A crumbling relationship meets a tragic end in the video for Cardi B’s new single, “Safe” featuring Kehlani.
Although the song itself is an ode to a man who makes Cardi feel safe, the narrative of the video sees her paired up with one who is anything but. Don Benjamin plays the lead, who starts out as a seemingly doting beau, but his secret activities strain their bond, and over the course of a pregnancy (message!), Cardi begins to feel increasingly isolated. After a climactic argument, Benjamin hits the streets, but by the time he returns, the consequences of his actions have already caught up with them both. No spoilers, but ladies: Leave that thuggin’ love ALONE.
“Safe” is the latest single from Cardi’s long-awaited sophomore album, Am I The Drama?, which also includes “Outside” and “Imaginary Playerz.” In addition to Kehlani, the album features guest appearances from Janet Jackson, Selena Gomez, Summer Walker, Tyla, and more. The album dropped today after multiple delays and false starts spanning over five years as Cardi’s perfectionist tendencies kept her tweaking the tracklist until earlier this year. With the album finally out, Cardi has designs on her first-ever tour, and her fourth baby is on the way with her new man, NFL star Stefon Diggs, who might just be the inspiration for “Safe.”
You can watch Cardi B’s “Safe” video featuring Kehlani above.
Am I The Drama? is out now via Atlantic Records. You can find more info here.
Ashnikko has a lot going on in the coming months. She announced a huge tour slated to start in 2026, but before that, she’s dropping Smoochies, a new album, next month.
The latest taste of the project, “Smoochie Girl,” was shared today. In a statement, Ashnikko says of the catchy pop number:
“i wrap myself up in steel plated bravado sometimes. i wanted to break from that and celebrate the fact that i am a sensitive lover girl. i’m like an open wound. it can be grotesque and painful but i ultimately love that about myself.”
Listen to “Smoochie Girl” above. Find the Smoochies cover art and tracklist below, along with Ashnikko’s upcoming tour dates.
01/26/2026 — Warsaw, Poland @ Stodola
01/27/2026 — Berlin, Germany @ Columbiahalle
01/29/2026 — Hamburg, Germany @ Inselpark Arena
01/30/2026 — Copenhagen, Denmark @ Poolen
01/31/2026 — Tilburg, Netherlands @ 013
02/03/2026 — Cologne, Germany @ Palladium
02/04/2026 — Paris, France @ Olympia
02/06/2026 — Wiesbaden, Germany @ Schlachthof
02/07/2026 — Brussels, Belgium @ La Madeleine
02/11/2026 — Glasgow, United Kingdom @ O2 Academy
02/14/2026 — Manchester, United Kingdom @ Manchester Academy
02/17/2026 — Dublin, Ireland @ 3Olympia
02/20/2026 — London, United Kingdom @ O2 Academy Brixton
03/18/2026 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
03/20/2026 — Los Angeles, CA @ Shrine Exposition Hall
03/21/2026 — San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
03/23/2026 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
03/24/2026 — Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum
03/26/2026 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
03/28/2026 — Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
03/30/2026 — Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
03/31/2026 — Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
04/02/2026 — St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
04/03/2026 — Chicago, IL @ Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
04/04/2026 — Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
04/28/2026 — Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
04/29/2026 — Dallas, TX @ The Bomb Factory
05/01/2026 — Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works
05/02/2026 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
05/05/2026 — Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
05/06/2026 — Miami Beach, FL @ The Fillmore
05/08/2026 — Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
05/09/2026 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
05/12/2026 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE
05/13/2026 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
05/15/2026 — New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom
05/16/2026 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
05/18/2026 — Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
05/19/2026 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
09/16/2026 — Auckland, New Zealand @ Town Hall
09/19/2026 — Sydney, Australia @ Enmore Theatre
09/23/2026 — Melbourne, Australia @ Forum
09/25/2026 — Brisbane, Australia @ Fortitude Music Hall
09/27/2026 — Adelaide, Australia @ Hindley Street Music Hall
09/29/2026 — Perth, Australia @ Metro City
Smoochies is out 10/17 via Warner Records. Find more information here.
