Andre 3000 is one of rap’s most elusive figures, only contributing rare guest verses to the occasional longtime collaborator or rap legend patient enough to wait on the perfectionist former Outkast member. Fortunately for fans, Goodie Mob — who just released a new album today titled Survival Kit — certainly qualifies on both counts. As fellow members of Atlanta’s Dungeon Family collective, Goodie Mob and Outkast have worked together extensively since their inception some time in the early ’90s. That connection seems to have remained strong enough for the Goodies to secure a guest appearance from Andre on their new song “No Cigar.”
Over a trademark Organized Noise production, each Goodie member — Big Gipp, Khujo, and T-Mo — gets in a verse giving their own take on the song’s overall concept — expressed on the hook as a question: “Who wants smoke? No cigar.” Andre comes in for the anchor leg with 16 bars of his typical poetic flow, sounding bouncy and rejuvenated as he brags about his prowess with the ladies.
Andre isn’t the only Outkast member to appear on Survival Kit. Big Boi shows up on “Prey 4 Da Sheep,” while the Goodies also bring in rap legend Chuck D on “Are You Ready” to open the album. Check those out below.
Survival Kit is out now via Organized Noize/Goodie Mob Worldwide.
Chris Stapleton has a formula and he’s sticking to it. Who can blame him? His 2015 breakthrough Traveller is one of the most popular albums of recent years. (If you don’t know anyone who loves it, visit the middle of the country.) Once — if — the live music business is back up and running, he will resume playing stadiums. And his latest record due out Friday, Starting Over, will surely top the charts and soundtrack socially distanced barbecues from Jacksonville to Phoenix for the foreseeable future.
A cynic might wonder how Stapleton has pulled this off. Ostensibly packaged as a country star, Stapleton in fact plays a form of music that critics and tastemakers have long since left for dead: heartland rock. Take the soulful bar-band raspiness of Bob Seger, meld it with the simple yet catchy homespun melodies of John Mellencamp, sprinkle in some Tom Petty guitars and add the smallest pinch of Waylon and Willie, and you have captured the essence of the Traveller sound.
At this point, a less assured (or more artistically ambitious) superstar might begin to second guess the formula, and contemplate tinkering and experimenting. But judging by Starting Over, that thought couldn’t be farther from Stapleton’s mind. Starting Over might as well be called Staying On Brand. As always, his songs fall into one of two categories: This Is Us and Justified. The former category is reserved for the title track from Starting Over, a plaintive ballad in which a quintessential Stapleton protagonist — a fundamentally good man facing a crossroads in his life — once again flirts with the possibility of genuine angst and drama. But in the end, Stapleton settles into an amiably mid-tempo groove anchored by his steady acoustic strum, Morgane Stapleton’s intuitive harmony vocal, and Dave Cobb’s reliably tasteful and upscale Americana production. You will feel heartstrings pulled, tears jerked, and lessons learned. But it will never seem less than comfy, like a solid bro hug.
The latter category — which makes up the bulk of Starting Over — is composed of swampy choogle-rockers that you can easily imagine soundtracking various shenanigans perpetrated by the Boyd Crowder gang. You can tell which songs slot here just by the titles: “Devil Always Make Me Think Twice,” “Arkansas,” “Hillbilly Blood,” “Whiskey Sunrise.” Apologies if you had “moonshine” on your southern signifiers bingo card, but I’m sure Chris will get to that one on the next album.
Lest I sound overly critical here, I should make it clear that I like Stapleton’s music generally, even if his shortcomings are readily apparent. As a songwriter, he frequently reverts to clichés and generalities, both lyrical and musical. No matter the outlaw trappings of his mountain-man beard and omnipresent hat, he delivers bluesy rockers and country ballads with the straight-down-the-middle precision of a GPS navigating through a country-club golf course. The man is a walking Spotify algorithm for “rootsy,” the personification of a Music Row theme bar, a signifier of designer cowboy boots and celebrity-endorsed bourbons. He’s as dangerous as an unloaded pistol.
But he’s also a professional. He writes songs that work. And he’s likable. You might roll your eyes at his songs, but you’ll never hate them. Even for someone like me, who prides himself on seeing through the standard tricks of the show-business trade, Stapleton has a way of cutting through your defenses and hitting pay dirt.
