Category: News

When coronavirus effectively shut down the entertainment industry earlier this year, it looked like it might not only be a wrap for concerts and festivals but also for another industry staple: awards shows. While most artists and fans agree that awards don’t matter a whole bunch in the grand scheme of things, it’s still an annual “family reunion,” giving industry professionals a chance to gather and show each other public admiration, while for fans, it can be fun to see what surprises artists may bring to their performances, speeches, and afterparty interactions.

Over the weekend, BET held the 2020 BET Awards via a show entirely produced by its participants at home, from host Amanda Seales’ segments between the awards and performances to the acceptance speeches. This created a fascinating look at what could be the future of awards shows in the era of COVID-19. While the show was far from perfect, it was also somehow one of BET’s best awards shows, historically speaking, and if considered as a dry run for future shows like MTV’s VMAs or the CMAs, may provide something of a blueprint to build on for its successors. Here are a few things that worked and a few things that need some work.

What Worked:

Production Value

BET has long garnered criticism for the production quality of its shows. However, considering how every segment of the 2020 BET Awards was produced remotely, everything came together quite nicely this time around. Maybe it was because the show couldn’t be produced live, but there was more polish than usual, with each segment flowing quickly and efficiently to the next. The takeaway for future shows is to use the additional production time to edit together a seamless show that feels well put together.

Amanda Seales’ Throwback Hosting Segments

Amanda Seales made excellent use of her home green screen to pay homage to BET’s rich history, using backgrounds that revived sets from shows like Teen Summit, Rap City, and 106 & Park to bring a clever dimension to her hosting segments. She even managed to make some of her flatter jokes work for moment by throwing on a ComicView background to lampshade the cheesiness of her puns. If MTV or any of the other various shows off in the horizon get stuck utilizing a social distancing format, giving the host free run of historical shows and venues via green screen may add a sense of liveliness to the proceedings.

The Performances

Without the benefit of massive stages, light shows, pyrotechnics, and crowd interaction, artists on the show had to get creative with how they presented their performances. While Chloe x Halle have nailed down the art of turning their backyard tennis court into an extravagant showcase, Megan Thee Stallion and crew took to the desert in order to find space to spread out. Summer Walker and Usher used matching stages to embody their song’s theme, and multiple artists utilized the backdrop of protest to build some much-needed storytelling into their timely performances. This one’s obvious for future shows: get creative.

What Could Use Some Work:

Everything Was Almost Too Timely

While not speaking to the moment would have been negligent, BET’s show was almost gauche in the way it continually referenced current events and Black trauma. From DaBaby recreating the death of George Floyd to both Alicia Keys and John Legend offering somber piano ballads speaking to the dark days surrounding us, the show felt more despairing than hopeful. Things are dire, yes, but we could all use some escape — which is why sets like Chloe x Halle’s provided some much-needed levity. Balance is key; it’s important to highlight the moment but without getting too maudlin.

Not Having An Audience Sucked Some Energy From Performances

While the lack of an in-studio audience did help prevent some of the cornier jokes from falling flat and force artists to get more creative, after a while, the awards show started to feel almost like a music video countdown. It became harder and harder to forget that we were simply watching these pre-recorded performances on a screen. I’m not sure what future shows can do to mitigate this, because social distancing is more important now than ever as the number of COVID-19 cases spikes in the wake of weeks of civil unrest. Piping in crowd noise has been a tactic used to bring back live sporting events, but it’s gotten a mixed reception. If show producers can find some way to allow fans to react in real time — a la Instagram Live’s “like” hearts popping up along the side of the screen, it may help foster a feeling of communal viewing and make things a bitter more interactive.

