Dave Chappelle and Netflix have revealed the final chapter in his stand-up comedy series for the streaming service. Titled The Closer, the new teaser reveals that this sixth special completes a body of work which includes: The Age Of Spin, Deep In The Heart Of Texas, Equanimity, The Bird Revelation, and Sticks & Stones. While the teaser does not reveal any new material for the special, it does include a release date, which Chappelle fans will be happy to know is very soon. Next week, in fact, as The Closer starts streaming on Tuesday, October 5.
The new special marks an amicable relationship with Chappelle and Netflix that was strengthened earlier in the year when the streaming company worked with the comedian to get him the license back for his classic sketch comedy series Chappelle’s Show. When the series popped up on Netflix and HBO Max back in November 2020, Chappelle implored his fans not to stream it until he got paid. After the show mysteriously disappeared, it reappeared on Netflix in February followed by an Instagram video from Chappelle where he personally thanked Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos for doing right by him. “I got my name back and I got my license back and I got my show back and they paid me millions of dollars. Thank you very much,” Chappelle said in a message to fans.
However, the major question mark is whether Chappelle will continue to make specials for Netflix. The promotion for The Closer leans heavily into the fact that it’s the “final chapter” for the comedian, but the final chapter to what? Just this latest series of specials for Netflix, or Chappelle doing stand-up altogether?
B.J. Burton was in Los Angeles during the early days of the pandemic when he felt a strong compulsion to head back east.
A 35-year-old producer, engineer, and songwriter whose work for years has straddled the indie and pop worlds, Burton had recently wrapped work with Charli XCX on her acclaimed quickie Covid-era album, How I’m Feeling Now. One year prior, he was nominated for a Record Of The Year Grammy as one of the writers and producers of Bon Iver’s “Hey, Ma,” the latest product of a fruitful collaboration with Justin Vernon that also includes co-piloting 2016’s paradigm-shifting 22, A Million. Around that time, his name also became a fixture in the liner notes of albums by Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, and Miley Cyrus.
But now Burton was inspired to resume his partnership with Low, a Minnesota indie band situated about as far from the pop mainstream — artistically, philosophically, geographically — as possible. Their professional relationship commenced in 2015 with Ones And Sixes and then deepened on Double Negative, a scathing experimental work released to rave reviews in 2018. That album felt like a sequel of sorts to 22, A Million, which scuffed, scratched, and sandblasted Vernon’s stirring Americana melodies into oblivion with bottom-heavy sonics pushed neck-deep into the red. (The influence of Kanye West’s Yeezus, which Burton worked on at Vernon’s invitation, is acknowledged and quite pronounced.) On Double Negative, Burton took this to even greater extremes, submerging the familial harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker in a deeply disquieting murk of enigmatic ambient distortion.
Burton had been talking with Sparhawk about making a third record together, and after a period in the pop wilderness he was ready to revive what has been one of the most rewarding creative unions of his life.
“The weight of the world hit me,” Burton says during a recent visit to his studio in northeast Minneapolis. “And I was like, ‘I need to go make a fucking album in Minnesota with Low.’”
That album, HEY WHAT, dropped in early September, and Burton believes it might very well be the best record he’ll ever be involved with. It also feels like a culmination for one of the most distinctive and fascinating producers currently working in the indie world. While Burton has worked on all sorts of music — including a Grammy-nominated record with the electro-pop duo Sylvan Esso, as well as songs by Lizzo, Chance The Rapper, Soccer Mommy, Francis And The Lights, and Twin Shadow — he is most associated with the “melted-down cassette” aesthetic of the Low and Bon Iver albums. A blown-out, wobbly buzz in which it’s never clear how the sounds are being made. Listen to a B.J. Burton production and you might wonder: Is that a guitar, a synthesizer, or an answering machine from 1989 being tortured to death? It all hints at a barren world in which humanity has finally been overwhelmed and swallowed up by maniacal technology run amok. Love it or hate it — I think HEY WHAT is likely the best album of the year — it evokes the feeling of being alive in 2021 like nothing else.
A North Carolina native, Burton currently shuffles freely between L.A. and Minneapolis, or wherever work might take him. I met him at his Minneapolis studio as he held Bruce, a Brussels Griffon puppy who almost matched the affable Burton for infectious gregariousness.
It’s my understanding that for Double Negative and HEY WHAT, Low would bring you demos and you would proceed to deconstruct and sonically revamp them. Can you walk me through that process?
A lot of it is just Alan on guitar and then whoever wrote the song will sing, either Mim or Alan. Or they’ll both go ahead and do their parts. And then I’ll take that and kind of just mess with it, and find a new pocket for the song. And then I’ll have them come back and re-sing it, or have Alan replay the guitar or do something else.
It was just all trust. The first album was me slowly gaining Alan’s trust. The second album I remember he said, “Man, this might be the last album we make, so just go for it. Just do your thing.” That really resonated. It kind of put pressure on me, but a really good, creative pressure, That’s the beginning of what Double Negative started to sound like. Because I was using a lot of shit from my own life — deaths in my family and things like that, and just ugliness and beauty at the same time. Because when someone dies there’s also relief, because they’re no longer suffering. I was going through that with my grandfather, who taught me how to play music.