We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Halsey’s latest album, The Great Impersonator. The project was Halsey’s first full-length release with Columbia Records, but she appears to be frustrated with the label.
In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Lowe called Halsey a “career artist” and she responded, “I hope I get to be.” Lowe then wondered who’s stopping her from doing that and after a shrug, she replied, “I can’t make an album right now. I can’t make an album right now. I’m not allowed to. I can’t make an album right now.”
Lowe said he didn’t “like the sound of that” and Halsey continued:
“Yeah, well it’s the reality. Because The Great Impersonator didn’t perform the way they thought it was going to. And if I’m being honest with you, the album sold 100,000 f*ckin’ copies first week. That’s a pretty big first week, especially for an artist who hasn’t had a hit in a long time. The tour is the highest-selling tour of my entire career. But, they want Manic numbers from me. Everyone wants Manic numbers from me. I can’t do that every single time. It should be good enough I do it once in a while. But it’s not, it’s not.
And what would be considered a success for most artists, a success story… 100,000 albums first week, in an era where we don’t sell physical music, OK? With no radio hit, nothing. But it’s a failure in the eyes of, you know… in the context of the kind of success that I’ve had previously. And that’s the hardest part, I think, of having been a pop star once, is because I’m not one anymore, but I’m being compared to numbers and to other people that I don’t consider lateral to me.”
Halsey’s 2020 album Manic is the one that produced the No. 1 single “Without Me.” The biggest chart success from The Great Impersonator, meanwhile, was “Lucky,” which peaked at No. 88 on the Hot 100. Both Manic and The Great Impersonator peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Sigur Rós are a millennial band in the truest sense — not because they are inordinately popular with millennials compared to other demographics, though that might be somewhat true. Rather, Ágætis byrjun literally bridged the millennium. You might have seen Sigur Rós’ international breakthrough topping both “Best Of The 90s” and “Best Of The 00s” lists and justifiably so. The Iceland quintet’s sophomore album was released domestically in June 1999, followed by the UK a year later, no doubt sparked by the most important thing Sigur Rós had going for them at the time — Radiohead were fans. Which was more than enough to convince people like me, in addition to the fact that they were from Iceland. This being 2000, before such a thing became truly cliche, I don’t think I had a single friend who didn’t long to travel to Iceland one day.
On the strength of Thom Yorke’s word of mouth, Ágætis byrjun had landed a four-star review in Rolling Stone and finished No. 2 on Pitchfork’s Best Albums Of 2000 list (behind Kid A, of course) before it was even available in America. I was absolutely dumbfounded to learn that finally came to pass in May 2001. But the extraterrestrial beauty of Ágætis byrjun didn’t sound like the year 2001 so much as any number of the scenes that bookend 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jonsi’s ghostly falsetto and the galactic reverb conjured the dawn of mankind but also, you know, Radiohead. It was the stuff of ancient Scandinavian pagan rituals or a post-human religious ceremony.
About seven months after Ágætis byrjun was made crassly available alongside microwaves in Best Buy, “Svefn-g-Englar,” otherwise known as the “it’s youuuuuuuuu” song, made a crucial appearance in Vanilla Sky, a film whose theme — “what is reality?” — felt particularly resonant around that time. For what it’s worth, the chorus is actually “tjú” in Icelandic, a sound used to comfort babies.
In the time since, Sigur Rós existed in their own orbit, releasing music at an appropriately glacial pace that could never be confused with anyone else. And yet, taking the long view, their artistic trajectory hovers over the greater arc of the 21st century in parallel. Sigur Rós was slightly ahead of the curve when it came to post-rock becoming a preferred syncing choice for prestige TV and car commercials and when indie rock became big and brassy in the mid-2000s, they did, too. And when it started to get all day-glo and pop, there’s Jonsi’s 2009 solo album, Go. But the last two Sigur Rós albums, released in 2013 and 2023, were respectively their angriest and the one most concerned about global warming, proof that even these guys weren’t immune to global enshittification.