Messaging Matters

Although not strictly a part of the show, per se, the ads BET ran during the commercial breaks were handy in highlighting the theme behind the show. However, when news surfaced of the network pulling an absolutely vital McDonald’s ad before the show, it sent another message — one that undermined the meaning behind much of the significance expressed elsewhere. Those concerns arose after the show’s well-intentioned performance by Kane Brown was derided as an “All Lives Matter” anthem. If future shows want to express importance sentiments of solidarity, they’ll need to read the proverbial room. Now isn’t the time for platitudes without action or for hypocritical, shareholder-appeasing moves. Know what needs saying, why it needs saying, and say it with your chest.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Dublin post-punk outfit Fontaines DC is just about a month away from releasing their anticipated sophomore album, A Hero’s Death. After sharing a couple of singles, the band returned Tuesday to share another preview of the record with “Televised Mind.”

“Televised Mind” follows Fontaines DC’s recent releases “I Don’t Belong” and their upcoming album’s title track, “A Hero’s Death.” In a statement, vocalist Grian Chatten described his inspiration behind their new song:

“This song is about the echo chamber, and how personality gets stripped away by surrounding approval. People’s opinions get reinforced by constant agreement, and we’re robbed of our ability to feel wrong. We’re never really given the education of our own fallibility. People feign these great beliefs in order to appear trendy, as opposed to independently arriving at their own thoughts. We were listening to a lot of The Prodigy and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, specifically their song ‘Open Heart Surgery.’ I was interested in extrapolating those types of chord progressions and capturing this droning, hypnotic feel. That last line repeated over and over [‘What ya call it’] is a buffer expression that people used here in Dublin. It’s sort of like ‘umm’ or ‘well…’ – it’s what people say when they’re distracted.”

Listen to “Televised Mind” above.

A Hero’s Death is out 7/31 via Partisan. Pre-order it here.

The last time we saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were subject of a hilarious SNL parody entitled Middle-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles, which imagined them in their grimly boring 40s. Thing is, they’re actually pushing middle age. Since the Turtles’ launch as a comic in 1984, they’ve never not been somewhere, from four animated TV series to three separate film franchise, the last one co-starring Megan Fox. And now they’re about to get another. Via The Hollywood Reporter, another animated TMNT movie is in the works, this time from Seth Rogen’s team.

Mind you, neither Rogen nor longtime partner-in-crime Evan Goldberg will themselves be writing or directing. It’s their company, Point Grey Pictures, that will collaborate with Nickelodeon on the new film, with Jeff Rowe — co-director of the forthcoming Phil Lord-Chris Miller movie Connected — set to direct a script by Neighbors scribe Brendan O’Brien. But they will certainly bring their sense of humor to a brand that’s sometimes struggled to blend action with comedy that’s, well, actually funny. (Of course, since Nickelodeon’s involved, it probably won’t come close to Rogen’s last foray into animation, Sausage Party.)

Leonardo et al. can still be seen on the small screen with the animated show Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose second season ended only last week. While the most recent film iteration of the franchise was a mix of live-action and CGI, the 2007 film TMNT was all-animated, and had a much more serious vibe than Team Rogen will surely give it.

(Via THR)

It’s not often a documentary is the talk of the Sundance Film Festival, but that was the case with Boys State. Directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, the doc, which follows a thousand teenage boys from Texas who attempt to build a mock government from the ground up, sold to Apple and A24 for $12 million, “which marks the largest sale for a documentary ever at a festival,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“I think he’s a fantastic politician,” one teenager says about another in the trailer above. “But I don’t think a fantastic politician is a compliment, either.” This is gonna be good.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

The sensational winner of the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Boys State is a wildly entertaining and continually revealing immersion into a week-long annual program in which a thousand Texas high school seniors gather for an elaborate mock exercise: building their own state government. Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine closely track the escalating tensions that arise within a particularly riveting gubernatorial race, training their cameras on unforgettable teenagers like Ben, a Reagan-loving arch-conservative who brims with confidence despite personal setbacks, and Steven, a progressive-minded child of Mexican immigrants who stands by his convictions amidst the sea of red. In the process, they have created a complex portrait of contemporary American masculinity, as well as a microcosm of our often dispiriting national political divisions that nevertheless manages to plant seeds of hope.

