginor, who was the daughter of Hefner’s personal doctor and close friend Mark Saginor, also claims there were “shadow mansions,” where women were drugged and assaulted while being promised potential modeling contracts.

Last week, Playboy released a statement, insisting that Hefner’s Playboy is different from modern-day Playboy.

“The Hefner family is no longer associated with Playboy, and today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy. We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences. As a brand with sex positivity at its core, we believe safety, security, and accountability are paramount. The most important thing we can do right now is actively listen and learn from their experiences. Today, our organization is run by a workforce that is more than 80% female and we will continue to confront any parts of our legacy that do not reflect our values today, and to build upon the progress we have made as we evolve as a company so we can drive positive change for our employees and our communities.”

Secrets Of Playboy premieres tonight at 9pm ET on A&E.

Aaron Rodgers criticized Joe Biden in an interview with ESPN that was published the day before his Green Bay Packers became the first team in NFL history to fail to reach the Super Bowl after winning 13 games in three straight seasons. While touring tornado-hit areas of Kentucky in December, the president joked to a woman wearing a Packers jacket, “Tell that quarterback he’s gotta get the vaccine.” Rodgers was not amused.

“When the president of the United States says, ‘This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ it’s because him and his constituents, which, I don’t know how there are any if you watch any of his attempts at public speaking, but I guess he got 81 million votes,” Rodgers, who was fined by the NFL for violating COVID protocols and takes medical advice from Joe Rogan, said. “But when you say stuff like that, and then you have the CDC, which, how do you even trust them, but then they come out and talk about 75% of the COVID deaths have at least four comorbidities. And you still have this fake White House set saying that this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, that’s not helping the conversation.”

Rodgers’ comments, especially the part about Biden receiving 81 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, caught the attention of Donald Trump’s chief spokeswoman, Liz Harrington. She used it as proof that the election was stolen from her boss. “There’s not a lot of good news. We see what happens after one year of an illegitimate regime in place,” she said on Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic podcast:

“The only good news is the American people know it. I mean, you had four years of them saying the 2016 election was stolen by Russia and you never had quarterbacks questioning President Trump’s legitimacy. You’ve got Aaron Rodgers just flat out calling it out and saying ’81 million votes? Yeah, I guess.’ But it doesn’t certainly look like it.”

Here’s the clip:

Rodgers now has plenty of free time to do his own research.

(Via Mediaite)

Earlier in the month, Netflix revealed that Will Arnett would star in an improv murder mystery series called Murderville, which would feature a rotating cast of celebrity guest stars. The hook is that the guest stars wouldn’t be given a script and would have to improv their way through the procedural alongside Arnett. Obviously, this premise sounds great, but now we know just how out of hand things will get thanks to Netflix dropping first official trailer.

Along with revealing the absolutely stacked guest star cast of Conan O’Brien, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, and Ken Jeong, the trailer makes it clear that Netflix was not messing around when it said there would be no script. In the hilarious trailer, the guest stars break character from laughing at Arnett so hard, and in some cases, genuinely have no clue what the heck they’re doing. It definitely looks like a good time.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Meet Senior Detective Terry Seattle, Homicide Division. For Terry, every day means a new murder case and a new celebrity guest star as his partner. But here’s the catch: each episode’s guest star isn’t being given the script. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them. Together, the guest star and Terry Seattle will have to improvise their way through the case, but it will be up to each celebrity guest alone to name the killer. Join them as they punch a one-way ticket to Murderville.

Murderville starts streaming February 3 on Netflix.

Pusha T‘s penchant for provocation apparently remains untempered by the four years and global pandemic that have taken place since his last album, 2018’s Daytona. The Virginia Beach rapper teased what many took to be a potential album cover on his Instagram Sunday, along with a video of Push performing a snippet of what appears to be a new track that could end up on his upcoming project. And, as in 2018, when he stirred controversy for using a photo of Whitney Houston’s trashed hotel room as the cover for Daytona, it looks like he’s using another pop star’s imagery to promote his latest work.