This past week, Sigur Rós celebrated the 20th anniversary of Takk…, the closest thing they’ve had to a Good News For People Who Love Bad News or Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, i.e., the album that came slightly after their consensus artistic peak but delivered their biggest hit, which somehow appeared in trailers for both Children Of Men and Slumdog Millionaire. In fact, they were so sure of its future prospects that Sigur Rós had a nickname for “Hoppípolla” during its writing process — “The Money Song.” So, you were today years old when you learned that Sigur Rós, creators of some of this millenia’s most spellbinding, unabashedly gorgeous and inscrutable music, also have a sense of humor about themselves.
8. Valtari (2012)
Sigur Rós went on their first “indefinite hiatus” in 2009 and it was a productive one for Jonsi — having released his kaleidoscopic, Euro-pop-inspired solo album Go, the self-titled multimedia ambient project from Riceboy Sleeps, and the We Bought A Zoo soundtrack. If Sigur Rós was to return, one might assume that it would have to accommodate Jonsi’s broadened artistic appetite. Or, with Jonsi having gotten all that out of his system, they’d do a “back to basics” album.
Most long-running bands reach this point, even if “basics” means capes, bowed guitars, and “ten-minute songs in a made-up language.” Valtari stripped away the bombastic orchestration of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, but also the volcanic dynamics of their earlier work as well, leaving the first Sigur Rós album that validated their perception as Pure Moods. The title translates to “steamroller,” and one reviewer of Valtari pointed out “the music kind of rolls over you.” That’s actually a quote from Jonsi himself (though he added, “in a good way”).
Squint hard enough and there are interesting textures, an intriguing melodic scrap or two, and Jonsi finding new ways to blend into Sigur Rós’ music rather than dominating it. What you won’t find are memorable songs on what amounts to a pretty good ambient album from a band that wouldn’t merit a list like this if that’s all they were capable of doing.
7. Von (1997)
With Ágætis byrjun, Sigur Rós came across like they had been birthed fully-formed from an alien womb. However, this narrative is inconvenienced by their actual debut Von, which betrays their origin as a good ol’ fashioned post-rock band. And by “old fashioned,” I mean “ca. 1997.” The influences are obvious — My Bloody Valentine, of course (who invented “glide guitar” but didn’t think of using a violin bow), Smashing Pumpkins, Spacemen 3, Mogwai. The ambition is there, as it’s actually 16 seconds longer than Ágætis byrjun, but the production is raw and jagged. Jonsi had locked in on a vocal tone, but lacks command and confidence, like he’s still unsure of what to do with such a remarkable instrument. It’s literally the sound of a band learning on the job, recorded over the span of two years with Sigur Rós painting the studio as a form of payment.
A first-ballot entry into the “Album Before The Album” Hall Of Fame,” joining the likes of Broken Social Scene’s Feel Good Lost, The Hotelier’s It Never Goes Out, Deafheaven’s Roads To Judah, and Mobb Deep’s Juvenile Hell — solid debuts so obscure and timid that they end up being just as intriguing than the masterpiece sophomore albums that came two years later. Like, seriously… the same people made that?
6. Átta (2023)
“Climate change, doom-scrolling, and going to hell” — you could probably find Sigur Rós songs suitable for soundtracking these subjects. As far as Sigur Rós songs about such matters, that’s where Átta comes in. It’s the angriest Sigur Rós album and also, the first one that is unmistakably about something.
At least that’s what I gathered from the press release and the video that accompanied lead single “Blóðberg,” ten minutes of drone shots surveying a barren wasteland. The words escape me, but I’m left to assume that Jónsi sees our earth dying a slow, painful death rather than an extinction-level event more suited for the climax of “Ný batterí.” Even compared to Valtari or ( ), Átta is the most forbidding Sigur Rós album, initially delivered as a single 56-minute track before being split up for its official release. It also features the most subtle use of a 41-piece orchestra in rock history and almost no drums whatsoever. It’s an intriguing work that nonetheless feels incomplete strictly as an audio album; It’s not my favorite Sigur Rós album by any stretch, but the one that I’m most interested in seeing performed live.
5. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (2008)
“Gobbledigook” wasn’t just the first Sigur Rós song in over a decade that could be accurately compared to another band. The clap-happy lead single of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust sounded a lot like Animal Collective. Which, by extension, made Sigur Rós sound squarely within “2008 indie rock,” an aesthetic defined by a lysergic, nature kid optimism far removed from even the sunniest parts of Takk... Sigur Rós hasn’t made a song like that since, but it did hint at a more conventional and accessible direction for the band, as that album cover is truth in advertising — in comparison to the spellbinding chill of their past work, was a ray of sunshine on your bare skin.
Over half of the songs are less than five minutes long and “All Alright” isn’t one of them; but it is the first time Sigur Rós has sung in English. They swapped out longtime producer Ken Thomas for Flood, whose recent resume included Smashing Pumpkins, U2, New Order, and The Killers. It was no longer all that far-fetched to imagine a Sigur Rós song alongside those bands on classic rock radio.
And yet, somehow this doesn’t all add up — their sunlit strolls aren’t as compelling as their plunge into the darkness, the brass orchestration occasionally tipped over into garish pomposity, and the sprawling epics could feel like a retreat into old habits rather than a consolidation of new strengths. Also, the first two songs are by far the best things here. It’s an album that still has its pleasures and it always sounds better than I remember when I actually play it, but that might be because Sigur Rós hasn’t revisited this sound at all ever since.
4. Takk… (2005)
Flash back to 2002. In so many words, I would tell you that Sigur Rós had made some of the most awe-inspiring music I’d heard in my life to that point. My actions would probably tell you something different. A statistical account of my listening habits would show that David Gray’s White Ladder or Ours’ Distorted Lullabies were getting far more run. Look, there are a lot of superlative adjectives that you can throw Sigur Rós’ way, but “versatile” wasn’t one of them. To properly engage with Ágætis byrjun or ( ), the laundry needs to be folded, the dishes need to be put away, the homework needs to be done. These aren’t albums you can gingerly spin while a football game is in the background or you’re driving back and forth to the mall.
Takk…, on the other hand, is that kind of album. “Hoppípolla” proved that Sigur Rós’ brand of orchestral movie magic could be aligned with the likes of Arcade Fire and Coldplay, “Sæglópur” and “Gong” proved that they could actually make body-moving and not just head-trip music when they give the drummer some, “Mílanó” and the elfin oom-pah brass of “Sé lest” proved that there was always as much as prog- as post- in their rock. And hey, “Með blóðnasir” just goes to show that Sigur Rós could achieve their cymbal-bashing crescendos in three minutes when you don’t have eight (the title translates to “with a nosebleed”). Again, my words will tell you that Takk… isn’t the best or most accomplished Sigur Rós album. My actions would probably tell you it’s my favorite.
3. Kveikur (2013)
Sigur Rós have always made heavy music, but never metal — which is exactly why metal bands seem to love them. Covering a Sigur Rós song is virtually impossible, though Thursday made an admirable attempt with “Ný batterí,” the closest Ágætis byrjun’s post-rock came to post-hardcore. Still, much of what defined Ágætis byrjun and ( ) are easily transferable to even the most forbidding metal genres, be it the supersized song lengths or the skyscraping reverb or the invocation of elves and orcs through Jonsi’s vocals alone.
Metal took and took and took without giving back, until the shocking turn on Kveikur, which bears almost no resemblance to any other Sigur Rós album, aside from the cover. It typically takes three or four years for a Sigur Rós LP to come to fruition; this one followed Valtari by thirteen months. It’s the first and only time they were affiliated with trendsetter imprint XL, making them temporary labelmates with Arca and King Krule. It’s the first Sigur Rós album where the low end hits you in the gut, the first where the guitars sound like they’re being bowed by a hacksaw, the only one you could classify as “gym music”; though the dizzying electro-pop of “Ísjaki” and “Rafstraumur” are more suited for a super-intense Soulcycle session than deadlifting.
Despite being the most thrilling Sigur Rós album in over a decade, Kveikur got memory-holed almost immediately and I can tell you exactly why. It was released on the same day as Deafheaven’s Sunbather, a paradigm-shifting metal album that would not exist without the influence of Sigur Rós. No good deed goes unpunished!