Boys State comes to Apple TV+ on August 14 (and select theaters on July 31).

Okay, you know how sometimes you’ll be scanning a restaurant menu, looking through the entrees first and then the sandwiches, trying as hard as you can to narrow it down to a few options before the waiter shows up to ask you about it, scanning and scanning, maybe the French dip or patty melt or maybe a greasy cheeseburger, and then as you’re struggling to finalize everything — ohhhh, what about a crab cake sandwich? — you look up to the little italicized blurb under the bold heading and see something like “Served with french fries and a pickle (upgrade to onion rings for $0.99)”? Well, let me make one part of this process easier for you: Upgrade to the onion rings. Always upgrade to the onion rings. You deserve it.

It’s nothing against french fries. French fries are incredible, a gift from the gods, crispy and mushy and almost perfect, except for steak fries, which are an abomination that should be thrown into the nearest toilet as quickly as possible. And yes, I’m willing to concede that the upcharge is madness, borderline robbery even, management approved theft that should be abolished at once. I know it doesn’t cost an extra dollar to make 8-10 onion rings instead of fries. Something should be done about it at some point. Not today, though. Today we are talking about food, not policy. Today we are talking about onion rings.

Seriously, how good are onion rings? This isn’t a metaphorical question. Think about it right now. Think about how good onion rings are. Think about how excited you are to see them land in front of you on that plate, how it feels to crunch through the crispy coating with both rows of teeth at once, how sometimes, if you don’t get your front teeth slicing to completion, a little string of onion slithers out of the coating and you slurp it up like a salty, buttery noodle. Then you have a real treat on your hands: a hunk of straight fried batter, golden and greasy and empty, the type of thing you would normally feel guilty about jamming into your face, but now you can do it remorse-free. Why, it would be wasteful to just leave it there. Eat that greasy fried batter, my friends. Enjoy it. Be decadent. You paid that extra $0.99, after all.

You know what else is great about onion rings? I’ll tell you: the range. My god, the unbelievable range. It’s thrilling. Ordering onion rings blind — no knowledge of how the place prepares them, no knowledge of the quality — is a real roll of the dice, because while good onion rings are great, bad onion rings are heartbreaking. You know the kind I’m talking about. The sad little circles, more onion-flavored than onion-filled, pulled out of a freezer in a big economy-sized bag labeled “ONION RINGS” and dumped into the oil. There a few things worse than ordering onion rings and seeing those pathetic little O’s. Murder, sure. Murder is worse. Arson, too, probably. But beyond that…?

That’s what makes it so thrilling, though. You get to feel like a riverboat gambler for the 10-15 minutes between placing the order and seeing the result. And when it works? Oh baby, when it works?! The rush you feel. The power that starts flowing through your veins and into your stomach, to whatever degree this is how the vascular system works. (This is not how the vascular system works.) It’s not just you, either. Everyone else at the table feels it, too, especially the chumps who didn’t make the call to upgrade, especially if they found out just then that the house fries piled next to their pulled pork sandwich are the god-forsaken toilet-bound steak fries. Only fajitas are a more jealousy-inducing food at the moment of service, and that’s partially due to the sizzle-related presentation. Once we work out the science to make onion rings sizzle, it’s over.

We can go beyond sides, too. Sometimes, if you scan the list of burgers at the type of place that has lots of burger options, you’ll spot one that’s usually titled something like The Cowboy BBQ Burger and has a barbecue-slathered onion ring on the burger. This is good business, for a couple reasons: one, because the type of place that has lots of fun burger options usually has good onion rings; two, and I’ll just go ahead and repeat myself here, barbecue-slathered onion ring. Find a single flaw in that phrase. Look long and hard. And after you’re done, when you don’t find a flaw, meet me in the next paragraph to discuss sauces.

