After an indefinite delay, Dying Light 2 has finally crawled its way out of development purgatory and has a new (and hopefully final) release date: Dec. 7, 2021. The news was announced by Techland during their Dying 2 Know livestream event on May 27, where the studio not only shared the new launch date, but also gave fans more footage and information on the upcoming title, as well as its new name, Dying Light 2 Stay Human.
A follow-up to 2015’s Dying Light, Stay Human is set over 15 years after the events of the first game and follows new protagonist Aiden Caldwell as he traverses Europe and meets up with a group of survivors known as the Nightrunners. In PlayStation’s most recent blog post, they elaborated further on the game’s plot, stating:
“A glimmer of hope emerges in The City, one of the last bastions of mankind in Dying Light 2 Stay Human—for the survival of the entire human race, but also for you, a wandering pilgrim, serving as a connection between the scattered settlements. Driven by a promise of unveiling the secrets of your past and finding the one you’ve lost, you pause your travels and begin forging your own legend there.”
While the game retains all of the elements that made the first game so popular — cooperative multiplayer, fast-paced gameplay, a vast open world — Stay Human is billed to provide a significantly more narrative-heavy experience, with player’s choices having a greater impact on the story. According to PlayStation, “the City is a complex organism that will react to your decisions. Depending on whom you support, the setting around you will change, offering you new opportunities, but also posing many new challenges.”
In addition to this story glow-up, the map is said to be four times bigger and filled with even more buildings to navigate and implement as your make your way past hordes of the undead and to your objectives. The game is also said to have new tools and powers for players to experiment with, which you’ll need as the game is loaded with ” brutal fights and unexpected encounters.”
Dying Light 2 Stay Human will hit both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 exclusively on Dec. 7, 2021.
Every time Tyneeha Rivers thinks about it, her voice grows tense and tears spills down her face. She anticipated this moment would come, doing everything in her power to ensure it would arrive. Despite his being in the league for three years now, the emotions Rivers feels are as powerful as ever.
Her son, Mikal Bridges, is an NBA player, serving a critical role for the title-contending Phoenix Suns. He is entrusted to act as Phoenix’s defensive stopper, checking eventual Hall of Fame inductees every night. And yet her steadfast belief this would happen one day is not a safeguard for her emotions.
Overwhelming waves of gratitude pour in. This is her son, born when she was 19 and raised in a single parent household. They grew up together, learned to navigate life as a duo. Twenty-four years of love, resolute faith, and persistence converge with tears and choppy, breathless words.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, what is my son doing guard LeBron (James)?’ … I just get so choked up when I see him out there guarding players like Kawhi (Leonard) and all those players that are just at their best and known to be All-Star, superstars,” Rivers says. “I have a friend who said to me, ‘Aren’t you used to it now? It’s his third year in the league and you still see him on TV and get choked up and cry.’ I think I’m going to always just be that way because I am so grateful.”
From the time Bridges was in the third grade, Rivers told anyone and everyone he was destined for the league. They all considered her ridiculous, another parent exaggerating their kid’s abilities.
Jim Nolan, Bridges’ high school coach at Great Valley High in his hometown of Malvern, Penn., heard Rivers’ refrain. Jay Wright heard it, too, imploring that first, Villanova’s coaching staff focus on making Bridges the best Wildcat he could be.
As a kid, Bridges reiterated his mother’s sentiment. Basketball was the priority. Video game consoles were buried in the trunk of her car until he finished shooting for the day. Hanging out with friends before time in the gym was a nonstarter. Whenever it snowed enough to blanket the courts in Malvern, his mom encouraged him to shovel the obstacle away — Rivers loved telling Bridges that his favorite player, Kobe Bryant, would do this, too.
Every summer, basketball sat central to his plans. Free time meant another chance to sharpen his game. Rivers sent him to the best camps she could afford and found coaches who would emphasize the tenets of hard work and accountability. She designed a plan that “entrenched” him in the sport at 3 years old, guaranteeing any potential hurdles on his path to the league were independent of his control.
“When he was younger, it was harder, especially being a young, high school teenager and you see the kids hanging out, they want to have fun and they want to do things,” Rivers says. “He’s like, ‘I need a break’ and I’m like, ‘No, no breaks, like get your butt out there and shoot that ball and dribble and work on your game.’ He was taught very early on at a young age that your current situation doesn’t have to dictate what your future holds. The only behavior you can control is your own.”