2. ( ) (2002)
In 2002, I had a job with odd hours and a resultant, terrible case of insomnia. I got prescribed Ambien and, to be honest, I played fast and loose with the recommendations. This was around the time that Sigur Rós released ( ), the follow-up to their international breakthrough — another album that paired well with certain controlled substances or something I’d put on at 2 a.m. hoping to quell my restlessness. But not both at the same time. And so what I’d notice with ( ) is that, by the end of “Untitled 3,” my mind was playing tricks on me. The best way I could describe it was that the music was in 4D for about two minutes before I’d nod off. And so that was how ( ) existed in my life up to that point, an incredible auditory experience that I couldn’t last past 15 or so minutes.
Fast forward 20 years or so and if ( ) hasn’t exceeded its insurmountable predecessor, it provides a compelling, even necessary, mirror image that complicated Sigur Rós’ reputation as friendly ghosts. The crescendos are some of the most concussive in the entire catalog, but the quiet parts (of which there are many) are far more unnerving. Few albums sound more legitimately haunted or haunting, like Sigur Rós laid these songs to tape and then discovered a way to completely erase themselves by removing all attack on these traditional rock instruments, leaving nothing but sustain, decay and release. I’ve had a lot of visions while listening to ( ) and not once have the actual members of Sigur Rós made it into them.
1. Ágætis byrjun (1999)
Magic is a collaborative effort — even the most skilled performer requires a suspension of disbelief from the audience, enough awareness to register what’s happening but not enough knowledge to pick it apart. As I grow older, I long to be in that same cloud of unknowing even when I encounter the most obvious masterpieces of the current day. Would I have been antisocially obsessed with Kid A had I absorbed an entire decade of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher and Autechre? Would I consider Bleed American a masterpiece if I was as astute of an emo historian as I am now? Does Moon Safari sound as otherworldly if I knew who Serge Gainsbourg was? Is it any wonder all of these dropped while I was in college, a time that provides an unlimited amount of emotional and social stimuli upon which to map these irreplaceable musical experiences?
Within this era, I first encountered Ágætis byrjun, an album that felt like an extraterrestrial being crash landing into my life out of nowhere despite emerging on a comet trail of hype that lasted at least a year before it landed on our radar. Until that point, I experienced Ágætis byrjun like many others did in those days — on a burned CD cobbled together from excruciatingly long Napster downloads. I shudder thinking about how Jonsi would feel knowing “Svefn-g-englar” and “Starálfur” were being consumed on 128 kpbs rips. Maybe it’s the greatest testament to Ágætis byrjun saying that it blew my mind anyways. What did it for you? Was it the part of “Starálfur” where everything drops out but the strings? The crash on a bent cymbal they found on a Reykjavík street during “Ný batterí”? I could name a dozen parts of “Svefn-g-englar” alone but talking about Ágætis byrjun in such granular ways cheapens it. This album doesn’t grow on you: it asks for complete submission.
And frankly, who’s got the time for that sort of thing now? Besides that, “it’s breathtakingly gorgeous” is one of the hardest things to take at face value since it’s all superficial; It doesn’t quite have the same impact as sonic innovation or political valence. Sigur Rós sang in an invented language, they played their guitars with bows, all things that a more educated or cynical listener could have heard as gimmicks. At least within my milieu, Ágætis byrjun was unequivocally understood as a generational masterpiece. As my understanding of musical discourse expanded over the next few years, I was able to see the haters who felt more emboldened to speak up.
Over 25 years later, there’s still literally nothing quite like Ágætis byrjun, except for other Sigur Rós albums. It cannot be described with influence, just with the most grand emotion — every instrument weeps, beams, explodes, anything that goes into it will come out feeling exponentially more profound. I do not apologize for how many times I insisted on playing this for my friends when we got high in our college apartment. I figured this would be the music I’d want to listen to when I had my first kid. There is absolutely no way an album could penetrate my defenses like that in 2025. I don’t get high anymore and I don’t have kids, but Ágætis byrjun remains a time machine, transporting me and anyone else back to the first time they heard it.