Alan and Mim have this vibe that they write these songs from heaven or some shit, so it just clicked and it was what the sound needs to be. I think Double Negative was about searching for that, and then HEY WHAT is like, “Hey, we know vocabulary, let’s fucking use it.” Me and Alan are like, “Fuck all these sounds. Let’s just make an album with guitar.” And that’s what HEY WHAT is. It’s all guitar and vocal. There’s no synthesizers on the whole album.
Not even on “All Night”? It sounds like a synth on that track.
That’s just a pedal that he has and it’s manipulated. The reason it sounds so random-ish is because it’s guitar. With a synth, there’s always some exactness to it. Even analog synths, you’re hitting a note, you’re sending that signal. But with guitar there’s so much to it, whether it’s how hard you’re hitting the strings or if you slip up and things like that. That’s why it’s really hard to recreate that with a synthesizer.
I remember early on I sequenced the album and sent it to them, with a disclaimer about the drums coming in on the last song. It was conceptualized early on. I guess I just like to listen to albums like a movie. I’m old school like that. It’s like a Scorsese film or some shit.
Can you talk more about how you conceptualize sound? Because on the Low and Bon Iver albums, it really is about how the sounds affect and often disorient you as much as the songs. What is the feeling you are looking for?
When me and Justin made 22, A Million, that was just us fucking around with sounds and making sounds we’d never heard before. We always had to touch it. If something sounded not fresh to us, we’d just have to fuck with it until it did, almost to a fault, almost like we were just going in circles fucking with sounds. So I guess I took that approach and did it with signal routing and chains I came up with during 22, A Million. Vocoding drums or clipping my tape machine and then putting that through a Vocoder, or all these weird signal routes that are just from fucking smoking weed all day and experimenting. I got pretty skilled at knowing, all right, if I send this through this and then that through that, and then it hits that, then I can maybe play a note and Vocode it. It’s like chemistry, throwing different shit in a bottle and see if it explodes, you know? You can tell when someone’s making a noise to be sensational and then with Low or the other albums that I make, it’s like the noise is the music.
So, you’re chasing the sorts of sounds where you don’t actually know what they sound like until you discover them?
Every song I make, I do that. With Low, they trust me 100 percent, and that’s one of the only artists that I work with that does trust me 100 percent. I’ve worked with Justin for way longer and he’s one of my best friends, but I’m still gaining his trust in the studio. Alan’s been doing this for so long so he’s at the point where finding someone to trust all the time is what he wants to do. Justin’s not there yet, or maybe he never will be. He doesn’t need to be, because he also likes to do shit himself.
You’ve said that before you worked with Low you wanted to make them “post-apocalyptic.”
The first thing I heard was this City of Music live performance of “Clarence White,” which is on the album before I did. I forget the name of it. I think they did it with the fucking Wilco guy. And I was like, “What the fuck is this band?” I’d never heard of Low, like, ever. I had no idea. I was just like, this shit’s crazy. Reminded me of Led Zeppelin or something. So, I hit Alan up, and I was like, “Yo, I’d love to do something.”
Then I remember we were at Pachyderm when it first opened again. There was a bluegrass band we were tracking. The only reason I did that album was to get to Alan, because Alan was producing the album and Alan asked me to come help. So it paid off.
I remember the whole band went inside to go to sleep and me and Alan were staying up, getting stoned, listening to music, and talking about how to push it. It wasn’t anything specific – it was more emotional kind of talks about music and what pop music is and what music does today and how impressed we are with certain types of music and shit like that. We had a very common idea about where music stands right now. He played me Drums and Guns and things that he did. I had no idea about any of his back catalog, so he was here just playing me this shit and talking about it. I was like, “Yes, this is the start of something sick.”
I was talking to a friend recently about Double Negative and he was saying he can’t put that album on often because it’s so intense.
That’s a huge compliment.
It’s as intense as a death metal record, even though it’s much quieter. The quiet feels loud on those Low records.
The first time I ever worked with Justin was on Yeezus. We went to Paris and I met Mike Dean and I saw how Mike Dean was pushing the low end on everything to the point where the mains were fucking… I thought they were going to catch on fire. Like, what the fuck?! Why are you doing this, dude? How are you doing this and why are you doing this? But it really inspired me. With 22, A Million, me and Justin both caught that wave from Mike Dean. Ever since, I’ve just been trying to push the limits like he does. How I remember he pushed those limits in that studio, I want to push that.
But I also am disciplined enough to know what’s too much and what doesn’t sound good in certain places and what won’t translate. There’s a learning curve for sure to get a lot of low end in something and make it extremely loud.
Getting back to conceptualizing sound, what do you think it is sonically that creates the simultaneous feelings of dread and beauty you get from 22, A Million or HEY WHAT?
I have this philosophy that if there’s a really good song — Low writes amazing songs — it’s something that’s comfortable. Like, Prince talked about writing choruses that feel like you already heard them, so the intro of the song is actually an instrumental chorus or a hint to the chorus somehow. So when the chorus actually happens, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard this before.” It makes people feel good. In relation to sounds you haven’t heard before, which push that song along, there’s this weird discomfort and also comfort at the exact same time. It’s being comfortable with the song and then hearing sounds you never heard before that makes you uncomfortable.
It just is a beautiful combination. With every production I do, that’s what I try to do. Sometimes I can’t do it all the way, because not every artist is Low.
The vocals are more upfront on HEY WHAT than on Double Negative, which really draws the beauty out of even the harshest moments on the album.
