Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Rostam’s Riveting Sophomore Album ‘Changephobia’ Examines Growth In All Forms

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Rostam is no stranger to the process of making an album. After writing three LPs with Vampire Weekend and producing standout records for Clairo, Haim, and The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser, Rostam has songwriting down to a science. He even explored his musical roots on his 2017 debut solo album Half-Light, a record that was over a decade in the making. But for his sophomore solo LP Changephobia, the process was different.

For one, Changephobia was finished during a time of intense isolation. The world came to a screeching halt with COVID lockdown, which was enacted when the album was nearly complete. The unexpected period of stagnation allowed Rostam to privately focus on finishing touches and confront grim global events unfolding around him.

But the world wasn’t the only thing changing at the time. “What I can definitely say is that I feel like in the last five years, I’ve grown a lot as a person,” he said over a Zoom call from the same studio where he had written, recorded, and produced the album. “I’ve had time to grow and I think that growth has come from self-awareness. The concept of Changephobia to me is a lot about reminding yourself to be aware of what you’re feeling.”

Rostam aimed to translate his personal evolution to a sonic one. He intentionally traded in soothing strings heard on his debut effort for languid brass instruments, experimenting with a jazzier side to his sound. In this way, Rostam’s breezy Changephobia copes with change in multiple forms. It examines that which we can’t control, like the uncertainty of the future, speaks to necessary changes, like addressing the impending doom of climate change, and takes the future in stride.

Most of the music’s lyrical content centers around anecdotes from Rostam’s personal life, but their ambiguity achieves a sense of universality. Rostam delicately sings of the frustration that arises from communication barriers, the intimacy of sharing the back of a cab with someone to the airport, and the cathartic freedom of a cross-country road trip. Songs like “Kinney” showcase his masterful production work, combining arrhythmic chords to feel like a warm embrace. While Rostam deliberately took his music in a different direction on Changephobia, some of the album features callbacks to his Half-Light days. The layered hand drums heard on “Bio18” are reminiscent of the intoxicating track “Wood” and evoke a drowsy daydream.

We spoke about the concept of change over Zoom exactly a month before the Changephobia’s release. Check out a condensed and edited version of our conversation below, where Rostam talks about the intersection of politics and music, how making a solo album lends itself to creative freedom, and his vision for the next generation.

On Half-Light, some of the music you had been working on for upwards of eleven years. How was the Changephobia process different?

The process was a lot shorter. It probably took about three years to write and record this album. And I would say, maybe like 85 percent of it was done before the quarantine, but I really needed that time to finish the album. So I think it’s fair to say I took a solid nine months finishing the album. I had like eight and a half songs written, but I didn’t have any of the production finalized. And I wrote like, one, one and a half, maybe two songs worth of lyrics during quarantine. But such a huge percentage of this album was conceived in the two and a half years prior to the quarantine that I don’t want people to think of it as a quarantine project. But to answer your question, yes, it happened quickly. Most of it happened before the quarantine. But certainly, it wasn’t the kind of long gestation period that Half-Light took.

Can you talk a little bit about your album title Changephobia? What were some things that you were trying to change? And how was that scary for you?

No one’s ever put it that way. I think that’s a good way to put it. On some level, I wanted to change the sound that I was known for. What I was known for. So that was a component of it. This idea of personal growth in musical evolution. How could I evolve musically? And what would that mean? One of the rules that I made for myself going into making this album was no strings because I used so much cello, so much violin, viola on Half-Light. And that was sort of the project of Half-Light was to make this album that integrated strings with songs in a way that I thought maybe hadn’t been done before. So then, with this record, I really wanted to push myself to be inspired by the jazz that I loved. And saxophone music of a certain era, specifically Bebop, which is from the ’50s. And so that’s one component, this idea of musical change. And then there’s another component, which is life changes. And I think that’s something that’s more reflected in the lyrics in several songs. I didn’t really realize this until I was finishing the album, but a lot of the songs deal with the concept of change lyrically, whether they have the word change in them or not.

I was reading up on some interviews that you’ve done recently, something that you said really stood out to me, which is you’ve learned in your production work that being a good producer is equal parts challenging and supporting an artist. Did you have anyone doing that for you on your record, both challenging and supporting you in this project?