Steven and Ian begin by touching on the recent Jimmy Kimmel news, and whether the indie-rock podcast space is also in danger from federal interference. They then pivot to a quick Sportscast about the early dominance of Steven and Ian’s favorite teams, the Packers and the Eagles.
After that, they usher in the first-ever Feudcast to cover the hilarious almost-fight between two bro-country dudes, Zach Bryan and Gavin Adcock. Then they discuss the newly announced lineup for Coachella 2026, and do a “yay or nay” on music festivals. Finally, they talk about Bleeds, the great new album from Wednesday.
In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the latest from electronic artist James K and Steven goes with pop-rock singer-songwriter Brian Dunne.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 257 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
We are 25 percent deep into the 21st century, and it’s really starting to feel like it. Back when we were only 23 or even 24 percent deep, it still seemed like we were living in the shadow of previous eras — the 2010s, the aughts, the 20th century, and so on. But in 2025, the future finally has landed, and it has landed hard. AI, ICE, NVIDIA, the IDEF — the world now is made up of foreboding dominant consonants and creepy occasional vowels, much like “dystopia” itself.
But let’s set that aside for now. Let’s instead talk about something fun, like indie rock. In this clarifying moment, what can we proclaim about this semi-popular music genre?
I can support this claim by arguing that Wednesday is a figurehead for a significant indie-rock subgenre. But I can prove it by pointing out that Wednesday is also foundational for an additional indie subgenre. And then I can end the conversation by stressing how Wednesday bridges their seemingly incompatible worlds in novel and influential ways. Here goes: Wednesday’s 2021 breakthrough, their third record Twin Plagues, established them as leading proponents of the current wave of shoegaze bands. But it also put them in the vanguard of rising indie country-rock acts. The former happened mostly because of the music, which was loud and blown-out and confrontational and scream-y; the latter stemmed from singer-songwriter Karly Hartzman’s funny-macabre lyrical dispatches from what I call “the Gummo South,” which in concert with the ravaged music conveyed the country’s crumbling underbelly via a series of half-remembered amoral anecdotes with ambiguous meanings and elliptical punchlines.
The fifth Wednesday record, 2023’s Rat Saw God, subsequently confirmed two things: 1) Their melding of shoegaze’s sonics and country storytelling was now a genre onto itself; 2) It was now considered by critics and a growing audience of indie fans to be very important. But then something fascinating occurred. The following year, Wednesday’s guitarist MJ Lenderman put out his fourth record, Manning Fireworks. On his own, Lenderman’s downplayed the fuzz-rock Siamese Dream aspects of Wednesday and played up the alt-country twang, while also offering up more streamlined and accessible versions of Hartzman’s self-styled southern-gothic yarns. This was typified by the first singles from their respective albums: Rat Saw God was introduced with “Bull Believer,” an eight-minute noise-rock dirge that devolves into screaming for half the run time; Lenderman meanwhile ushered Manning Fireworks into the world with “She’s Leaving You,” a sly rocker about a philandering middle-aged man that immediately sounded as impervious to relisten fatigue as Full Moon Fever. Ultimately, Lenderman scored an even bigger critical and commercial hit.
All this leads to Bleeds, the new Wednesday album out this week. If you’ve read about Bleeds, you’re aware that the end of Hartzman and Lenderman’s romantic relationship informs some of the songs (most obviously the brief but poignant “The Way Love Goes”). And you’ve also surely been informed that Lenderman played on the record but will not perform on the support tour, given his own marathon road schedule in the wake of Manning Fireworks. But what hasn’t been discussed is the subtextual drive of Bleeds, which (to my ears) is a pronounced push to make Wednesday as approachable as Lenderman’s music. While their more abrasive aspects haven’t been completely excised, they do feel tamped down a bit. (The screamiest song, “Wasp,” is the shortest one on the record, working out its angst in just 87 seconds, a fraction of the bile dumped by “Bull Believer.”)
Elsewhere, Bleeds boasts some of the catchiest pop tunes of Hartzman’s career, particularly “Candy Breath,” a shining slab of bubble-grunge reminiscent of Hole’s turn toward proud plasticity on Celebrity Skin. Even better is “Townies,” a deceptively amiable jangler about a woman reliving the sexual humiliations of her youth that bifurcates country breeziness on the verses and rock sludge on the cathartic chorus.