Sauces! Sauces are an underrated aspect of onion rings. Almost any sauce tastes good on an onion ring. Barbecue, yes, we’ve discussed. Honey mustard, sure. Ranch, tangy horseradish, some sort of spicy mayo-based concoction that comes out a mixture between pink and orange, yes yes yes. I cannot possibly state this more clearly: if you serve me onion rings and put a little dish of sauce — any sauce, you don’t even have to tell me what it is — on the plate next to them, I am dunking the first ring I grab straight into the sauce and then shoving the ring into my face sauce-side first. I won’t think twice about it. I won’t even think once about, to be honest. I’ll just do it. It would be a great way to poison me, if you’re trying to poison me. Please do not poison me.

God, I want onion rings now. I want a whole plate of them. An appetizer of onion rings and then the buck-extra onion ring upgrade next to the patty melt I’ll finally decide on in the five seconds before the waiter gets to the table. Onion rings are truly one of our greatest foods. We should spend more time discussing that. Consider this article us doing our part: me, with this borderline deranged rant, and Zach, who is actually being helpful, by providing a recipe you can make at home. It’s right below this sentence. Look!

– Brian Grubb

Old Fashioned Onion Rings — A DIY Recipe

Well, hello there. It’s me, Zach Johnston, here to make Brian Grubb — soup-based thinkpiece writer, lauded lover of pizza — some onion rings.

I think the way to go with onion rings is always “old fashioned.” I like beer-battered just fine, but they can get too soggy too fast. The crunch of the bread crumbs in the coating makes for a much better textural experience that just feels classic. I think that’s the style Grubb is ranting about above.

The thing with frying foods like this though is that it’s time-consuming. If we could go to diners or dives right now, you’d usually get an order of onion rings in five minutes or less. Doing this at home is closer to 45 minutes from top to bottom. While that isn’t a crazy amount of time, that’s also only one batch. Add another ten minutes per batch and things get tedious.

Still, this is a great treat that’s worth doing once in a while at home.

Ingredients:

• 2 Yellow Onions
• 2 cups AP Flour
• 2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 2 cups Panko Bread Crumbs
• 1 cup Whole Milk
• 1 large Egg
• 4 tsp. Salt
• 1-quart Vegetable Oil

A quick note, if you can’t get panko, regular, coarse bread crumbs are fine. If you don’t have an allergy to it, use peanut oil if you like. It’ll add a little more flavor to the fry. If you really want to amp up the flavor, fry them in beef tallow (like how McD’s used to do with fries).

Lastly, if you want to veganize this recipe, use heavy oat milk, and lose the egg.

Prep:

First things first, peel the onions. I chop them in about 1/2-inch slices which ends up meaning I cut the onion into around five pieces along its horizontal axis. I then use my fingers to gently press out the rings into a large bowl. I cover the raw rings with water and about two tablespoons of salt. I let them rest for around 15 minutes while I get my dredging station ready.

The point here is to bring out a bit of the sweetness of the onions in the saltwater bath. You can skip this, but you’ll get more malodorous and less sweet rings in the end.

The dredging station from left-to-right is flour mixed with baking powder, milk whisked with egg, and panko with the remaining two tablespoons of salt.

Before I start dredging, I get a wok on the stovetop with the vegetable oil. I’m aiming for 350F for frying on a medium-high flame.

After the raw onion has rested in the saltwater, I drain it off and start dredging my rings. First in flour then the milk/egg mixture and finally the bread crumbs.

I place the rings on a large plate, one layer at a time. Don’t stack them. I make it through about half the rings.

Cook:

As I wait for the oil to hit 350F, I set up a cookie sheet with a wire rack over it (saves on paper towels). Once the oil hits 350F, we’re ready to fry.

I gently place the rings into the oil one at a time. I make a single layer. Again, try not to stack, it’ll damage the crust and slow the cook. I end up cooking five to six rings at a time. So, for a single batch, expect to cook twice.

The rings take around three to four minutes to cook. After two minutes, I flip the rings. You’ll know they’re done two ways. One, they’ll be golden brown. Two, you’ll get a whiff of cooked onion not unlike sweated onion from the beginnings of making a sauce.