That moment on Starting Over occurred at the album’s midpoint. Up until then, I had been having a reasonably good time. While Stapleton’s albums lack any sort of edge, they sound pretty great if you happen to enjoy rustic instrumental tones that I will now snarkily refer to as “cabin-core.” Cobb of course has made this production style his bread and butter, but Stapleton is also wise to utilize ringers, including Petty’s two closest lieutenants from the Heartbreakers, guitarist Mike Campbell (who also co-wrote two songs, including the surly “Arkansas”) and keyboardist Benmont Tench, whose impeccable organ and piano fills are all over the record. Emulating the laidback clubhouse rock of Wildflowers has never been a bad idea as far as I’m concerned.
But the steady drip of backwoods romanticism and lite Southern noir was starting to get a little tiresome by the time of Stapleton’s cover of John Fogerty’s “Joy Of My Life” and the aforementioned “Hillbilly Blood,” which is basically a TV movie version of a Drive-By Truckers song. But then Stapleton got one over on me with the next tune, “Maggie’s Song.”
What is “Maggie’s Song” about? I’m glad you asked, because I would have appreciated someone giving me a heads up about this track before I put on Starting Over. “Maggie’s Song” is about this sweet little dog — “with the heart of a rebel child,” Chris informs us — that Stapleton bought as a pup. He takes her to the farm, where she runs around with his kids and chases squirrels. (“Man, you should have seen her go,” Chris marvels.) The dog grows up, and she’s pretty much the greatest dog ever. And then one morning, she wakes up and can’t use her legs. She puts her head on Chris’ hand, “like she done so many times.” He tells her she’s a good dog. And then … he says goodbye.
Jesus H. Christ. But Chris isn’t done. He actually sees Maggie’s spirit ascend into heaven! Because this dog was the best! Please Chris, I am already curled into a fetal position on the floor, sobbing my damn guts out. Have mercy on me.
Yes, “Maggie’s Song” is corny and manipulative, like many Chris Stapleton tunes. But I repeat: His songs work. They are functional in a way that most “brilliant” and “artful” music is not. You can put Starting Over on at a family function and likely satisfy both the Biden and Trump voters in your bloodline. (You certainly won’t upset either constituency, unless someone has recently lost a beloved pet.) Starting Over goes down extremely easy, which I suppose is a criticism. But it’s also the best compliment I can pay this record.
Starting Over is out now via Mercury Nashville. Get it here.
On the new episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are once again taking questions from listeners. This week, one listener was interested in exploring the place of CDs in the modern music industry, both in terms of audio quality, as well as the best method of listening. The result is a spirited conversation about how CDs compare in quality to that of streaming and vinyl, and the sense of ownership that comes with holding in your hand a physical manifestation of music. Is there anything quite like gathering a stack of CDs to take on a road trip?
Of course, an episode of Indiecast wouldn’t be complete without a chance for Cohen to sing his praises about emo bands, this week focusing on Ground Aswim, the latest from Sinai Vessel. The record hasn’t been getting much mainstream attention this year, which begs the question of what it really means for an album to be “slept on” in 2020.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Cohen is recommending new albums from Soul Glo and Record Setter, while Hyden can’t get enough of the latest from David Nance.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 16 below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
Lil Nas X just dropped “Holiday,” his first new single in a while. He joined Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to discuss the track, and he also revealed during the chat that after a while into the extended No. 1 run of “Old Town Road,” he was getting tired of the hit.
The rapper discussed the creative growth he has undergone since “Old Town Road,” saying:
“I felt super accomplished, but I felt like, ‘OK, that’s cool. Now it’s time to really get to business’ kind of thing, you know? I found better, healthier ways to create, I’ll say that. Little things like taking much more time with my lyrics and putting more into the concept of whatever the song I am making. Because I used to go to the studio, make the song, I’m out, and never go back to it, never work on it again. And it worked, but that wasn’t the move. If I can do that without doing that, what can I do beyond that? Another thing with quarantine I decided I wanted to do was definitely give people more of an inside of me beyond the characters I portray. Even ‘Holiday,’ I’m talking about the past year or whatever, and all this sh*t. You know, a couple of sh*ts that’s been happened, and just establishing where I’m going, where I’m moving, how I’m good no matter what.”
He then revealed that he was ready to move on from “Old Town Road” while it was still the top song in the country, saying, “‘Old Town Road’ didn’t stop being number one until August, I think, of 2019, and I was already ready to throw it out the window in June last year. And I was so ready to move on from it because of what other people were saying that I almost missed out on even bigger blessings from it.”