And then there’s “Elderberry Wine,” Bleeds‘ first single and one of Hartzman’s finest songs. When it first dropped in May, it immediately seemed to me like an answer record (deliberate or not) to “Right Back To It,” the breakout from Waxahatchee’s 2024 LP Tigers Blood. Both are “traditional” sounding love songs that aspire to (and I think achieve) a certain timelessness. They also both feature backing vocals from Lenderman. (Though, tellingly, he’s buried deeper in the mix on the Wednesday track.) But despite their similarities, they end up at different destinations. In “Right Back To It,” Katie Crutchfield sings about the grace of finding a person who is willing to put up with all your worst traits. But in “Elderberry Wine,” Hartzman suggests that this might not be enough, given the human impulse to constantly devalue that which is most precious. Your worst traits might, in fact, make love impossible. Or, as she puts it, “even the best champagne tastes like elderberry wine.”
It’s a wryly acidic observation that fits with the perverse humanism of Hartzman’s overall worldview. In her songs, she’s constantly drawn to exceptionally grotesque needles placed amid the banal haystacks of everyday existence. In the bombastic alt-rock number “Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On),” she notices the “dirty jersey up in a trophy case” during a vigil for a drowned high school student. During the frisky psychedelic honky-tonk of “Phish Pepsi,” she observes a middle-school party where drunk and stoned teens are traumatized by binging on Human Centipede and a three-hour jam-band bootleg. For “Bitter Everyday,” she mixes power chords with weird scenes from inside the gold mine, my favorite being the one about a “street Juggalo” who sings “a sweet song on the porch.”
From a lyrical perspective, Bleeds is as chaotic as the music is (relatively) orderly. Whereas the narratives on Rat Saw Good often seemed linear and coherent, nearly every lyric on Bleeds feels like a story onto itself. And Hartzman stacks them together like she’s emptying several notebooks filled with observations from life on the road as well as the North Carolina countryside. Sometimes, this approach risks lapsing into unwitting self-parody. (The line from “Pick Up That Knife” about throwing up in the pit at a Death Grips show could have come from a Wednesday lyric generator.)
As for her delivery, Hartzman’s voice remains Wednesday’s most “love it or hate it” element. Detractors will surely listen to the droning mini-epic “Carolina Murder Suicide” and blanch at her unsteady pitch and idiosyncratic phrasing. But for those of us who are fans, that voice remains a singular insurance policy against Wednesday ever becoming too poppy or mainstream. Even at its most palatable, Bleeds remains a defiant statement of artistic and regional specificity that could not come from any other band. And what a band, truly, Wednesday has become.
Bleeds is out 9/19 via Dead Oceans. Find more information here.
In the unofficial video Young Thug released last week for his song “Man I Miss My Dogs,” Thug announced the release date for his long-awaited comeback album, Uy Scuti. However, after Cardi B’s promotional shenanigans over the past few days alerted him to their shared release date, he did what any Southern gentleman (with a Billboard ranking hanging in the balance) would do: he vacated the date, pushing his own album back a week to accommodate Cardi and her also long-awaited (longer-awaited?) album, Am I The Drama?.
“Yall know I wasn’t dropping Friday,” he wrote on Twitter (which I’m never calling “X,” FOH). “It’s a ladies day do yo shit @iamcardib.”
Cardi acknowledged his consideration, encouraging him on his own impending release. “And you better step next week,” she replied in a quote post. “You got this, You know this !!”
It probably doesn’t hurt that both artists’ albums will be released under the Atlantic Records imprint, facilitating the last-minute change and prompting their easy cooperation. After all, if both albums do well, it benefits both artists, as well as all the others on the label’s roster hoping to get their own budgets cleared. Gotta keep those coffers full, am I right?
Long before Grammy nominations and stadium tours, Cordae was just a high school kid dropping mixtapes and dreaming big. Now, he’s sipping on a glass of Rémy Martin V.S.O.P, talking legacy, name-dropping collaborations with the likes of J. Cole and Lil Wayne. He’s also giving us the ultimate “made it” moment: FaceTiming Snoop Dogg to settle a lifelong debate over who inspired his unique name.