As a single mother, she earned everything, working and attending night classes for her master’s in human resources, all while caring for Mikal. Bedtime stories and help with homework were the norm, as was instilling in him the competitive drive that enabled her to juggle everything.
This meant Bridges would never be given an easy win. No matter the activity — sports, board games, miniature golf, whatever it may be — Rivers established the upper hand in an effort to foster a sense of determination.
“My mom was like, ‘What mother won’t let their child win?’ “ Rivers says. “I’m teaching him how to be competitive. I let him win? No, he has to earn it.”
By the time Bridges was a junior in high school, Rivers’ approach clicked for him. He understood why video games and hangout sessions never preceded basketball in daily routines. He understood why persevering through inclement weather mattered.
To achieve his self-described goal of earning a scholarship for a high-level college, the motivation needed to come from within. If these were truly his objectives, Rivers could not be the one constantly reminding him of his responsibilities.
Unprompted, he went to the court to shoot every day during the summer leading up to his junior year. No longer was Rivers demanding more of him than he expected of himself. The gravity of the opportunities ahead and the influence he wielded over those opportunities crystallized.
“I’ve coached gym rats. He wasn’t a gym rat,” Nolan says. “He wasn’t, but that’s not a bad thing. He was still growing, he was still learning and I think that kept coming and kept coming. … Into his junior and senior year, it definitely changed.”
Barry Gossage
You’re not working hard enough.
Bridges did not want to hear those words, but he knew he had to hear them.
Amid a road trip last season, Bridges and Monty Williams sat down in Memphis for the type of discussion the Suns’ head coach holds with every player throughout the year intended to help them and the team.
After playing nearly 30 minutes per game as a rookie and starting 56 of 82 games under former head coach Igor Kokoškov, Bridges started only five of his first 45 games and was logging a tick over 24 minutes each night during Williams’ first season. He thought he deserved to play more and made that clear to his coach.
Williams, who later acknowledged he was doing “some things” that hindered Bridges, digested the second-year wing’s qualm and provided a sobering, candid solution: work harder. Since that conversation, Bridges has started the successive 102 games across two seasons, playing a crucial role in the Suns going from lottery fodder to championship contender.
“I don’t think either one of us realized how important it would be,” Williams says of their heart-to-heart. “He wasn’t comfortable at the time. He wasn’t playing as well as he could.”
That conversation reoriented how Bridges viewed himself as a player. Sure, the baseline work ethic existed, but it was just enough to carve out a role in the league, not enough to garner the respect he craved and tap into everything he could offer. Williams and Bridges knew it. The latter suppressed it, the former verbalized it. Together, they kindled an early inflection point in his career.
“He respects Monty for that,” Rivers says. “You can see the confidence that he has this season versus what he had last season. And I think I can credit that to Monty that really told him, ‘You gotta step onto that court, you got to have more confidence and believe in yourself.’ ”
There was no sweeping shift from Bridges after that day, merely an understanding to spend more time in the gym, maintain a calm demeanor, and be honest with himself about his work ethic. Everything Rivers sought to imprint on her son during his formative years came in handy.
“A lot of people could fold off that and be like, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he just doesn’t want to play me,’ and just to keep doing what they’re doing,” Bridges says. “It was just knowing what he said, took it to heart, fighting, kept getting better, and going harder than what I was actually doing. It got me to the position I’m at right now.”
That position: Starting every game for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, a team that finds itself down, 2-1, against the defending champions in a hotly-contested series. Averaging career-highs in points (13.5), rebounds (4.3), and blocks (0.9). Shooting a career-best from deep (42.5 percent) and the field (54.3 percent). Potentially earning an All-Defensive Team honor this year and lucrative contract extension at some point in the offseason.
To glance at Bridges is to see limbs. To watch him dutifully — effortlessly bounding from baseline to baseline, draining threes, spiraling around defenders for layups, hounding offensive superstars — is also to see limbs at work, a 7’1 wingspan glued to a wiry, 209-pound frame. He’s heard all the nicknames: Stretch, Noodles, Inspector Go-Go Gadget, String Bean, Brittle, Praying Mantis.
He does not care for any of them, in part because he’s had long arms dating back to elementary school. Before a high school growth spurt as a sophomore caused him to sprout above his peers, from 6’3 to 6’6, his long arms stood out. Rivers advised him to put those sprawling arms to use.
“You have an advantage over those other kids,” she’d say. “You can block their shot, you could take the ball.”
