Category: News

The world of stand-up comedy is not known to be kind. Competition usually wins over comradery. But when news of beloved “Weekend Update” anchor and comedian Norm Macdonald broke yesterday, that stereotype was turned on its head, as love poured out from fellow comedians across social media.

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Today is a sad day. All of us here at SNL mourn the loss of Norm Macdonald, one of the most impactful comedic voice… https://t.co/EwAJgO8fdc

— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl)
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In every important way, in the world of stand-up, Norm was the best. An opinion shared by me and all peers. Alway… https://t.co/TVcBpza3yR

— David Letterman (@Letterman)
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Norm’s success was prolific to say the least. In addition to his stand-up and SNL career, MacDonald appeared in numerous films, including Grown Ups, Dr. Dolittle, Jack and Jill, Billy Madison, Funny People, Screwed, and The Animal. He also appeared in various late-night talk shows including Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Late Night with David Letterman, and even had his own sitcom, The Norm Show, as well as a talk show for one season on Netflix back in 2018.

The Norm Show (Norm) – Season 1 Episode 1 (Norm and the Prototype)

www.youtube.com

A true comedy genius, Norm could make even the most convoluted story funny, as seen in Norm’s unforgettable “Moth Joke” with Conan O’Brien.

Norm MacDonald’s Moth Joke

www.youtube.com

O’Brien was one of the first to react to the news of Norm’s death, praising him as “the most unique comic voice I have ever encountered” and lamenting that “I will never laugh that hard again.”

I am absolutely devastated about Norm Macdonald. Norm had the most unique comedic voice I have ever encountered and… https://t.co/3LjiZFOxHK

— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien)
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Bob Saget, who Norm famously roasted, also sent a tweet sharing how he and Norm met, “he was in my audience at 17 years old,” and went on to say ” no other voice in comedy has been as unique, brazen, brazen, dark, hilarious, and heartfelt.”

Devastated. Met Norm in Ottawa when he was in my audience at 17 years old. Been close for decades. We have lost a c… https://t.co/Va8cwfMJIl

— bob saget (@bobsaget)
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Jim Carrey, who appeared on Norm’s live show, gave heartfelt mourning, saying, “my dear friend Norm passed after a brave 10 year battle…He was one of our most precious gems…I love him.”

My dear friend Norm MacDonald passed after a brave 10 year battle. He was one of our most precious gems. An honest… https://t.co/bfrQHdB4DV

— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey)
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But the tributes don’t stop there. Comedy greats like Steve Martin, all the Seths (McFarland, Rogan, and Meyers), Adam Sandler, Patton Oswalt, Jon Stewart and even Bob Odenkirk-who had his own health scare earlier this year- all sent their praises flooding to Twitter.

Every one of us loved Norm. Some of the hardest laughs of my life with this man. Most fearless funny original guy w… https://t.co/YpZdWeOd6O

— Adam Sandler (@AdamSandler)
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“He was the gold standard.” @SethMeyers reflects on the passing of comedy legend Norm Macdonald. https://t.co/kvxi01VN7Z

— Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth)
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To so many people in comedy, me included, there was nobody funnier than Norm MacDonald. You always hoped he would h… https://t.co/qkJzVEHTZY

— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane)
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Truly one of the funniest moments on TV. That was awesome, Norm ruled https://t.co/ZqmwyCpGtY

— Mr. Bob Odenkirk (@mrbobodenkirk)
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This not only goes to show how far reaching and impactful Norm was as a talent, but how just one person’s individual spark can ignite the hearts and minds of many others.

NOOOOO GODDAMIT. Oh my God what is even happening.

Good bye, Norm. You were never not 100% hilarious. https://t.co/loW3QsEjgW

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt)
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No one could make you break like Norm Macdonald. Hilarious and unique. Fuck cancer.

— Jon Stewart (@jonstewart)
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Oh fuck. I was a huge fan of Norm Macdonald and I essentially ripped off his delivery when I first started acting.… https://t.co/gkzaoIVuLt

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen)
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Norm passed away after an undisclosed nine year battle with cancer. His longtime producing partner and friend, Lori Jo Hoekstra, who was with him when he died, says “He never wanted the diagnosis to affect the way the audience or any of his loved ones saw him….He once wrote that ‘a joke should catch someone by surprise, it should never pander.’ He certainly never pandered. Norm will be missed terribly.”

Though Norm might have struggled in private, the comedy world is publicly coming together to acknowledge the positive impact he made in an industry that can, at its worst, be a toxic environment. The collective reaction to Norm’s passing proves that at its best, however, the stand-up community is a tight knight family of creatives who relish in each other’s successes and share in each other’s remorse. Even in a time of devastating loss, that is worth celebrating.