That comes from me being in L.A. L.A.’s cool because you can’t survive in L.A. if you’re not with someone with a voice. I was doing a lot of vocals for music and I was like, “I want to put this with what I do with Low and just have their vocals always upfront and actually maybe even louder than pop music in a cool way.” Like Yeezus, almost. That’s how Kanye likes his vocals. But the difference is Alan’s not annoying. Alan’s actually saying shit that could be important.
What are your memories of working on Yeezus?
Justin was just like, “Kanye asked me to come to Paris. You want to go with me?” It was literally like that, and me, him and his brother went to Paris. I remember we’d go to the studio and work and that’s where I met Mike Dean and I think Travis Scott was there. He was 17 or some shit, I don’t even know. He was just a little kid bouncing off the walls at that time. We would go to the studio and make shit, and Mike Dean would be floating around and be hanging out with us all the time, and I just really hit it off with him. We’d go back to the hotel and watch Waterworld every night.
But Kanye was annoying?
I wouldn’t say that about that version of Kanye. I don’t want to talk too much about Kanye, just because it’s not even worth it. I don’t know him enough to be able to talk about him. But I’ve seen him recently and I’ve also seen him back then, and back then he was definitely an inspiring person to be around.
Yeezus sometimes comes up as a point of comparison for 22, A Million or the Low albums. How do you feel about that?
I mean, it’s a compliment, because I think Yeezus is Kanye’s best album. I don’t like comparisons and shit like that but I think they could be accurate because that was a big influence for me, being in that room, for sure.
It seems like Justin was inspired by Kanye’s example of surrounding himself with talented people in the studio and harnessing that energy.
He has two studios in his house and we set up in the big main studio. It’s like a live room — five or six people can be playing at one time. We just jammed all night, just hours of jams. Then the next day over coffee I would go up to the other studio and just listen. I would always mark shit when I would hear something happening, and try to sum up a song idea in all these jams. And then I would give that to Justin and be like, “Yo, this is a vibe.” And that was the start. He kind of does production and writing at the same time, for better or for worse. I’d love it if he would separate it more, but whatever.
Why is that?
With Low, they come to me with songs complete and that just is freedom with production, because you how this is how this is going to be, this sound and this beat. But it’s also beautiful how Justin does it because it’s unknown and you hit on things as the production unfolds.
22, A Million stretched on for two years, right?
I mean, he had me on retainer. I was getting paid. [Laughs.]
Was it always clear that you were making an album, as opposed to these jams that were being shaped into songs over time? It seems like the process was pretty open-ended.
Me and Justin had a bit of a falling out because he was going to shelve the album. We were pretty far along with shit when he met with me, but we got in a fight about something that’s not about music. He was like, “I need to figure out my own shit.” And I’m like, “All right, cool, man.” He wouldn’t finish lyrics, and it didn’t make sense for me to be around while he was going through his shit, because it’s kind of wasting my time, you know? So it was the end of our working relationship.
Six months go by and [Ryan] Olson had a CD and it was all the songs. Some sounded better, some sounded worse, in my opinion. Then Justin called me out to April Base and was like, “Hey, man, I think I finished the album.” And then he played me the album and it was like all the things that I wanted to happen on the album happened. I had to walk back behind the car, and I put my head between my knees and I just started bawling. Justin’s like, “Yeah, dude, I know.” We both just had this crazy moment. I hadn’t talked to Justin in six months because I was mad at him. So that was a really beautiful moment.
Was it smoother working on i,i?
No. I didn’t really want to work with nine producers and engineers, and he had to go through this whole collaboration thing. I mean, honestly, I don’t think that’s a great album. The production’s all over the place. Sonically, it sounds like a ’90s record to me. It doesn’t hit.
The first song we wrote for that album was “Hey, Ma,” and that was the most complete one. Me and Justin did it in three hours, I think, and it was kind of like a flagship for the album. But I wasn’t around and I wasn’t fucking with shit as much.
But you and Justin are still working together?
We’re always working on music. He’s put out a couple singles that we’ve fucked around with. But we can’t stop making music. We don’t even talk that much when we’re in the studio. We just fuck around. We don’t have a plan. It’s just like, “Yo, I’m going to come over.” He’s like, “All right, cool.” And I just go over there and make shit. That’s been our M.O. the whole time.
22, A Million has always had a druggy vibe to me. There’s also a psychedelic aspect to your work with Low. It seems like mind-altering substances are always part of your creative process?
Yeah, I mean, I smoke a lot of weed. I do a lot of ketamine. A lot of HEY WHAT is very ketamine-based. I got into that and it kind of changed my life for the better. Some of that album is like ketamine trails to me, the sonics. It’s like going through a ketamine trip a little bit. That song “Hey” is really big, like I want it to lift people up for an out-of-body experience or some shit, because that’s how I felt when I was trying to make it.
In a recent interview Alan Sparhawk said, “I want to see technology break as much as it has broken me.” Does that also drive you? Has technology gotten so good that it has to be broken to be interesting again?
I wouldn’t say too good. Working on an analog board you have limitations — you have headroom that sound is going through this board. And working with tape as well, there’s limitations to it, and it’s really cool. With digital it’s all open. It’s zeros and ones. Anything can fucking happen and it’s kind of daunting, because there’s so many options to make something sound like something else. So I just use both worlds, man. I love pushing analog shit to the limits and then bringing that in digitally, and then pushing that to the limits and then combining the two.
There’s almost something primitive about how these albums sound.