Years later, Bridges still heeds his mother’s advice on the defensive end. He winds around screens and embeds himself to guys. Adapting across assignments like a chameleon, he defends anyone from Stephen Curry, to Luka Doncic, to Paul George. There are no easy shots around him, his arms a ubiquitous code for opponents to decipher.
“Some guys be like, ‘Damn, your arms are like so long, like, I didn’t know you could get back,’” Bridges says. “Trust me, I play against people with long arms as well. And I can already tell, I’m like, ‘Man, if I get guarded like this, I would be frustrated as well, too.’ I understand what length can do to a person and how much it could bother somebody, so just use it to my advantage.”
Getty Image
Bridges starts speaking but immediately backtracks. His last phrase wasn’t quite right, so he corrects himself to avoid a canned response that undersells playing with an all-time great point guard.
Chris Paul, the outspoken, doggedly determined leader and basketball player, aligned with what Bridges knew and heard prior to Paul joining the Suns this past offseason. The other stuff — friendship, leadership, locker room presence — was not something for which anyone could prepare him.
“Knowing just how he is as a leader, as a person … actually, not as a person,” Bridges says. “I didn’t know how good of a person he was. People did talk about it, but you just don’t know until you be around a person. If you feel like you need help or something, you can always ask him and he always can help you with this. I think that’s the biggest thing, is knowing I got him as a friend rather than a teammate just shows how good of a guy is, and he’s perfect for the team.”
As a nine-time All-Defensive Team honoree, Paul is well-versed in the trials of undertaking the opponent’s primary option every game and tutors Bridges for these tests before, during, and after they transpire. Prior to an early season game against the Golden State Warriors, Paul tapped into his extensive memory bank to give Bridges pointers on how to check Curry.
He told Bridges how to identify certain actions the Warriors run for the two-time league MVP, to stay tethered even when Curry doesn’t have the ball in his hands (being cognizant of off-ball screens was a point of emphasis), and to key in on the patented give-and-go sequences between Curry and Draymond Green.
Bridges and Paul are in continuous communication during games and practices. Early on, Bridges remarked to Paul about their unceasing dialogue, with Paul stressing the value of these interactions.
“Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to go, like, we’re supposed to get on each other if somebody is messing up, get on that person,” Bridges recalls. “If you don’t agree, you’re not just gonna sit there and not say anything. Tell him what you think is wrong and right. And then, we’ll talk about it and come to an agreement.”
Consider a midseason game against the Portland Trail Blazers. Bridges is guarding Damian Lillard, one of the league’s preeminent scorers and a ball-screen wizard. Paul suggests Bridges steer Lillard away from the screen by opening himself up and funneling Lillard toward the lane. Bridges is dubious, retorting that if he does so, Lillard will not wait for the screen and simply pounce on the driving angle by zipping inside. If Bridges crowds Lillard, trying to close down his air space and any advantage from a screen, he risks committing a foul. They discuss all these options, cycling through the benefits and risks of each.
Bridges can only say one thing about these sorts of back-and-forths with one of the greatest to ever play the game: “It’s dope.”
A commitment to defense was instilled in Bridges during his days at Great Valley. He was not a good defender, Nolan says, when he arrived on campus as a sophomore. Not because his deficiencies stood out compared to his peers, but because few young players are taught the intricacies of that part of the game.
“Growing up through the sport, everything is offense, shooting, passing, dribbling — everything is offense. And so when you get to a program that’s going to really emphasize and teach defense, man-to-man defense, it becomes culture shock,” Nolan says. “Defense is just not something kids like to do.”
The nuances of on-ball defense — arms spread wide, sitting low in a stance, watching the opponent’s belly button to forecast their next move — were preached. Tendencies such as communication, boxing out, precise closeouts, help-side rotations, taking charges, and ball denial were enforced. Players jumped rope to improve their foot speed. Every practice, a minimum of 45 minutes were dedicated to defense.
Bridges quickly saw the work translate to success on the floor. As a junior, he averaged more than one steal and block per game, merging keen instincts and budding defensive knowhow with his God-given length. Many nights, he’d foretell a pass, dart in front of the ball, and snag it for a breakaway jam. Or, he’d rotate inside and elevate for a block that always seemingly occurred at a vital juncture of the game.
“It was such a momentum-builder to have somebody that could do that,” says Michael Gregory, Bridges’ teammate at Great Valley. “We didn’t have anybody else that could do that on our team.”