2020 has kept everybody inside for more time than they’re used to, and a positive side-effect of an otherwise awful pandemic is that musicians made a bunch of quarantine albums. Among them are Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney, and the two legends discussed that process and more during a lengthy new Rolling Stone conversation.
For the cover of our Musicians on Musicians issue, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift got together in London for a socially-distanced conversation about songwriting, making albums at home, and what they’ve learned during the pandemic. Photograph by @maryamccartneypic.twitter.com/Jjpc1E1DIP
Swift asked the former Beatle about what a day recording his upcoming album McCartney III looked like, and he responded:
“Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music — I had to do an instrumental for a film thing — so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, ‘Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?’ [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.”
McCartney then asked Swift about making Folklore, and Swift discussed working with Aaron Dessner:
“I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, ‘All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt [Berninger], and he writes the top line.’ I just remember thinking, ‘That is really efficient.’ And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas… ’Maybe one day I’ll do this.’ I always had in my head: ‘Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.’
So when lockdown happened, I was in LA, and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, ‘Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen…’
[…] It turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called ‘Cardigan,’ and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, ‘Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,’ but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, ‘How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?’ If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.”
The two also discussed playing music at parties, numerology, and more, so read the full conversation here.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premiered 30 years ago this September. To celebrate three decades of chillin’ out, maxin,’ relaxin’ all cool and all, Will Smith got the cast back together for a reunion special, airing this month on HBO Max. In attendance was Tatyana Ali (Ashley), Karyn Parsons (Hilary), Joseph Marcell (Geoffrey), Daphne Maxwell Reid (the second Aunt Viv), Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton), DJ Jazzy Jeff (Jazz), and the original Aunt Viv, Janet Hubert. It was the first time she and Smith spoke in 27 years. Sadly, James Avery died in 2013, but much of the reunion will be dedicated to Uncle Phil’s memory.
“James Avery was this six foot-four Shakespearean beast, and I wanted him to think I was good,” Smith says in the trailer above. He also discussed the famous “how come he don’t want me?” scene. “I’d fall into his arms at the end of the scene and he’s holding me and the shot pans off, and he whispered in my ear, ‘Now that’s acting,’” Smith recalled.
Here’s more on the special:
30 years later, we’re bringing the Banks family back together! Join Will and Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Alfonso Ribeiro, and DJ Jazzy Jeff, for a funny and heartfelt night full of music and dancing in honor of the show that ran for six seasons and 148 episodes.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion premieres on November 19.
Does The Mandalorian‘s Pedro Pascal have the best gig on television?
He’s the lead role in an Emmy-nominated show set in the Star Wars universe where it doesn’t matter if he’s sporting a five o’clock shadow, because his face is almost always covered, assuming it’s even him under the helmet and armor (which it often wasn’t in Season One). Plus, he gets to hang out with Baby Yoda. Even when the little frog-killer is committing genocide, he’s still sooooooo cute. I’m not saying Pascal doesn’t deserve every cent he’s getting paid (he’s got a great voice!). But I am saying that myself, and many others, would like to see his handsome face more, as long as it doesn’t look like this. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so, because as we discovered in “Chapter 11: The Heiress,” there’s a fanatical reason why Mando doesn’t take his helmet off.
After Mando returns the Frog Lady to her Frog Guy, he meets a Davy Jones-looking octopus man who says that he can help him find what he’s looking for: others like him. It turns out to be a trap, with a crew of octopus men feeding Baby Yoda to a giant sea-creature (the irony) and knocking Mando in the water, but the pair are saved by a trio of Mandalorians: Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), who fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels are well acquainted with; Koska Reeves (Mercedes Varnado, a.k.a. wrestler Sasha Banks); and Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides). They are quick to remove their helmets, which makes Mando act like a wealthy dowager from the 1800s who’s seen something truly horrifying, like a woman’s ankle in public.
“Where did you get that armor?” he asks Bo-Katan. “You do not cover your face. You are not Mandalorian.” She is, though. The armor has been in her family for three generations, and she was “born on Mandalore and fought in the Purge,” she tells Mando. “I am the last of my line. And you are a Child of the Watch,” a “cult of religious zealots that broke away from Mandalorian society. Their goal was to re-establish the ancient way.” Mandalorians agree that “this is the way,” but “the way” means different things to different people. Bo-Katan’s way is to find the Darksaber, as seen in the season one finale, while Mando is off to the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus to find Ahsoka Tano. There’s been no previous mention of Calodan in Star Wars canon, but Corvus is a type of ship that’s likely under the control of the New Republic during the events of The Mandalorian. Either the show is charting its own path, or a skeptical Bo-Katan doesn’t trust Mando yet (he is a zealot, after all) and gave him dicey information.