Certainly there are people that I trust. But I think part of the fun of making an album as Rostam is that I can get lost in the process. I can work on the production for as long as I want and I can work on the songwriting for as long as I want. I’m the only person who needs to be happy with it. Maybe one day I’ll want to involve other people. For the sequence of the record, I worked with Emily Lazar, my mastering engineer who has mastered nine albums with me in my career, which is pretty crazy. Outside of Emily, who had notes on the sequence and I took her advice, I was the only producer on this album. And there were a couple people that helped with some of the songwriting, there’s certainly musicians, there’s friends that I send things to and ask them to send me ideas to integrate into the finished product. There’s a little bit of that but it’s mostly me.

So you were the one both challenging and supporting yourself, then?

Yes, I guess I had to, I guess I had to be. And I want to make records like that sometimes. That’s why it’s important to me to make records as Rostam because I don’t get to do it any other way.

You said you wrote this album basically in the last three years. Obviously, a lot has happened in the world in the last three years. Do you inject politics into your music at all, or do you try to shy away from that conversation?

I’m someone who believes that all music is inherently political. So I think that if you say your music is not political, or you say you as a person are apolitical, I think you’re probably lying. It might be because I grew up in Washington, DC, and everybody’s watching all these Sunday morning talk shows there in a way the rest of America does care about as much. Certainly not on the West Coast. In DC, everybody’s glued to the TV on Sunday morning. They’re watching Meet The Press and This Week. So I always have politics on my mind and I believe things have inherent politics, whether it’s art, music, advertising, television, or film. Everything has its own inherent politics. So that’s definitely on my mind when I’m making music. But it’s also not something that it doesn’t motivate me to make artistic decisions. On a conscious level. I think it’s a subconscious level it motivates me.

I totally agree with what you’re saying about how all music is inherently political. That’s something I’ve been thinking about in the past year as a lot of artists have made explicitly political music. There’s a certain kind of person who responds to that with, “Oh, I missed when politics was left out of music. I liked you before you brought politics into music.”

Yeah. Like, “Leave the politics out of your music.” You kind of want to be like, have you heard the music? What exactly are you listening to?

I know for a specific song, [“These Kids We Knew”], you wrote it while you were actually under the weather with COVID. What that experience was like and how sick were you?

I was actually sitting in this chair in my studio. I had a fever that lasted about four days. And on the fourth day, the fever started to break. And I got sir crazy from being in the same room, so I came to my studio and I sat down. I didn’t expect anything that I was doing to be for an album or even to be released. I found myself in a fever state and I was trying to pass the time. But I found myself writing this song. The song’s about global warming, but in a way, it’s about COVID too, because I think those things are linked together.

“These Kids We Knew” seems like it touches on the legacies we’re passing on to the younger generation, how they don’t feel represented, and how they’re the ones who will have to deal more with the lasting impacts of climate change. Although there is still a lot of progressivism and social activism in their generation, it really makes me think of how I wouldn’t trade anything to be a teenager right now.

To me, that song is about three generations, and I’m in the middle generation. I think there’s an older generation that holds power over us. And then the next decade, our generation is going to enter that age bracket where we have political power. And there’s the younger generation that sees a dark future ahead, where the effects of global warming are catastrophic. The older generation may never live to see that future. So in the song, what I imagine is the youngest generation taking the oldest generation hostage and trying them in court, but on the sidewalks. So it’s kind of a dark concept for what maybe has to happen. Or it’s a cautionary tale, depending on how you look at it.

Sort of forcing the older generation to reckon with the choices that they made.

Yeah, and to reckon with the destruction to the environment. I think a lot of what was on my mind was this Republican idea of, let’s rape the environment in order to further the economy and the short term effect is the economy goes up the long term effect is devastation. […] It’s terrible. But there’s gonna have to be dramatic change, and soon, and I think it’s coming.

Changephobia is out now via Matsor Projects. Get it here.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Elon Musk’s Latest Late Night Tweeting Caused The Price Of Bitcoin To Plummet And The Price Of Semen-Themed Cryptocurrencies To Explode

The world of cryptocurrency had a stimulating evening last night thanks to Elon Musk. Over the past few weeks, the Tesla CEO has a hot/cold relationship with Bitcoin that appeared to be heading towards a break-up after he announced that his electric car company would no longer accept crypto as payment, which caused crypto prices to plummet. Well, now, Musk is at again, and this time, he’s not being subtle about ending things with crypto.

On Thursday evening, Musk tweeted an old internet breakup meme along with #Bitcoin and a broken heart:

Once again, this caused Bitcoin prices to fall by Friday morning. Via CNBC:

Bitcoin fell over 4.5% to a price of $36,852 at around 9:34 a.m. ET Friday, according to data from Coin Metrics. Other digital coins followed suit, with No. 2 cryptocurrency ether dipping more than 5% to $2,656.06 and dogecoin — Musk’s favored crypto — sinking almost 7% to around 36 cents.