When it came time to work on the other end of the floor, Nolan had his players perfect his pass-and-screen offense, saturated with ball and player movement. Practices rarely involved scrimmaging. Two, sometimes three hours were devoted to refinement via hands-on instruction.
They learned how to set and maneuver off-ball screens. Lead your man into the pick. Take a tight route around it. Read how defenders position themselves. Back-cuts and back-screens were hallmarks of the offense. Off-ball separation and proper floor-spacing were imperative. Everyone touched the ball each possession, often multiple times. Pick-and-rolls or isolations were footnotes. Great Valley made their opponents work. They loved it. The other team hated it.
“That’s where I learned all my cutting from, was in high school,” Bridges says. “Literally on a possession, the ball might not even touch the ground but like five times.”
Once Bridges emerged as a 20-point scorer and the team’s undisputed best player his junior year, the path to buckets remained the same: passing, cutting, screening. Identify soft spots in the defense, shift them off-kilter, and strike. Today, playing alongside Devin Booker and Paul, he still scores in a similar manner, bolting to the rim when defenders turn their head, attacking closeouts and blazing in transition for smooth finishes.
“He has great spatial awareness,” says George Halcovage, Villanova assistant coach. “He’s a really good cutter off the ball.”
Barry Gossage
Devin Booker keeps bugging Mikal Bridges.
“You haven’t been on a game in a while,” the All-Star guard says.
Both guys are Call of Duty connoisseurs. They’ll often play together. Bridges deems Booker the best on the team, but stresses this is only because he has not played in a while.
Recently, he’s been preoccupied tending to his 5-year-old retriever and lab mix, Sonny. Between taking Sonny for walks and bathroom breaks, COVID testing, road trips, games, and practices, Bridges is drained of the requisite energy to battle against his teammate.
“I feel like a father over here taking care of this dog sometimes,” Bridges says. “I just be tired.”
When Bridges was in the fourth grade, he and his mom briefly owned a golden retriever named Frosty until they moved and gave the dog to a family friend. Shortly after, when he was in middle school, Mickey, also a golden retriever, entered their lives and was with the family until he passed away after Bridges finished high school. “That was my favorite dog,” Bridges says.
As a sophomore in college, he begged Rivers for a new dog, saying he would take care of Sonny after he graduated if Rivers did so until then. The two agreed, but after Bridges was drafted in 2018, Sonny remained in Philadelphia with Rivers. A newly minted professional basketball player assimilating to radical life changes, Bridges insisted he was too busy to house a dog full-time.
“I’ve been tricked,” Rivers says.
Earlier this year, Bridges dearly missed Sonny. FaceTime calls were not an adequate connection. So, Sonny headed westward to Phoenix in February and has lived with Bridges over the past few months.
“They have this special bond,” Rivers says. “Even though I get all the work raising Sonny, Mikal will always be Sonny’s favorite and Sonny will be Mikal’s favorite.”
Once the offseason begins, Sonny will travel back to Philadelphia and provide his papa the space to center himself solely on basketball. Rivers tries to tell her son he is not the only NBA player or Phoenix Sun with a furry friend. Dog walkers and dog sitters are part of the agenda. Her efforts, at least for now, are futile. To hone his craft, Bridges needs to clear his schedule; Sonny does not allow for that.
Fathering Sonny is the only responsibility he can skirt. If Rivers has a say, every other venture he clamors for would come to fruition — not through her doing, but through his own patterns of accountability and discipline. They’re foundational traits belabored and practiced since the day Bridges expressed his goal of being an NBA player nearly two decades ago.
“I might’ve been too hard on him,” Rivers says. “But I think it paid off.”
Tomorrow is National Burger Day (technically it’s national Hamburger day, but go ahead, cheese it up), which means whether you like cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, hamburgers, or plant-based burgers, it’s a day reserved for you to celebrate by chomping down. And since National Burger Day comes just ahead of Memorial Day weekend, it’s really more of a National Burger weekend, so — go HAM and change your diet to nothing but burgers for the next four days!
Unless you don’t like burgers, in which case go ahead and enjoy a Memorial Day salad we guess, no judgment. We’ll just be over here debating about what the best cheese for a burger is. You know, normal Memorial Day conversation.