We’ll find out next week. Meanwhile, this is what I’ll be thinking about until then.
Well, here we are. A week after the 2020 presidential election and no closer to figuring out the sh*storm that has been this past year. But, if you’re looking for an escape, Netflix is the one constant that just never disappoints.
A couple of holiday movies and TV shows land on the streamer this week, as does the latest season of American Horror Story. There are some older indies and newer animated series sprinkled in too, but all in all, it’s a good week to ignore the news and get your binge-watch on. Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of Nov. 13.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix film streaming 11/13)
The latest holiday flick to land on Netflix features a heavy-hitting cast — think everyone from Keegan-Michael Key to Forest Whitaker, Ricky Martin, and Phylicia Rashad — in the kind of steampunk, Willy-Wonka-esque adventure that feels like the kind of thing streaming fans would love in 2020. It’s the story of a toymaker and his granddaughter whose magical invention might just save Christmas, and it’s got plenty of grand musical numbers and deliciously-evil villains to keep even the most skeptic viewer interested.
The Crown: Season 4 (Netflix series streaming 11/15)
The latest season of Netflix’s British drama series technically drops this weekend, but it’s too big of a deal not to hype just a bit early. That’s because this latest season, which sees Oliva Colman returning as Queen Elizabeth II and Tobias Menzies once-again playing Prince Philip, welcomes a handful of new characters that seriously ramp up the drama. Gillian Anderson does her best Margaret Thatcher impersonation as she squares off against Colman’s Elizabeth, and Emma Corrin takes on the huge responsibility of bringing the beloved Princess Diana to life.
American Horror Story: 1984 (series streaming 11/13)
Look, if you still just can’t get into the Christmas spirit, Netflix is still the place to be. That’s because the latest season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story anthology has finally dropped and it’s full of ’80s slasher vibes and camp hauntings. The perfect mix of nostalgia and terror to make your forget these equally horrifying times.
Earlier this month, Phoebe Bridgers made a simple promise, tweeting on November 3, “if trump loses I will cover iris by the goo goo dolls,” a song she declared year ago was on her “list of songs I want to f*ck to before I die.” A few days later, as Joe Biden was projected to win the election, Bridgers drummed up more anticipation for her cover by tweeting the lyric, “I just want you to know who I am…”
Now, it has finally arrived, but it’s not just Bridgers on the song, as she is also joined by Maggie Rogers, with whom she trades off lead vocal duties. They also recorded the song with Odessa Jorgensen, Joseph Lorge, and Harrison Whitford.
The cover is available on Bandcamp and proceeds from sales will benefit Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight. The Bandcamp page explains, “Fair Fight promotes fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourages voter participation in elections, and educates voters about elections and their voting rights. Fair Fight brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications.”
Goo Goo Dolls themselves are surely excited that the cover is out. After Bridgers first announced it, the band declared, “Can’t wait to hear it !!” A few days ago, they tweeted at Bridgers, “We’re waiting…,” accompanied by a GIF of Judge Judy impatiently tapping her watch.
Fans have been long awaiting a new project from Future and Lil Uzi Vert since earlier this year when the two rappers were spotted shooting a music video together. The visual ended up being for the Atlanta rapper’s “Posted With Demons” video off his High Off Life album. Soon after the duo released a pair of singles, “Over Your Head” and “Patek,” that at least fulfilled some part of their fan’s wishes. However, Future and Lil Uzi would come through for their fans with their Pluto X Baby Pluto joint album. The project boasts 16 songs and was released alongside a video for their track, “That’s It.”
The visual presents Lil Uzi and Future with a few select women as they all play a laid-back game of soccer. For the most part, it’s mainly the ladies kicking it on the soccer field while the two rappers spit their raps in front of the camera and occasionally join in on the game. In other instances of the video, Lil Uzi and Future head to a forest-like area where they stand side by side and boastfully fire off their bars.
Pluto X Baby Pluto is both rappers’ second project of the year behind Future’s High Off Life and Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake
You can listen to “That’s It” in the videos above.
Pluto X Baby Pluto is out now via Atlantic and Epic. Get it here.
Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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