In Pusha’s latest Instagram post — and his only one, after he seemingly archived the rest of his profile overnight — a photo of a woman has her face obscured by a pile of white powder. However, it didn’t take long for fans to figure out that the woman in the photograph is none other than Lana Del Rey, who’s been known to reference cocaine in her music throughout her career as well (although, not nearly as much as Pusha). Meanwhile, over on Twitter, a number of snippets cropped up, culled from various celebrities’ Instagram Stories, each featuring Push rapping along to one of his new songs at a party attended by Kanye West and Pusha’s manager Steven Victor.

Does this mean Pusha’s next album is coming soon? Stay tuned to find out.

Sunny Day Real Estate has been real on-and-off since they became a defining emo band in the early ’90s, a status they achieved despite a short initial tenure. Their original run was from 1992 to 1995, and since then, they reunited in 1997, broke up again a few years later, reunited yet again in 2009, and disbanded once more in 2013. Now, it appears they’re ready to give it another go: Spin reports that the band is reuniting to play some shows this spring.

The publication also notes the lineup is set to include vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Enigk, guitarist Dan Hoerner, and drummer William Goldsmith, along with other musicians. Original bassist Nate Mendel, who went on to join Foo Fighters (of which he is still a member), is apparently not involved in the reunion.

Furthermore, Brooklyn Vegan reports that Goldsmith took to Instagram to post a screenshot of a new @sdretour Instagram page, as well as a video of him practicing Sunny Day Real Estate’s “Roses In Water.” Both posts have since been deleted. There are currently no posts on the @sdretour page. This comes after Enigk dropped off of most dates of an upcoming Cursive and The Appleseed Cast tour, a tour that kicked off a few days ago and is set to run through to mid-March.

Revisit our 2017 interview with Enigk here.

Ex-president Donald Trump has been lashing out like a caged rat at the New York Attorney General’s investigation (into the fam’s shady business), all while a lot of focus is turning toward the eldest Trump kids regarding January 6. Much of that attention is going toward Ivanka (regarding with her reported attempts to have her dad call off the MAGA rioters), but guess who’s stealing plenty of focus surrounding both investigations?

That’d be Don Jr., He of the amped-up Fox News appearances and who (not too terribly long ago) delivered a glassy-eyed rant that inspired tons of “Motel 6” jokes. The latter video clip featured him ranting about Hunter Biden’s laptop in a run-down looking room, and overall, Don Jr.’s video clips leave people wondering if he needs an intervention. So let’s just say that Don Jr.’s latest self-posted installment won’t quiet the masses. On Friday night, he took to Facebook with a 4:35 rant entitled, “Biden Can’t Read a Teleprompter!”

This one’s a doozy. In particular, one part of the video’s circulating like wildfire because Don Jr. appears to make a fart joke about how President Biden might “let one rip” if they allow him to… be in the same room with someone? It makes no sense, and then Don Jr. begins to ramble about Russia and China and yikes.

It’s no wonder that a Twitter user remarked how this is the perfect example of “why Trump’s lawyers don’t want Don Jr. testifying before the NY AG.”

And all of the intervention jokes have begun afresh as well.

Between this and fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle’s shout-filled ways, every day must be a real adventure at Don Jr.’s house.

Kid Cudi’s been teasing Entergalactic — a multimedia project set to accompany the rollout of his next album — since at least 2019 when he announced he in developing an animated Netflix series based on the concept that summer, but since then, he hasn’t revealed much else about it. However, the release date for the project appears to be drawing nearer, as Cudi excitedly tweeted about process of recording — both the album and his voice role on the series.

“ENTERGALACTIC is the greatest piece of art Ive ever made,” he wrote. “I am so sooo f*ckin proud of this show. U have no idea what ur in for. 3 years in the making.” He recommended fans “watch the show first then consume the album,” and shared that his favorite part of the process was voice acting. “The voice acting was the most fun,” he wrote in reply to one fan’s question. “The music too but I’ve always wanted to do more voice acting and idk it was like another dream come true foreal.”

In the meantime, the Man On The Moon has plenty of other artistic endeavors coming out soon. In March, he’ll star alongside Brittany Snow, Jenna Ortega, and Mia Goth in the A24 horror-comedy X.