As is the case with every National Food day, there are food deals out there that’ll get you fed on the cheap. We’ve rounded up all the best deals out there from the national food chains, some of the deals will get you a free or cheap burger, and some of the deals won’t get you burgers at all, but hey, free food! That’s a cause for celebration in itself.
All BFF club members will receive a free medium sundae when purchasing any burger. It’s not a free burger, but we think free dessert is just as good if not better!
Receive a free order of medium fries when placing an order via the McDonald’s app on May 28th. It’s not a free burger but who cares? McDonald’s fries are the real star of the show anyway.
Papa John’s what the hell are you doing here? This isn’t really a National Burger Day deal but we thought it was worth mentioning — save 25% off your Parmesan Crusted Papadia when checking out with the promo code PARMCRUSTED.
Red Robin will be offering BOGO 50% off deals on all of their Gourmet Burgers to members of the Red Robin Royalty program. Buy a burger, get one half off for your friend, or you know, yourself.
Even after highlighting his brand sponsorships in previous videos for “Body In Motion,” “Let It Go,” and “We Going Crazy,” the “Quincy Jones of hip-hop” DJ Khaled abandons all pretense in his video for “I Did It.” He sets things off by putting the product placement right at the beginning of the video, complete with shout-outs to each individual product he holds up for the camera.
His reasoning? The video’s director, Dave Myers, “costs too much money.” The tradeoff is Khaled’s demand for Myers to finish editing the video as quickly as possible. While we may never know whether or not that requirement was fulfilled, the hard rock-accented track arrives with a Michael Bay-level amount of high-flying shenanigans.
First, Megan Thee Stallion parachutes onto the grounds at Khaled’s estate to rap her fully auto verse and hop aboard a horse. Then, Lil Baby joins Khaled on a speedboat for a tour of the canals and lights a cigar on a burning guitar. DaBaby performs from the pool, surrounded by dancers, and hangs from a crystal chandelier. Post Malone doesn’t make an appearance but his presence is still felt in the energetic hook. The video closes, fittingly enough, with a closeup on Khaled’s Chime account, flashing a notification showing just how expensive a Dave Myers video really is.
Watch DJ Khaled’s “I Did It” video with Megan Thee Stallion, Post Malone, Lil Baby, and DaBaby above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
2011 was a huge year for Lady Gaga: Following the breakout success of her debut album The Fame, she released her first No. 1 album, Born This Way. The album yielded a handful of memorable top-10 singles, including “The Edge Of Glory” and the chart-topping title track. May 23 actually marked the 10th anniversary of the iconic album, and now Gaga is celebrating with a new reissue of it, Born This Way: The Tenth Anniversary, that is set to come out in June 18.
Aside from the original album, this 10th anniversary rerelease will also feature a handful of new versions of songs by artists who are representative of the LGBTQIA+ community. The first of these recordings has been shared today: A rework of “Judas” by Big Freedia. Freedia explains, “‘Judas’ was my favorite song when it came out originally, so I really wanted to cover. To me, ‘Judas’ is a love song about when someone does you dirty. I’ve sure had my experience with that. Who can’t relate?”
Aside from “Judas,” the reissue will also feature re-worked versions of “Highway Unicorn”, “You & I”, “Marry the Night”, “Born This Way,” and “The Edge Of Glory.” The other artists set to be involved have not yet been revealed.
Listen to Big Freedia’s version of “Judas” above.
Born This Way: The Tenth Anniversary is out 6/18 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.
An important member of the Milwaukee Bucks’ rotation will not suit up again this season. According to a report by Shams Charania of The Athletic, the injury that starting guard Donte DiVincenzo suffered during Game 3 of the team’s first-round series against the Miami Heat is a tendon injury that will hold him out for the remainder of the team’s postseason run.
Milwaukee Bucks guard Donte DiVincenzo has suffered a serious tendon injury in his left foot and will miss the remainder of the playoffs, sources tell @TheAthletic@Stadium.
DiVincenzo suffered the injury during the second quarter of the game and was ruled out shortly after. At the time, the team referred to the injury as a foot contusion.
It stands to reason that Milwaukee will turn to Bryn Forbes and Pat Connaughton more in DiVincenzo’s absence, and while both have their strengths as players, the former Villanova standout has blossomed into an important two-way member of the team’s rotation. He started all 66 games in which he appeared during the regular season, averaging career-high marks across the board — 10.4 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists in 27.5 minutes per game while knocking down 37.9 percent of his attempts from three. Additionally, DiVincenzo’s defensive versatility and competitiveness have helped the Bucks as they’ve incorporated a more switch-heavy scheme on that end of the floor.