Even though last night’s Verzuz battle at New York’s Madison Square Garden featured Ja Rule and Fat Joe, fans in the stream’s comments couldn’t stop bringing up 50 Cent. The Queens rapper had a highly public feud with Ja Rule throughout the 2000s as he rose to prominence and Ja declined in popularity — a decline he and his fans have always attributed to the beef, despite it likely being due more to the federal investigation into Ja’s label Murder Inc. and changing tastes in hip-hop overall.

However, the comments still irked Murder Inc. founder Irv Gotti, who exploded in the comments section. “All y’all talking about that 50 shit,” he railed. “All good. He got beat up stabbed up. Shot up. And sued us. That’s all I’m gonna say. Your hero ain’t what you think he is. Period. And facts.”

50 himself quickly caught wind of the commentary (does this guy have Google Alerts set for his rivals or what?) and popped up on Instagram to mock Gotti and Murder Inc. with a pair of posts crowing about his lopsided mid-2000s “victory.” “Wtf am i trending for, I said I ain’t doing whatever that shit is they doing,” he captioned the first. In its follow-up, he crowed, “I put they whole label out of business, f*ck with me if you want to. I would stay out of my way if i wasn’t me. LOL.” Naturally, both captions were filled with promotions for his various business ventures, including Branson Cognac and Bottle Rover, which is apparently an alcohol delivery service.

Later, on Atlanta radio’s Big Tigger Morning Show, Ja insisted that 50 would have been “nothing without that f*cking white boy,” obviously attributing his rival’s success to his association with Eminem, then one of the biggest names in hip-hop, and his attendant fanbase. Incidentally, most in either rappers’ camps and in hip-hop at large would rather have seen Ja go toe-to-toe with 50 on Verzuz, but 50 already put paid to that dream last year.

Ja can rest assured that, at least as far as Rap Twitter is concerned, he came out of last night’s competition the clear winner, decisively controlling the hits battle as Fat Joe spent far too many rounds emphasizing his “real hip-hop” clout and not enough playing his actual hits.

Jon Stewart makes his return to TV this month with The Problem with Jon Stewart (hopefully without bad theories). The Apple TV+ series, where he will “be in discussion with the people who are impacted by [an] issue — as well as those who have a hand in creating the impact,” is Stewart’s first series since he exited The Daily Show in 2015.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he explained why he left when he did.

“The truth is I left The Daily Show for a reason. It didn’t feel like I was singing as joyful a song as I wanted to be singing, but my life was still really good. I had wonderful moments at the show, and I didn’t feel it was a burden. I just didn’t know what else to do with it, this gift — and being allowed to be on TV is a gift,” Stewart explained. He said he “never felt the weight of the world,” but “I felt the weight of the team. I had this group of people who were industrious, talented, funny as f*ck, and raring to go, and my mind was wandering.”

At least nothing happened a year later, in 2016, that would forever changed the course of the country. Speaking of big decisions, Stewart was also asked whether he considered adding a comma to the show’s title, to make it The Problem, with Jon Stewart instead of the winking The Problem of Jon Stewart.

“We’re all talking about, like, ‘OK, well, what do you think about a comma?’ It’s the thing that I love exposing with politics, which is, everything you see is an intention, somebody built it, somebody made a decision. Like, in the Iraq War, that whole, ‘We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,’ that came from a meeting. That was a PR guy, and they had meetings every week to talk about the best way to talk about going to war. And that same meeting is the one that we had to figure out what to call this f*cking show. That’s what I love.

The Problem with Jon Stewart (no comma) premieres on September 30 on Apple TV+.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Notoriously elusive rapper Playboi Carti returned earlier this month to announce he is hitting the road this fall to embark on a massive North American tour. Shortly after announcing his The Narcissist Tour, Carti’s website updated with Narcissist-branded merch items. But after several fans had already shelled out a lot of money for Carti’s new items, the rapper said none of it had been approved by him.

Carti’s alleged accidental merch drop went live Tuesday afternoon. Some of the items listed included $75 motorcycle gloves, a $160 jersey, a $250 racing jacket, a $40 balaclava mask, a $50 long sleeve shirt, and a $5,000 motorcycle helmet. After seeing the new items, fans instantly took to Twitter to both applaud Carti’s branding and complain about the exorbitant prices.

But after several fans had already purchased their items, Carti shared a screenshot of a text conversation with his team, saying his website had been “hacked” and none of the merch had been approved by him. “THE WEBSITE IS HACKED THE REF FOLDER WAS POSTED LIVE. NEVER APPROVED ANY CLOTHING/ ECT,” the text read.