I think it’s just reality, man. It’s funny, this girl I was talking to the other day — this could be a complete conspiracy theory — but she said Superman was invented to make the population forget the Great Depression and all the bad shit that was happening. And now we have Marvel movies that are trying to distract us from all the horrible shit that’s going on in the world. Pop music is kind of like that. It’s just distracting us from fucking reality, like these fucking stupid-ass shiny sounds that are on every song for the past 10 years.
We’ve heard it all, and there’s a machine feeding this. Who’s listening to Lil Nas X? Have you ever been to a house and someone is playing that? Why is he the top five streaming artist ever? There’s something going on here.
There does seem to be a unifying aesthetic to music that streams well. “Chill” is favored over anything noisy or abrasive.
Dude, I got so many calls about the Soccer Mommy track that I did after it was mastered and released. “Can we dial back the distortion on this to make it on radio?” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” I just wanted not to fight anymore. I want to give her a chance to be on fucking whatever college radio station or whatever. With the pop shit that I do, you’re working with 10 other people and A&R. I’m not going to be like, “No, it’s my vision.” It’s not even worth it. I learned that a long time ago. Because you’re not going to win.
Is it fair to say the Low and Bon Iver records you’ve done are your undiluted vision?
Yeah, 100 percent. Low records are more precise, because I have more control over it and I’m a freak with detail. I don’t take Justin’s records to the finish line myself. It’s Justin mainly, and Justin’s got his own kind of finesse that he likes to do and it’s different from mine, and that’s why we complement each other really well. I’d say the Low albums are more precise and kind of hit certain frequencies where I think they should.
I just love fucking making music, dude, with anyone, and I’m a really good collaborator. I have people through all the time, and try to help people and do my own thing as well.
Do you have an overriding ambition you haven’t achieved yet? A record you’d love to make but haven’t yet?
I mean, I’ve been a part of songs that have done cool stuff, I guess. Maybe not, actually. I’m not really proud of any pop music I’ve made, to be honest. But I’m proud of the people that I’ve made it with. I’m just not that great at making quote-unquote pop music.
I just want to have a good time, man. There’s so much more important shit than music. I forgot about that in my 20s, and was a complete functioning alcoholic forever. Now I want to be happy. I mean, hopefully, my shit could land on the radio, if radio could open up their minds a little bit and stop serving everyone Mountain Dew every day. Just take a risk on some shit, that’ll be cool, because I think then I can get my foot in the door and I can get my fucking yacht and go sail around the fucking Caribbean, you know? I’m down for that. Listening to fucking Jimmy Buffett and shit.
Billie Eilish and her brother/producer Finneas were overjoyed when they were asked to record the theme song to the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die. But after finishing the track, they had to get several people’s approval before the song could be confirmed for the movie. Namely, Daniel Craig had to be on board.
Since No Time To Die is Craig’s last time playing the role of James Bond, the actor wanted everything to be perfect — including the theme song. According to producer Stephen Lipson, Craig at first wasn’t sure the song was a good fit for the film.
“Most important was getting Daniel’s approval. I finished the mix and everybody was happy but we still had to get Daniel on board. From the start, quite understandably, he wasn’t all that sure that the song delivered the right emotional climax for his final Bond outing, so satisfying him was key. I delivered the mix and Barbara [Broccoli], who was more than happy, called me to say that Daniel was coming to London and we needed to play it to him. I suggested that he come to my studio as I knew that, compared to any other location, it was without doubt the best sonic environment in which to hear it. It was agreed that he’d come to the studio on the following Sunday, so on the designated day I got in a few hours before Barbara and Daniel were due to arrive just to make sure it sounded as good as it could. Listening to it as if I was Daniel, I realised that the climax needed to be enormous so I spent some time massaging the mix so that, without any perceivable change, it was very much louder at that point.”
Eventually, Lipson’s tweaks made a compelling argument for the inclusion of Eilish’s song. “I then set the volume of the song so that it was pretty muscular, knowing that the climax would be earth-shattering,” Lipson said. “They arrived, I sat Daniel in the chair between the speakers, hit play and waited for his response. When the song finished he didn’t look up but asked to hear it once more. Barbara and I had no idea how he felt until the end of his second listening, when he looked up at me and said something like ,‘That’s f*cking amazing.’”
Zoolander‘s 20th anniversary presents plenty of opportunity for reflection. Not only did the film receive a sequel but also some SNL Weekend Update face time, along with this ^^^ surprise appearance at Paris Fashion Week (for Valentino, obviously) in 2015. Of course, much of the film’s appeal arrived courtesy of Owen Wilson, his famous pout, and his lustrous locks. As Hansel, his Blue Steel rivaled star Ben Stiller’s efforts, and Hansel continues to be “so hot right now,” but Ben Stiller has revealed that another (surprising) actor had a shot at the role.
That actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, didn’t score Hansel, but he did go on to receive an Oscar nod (for Best Supporting Actor in Brokeback Mountain). Of course, Wilson also followed up Zoolander with his own Academy Award nomination (for Best Screenplay in The Royal Tenenbaums), and everything’s turning out just fine for both actors (with Gyllenhaal starring in this weekend’s The Guilty on Netflix and Wilson scoring big with Marvel fans in Loki on Disney+). It’s still a trip to envision Stiller’s account (as related in an Esquire interview) of how Gyllenhaal auditioned for Hansel:
Wilson was always Stiller’s first choice for who he wanted to play Hansel, but when it looked like he wouldn’t be available to shoot, they were forced to hold auditions. “The only one that I remember clearly was a young Jake Gyllenhaal doing this wide-eyed version of Hansel that was really funny,” recalls Stiller.