However, while some cryptocurrencies saw their prices fall, a sticky situation developed overnight as semen-themed coins saw their prices explode in the wake of Musk’s break-up tweets. Specifically, coins with the word “cum” in their name. For example, “cumrocket” is looking pretty good right now:

As for what caused a run on ejaculatory coins (Cuminu also saw its prices spring up), according to Benzinga, traders latched onto a different Musk tweet from Thursday night and quickly started guzzling up the provocatively named cryptos.

So in a nutshell, Elon Musk tweeted the words “Canada, United States, Mexico,” and it immediately caused a reaction in semen-themed coins because crypto is weird as hell. That’s our expert analysis at this point: wildest sh*t on the internet.

(Via CNBC)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Dua Lipa Is A Rodeo-Ready Cowboy In Her New ‘Love Again’ Video

Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia era has been going on for quite some time now. It was way back in October 2019 that “Don’t Start Now” was released as the album’s lead single. It’s been nearly two years since then, but Lipa is still fully in Future Nostalgia mode, as today, she has shared a new video for “Love Again.”

While the song itself is unquestionably disco-influenced pop, Lipa goes full country for the video. The visual begins with a mysteriously floating cowboy hat that eventually finds its way onto Lipa’s head. In the clip, she rides a mechanical bull in a ballroom, does some line-dancing, gets done up in rodeo clown paint, and otherwise gets totally on board with the cowboy lifestyle.

Lipa previously said of the song, “A relationship hadn’t worked out for me, and I wrote this when I felt like there was no light. It was a song for me, to give myself a little cuddle, and was about being hopeful that I would fall in love again. We already had these beautiful strings, then [producer and songwriter] Clarence Coffee Jr. had the genius idea of adding in a sample of ‘Your Woman’ by White Town. That really gave the song the push it needed, because we definitely needed a more dancey element. I wrote it at a difficult time, but sometimes songs help you get out of certain situations. It’s like cheap therapy, and I think this is my favorite song on the record.”

Watch the “Love Again” video above.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Jensen Ackles Showed Off His Jacked ‘The Boys’ Physique, And He Has The Workout Weariness To Prove It

Jensen Ackles is reteaming with Supernatural creator and original showrunner Erik Kripke for The Boys‘ third season, and so far, the physical reveals have been significant. Ackles previously teased a fresh-out-of-quarantine photo, which revealed a heavily unkempt beard. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether Ackles simply decided to not shave for much of the pandemic, or if his Soldier Boy character wouldn’t be as clean-shaven as in the comics. Kripke later confirmed that the mountain-man look was definitely real for the show, which is interesting because Soldier Boy leads the Payback (The Avengers parody) group and is a twist on the sometimes-bearded Captain America.

Well, Ackles is doing more besides maintaining that beard to embody Soldier Boy. He’s also pumping iron like a madman like a Supe, too, and he posted a video of his progress in the jacked-arms department. Since he’s a former CW guy, Ackles also tagged CW actors Stephen Amell (Arrow) and Grant Gust (The Flash) while writing, “I’m beginning to understand the struggle… Or maybe I’m just too old for this crap.”

No pain, no gain, right? Between Chris Hemsworth (jacked arms) and The Rock (jacked legs), we are simply buried in pumped-up dudes this week. And Ackles is adding extra grumbling to the mix, which makes his Supe reveal super charming, not to mention relatable. Working out is not fun, man.

Meanwhile, we also know that the sheer volume of fake blood will already be higher in Season 3, but Kripke reteaming with Ackles makes one wonder if we’ll see more Supernatural action on the show. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, perhaps? He’ll be done with The Walking Dead relatively soon, and he won’t be doing the Batman thing, so Morgan might room in his schedule. Make it happen.

The Boys Season 3 has been shooting for several months. Hopefully, we’ll see a late 2021 release.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger Has A Message For ‘Loser’ Donald Trump: ‘I’m Sorry You’re A Loser, But You Lost’

Ask Rep. Adam Kinzinger what he thinks of former president Donald Trump and his answer is pretty simple: He’s a “loser.” That’s exactly what the Republican Congressman told Anderson Cooper while appearing on Anderson Cooper 360 on Thursday night, as HuffPost noted.