This has been a strange few months for Peloton.

On the season premiere of Showtime’s Billions, Mike Wagner, known on the show as Wags, played by David Costabile, suffered a mild heart attack after having a session on one of Peloton’s bikes. Sound familiar?

The stationary bike/exercise cult has had a few ups and downs, including causing the death of long-time Sex and the City character, Mr. Big after he had a heart attack on the bike. Peloton quickly jumped in on the joke, making an advertisement starring Mr.Big himself, Chris Noth. The ad was then pulled after sexual assault allegations against Noth surfaced.

Sources close to the show say that it was just a bizarre coincidence, as the series premiere was shot last spring. Though, they did add in a reference to the Sex and the City reboot, with Wags commenting, “I’m not going out like Mr. Big.” Allegedly, the line was added in later.

Peloton is, uh, not pleased with all of the negative publicity the bikes have been getting. The brand tweeted this morning to clear the air, saying “We get TV shows want to include @onepeloton to get people talking, but to be clear, we did *not* agree for our brand or IP to be used on @SHO_Billions or provide any equipment. As the show itself points out, cardio-vascular exercise helps people lead long, happy lives.”

This is yet another thing Peloton has to deal with, as they recently halted production on their viral bikes, due to lack of demand. Maybe they should consider getting some of the Euphoria teens on a bike for some positive press?

The Righteous Gemstones Halo Report is a weekly recap feature that assigns between zero and five halos to people, things, events, and general topics from each episode. There is very little to this beyond an excuse to highlight cool stuff from a good show and make jokes. And do crappy drawings of halos in MS Paint. We’re having fun.

ZERO HALOS

Kelvin Gemstone

Just a terrible week for the youngest and most muscle-obsessed Gemstone. Lowlights include:

• Having his trip to Israel canceled on the tarmac in front of his muscle men
• Having his muscle men denied entry to BJ’s big baptism gala
• Getting his thumbs torn halfway off his hands by his angry father in front of his muscle men

It’s never a good thing when you leave a baptism in the back of an ambulance. Or anywhere, really. Try to stay out of ambulances. That’s the main point here. But especially if you’re at a baptism.

Getting your party bus riddled with bullets by mysterious men on dirtbikes who may or may not be tied to various underground wrestling circuits

When did you realize things were about to go sideways here? Was it when the first dirtbike pulled up? Was it when the second dirtbike pulled up? Was it when the third and fourth dirtbike pulled up? I hope it was before that last one, just for your own sake out there in the real world. If you see two dudes in blackout helmets pull up on dirtbikes wherever you are, you need to get out of there. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies (I have), but I knew those automatic weapons were coming out the instant I saw the second bike.

Also: Do we assume here that the driver was in on it or do we think the party bus was sabotaged? Was it Junior trying to get revenge on Eli for the disrespect? Was it the Lissons out for blood after the financial betrayal? Can you even imagine how funny it would have been to see an angry and sulking Eli Gemstone riding home in that party bus by himself?

Lots to consider here.

ONE HALO

Jesse Gemstone

Things are not great for Eli Gemstone either. He’s arguing with his dad and his big investment with the Lissons fell apart before they even got to pick a pool shape and his one son is probably just littering their empty house with semen-crusted underpants. The only silver lining in any of it is that his fledgling business opportunity ended in embarrassment in an ax-tossing saloon and not with his former-wrestler father mangling his thumbs at his adult brother-in-law’s 1980s-prom-ass baptism.

It’s a very thin silver lining.

Not letting us follow Levi around for a few minutes, I mean, come on

Levi was really shining out there. Just an incredible performance. I’m sad for BJ that his big day went so poorly but I’m also sad for Levi. Levi was getting after it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone so happy.

Good for him.

TWO HALOS

Judy Gemstone

Judy is maybe my favorite character on television right now. Every week, it’s something new. Hell, every scene. I saw her singing up there during the baptism and I thought that was going to be the best thing I saw all episode and then the confrontation in the bathroom happened. What a whirlwind. What an absolute tour de force. Edi Patterson is a huge star and it’s time we all start talking about it.