Things worked out the way that they’re supposed to, but Stiller wasn’t done yet. He also revealed that Andy Dick was originally cast as Mugatu, and then Will Ferrell stepped in for scheduling reasons. In other words, the “so hot right now” line almost didn’t happen as we know it, either. Memories!
Ahead of releasing her debut album, Juno, Los Angeles experimental rap-pop standout Remi Wolf has shared two new tracks, “Anthony Keidis” and “Front Tooth,” which follow “Guerrilla” and “Sexy Villain.” Both tracks also got the video treatment, with Remi walking down Hollywood Boulevard on the Chili Peppers-referencing track and punching it out with boxing gloves in “Front Tooth.” Both clips are also loudly patterned (as you should always expect with Remi Wolf), with bright, eye-popping, extremely Gen-Z aesthetics.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Remi said the name Juno was meant to pay homage to her dog. “Juno was there for the writing of every song on the album. He was my buddy every second of the day: Peeing on the floor, puking everywhere.”
She also touched on the album’s content, saying, “It’s a very LA record,” Wolf says. She’s also been bowled over by the massive fan response, which has been amplified by co-signs from big names like Willow, John Mayer, and Camila Cabello. Commenting on playing a show in Brooklyn, she said the fan attention “was quite a wake-up call. People knew my lyrics and they were screaming them back at me. It was super crazy — about the biggest energy exchange I’ve ever felt in my life.”
Watch both “Anthony Keidis” and “Front Tooth” above. Juno drops 10/15 via Island. Pre-order it here.
Back in late 2019, Donald Trump made an unplanned trip to Walter Reed Medical Center, which led to lots of speculation in the media about what might have prompted it. While the then-president’s press team assured inquiring minds that it was nothing more than a routine check-up, Raw Story is reporting that in her new book, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham admits that the hospital visit had more to do with one big a**hole.
According to Grisham, Trump was there to have a colonoscopy—but refused to be anesthetized for the procedure because it would mean temporarily signing over his presidential powers to Mike Pence—and because he didn’t want to be “the butt” (her words) of every late night talk show host’s opening monologue.
Though the procedure took place nearly two years ago, Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t about to let a little thing like the passage of time get in the way of making fun of the former POTUS. “I have to say, it gives me a lot of satisfaction as a late night talk show host to know that he opted to stay awake while they augured his innards with a sewer snake specifically because he didn’t want us making fun of him,” he said. Then, noting that he is “contractually and ethically obligated” to make some jokes about Trump’s colonoscopy, Kimmel delivered a belated lineup of them:
The president went to Walter Reed Hospital for a colonoscopy today. It took a while because the doctor kept accidentally sticking the camera in his mouth.
As soon as they switched the camera on, Trump turned around and said, ‘Hey doc, how are the ratings?’
The president’s doctor decided to schedule this procedure after the White House toilet killed itself.”
For the total assault, you can watch the full clip above (it starts around the 2:00 mark).
In a few weeks, LA indie-folk performer Bedouine (aka Azniv Korkejian) will release her third studio album, Waysides. Ahead of that, she has shared a gorgeous new song and video called “It Wasn’t Me.” Filmed in grainy sepia tones, the Allyson Yarrow Pierce-directed video finds Korkejian driving down a scenic West Coast highway and bathing in a pond. Peak early fall vibes!
“This song represents a special stage to me,” Korkejian said of the new song. “I was just starting my habit of bedroom demoing. Locking myself in for hours at a time to put away a feeling was the most rewarding thing. If I felt that I captured what I was feeling, I’d send it to whomever it was about, like an elaborate letter. It was thrilling.”
She added, “That was 15 years ago and not much has changed. The song itself is about spending an evening with someone, thinking it was this incredibly romantic time, only to find out I was alone in that feeling. It’s a reflection of that bewilderment and the denial that can follow. It feels good to share after so long. It makes me nostalgic for bygone days, which is one of the threads that runs through Waysides.”
Waysides follows Korkejian’s 2019 effort, Bird Songs Of A Killjoy. Look for Waysides 10/22. Pre-order it here.
After taking a brief reprieve, Elon Musk has returned to his favorite obsession (besides Dogecoin): Busting Jeff Bezos’ balls. The dunk-fest kicked off on Monday when Musk provided a comment to Forbes after he pulled ahead of Bezos to become the world’s richest man. “I’m sending a giant statue of the digit ‘2’ to Jeffrey B., along with a silver medal,” Musk wrote to Forbes in an email, and that was just the warm-up act.
The following day, Musk sat down with tech reporter Kara Swisher at Tuesday’s CodeCon 2021, and it was all-systems-go for jokes about Bezos, uh, rocket. According to Guardian reporter Kari Paul, Swisher set Musk up by asking him about Bezos’ Blue Origin mission and noting that “you all make fun of each other’s rockets.”
“Well, it could be a different shape…” Musk quipped about Bezos’ Blue Origin capsule, which has a distinctly phallic shape to it. However, the conversation turned more pointed as Musk criticized Bezos for filing lawsuits against the Tesla CEO’s SpaceX company. Via CNBC:
“I think I’ve expressed my thoughts on that front – I think he should put more of his energy into getting to orbit, [rather] than lawsuits,” Musk said Tuesday at the CodeCon 2021 conference in Beverly Hills, California.