After the rings are crispy and golden brown, I let them rest on a wire rack so excess oil can drip away. I then stack around ten in a bowl.

Sauce:

While you have to flip the rings, you don’t have to hover over the frier. So while my second batch was in the oil, I made a quick quasi Comeback Sauce.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. Mayonaisse
• 2 tbsp. Ketchup
• 1 tbsp. Chili Sauce (I used Smoked Sriracha)
• 1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Onion Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Smoked Paprika
• Large pinch of Dried Thyme
• White Pepper
• A squeeze of Lemon Juice

It’s super simple. Add everything to a small bowl and stir with a spoon until smooth. Serve.

The rings were wonderfully crisped and added the perfect crunch to the soft and mildly sweet onion beneath. The sauce was a great dipper that added umami, spice, tart, and a nice silky fattiness to the whole thing. Put these rings and dippin’ sauce next to a burger and you’ll need a long nap afterword.

Or better yet: just have the rings as a meal! They call that going “full Grubb.”

The Disney+ premiere of Hamilton just got even bigger.

When the hit musical makes its streaming service debut on July 3, it will be joined by an all-new, behind-the-scenes documentary, Hamilton In-Depth With Kelley Carter. The move feels logical, given the intense passion of Hamilton fans and Disney+’s recent success with making of series like Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian and Into The Unknown: Making Frozen 2. However, this time around, the Hamilton doc will be a collaboration with ESPN+ and The Undefeated that features Kelley L. Carter hosting a virtual roundtable with the original cast. Via Entertainment Weekly:

“The story and subject matter that Hamilton covers, and the creative vision of its architects and actors, are more timely than ever,” Jimmy Pitaro, president of ESPN and co-chair, Disney Media Networks, said in a statement. “The Undefeated, and Kelley L. Carter, are uniquely positioned to help connect audiences – whether they have never seen the show, or have seen it 10 times – to the creative process, people and significance of Hamilton as it debuts on Disney+.”

The documentary announcement coincides with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s recent Houston Chronicle interview, in which he addresses concerns that debuting the musical on Disney+ will “lessen its cachet.” Miranda disagrees, and the musical star and creator is happy that new audiences will finally get to see the show for the low price of a Disney+ subscription. He has no qualms with bucking tradition to give the show what he feels is an “enhancement” and not a “replacement.”

“The conventional wisdom is don’t put out a movie while your show is still in theaters,” Miranda told the Chronicle. “The conventional wisdom is wrong.”

Hamilton and Hamilton In-Depth with Kelley Carter premieres July 3 on Disney+

(Via Entertainment Weekly, Houston Chronicle)

College student Sophia Wilcox surprised her stepfather, Brian Sandusky, with the most incredible Father’s Day gift last year. She created a framed piece of artwork out of supportive Post-It notes he wrote to her while she was in middle school.

“During middle school, my stepdad used to leave me a note on my door each day to inspire me. well, I kept those notes & It’s been 6 years since then. today I gave him those notes back,” she wrote on Twitter.

The gift brought Sandusky to tears.

“He was so shocked when I gave it to him because he hadn’t known that I kept all the notes. He told me later that he was beyond moved,” Wilcox said according to WDRB. “He’s been in my life for about 10 years now. He’s a very supportive man and always tries to make me laugh, even on a bad day.”

Five years have passed since Ellie Goulding released her third studio record Delirium and the singer is gearing up for a big project. Last month, Goulding shared the tracklist to her two-part upcoming album Brightest Blue with features from Diplo, Swae Lee, Juice WRLD, and more. Now, Goulding debuts her album’s collaboration with Lauv.

Titled “Slow Grenade,” the summery tune sees the singers reflecting on an imploding relationship over a buoyant beat. “Slow grenade / It’s blowing up my mistakes / So why don’t I, why don’t I stop it? / Still got time for me to stop it / It’s like a part of me must want it,” they croon in unison.