In the latest episode of UPROXX’s Sound of My City, the DMV-bred artist sat down with Uproxx spirits expert and host Frank Dobbins III to toast his East Coast roots and reflect on his years-long grind to the top – and absolutely nothing was off limits. As the pair sipped on what Cordae dubbed as “buttery” Rémy Martin V.S.O.P cocktails, the rapper went deep on music, family, and how his city is “turning over a new leaf with a new generation.” Raised in a household where music practically thrummed through the floorboards, the modern rap prodigy (whose new album, The Crossroads, just dropped) spent his early days spitting alongside his uncle’s homemade beats, learning piano from his mom, and soaking up life lessons from his grandmother, a prominent voice in the Black Panther Party. Today, fatherhood and a growing spiritual practice sharpen his focus, increasing his productivity and his hustle, leaving him with a backlog of songs just waiting to be released.
But despite all the success, Cordae stays humble. He credits his best industry crew – friends like H.E.R. and Anderson .Paak – for keeping him grounded and authentic. He blends his guiding motto – to make music that would impress his teenage self – with Wayne’s advice to “treat every song like it’s someone’s first time hearing you.” And he keeps his sound rooted in respect, for the craft, the lineage, and the community that helped shape him.
Watch the full video above and stay tuned here for more from our stop in D.C. with Cordae and Rémy Martin’s ‘Sound Of My City’ summer series.
Saturday Night Live has been on a break since its milestone 50th season wrapped up in May. Now, it’s about time for the show to come back, and now we know it’s set to return in October: The first slate of hosts and musical guests for the 51st season was announced today (September 18).
On October 4, Bad Bunny is hosting and Doja Cat will join as the musical guest. On October 11, SNL alum Amy Poehler will return to host an episode featuring musical guest Role Model. Finally, on October 11, Sabrina Carpenter will pull double duty as both host and musical guest.
Bad Bunny has become an SNL mainstay this decade. He’s hosted twice and been a musical guest three times, including the 2023 episode when he did both. Doja, meanwhile, will be making her Saturday Night Live debut on the episode.
Poehler is of course familiar with the SNL stage. Aside from being a beloved cast member for nearly a decade, she has returned to host the show a handful of times. Role Model will be making his first appearance on the show.
We’re in the endgame, now. The release of Cardi B’s album Am I The Drama? is just a few hours away, and she continues to share more information about it. Earlier this week, she shared the features, announced her tour for the album, and dropped the tracklist; most recently, she gave fans a teaser of the music video for “Safe” featuring Kehlani, and announced it would accompany the album’s release at midnight ET.
From the short clip she shared on her social channels, the song will be a piano-driven, emotive ballad in the same vein as her prior collab with Kehlani, “Ring,” from her debut album, Invasion Of Privacy. It also appears the video’s male lead is social media star Don Benjamin, who makes one heck of a f*ckboy face before the smash cut to the title card. Expect a drama-filled (heh) narrative inspired by Cardi’s worst experiences with men.
Little Miss Drama Tour Dates
02/11 — Palm Desert, CA @ Acrisure Arena
02/13 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
02/15 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
02/19 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center
02/21 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
02/22 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
02/25 — Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
02/27 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
03/01 — Phoenix, AZ @ PHX Arena
03/04 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
03/06 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
03/07 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
03/09 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
03/12 — Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
03/14 — Indianapolis, IN @ Gainbridge Fieldhouse
03/15 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
03/17 — Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center
03/19 — Cincinnati, OH @ Heritage Bank Center
03/21 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
03/25 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
03/28 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
03/30 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
04/02 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
04/03 — Hartford, CT @ PeoplesBank Arena
04/04 — Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
04/07 — Philadelphia, PA @ Xfinity Mobile Arena
04/08 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
04/11 — Raleigh, NC @ Lenovo Center
04/12 — Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
04/14 — Sunrise, FL @ Amerant Bank Arena
04/17 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
Am I The Drama? is due on 9/19 via Atlantic Records. You can find more info here.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
do yo shit @iamcardib.” 