“You cannot sue your way to the moon, no matter how good your lawyers are,” Musk added.
Ever since the world got a glimpse at the penis rocket, Musk has been routinely mocking Bezos’ efforts to join the space race, which has involved the aforementioned lawsuits. Back in August, Musk blasted Bezos by joking about the real reason he stepped down as CEO of Amazon.
“Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX,” Musk tweeted during a busy day of posting the laughing face emoji in response to d*ck rocket jokes.
Kodak Black is headed to rehab, according to TMZ. The Pompano Beach, Florida rapper reportedly violated the terms of his supervised release by failing a drug test and was consequently ordered to attend a 90-day residential treatment program. Kodak was serving a 46-month sentence for lying on an application to buy a gun but was pardoned by Donald Trump early this year along with Lil Wayne, who was facing gun charges of his own. TMZ also reports that Kodak is already checked into the program. Here’s hoping he gets the help he needs.
Unfortunately, Koday Black doesn’t have the greatest record with treatment. Back in 2017, it was reported that he burped his way out of anger management sessions. His counselor at the time found him to be disturbing group therapy and asked him to leave, eventually resorting to threats to call 911.
Although Kodak did receive a pardon on his gun charges, he pled guilty to sexually assaulting a minor from an alleged 2016 incident involving a teenaged fan at Comfort Inn in South Carolina. He was sentenced to probation for 18 months against a suspended 10-year sentence, as well as agreeing to undergo counseling.
Kodak Black is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Last month, I celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by compiling over 200,000 user ratings from multiple gaming websites, crunching the numbers, and coming up with a data-driven list of the system’s most popular games among modern players. Now, this month brings another major video game anniversary: The Nintendo 64 was released in North America 25 years ago today, on Sept. 29, 1996.
The SNES and N64 enjoyed very different lives. While the SNES was the clear leader of its console generation, its follow-up was not: The N64 sold about 32 million units, which is less than the SNES’ lifetime sales (49 million). More importantly, it lived in the shadow of its main competitor, the PlayStation, which sold about three times as many consoles.
That said, there’s plenty to love about the N64, and critics agree: The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is the highest-rated game of all time across all consoles on Metacritic. It’s also the only title on the review-aggregating site to achieve a 99 rating. A handful of other games are scattered throughout the site’s top-100 list as well, which is impressive considering not many games were released for the N64: just 296 in North America. For reference, that’s substantially less than half the size of the SNES’ North American library (720 games).
Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx
Speaking of ratings, the aforementioned SNES rankings feature was a fun project that taught me (and hopefully you) a lot about the defining console of my childhood. So, still in data-gathering mode, I decided to make a similar list for the N64, one that can help you plan which games to play first when N64 games are added to Nintendo Switch Online, as was recently announced.
The methodology used to compile these rankings was essentially the same as the SNES list, so revisit that for more details. To summarize, though, I collected user ratings — 250,849 of them this time — for North American N64 games from Emuparadise, Grouvee, IGDB, and HowLongToBeat. Then, I calculated a Final Score for each game, based on both their user ratings and how many ratings they received, in order to weigh both how beloved a game is and how many people are still playing it today.
(Before proceeding to the list, there’s a cape-wearing elephant in the room that I’ll address before we get to it: Superman — aka Superman 64 — is fairly high up on the list, despite that fact that it’s widely regarded as a historically awful game. I attribute that to users ironically giving the game many positive ratings over the years. Thankfully, though, those shenanigans don’t seem prevalent in the data and Superman is the only notable head-scratcher that I noticed. So, if it makes you feel better, ignore Superman and nudge everything below it up a spot in your head. I won’t get mad.)
As I stated in the SNES feature, this N64 list has nothing to do with my personal opinions, just what a quarter of a million user ratings indicate. So, let’s get into it, starting at 100 and sprinting towards the top of the ranks before slowing down and getting into more detail with the top 10 games.