After Carti’s announcement, fans who had already bought his items complained and asked for a refund. Others were simply happy they had chosen not to open their wallets for the merch drop.

Carti hasn’t mentioned whether or not those who bought the unapproved merch will receive refunds. But seeing as he’s just about a month away from embarking on a tour, the rapper is sure to have more merch for sale soon.

The Nintendo Switch has not dropped in price at all since it came out all the way back in 2017. The console that can be docked to a TV or brought on the go with you has always sat at $300 in the United States, which is unprecedented with most consoles. That’s especially the case for one that is considered a member of the previous generation compared to its PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S counterparts. However, a recent price drop in Europe had fans hopeful that one would finally be coming to the states.

Unfortunately, our hopes for a price drop may not happen anytime soon. While there were plenty of rumors swirling around one taking place, Nintendo put those rumors to bed pretty soundly in a statement to Stephen Totilo of Axios Gaming: A price drop is not on the way and there are currently “no plans” for one.

This statement reads pretty cut and dry, so anyone hoping that the arrival of the new OLED model would mean a drop in the price of the current model will be disappointed. While the current model of the Nintendo Switch might not be the exact same as the original one that was released, it’s still unfortunate that a price drop will not be accompanying the OLED model. Maybe one will eventually arrive, but it certainly sounds like it’ll take quite some time.

A month ago, it was announced that Tony Bennett, who is 95 years old and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, has retired from touring. He’s not completely stepping away from music just yet, though: He and Lady Gaga are teaming up for a trio of new TV specials in support of their second album together, Love For Sale.

Variety reports that the first special, One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett And Lady Gaga, will air on CBS (and later stream on Paramount Plus) on November 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The special will include performances from the Radio City Music Hall concerts the pair put on in August.

Following that will be MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga, which is set to air at some point this upcoming winter. The performance was filmed around the time of the Radio City Music Call concerts. Wrapping up the specials will be the documentary The Lady And The Legend, which is set to offer “an intimate look into a beautiful friendship and musical partnership that transcends generations,” featuring footage from the making of both of Bennett and Gaga’s joint albums.

When Bennett’s retirement was announced, Bennett’s son/manager Danny indicated that there’s the possibility that Bennett may be up for other endeavors that don’t involve touring, saying, “There won’t be any additional concerts. This was a hard decision for us to make, as he is a capable performer. This is, however, doctors’ orders. His continued health is the most important part of this, and when we heard the doctors — when Tony’s wife, Susan heard them — she said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He’ll be doing other things, but not those upcoming shows. It’s not the singing aspect but, rather, the traveling.”

After keeping busy in lockdown with popular podcast and her EPs Dawn, Dusk, and the recently released effort True Colors, 21-year-old songwriter Mxmtoon is back with yet another project. The singer now shares a video to “In The Darkness,” the latest single off her True Colors EP.

“In The Darkness” was originally written for the upcoming video game Life Is Strange: True Colors, which is a narrative adventure game following main character Chen. In her video, Mxmtoon draws inspiration from the game and embarks on a journey to find her own light.

Speaking about the visual’s process in a statement, Mxmtoon reflected on living life through a screen:

“Making this music video was so much fun, and working with Mika and his team was also a pleasure. The ‘In The Darkness’ video is very much meant to highlight the emotional energy of the game it was written for, Life Is Strange: True Colors. Incorporating game footage with the background panels in the video really lent itself to trying to create an immersive experience of both live performance and electronic graphics. In the times we’re in right now, sometimes our most wondrous experiences happen through a screen, and the lines between real life experience and online ones are becoming increasingly blurred. My hope with this music video is to show how fantastical video games, computer generated graphics, and more can be their own visually stimulating adventure that’s fun for viewers and people to spectate. Also it meant I got to play around with a lot of fun light panels.”

Watch Mxmtoon’s “In The Darkness” video above.

True Colors is out now via AWAL. Get it here.

A few weeks shy of releasing their debut album Mercurial World, indie-pop duo Magdalena Bay (aka Los Angeles’ Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin) have shared a fun new video for their new single “You Lose!,” a song about “trying to be a musician and feeling like time for success is always running out.” Following earlier singles “Chaeri” and “Secrets (Your Fire),” “You Lose!” opens with bouncing synths and glitchy gaming samples before moving into an upbeat rhythm, which comes topped by Tenenbaum’s breathy vocals.

Meanwhile, the video has the duo engaging in a number of no-win scenarios, like dropping an ice-cream scoop on the ground and tucking into a bowl of spaghetti, only to find that it’s actually a bunch of worms. Hate when that happens.