How long do you think she was waiting in that bathroom stall to confront KJ? I suspect it was just a couple of minutes but please do take a moment today and picture her in there for like a half-hour, busting out every time a new person enters the ladies’ room and then getting frustrated it’s not the target of her rage. What a maniac. I love her very much.

Baby Billy Freeman

Baby Billy is a world-class scumbag in any number of ways, starting with him apparently abandoning his son at a pet store on Christmas in the early 1990s and extending to him apparently abandoning his extremely pregnant bride at BJ’s baptism. He’s a con man and a scoundrel and someone who deserves about six or eight different forms of comeuppance as soon as the universe gets its claws on him.

And yet.

I was so happy to see him again this week, up there singing deranged songs and sipping mojitos and just slithering around like a silver snake. Walton Goggins is an American treasure and we should treat him as such.

THREE HALOS

Eli Gemstone

Eli has:

• One useless child trying to invest in a bottomless money lagoon with slippery characters and Joe Jonas
• One useless child throwing an elaborate baptism ball for her bashful husband to make up for a family-free Disney wedding
• One useless child throwing money at a team of muscular Jesus men that may or may not be a cult and has no apparent purpose beyond ripping phone books in half in dramatic stage shows
• D-list semi-professional wrestlers showing up to whip tomatoes at his SUV
• A presumably still injured scrotum
• A possible assault charge pending for snapping thumbs in front of dozens of witnesses

He also got both cake and a bottle of champagne whipped at or near his head. And it’s worth pointing out that this is the second event-style baptism he’s presided over that has ended in disaster, if we count the wave pool fiasco of the series premiere, which we will, always. Point being: It could be better.

The Lissons

They are awful people, users and schemers and schmoozers of the highest caliber, ready to turn on and/or discard anyone the second they have extracted all the value they can, looking at everyone they meet the way a starving person looks at a buffet table. The world would be better off if they drowned in a kidney-shaped pool tomorrow.

I don’t care. I adore them. The line at the end about asking if Jesse and Amber could afford to pay for the drinks and free peanuts. Devastating and cruel and beautiful. I would watch an entire episode about their rise.

Aunt Tiffany

She’s a sweet and simple girl who was born in a toilet. None of this was ever going to end well for her.

FOUR HALOS

Harmon

I want the next episode to open with an adult Harmon with the same sunglasses on and a white cat in his lap, sitting in a massive chair behind a massive desk on the top floor of a skyscraper-like a supervillain, and I want him to fire two darts straight into the eyes of a picture of Baby Billy he has on his wall, and then I want him to look straight into the camera and say “Someone has been… Misbehavin.”

Let me have this. Please.

BJ’s skeptical secular family

Two things are important to note here:

• It is always fun to introduce a relatively normal — “normal” — group of people into a show filled with lunatics because it helps to drive home and ground just how insane everyone is, all the time, sometimes in bathroom rants bc about incestual lust
• I did not care for the mouth kissing

I do understand BJ more now, though. That was helpful.

Martin

A good man who is often forced to deliver bad news. Everyone could use a Martin in their lives.

FIVE HALOS

BJ

So many perfect little moments this week. The tiny arm flails as he was getting baptized. The nose clip he wore. The romper and cummerbund outfit that reflected all of the lights in the entire world. The strip-rage alone in the bathroom. The thing where he calls Judy “lollipop.” The single earring still hanging on despite staggering odds.

He’s the greatest. The only problem here is that it creates a troubling dilemma for me: I want only the best things in the world for him but it is relentlessly funny to watch the football of life get yoinked away from his like a pink-clad Charlie Brown every week.

I have so much to consider.

Keef

I thought I wouldn’t see anything funnier than Keef wearing a backpack on the front of his torso as they were preparing to board the plane but then he did this little sneaky move while hunting for snacks for the muscle men.

I hope Keef and BJ team up to solve mysteries. I need to stress here that I am not joking.

This jorts-wearing wrestling heel in training who showed up in character to try to intimidate Eli in a parking garage using tomatoes and theatrics

What a beautiful television program.