In making the point that there’s no reason people should be talking about Trump anymore, Kinzinger referenced a “press release” (if it can be called that) that the former president issued earlier this week from Mar-a-Lago. Though it was mostly aimed at former congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who recently joked that very few of her Republican colleagues would likely “join a search party” if Trump disappeared, #45 decided to share a list of other people he thinks are “losers” for not worshipping the ground he walks/stomps on—and Kinzinger was among them. While chatting with Cooper, Kinzinger weaponized Trump’s favorite insult to respond to the Florida Man’s criticisms in a perfectly measured and literal way.

“[Trump] called people like Barbara Comstock a loser and he called me a loser. I’ve never lost an election. He has. He’s the only loser in that mix, and we’re trying to grab onto him as if he’s somehow the ticket to the future, and he is instead obsessed with the fact that he lost again at something. And instead of, in his post-presidency, taking on, I don’t know, some issue that he cares about or some thing that we see former presidents do, he’s down there obsessing about the fact that he’s a loser. I’m sorry you’re a loser, but you lost.”

Point made. Though one might want to tell Kinzinger that the main issue Donald Trump cares about is finding new people to brand “losers.” You can watch part of the clip below.

(Via HuffPost)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Tiffany Haddish Will Portray Florence Griffith Joyner, The ‘Fastest Woman In The World,’ In A New Biopic That She’s Also Producing

It’s good to be Tiffany Haddish. In addition to recently winning a Grammy for Best Comedy Album, the comedian/actress has been rumored to be a top choice to replace Ellen DeGeneres when she steps away from her talk show in 2022. In the meantime, Haddish is about to prove that she’s adept at much more than just being funny when she takes on the role of Olympian Florence Griffith Joyner in a new biopic, which Haddish will also produce.

As Variety reports:

The “Girls Trip” actress will star as Florence Griffith Joyner, known as “Flo-Jo” to her fans, who helped popularize track and field with her record-breaking Olympic run and flashy personality and style (she originated the “one-legger” look with her running suits). Many of the records that Joyner set in the 1988 Olympics, including those in the 100 m and 200 m, have yet to be broken. Joyner died in 1998 at the age of 38 of an epileptic seizure.

Al Joyner, Flo-Jo’s widower and her former coach, is also helping to produce the film and serving as a creative consultant. According to Variety, he has already started working with Haddish to train her for the role, using the same methods he used with his late wife.

It’s a befitting role for Haddish, who has said that Joyner was one of her childhood heroes. “I am looking forward to telling Flo-Jo’s story the way it should be told,” she said in a press release. “My goal with this film is making sure that younger generations know my ‘she-ro’ Flo-Jo, the fastest woman in the world to this day, existed.”

(Via Variety)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

The ‘John Wick’ Franchise Gets Even Better With The Addition Of Donnie Yen For ‘John Wick 4’

John Wick: Chapter 4 will resume filming in France soon. To paraphrase Keanu Reeves, that is excellent news. Also excellent: Donnie Yen has joined the cast.

The Ip Man and Rogue One star “will play an old friend (of Reeves’ super assassin John Wick), who shares his same history and many of the same enemies,” according to Deadline. Director Chad Stahelski, who also helmed the first three installments of the action franchise (which also added Rina Sawayama), said that he’s “very lucky to have Donnie Yen join the franchise. I am looking forward to working with him in this exciting new role.” Producer Basil Iwanyk added, “Donnie Yen will bring a vibrant and powerful energy to the franchise. We were determined to bring him on board to John Wick 4 and are thrilled for the opportunity to have such a major talent to collaborate with Keanu.”

I’m glad Yen is playing John Wick’s friend. I would not buy Keanu beating this:

As for the French connection (put Gene Hackman in John Wick: Chapter 5), Chapter 4 will “film exteriors in Paris, notably by the Seine, and will include scenes at an iconic bridge that was previously featured in Steven Spielberg’s Munich,” according to Variety, as well as Berlin, Germany. Well, great, now I want a John Wick travel show.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is scheduled to come out on May 27, 2022.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Indiecast Names The Unsung Albums Of 2021 So Far

Somehow, 2021 is already nearly halfway over. With the world getting ready to emerge from our collective cocoon, here’s to hoping that the second half of the year will bring more joy IRL than the first half. Despite the lack of in-person interactions over the last six months, one thing that hasn’t been lacking is the release of exceptional new music. On this week’s episode of Indiecast, Steve and Ian are digging into some of the year’s best albums that might have flown under the radar.

Ranging from punk and punk-adjacent efforts like Fiddlehead’s Between The Richness and Field Music’s Flat White Moon, to the good vibes of Jimmy Montague’s Casual Use or Sunburned Hand Of The Man’s Pick A Day To Die, Steve and Ian cover a lot of sonic ground in their picks.