Goulding and Lauv’s supercharged single arrives in the second part of Brightest Blue, titled EG.0. About the latter half of the album, Goulding says it “encapsulates my confident, brave and fearless side and features all my recent collaborations. I often find myself writing about my thoughts and emotions in a way that I know will be catchy and memorable. I will always seek to use my voice in ways that no one would ever expect and look to collaborate with the least likely, exciting and eclectic group of other artists.”

Listen to “Slow Grenade” above.

Brightest Blue is out 7/17 via Interscope. Pre-order it here.

Recently, allegations of inappropriate behavior by one of our employees came to our attention. We are deeply disturbed by these allegations. We condemn discrimination and harassment of any kind. There’s no place for it in our business.

We took immediate action, including placing the employee on leave, suspending the publication of With Spandex, and launching an internal investigation into the employee’s behavior. Pending the outcome of the investigation, we will take appropriate action.

— Uproxx Management

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 June below.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Bridgers recently told Uproxx of her new album, “I made the whole record knowing that people were going to hear it. […] I just had more fun. I wanted to sound like an adult wrote it.” The “blue with kind of swirly silver” vinyl edition of it is unfortunately/understandably sold out, but there’s nothing wrong with a classic black record.

Get it here.

Carly Rae Jepsen — Dedicated Side B

Carly Rae Jepsen makes B-sides that are better than many artist’s A-sides, which she proved once again on Dedicated Side B. LPs signed by Jepsen herself are out of stock, but the still-wonderful non-signed edition isn’t.

Get it here.

The National — High Violet (10th Anniversary Reissue)

Matt Berninger told Uproxx of his band’s seminal album, “High Violet did feel like, ‘Oh, we can maybe be any kind of band.’ We were always trying to learn how to be a band at all. Every single thing we did, it was live or die. If we didn’t make some kind of a splash with that record, it did feel that we would die on the vine.”

Get it here.

Eric Clapton And B.B. King — Riding With The King (20th Anniversary Reissue)

In 2000, two of music history’s most beloved guitarists got together for a legendary meet-up of an album. On that record’s 20th anniversary, this vinyl reissue gets two new tracks recorded during the original sessions: The blues standard “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” and B.B. King’s “Let Me Love You.”

Get it here.

Bee Gees — Best Of Bee Gees, Main Course, Children Of The World, Here At Last…Bee Gees…Live, and Spirits Having Flown

The Bee Gees have put out some masterful albums in their day, and now a handful of them are getting re-released on gorgeously colored vinyl that complements the album art. Each of the five records have been remastered from the original analog LP master tapes at Capitol Studios.

Get it here.

Neil Young — Homegrown

Neil Young blessed this year with Homegrown, a lost album recorded in 1974 and 1975 that Young has described as “the unheard bridge between Harvest and Comes A Time.” This is a rare chance to hear a (sort of) brand new Young album from a time many would consider a golden age for him, so why not do it on the predominant format of the time?

Get it here.

Nas — The World Is Yours (Reissue)

“The World Is Yours” has often been called one of the greatest rap songs ever, and now for the first time, it’s available as a 7-inch record. The flip side features the song’s instrumental, making this the perfect opportunity to try to re-create the song yourself, or just sit back and appreciate the musical bedrock Nas had to work with here.

Get it here.

Jorge Ben — Ben E Samba Bom, Sacundin Ben Samba, and Jorge Ben

Jorge Ben has long been revered as one of the masters of Brazilian music, and now a new group of reissues honors his origins. Three of the artist’s early albums have fresh new vinyl editions, albums that helped catapult him to stardom and acclaim.

Get Ben E Samba Bom here, get Sacundin Ben Samba here, and get Jorge Ben here.

Future — Honest (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)

The first vinyl release of Future’s Honest is a big one, as it was Vinyl Me, Please’s Hip-Hop Record Of The Month for June. The record is pressed on black vinyl with white and red splatter and comes with an exclusive “I’m Just Being Honest” stencil.

Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.