Milwaukee currently has a 3-0 series lead on the Heat, with a potential series-clinching Game 4 taking place on Saturday afternoon. The game tips off at 1:30 p.m. EST.
Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.
Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of May below.
Amy Winehouse — Amy Winehouse At The BBC
Island/UMe
Before her passing, Amy Winehouse was a mainstay at the BBC and gave many performances over the years. Now, they’ve been collected on one stunning vinyl collection, which includes the audio-only versions of performances previously heard on A Tribute To Amy Winehouse By Jools Holland and BBC One Sessions Live At Porchester Hall. Other goodies from Winehouse’s career here include her first-ever TV performances and her earliest BBC Radio sessions.
My Bloody Valentine — Isn’t Anything, Loveless, EP’s 1988-1991 And Rare Tracks, and mbv (Reissues)
Domino
My Bloody Valentine’s material isn’t necessarily always the easiest to track down, but Kevin Shields and company have finally treated their fans on that front. A couple months ago, they announced their signing to Domino and subsequent reissues of their entire discography, so everything from the debut album Isn’t Anything to the newer mbv can now be enjoyed on crisp new vinyl.
Paul and Linda McCartney — Ram (50th Anniversary Reissue)
UMe
Paul and Linda McCartney only made one album together on which they were both given primary credit, and to celebrate Ram‘s 50th anniversary, a fresh new vinyl pressing has been released. This release should be about the best this album has ever sounded, thanks to the half-speed mastering process the album underwent for this edition.
St. Vincent has been strongly pushing the 1970s aesthetic here in the Daddy’s Home era, so it’s only appropriate that the album gets a slew of different vinyl editions. Of them, the deluxe LP is the most fleshed out, as it includes treats like an iron-on patch, an 11″ by 22″ poster, and an exclusive 20-page photo zine.
Fountains Of Wayne — Welcome Interstate Managers (Reissue)
Real Gone Music
Following the death of Adam Schlesinger in 2020, Uproxx’s Jason Tabrys wrote of the now-newly reissued Welcome Interstate Managers, “What stands out most about Welcome Interstate Managers is the diversity of the material. Nothing sounds like ‘Stacy’s Mom,’ but none of the other tracks really sound like each other either. Instead, Schlesinger and Collingwood pull inspiration from Tom Petty, The Beatles, The Cars, The Beach Boys, Linda Rondstadt, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, U2, and even country music. The end result stands out as an interesting and evocative collection of songs that too many people shruggingly dismissed as the filler around a one-hit-wonder. Because we’ve always had more content than time to appropriately assess and appreciate it.”
Songs from Phoebe Bridgers’ album Punisher didn’t need to be re-worked by any means. That said, a handful of them took on a fascinating new life through her more string-focused Copycat Killer EP. In April, Bridgers announced the collection would be getting a vinyl release, and here in May, the Copycat Killer vinyl is out now.
As of 2021, Violent Femmes have been around for 40 years. What better way to celebrate than with a retrospective collection? Earlier this month, the band re-released the compilation album Add It Up (1981–1993). This time, though, they’ve added things like live recordings, demos, B-sides, interstitial voice recordings, and other rarities.
Angel Olsen — Song Of The Lark And Other Far Memories
Jagjaguwar
Angel Olsen’s two latest albums, 2019’s All Mirrors and 2020’s Whole New Mess, didn’t end up being released as a single double album as intended. The releases have been brought together, though, on a new box set, Song Of The Lark And Other Far Memories. But wait, there’s more: The collection also includes Far Memory, a collection of new songs, alternate versions, and remixes.
The Shins — Oh, Inverted World (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)
Vinyl Me, Please
Vinyl Me, Please always comes through with the fantastic rereleases, and the aesthetics are always on point as well. Their repressing of The Shins’ classic Oh, Inverted World comes on a beautifully subtle but still standout “Coke Bottle Clear” vinyl, not to mention the lovely inverted cover art, which the record wonderfully pairs.
Ben Schneider and the rest of Lord Huron dropped their latest stunner, Long Lost, this month. They also released a vinyl edition of it that makes it look like the cover art was made with these colored pressings in mind. The album art features a head that looks like it’s been replaced with a sunset, and the “custard & blue sky” double vinyl pressing is a beautiful complement.