100. Command & Conquer
99. San Francisco Rush 2049
98. Turok 3: Shadow Of Oblivion
97. Clay Fighter 63 1/3
96. Shadow Man
95. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA
94. BattleTanx: Global Assault
93. Quest 64
92. Hybrid Heaven
91. FIFA 99
90. Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear To The Rescue
89. Quake 64
88. Snowboard Kids 2
87. Glover
86. Castlevania
85. Spider-Man
84. South Park
83. F-1 World Grand Prix
82. Goemon’s Great Adventure
81. Cruis’n World
Nintendo
80. Worms Armageddon
79. Vigilante 8
78. Beetle Adventure Racing!
77. Chameleon Twist
76. Rampage 2: Universal Tour
75. Excitebike 64
74. Ogre Battle 64: Person Of Lordly Caliber
73. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
72. Fighting Force 64
71. Killer Instinct Gold
70. WWF WrestleMania 2000
69. Mortal Kombat Trilogy
68. Donald Duck: Goin’ Quackers
67. Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes
66. Extreme-G
65. Mission: Impossible
64. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3
63. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
62. Cruis’n USA
61. Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil
Nintendo
60. WCW Vs. nWo: World Tour
59. Mischief Makers
58. 007: The World Is Not Enough
57. Space Station Silicon Valley
56. International Superstar Soccer 64
55. WCW/nWo Revenge
54. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
53. San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing
52. Hydro Thunder
51. Snowboard Kids
50. Harvest Moon 64
49. Resident Evil 2
48. Mortal Kombat 4
47. Pilotwings 64
46. Bomberman Hero
45. World Cup 98
44. Rampage World Tour
43. Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire
42. Jet Force Gemini
41. StarCraft
Nintendo
40. Rayman 2: The Great Escape
39. Bomberman 64
38. Gauntlet Legends
37. Doom 64
36. Mario Golf
35. Blast Corps
34. Star Wars Episode I: Racer
33. Pokémon Puzzle League
32. 1080° Snowboarding
31. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
30. F-Zero X
29. Mario Party 3
28. WWF No Mercy
27. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
26. Yoshi’s Story
25. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
24. Wave Race 64
23. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
22. Mario Tennis
21. Mario Party 2
Nintendo
20. Perfect Dark
19. Mario Party
18. Duke Nukem 64
17. Diddy Kong Racing
16. Banjo-Tooie
15. Pokémon Stadium 2
14. Donkey Kong 64
13. Pokémon Stadium
12. Conker’s Bad Fur Day
11. Superman
10. Pokémon Snap
Nintendo
Release Date: June 30, 1999 Final Score: 68.64 Average Rating: 75.65/100 (82nd) Total Ratings: 2,964 (16th)
Nintendo has historically been not as overtly violent as their peers in gaming, so when it came time to put out a first-person shooter, Pokémon Snap had the perfect kid-friendly concept: Instead of using guns to inflict harm, players can do another kind of shooting — with a camera — to capture the majesty of beloved characters through visual art.
At the time, it was also a rare example of a 3D Pokémon game, and while it followed Pokémon Stadium by a few months, Snap offered something that Stadium didn’t. While Stadium was more or less a distillation of the Game Boy RPGs’ battle system, Snap gave fans the opportunity to explore the world of Pokémon in a 3D environment, making Snap the best way for Pokémon enthusiasts to feel like they could go on their own monster-catching journey and be the very best like no one ever was.
9. Star Fox 64
Nintendo
Release Date: June 30, 1997 Final Score: 69.15 Average Rating: 84.75/100 (30th) Total Ratings: 3,397 (14th)
The original Star Fox game for the Super Nintendo was an impressive technical marvel, as it brought 3D to a platform that wasn’t known for it. While that was a great start, the N64 sequel improved on a lot of what the SNES original did, making it one of the finest games in the N64 library.
Aside from the fun sky-bound shooting gameplay, the game also impressed with its level branching system, and its cutscenes make it perhaps the most cinematic game on the N64. On top of that, the game has multiple multiplayer modes that add a ton of replay value, especially if you have friends who can’t resist a good barrel roll.
8. Paper Mario
Nintendo
Release Date: Feb. 5, 2001 Final Score: 70.77 Average Rating: 88.51/100 (7th) Total Ratings: 6,257 (8th)
RPGs were huge on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo themselves had multiple great ones for the system, including Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars. When it came time to continue the red-hatted RPG series on the N64, they did so with Paper Mario, which stood in firm defiance of the hot new 3D technology. Yes, the environments are made of polygons, but as for the characters and many other elements, they could pass as higher-res SNES graphics.
In some ways, functionally, Paper Mario was a 2D game in a 3D environment, making it a departure in a time when every game developer this side of the Mississippi felt the need to flock to 3D gaming, even if they were nailing it in the 2D space and ended up stumbling in the next console generation. In classic Nintendo fashion, Paper Mario is a tremendous balance of the old and new in gaming, all while feeling distinctly like the latter.
7. Banjo-Kazooie
Nintendo
Release Date: June 29, 1998 Final Score: 71.65 Average Rating: 87.9/100 (10th) Total Ratings: 5,667 (10th)
Super Mario 64 is the clear leader in N64 3D platformers, but that doesn’t mean it was the only worthwhile one. Given the then-novelty of 3D console gaming, a lot of platformers popped up during the ’90s and ’00s, and in that crowded environment, Banjo-Kazooie did more than enough to stand out as a unique and worthwhile experience. Some, in fact, have argued that Banjo-Kazooie is actually superior to Super Mario 64; In a 1998 review, IGN’s Peer Schneider called it “the best 3D platformer I have ever played, and a more than worthy successor to Super Mario 64.”
The game has been praised for the depth of its gameplay mechanics, level design and aesthetics, and music, all of which help make Banjo-Kazooie a collectathon that makes players want to explore its delightfully rich world, a primary goal of the era’s 3D games. Whether or not it truly is superior to Mario 64, we can just be glad they both grace the N64 library.
6. GoldenEye 007
Nintendo
Release Date: Aug. 25, 1997 Final Score: 74.11 Average Rating: 85.88/100 (23th) Total Ratings: 8,711 (5th)
When GoldenEye 007 was released, first-person shooters were thought as more of a PC gaming thing, but the James Bond title helped show console gamers that they too could have a gun-wielding hand on the bottom of their screens as they take out ne’er-do-wells. In so many ways, GoldenEye paved the way for first-person shooters, making it an origin of the species for today’s FPS-dominated gaming market.
There’s also the fact that GoldenEye is a game based on a movie, which more often than not are low-quality rush-jobs churned out to serve as little more than promotional material. GoldenEye, though, is just an all-time great game that happens to be based on a movie. Not to mention, the game’s multiplayer mode was essentially the first of its kind, and we all know how big a role multiplayer elements have in modern shooters.