Earlier in the summer, Magdalena Bay opened up to Pitchfork about their obsession with Y2K-era websites and writing songs born of a quarter-life crisis. “Obviously, as pop musicians, time is something that’s constantly on our minds,” Lewin said. “So this idea is like a coping mechanism: Where you end up when you die is the same place as where you end up before you’re born, right? So if those two points are the same, then there is no true end. The lack of finality is comforting.”

Watch the “You Lose!” video above.

Mercurial World is out 10/8 via Luminelle Recordings. Pre-order it here.

A very vocal minority of LaLaRich viewers are taking aim at how the Amazon docuseries (which released on September 10, as part of an overstuffed streaming weekend) takes aim at pyramid schemes. Yes, that’s a ridiculous sentence, so let’s back up a few feet. The four-part project from the Fyre Fraud documentarians posed the question of what happens when leggings become the hook of Multi-Level Marketing companies. Well, it ain’t good, and this LuLaRoe-focused project tells the cautionary tale of ruined lives and vast social-media circles that became embroiled in one tacky hot mess.

Amazingly enough, people do keep falling for what these alleged pyramid schemes are selling, and there’s more than one of them devoted to leggings. As CNN has reported, recruits to LuLaRoe must buy into “start-up” packages that cost between $5,000 to $100,000. It sounds very cult-worshippy, obviously, and these schemes are often interwoven with social circles, which makes things awfully awkward when the legging quality ends up being pretty awful (i.e., “declining quality, smelly leggings and bizarre prints that were phallic or yonic in nature.”)

Before the real trouble began, the company’s scheme netted $1.3 billion in sales in 2016, which was followed by a mass exodus of recruits, and even more trouble arrived with the Washington state attorney general brought a successful lawsuit against the company. Meanwhile, friction must have run rampant because the top consultants (those who brought in upwards of $50,000 per month off poor-quality leggings) were probably salty about losing their recruits, who were destined to make close to zero money, due to being at the bottom of the pyramid.

That’s how those things work! And overwhelmingly, the Amazon viewers seem to appreciate the takedown with almost overwhelmingly (over 90%) five-star reviews. There’s a very vocal minority (6%) of one-star reviews, and something ain’t right.

As it turns out, these reviews appear to be coming from very avid (and successful) LuLaRoe consultants. Here are a few examples:

– “[W]ell bless your heart! I for one have NEVER felt the pressure to build a team, I just got back from Mexico which I earned 100% based on MY SALES… I make money ever single month without a team! Hey you.. if you are reading this you are enough!”

– “This is laughable Trash.. as in any self employed business, you get what you make of it. Hard work pays off and those Retailers that maybe didn’t run their businesses successfully are lashing out and bringing the negative onto those that have stuck it out through the kinks of a new highly successful business model that is now thriving and amazing.”

– “Just a bunch of people who can’t manage $ complaining about how their business failed. Laughable, really.”

– “A Bunch of disgruntled ex-retailers not taking accountability for their actions and blaming their failures on others. If something is not for you.. fine move on.. but no need to bash everyone else that figured out how to successfully run their businesses
While being incredibly generous to others.”

The “bless your heart!” is a telling touch. Judge for yourself by watching LuLaRich, which is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

In 2014, Mac Miller released his eleventh mixtape Faces, a fan-favorite that examined his battle with drug addiction and indulged in his love for psychedelic, jazz-infused production. However, the tape has not been widely available since; like many mixtapes of the “blog era” heyday, its extensive use of sampling and the relative newness of streaming platforms like Spotify prevented Miller from being able to make it available for streaming. In February, Mac’s producer ID Labs promised it would eventually be available and now we know when.

Today, Miller’s estate announced the project’s re-issue date; which will include both streaming and a vinyl release on October 15. Faces originally featured appearances from Ab-Soul, Earl Sweatshirt, Mike Jones, Rick Ross, Schoolboy Q, Sir Michael Rocks, and Vince Staples; hopefully, the full project will be available in its original form but don’t be surprised to note some changes, as when Chance The Rapper finally uploaded Acid Rap. In addition, a new music video for its song “Colors And Shapes” directed by Sam Manson and starring an animated avatar of Mac’s dog King Ralph of Malibu hit YouTube. The video tracks King Ralph’s journey through a surreal dreamscape, encountering bizarre creatures and soaring through outer space on a flying bed.

Watch Mac Miller’s video for “Colors And Shapes” above.

Faces will be available for streaming on 10/15. You can pre-order the vinyl here.

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