Netflix “Always Bet On Dead” tagline for Army of the Dead resulted in a gamble that paid off handsomely. Following all the fuss over Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the director was poised to pull in an enormous amount of household views for his return to the zombie realm, and that’s what happened. According to Netflix, at least 72 million viewers have watched at least part of the flick starring Dave Bautista, a CGI zombie tiger, and a green-screened (but still hot to the Internet) Tig Notaro.
This apparently occurred within one week of the movie’s streaming release:
72 million households are betting on dead.
ARMY OF THE DEAD has been the #1 film around the world and is projected to be one of Netflix’s most popular films ever in its first 4 weeks. pic.twitter.com/85foTPFAny
As for where Army of the Dead‘s currently stacking up to the rest of Netflix’s barn burners, freaking Bird Box will not be ousted from its runner-up spot anytime soon. Deadline has an updated Top 10 list of the streamer’s most watched movie titles:
1. Extraction – 99 Million
2. Bird Box – 89 Million
3. Spenser Confidential – 85 Million
4. 6 Underground – 83 Million
5. Murder Mystery – 83 Million
6. The Old Guard – 78 Million
7. Enola Holmes – 76 Million
8. Project Power – 75 Million
9. (tied) The Midnight Sky and Army of the Dead – 72 Million
A lot of action movies and a few sides of Adam Sandler and Henry Cavill sounds about right for Netflix’s most popular flicks. Who would have thought that a relatively low key Jamie Foxx movie about temporary, drugged-out superpowers would have scored at #8? Meanwhile, zombies are about to knock George Clooney out of the running altogether. Granted, Netflix calculates views based upon a minimum number of minutes that people keep a film playing. They don’t have to watch even close to the entire movie to register as a view, and Army of the Dead is a relatively long movie at 2 hours and 28 minutes, so it’s worth noting that detail. Still, 72 million (claimed) views is a ton of views. Betting on dead truly pays off.
Late Chicago emo-rap hero Juice WRLD’s rise to stardom began in earnest in 2017, when he released his Sting-sampling single “Lucid Dreams” to SoundCloud. After accumulating a huge following there, it was re-released in 2018 on Grade A Productions and Interscope Records, becoming a phenomenon and launching the young Juice WRLD to superstardom. Today, on the three-year anniversary of the release of Juice’s debut studio album Goodbye & Good Riddance, his label has re-issued the album with a remix of the song featuring a truly appropriate guest: Lil Uzi Vert.
At the same time as Juice WRLD was skyrocketing to fame on a parallel track thanks to his 2016 hit single “Money Longer,” his feature on Migos’ “Bad And Boujee,” and his 2017 breakout “XO Tour Llif3.” The two previously collaborated on the Goodbye & Good Riddance track “Wasted” and reunite here to combine their similar aesthetic and inspirations, with Uzi providing an extended verse to the ruminative track. An accompanying animated visualizer finds Juice on the run from a female demon, who commands an army of doppelgangers to pursue him through a nighttime cityscape. Fortunately, Uzi is there for backup, and with some creative uses of his new foreheard piercing (that diamond is magic!), the two escape the army and defeat their succubus foe.
Watch Juice WRLD and Lil Uzi Vert’s ‘Lucid Dreams’ remix video above. Another new track on the reissue is “734,” which you can play below.
Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Texas native Erica Banks certainly had some work to do to follow up the massive success of her breakout single “Buss It.” The viral track’s accompanying TikTok challenge made it and Banks a veritable household name practically overnight, so all eyes are watching for her next move. Fortunately, she and her mentor BeatKing have plenty more tricks up their sleeve.
The latest is a remix of “Toot That,” her Huey-sampling from last year’s self-titled mixtape. Produced by Sgt J, the original hijacks an interpolation of Huey’s 2007 hit “Pop, Lock & Drop It,” pairing it with the trademark slurred sounds of the Dallas native’s home state. The remix brings along New York rapper DreamDoll, who matches Banks’s boastful, uninhibited energy bar-for-bar, with a closing verse from the bass-voiced BeatKing.
Meanwhile, the video imagines the women as owner-operators of a “baddie consulting firm,” flashing an 800 number across the screen as they count cash with their carefully manicured claws and train their clients on treadmills with motivational chains.
Watch Erica Banks’s “Toot That” video with DreamDoll and BeatKing above. You can also catch Banks and BeatKing in the video for Big Jade’s “Dem Girlz.”
Erica Banks is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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