With much of this episode dedicated to music you might not have heard before, there is no Recommendation Corner this week.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 42 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

The best new indie music directly to your inbox.
Sign up for the Indie Mixtape newsletter for weekly recommendations and the latest indie news.




By submitting my information, I agree to receive personalized updates and marketing messages about Indie Mixtape based on my information, interests, activities, website visits and device data and in accordance with the
Privacy Policy.
I understand that I can opt-out at any time by emailing
[email protected].

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

‘Jackass’ Director Jeff Tremaine Was Granted A Restraining Order Against Bam Margera Following Alleged Death Threats

All is not well in Jackassville. For months, Jackass star/parents’ worst nightmare Bam Margera has been very publicly airing his grievances about being fired from the upcoming Jackass 4. But behind the scenes, Margera’s complaints have allegedly exploded into a series of death threats against Jeff Tremaine—co-creator of the original Jackass TV series and director of all their small and big-screen adventures. The harassment has gotten so bad that Tremaine recently petitioned for, and was granted, a restraining order against his longtime collaborator.

According to Page Six, which obtained some of the court documents relating to the case, Margera’s campaign of intimidation began back in February, when he was officially fired from Jackass 4. Since then, he has issued a series of threatening missives both via text and social media directed against Tremaine as well as the director’s wife and children.

Page Six writes:

Jeff Tremaine claims Margera harassed him with disturbing messages, such as “I’m gonna kill you in one mother f*cking punch” and “keep it up fat boy and I will continue,” according to court documents obtained by Page Six on Thursday.

“Look at your children and grab your pocket book and write a check, if you are greedy, and cheap, look at your children again. If you don‘t sign the paper, look at your children,” one of the text messages allegedly read. “Sign your stupid f*cking contract before your [sic] not safe anywhere.”

According to court records, Margera also contacted at least one of Tremaine’s professional colleagues to complain about the director’s behavior and, during a phone call, told this individual that he has wizardly powers and “can create and strike lightning.” At times, Margera reportedly spoke in numbers instead of words.

The catalyst for all of this is Margera’s exclusion from the upcoming Jackass movie, reportedly for being unable to remain sober while filming. In April, Margera gave an interview to TMZ in which he claimed that the Jackass crew forced him to go to rehab, which he described as “torture” and said left him with suicidal thoughts. He then posted a video to Instagram in which he called for fans to boycott Jackass 4.

As part of his petition for a restraining order, Tremaine told the court that Margera “has encountered significant challenges with mental health stabilization, substance abuse, and maintaining his sobriety” in the 20 years that the two have known each other. But that “it was not until Mr. Margera began threatening my safety and that of my children did I become in great fear that he may follow through on his threats.”

As a result, Margera has been barred from making any contact with members of the Tremaine family and has been ordered to stay at least 100 yards away from Tremaine, his wife, and their son and daughter.

When asked about Margera in a recent interview with GQ, Jackass co-creator/star Johnny Knoxville said: “We want Bam to be happy and healthy and get the help he needs. We tried to push that along. I think that’s all I really want to say about it.”

(Via Page Six)

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

John Mayer’s New Very ’80s-Inspired Single ‘Last Train Home’ Features Maren Morris

In recent days, John Mayer has been teasing his new album Sob Rock, which he officially announced earlier this week. So far, all the promotional imagery has had a decidedly throwback look, and it turns out that’s reflective of the music it was made to represent. Today, Mayer has shared a new single called “Last Train Home,” and it indeed has a retro sound.

Mayer has adopted older aesthetics for his music before, and this time, he seems to be going full ’80s. The new song isn’t synth-driven, but definitely synth-supported. Take the bongos into account and it’s easy to draw similarities between “Last Train Home” and Toto’s beloved hit “Africa.”

One thing “Africa” doesn’t have that Mayer’s latest does, though, is some backing vocals from Maren Morris. This isn’t the first link-up between Mayer and Morris in recent months: Back in March, Mayer supported Morris on guitar for her Grammys performance of “The Bones.”

So far, “Last Train Home” is the only song confirmed to appear on Sob Rock. Mayer has yet to share a tracklist for the album, so it’s currently unknown if his recent non-album singles — “New Light,” “I Guess I Just Feel Like,” and “Carry Me Away” — will be included on the release.

Watch the “Last Train Home” video above.

Sob Rock is out 7/16 via Columbia. Pre-order it here.