5. The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Nintendo
Release Date: Oct. 26, 2000 Final Score: 76.91 Average Rating: 88.62/100 (6th) Total Ratings: 7,935 (6th)
In many ways, Majora’s Mask isn’t all that different from Ocarina Of Time. Both games use the same engine and a lot of visual assets. That said, despite the similarities, the two games are far from the same.
Majora’s Mask is noted for its darker themes and its looping three-day cycle, the sort of thing that wasn’t really something you saw in games at the start of the millennium. Another novel concept was the use of masks: There are 24 of them in the game and each gives Link new abilities and change the game in other ways. All of Majora’s Mask‘s unique aspects compel you to think differently than you do when playing most other games, which isn’t something that many titles, for the N64 or otherwise, can claim.
4. Super Smash Bros.
Nintendo
Release Date: April 26, 1999 Final Score: 80.75 Average Rating: 85.24/100 (27th) Total Ratings: 16,230 (4th)
A ton of key Nintendo franchises either reached an important peak or were established on the N64, and perhaps the most pivotal of the new ones is Super Smash Bros. While Melee may be the series’ defining title, the magic began with the original, which can still hold its own today.
Not only is Smash Bros. one of the N64’s premiere multiplayer experiences, but it’s also the platform’s best celebration of Nintendo. Smash Bros. took iconic characters like Link, Mario, and Pikachu out of their respective universes and brought them together under the same umbrella to show off their firepower, both in terms of their place as pop culture heroes and in terms of how much literal damage they can inflict on their Nintendo co-workers.
3. Mario Kart 64
Nintendo
Release Date: Feb. 10, 1997 Final Score: 82.14 Average Rating: 86.18/100 (21st) Total Ratings: 16,573 (3rd)
While the PS1 beat the N64 to claim the throne for its console generation, it could be argued that the top games on the N64 were more influential than the premiere PS1 titles. (Which are still great, by the way. We’re not trying to disparage the PS1, an excellent console.) But, like the next two games on this list, Mario Kart 64 is essentially a prototype for its genre.
Super Mario Kart helped establish the wacky character-based racing game as delightful fun, but Mario Kart 64 helped the genre successfully transition into the 3D era. Aside from laying the foundation for the rest of the uber-successful post-2D Mario Kart games, Mario Kart 64 offers rock-solid gameplay that can be as basic or complex as you want to make it, as the competitive speedrunning scene has proven.
It’s also probably the best party game on the N64 (sorry, Mario Party, a game with “party” in its name): If you turn on the TV and hear the “welcome to Mario Kart!” title screen in a roomful of friends, excitement and fun will abound, whether or not they consider themselves “gamers.” This glee can last for either just a few minutes or however many courses you can get in before things get too competitive, tensions boil over, and somebody does something they regret after getting blue-shelled right before the finish line.
2. Super Mario 64
Nintendo
Release Date: Sept. 29, 1996 Final Score: 86.83 Average Rating: 87.45/100 (13th) Total Ratings: 26,993 (2nd)
I posit that of all the games on this list, none of them have a stronger influence on modern games than Super Mario 64. It’s not the first 3D platforming game ever, but it’s the one that made the world realize how fun it is to move around in 3D environments (even if the embryonic camera system isn’t perfect) and established a lot of 3D gaming norms. It’s fair to say that in a way, Super Mario 64 paved the path for virtually every important game that followed it, everything from Minecraft to Fortnite to Grand Theft Auto.
When the game was released, critics and fans knew immediately that Super Mario 64 was a legendary title. A lot of 3D games of the era have not aged well, but Super Mario 64 is still tremendously fun to pick up and play today. Nostalgia factors aside, the game’s varying worlds remain fun to explore, especially if you didn’t get that far into the game as a kid and haven’t seen some of the later levels since the ’90s. While you can’t control Mario here as well as you can in Super Mario Odyssey, it still feels intuitive to make Mario go exactly where you want him to.
Super Mario 64 is the N64’s best-selling game, and fans are still eating it up. Aside from its high ranking on this list, it’s the defining game of the speedrunning community, as it has been run more times than any other game ever. On that note, the speedrunning leaderboards are a testament to the game’s depth: World records for the game have been set in the past few months, indicating that even 25 years later, there are still things to learn about Mario’s first 3D adventure.
1. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Nintendo
Release Date: Nov. 23, 1998 Final Score: 94.89 Average Rating: 97.01/100 (1st) Total Ratings: 59,812 (1st)
Ocarina Of Time isn’t one of those games that didn’t get its due back in its day and eventually became a cult classic: The Zelda series established its footing on the NES and SNES, so fans were pumped to see how the game would work in 3D. While 3D games in the 90s aren’t as polished as their modern successors, there isn’t much Ocarina Of Time did wrong.
It wasn’t just great for its time, as it continues to resonate years later: As mentioned in the intro, it’s the highest-rated N64 game on Metacritic, but it’s also the top 3DS game on the site thanks to its 2011 port. Unsurprisingly, many reputable publications have deemed Ocarina Of Time the best video game ever, N64 or not.
What does Ocarina Of Time do well? Basically everything. The world is detailed and vibrant, it introduced gameplay mechanics (like Z-targeting) that made the then-clumsy world of 3D gaming environments easier to negotiate, and all in all, its influence on future RPGs is hard to overstate. Link proved he was great on his NES and SNES adventures, but Ocarina Of Time made him a legend.
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