Elon Musk’s ventures know no bounds, and that’s prompting a few worries, like with his plans to build humanoid robots. There are also alarm bells concerning Space-X’s Starlink satellites, which a leading scientist says are currently responsible for about 50% of all close encounters that could result in collisions between two spacecraft. However, there are also reports that Starlink outages are very much a thing, which might be partially why SpaceX is (according to the Verge) preparing to launch 30,000 more satellites, if the company can get approval from the FCC.
This led, of course, to complaints, including a letter of protest from Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems, which has deployed its own array of broadband-internet satellites. As such, Amazon is asking the FCC to deny SpaceX’s request at this time, which isn’t too far-fetched, considering that SpaceX’s current 1740 low-earth satellites are already causing potential collision issues. Well, yeah, as one can imagine, Elon Musk isn’t too happy, so he’s got jokes, first about what Jeff Bezos might be doing with his retirement when he’s not riding on his own rocket.
“Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX,” the Tesla CEO tweeted.
Turns out Besos retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX …
Courtney Barnett has shared her version of The Velvet Underground & Nico’s classic 1967 track “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” which appears on the forthcoming I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico album. Executive produced by Hal Willner, who sadly died of COVID-19 last year, the all-star tribute album is out on September 24 and also features contributions from Michael Stipe, Matt Berninger (“I’m Waiting For The Man”), Sharon Van Etten with Angel Olsen, Andrew Bird, Lucius, Kurt Vile & The Violators (“Run Run Run”), St. Vincent and Thomas Bartlett, Thurston Moore, Bobby Gillespie, King Princess, Fontaines D.C., and Iggy Pop and Matt Sweeney (“European Son”).
Reimagining the track in a sing-speak manner, Barnett makes “I’ll Be Your Mirror” her own with crisply plucked, sometimes dissonant acoustic guitar and even-keeled tambourine. “I love them… [The Velvet Underground & Nico],” said Barnett in a press release. “When I listen to ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and read the lyrics, I realize it’s a perfect song. I can relate to every inch of it. I just felt like I could get inside the world of this song.”
Earlier in the summer, Matt Berninger shared his rendition of “I’m Waiting For The Man,” which he’d previously covered on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in December. Kurt Vile also shared his cover of “Run Run Run” in mid-July.
Listen to Courtney Barnett cover “I’ll Be Your Mirror” above. I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico is out 9/24 via Verve Records. Pre-order it here.
Later in September, Sable, one of the most anticipated video games of 2021, will be released. Japanese Breakfast has been attached to the project for some time; her soundtrack is set to be released on the same day. Earlier in the summer, JBrekkie’s Michelle Zauner performed “Glider” from the soundtrack at Summer Game Fest, and now the dreamy, glitchy single is out digitally.
Of the soundtrack, Zauner said in a press release:
“I was so lucky Daniel Fineberg and Gregorios Kythreotis from Shedworks invited me onto this game so early on. I was immediately captivated by the world they’d built, a desert planet filled with mysterious natural and architectural wonders, and the story they’d imagined, one of a young girl coming of age through exploration. It was important to me that each biome in this world felt unique. I used woodwinds and vocal layering to make monumental ruins feel ancient and unknown, industrial samples and soft synths to make atomic ships feel cold and metallic, classical guitar and bright piano to make encampments feel cozy and familiar. I wanted the main themes to recall iconic works of Joe Hisaishi and Alan Menken, to fill the listener with the childlike wonder of someone on the precipice of a grand discovery.”
Listen to “Glider” above.
The Sable soundtrack is out 9/24 via Sony Music Masterworks. Pre-order it here.
The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.
We all tried to make the most of being stuck in quarantine during Covid. But it’s unlikely that you made more of it than Aaron Dessner. Pre-pandemic, he was known as the co-founder of The National, a self-effacing guitarist and composer who seemed content to remain in the background. Now, 17 months later, he is pop’s least likely hitmaker in the wake of his Grammy-winning collaborations with Taylor Swift on the 2020 sister albums, Folklore and Evermore. Introspective and analytical by nature, he’s now a bonafide stand-alone star.
According to a recent New York Times profile, the 45-year-old Dessner doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with his newfound status as a person that lots of other people — some of them presumably on the same level of fame as Swift — want to work with. “I like the idea that I could count my collaborators on one or two hands, to stay with this family feeling,” he told the Times. “So I’m not rushing out to work with a million people. It’s not really my personality.”
The “family feeling” that Dessner referenced didn’t necessarily pertain to The National, but rather to Big Red Machine, the side project he founded with frequent collaborator Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. A self-described “laboratory for experimentation,” the collective grew out of the festivals that Dessner and Vernon have spearheaded in the past decade, including Eaux Claires in Eau Claire, Wis. and the People festival in Berlin. The animating idea of these festivals is to gather friendly musicians in a collegial, forgiving environment and encourage them to work together in creating art that goes to unexpected places. On their self-titled 2018 debut, the minds behind Big Red Machine sought to carry this idea over to a record.
What’s interesting about the second Big Red Machine album out today, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, is how unexperimental it sounds. Whereas the first Big Red Machine record consisted of esoteric sketches that felt like excerpts from long, heady jam sessions, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? includes some of the most approachable and pop-oriented material that Dessner or Vernon have ever produced. This can partly be attributed, of course, to the involvement of Swift, who along with suggesting the album title appears on the album’s most immediate track, “Renegades.” But the rest of the record is similarly melodic and warm, evincing little of the electro-indie dissonance of the recent output by The National and Bon Iver. If you’re a Swiftie who hasn’t yet dipped into Dessner’s back catalogue, this is actually a very accessible entry point.
This is very much Dessner’s album, by the way, in which Vernon relegates himself to a supporting role. “I wanted to continue to support Aaron and honestly challenge him, frankly, to get out in front more,” Vernon told the Times. “There are little bits and pieces that I show up and do on the record, and I obviously wrote some words and sang some tunes, but really, this is Aaron’s record.”
As perhaps the ultimate ur-Aaron Dessner text, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? functions as a kind of mixtape in which singers come and go — including Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Sharon Van Etten, Naeem, and Anais Mitchell — but the instrumental beds showcasing the Svengali’s musical signatures remain constant. This includes pianos — lots and lots of pianos! — playing circular, repetitious licks over skittering electronic beats that gradually blossom from lonely wallows to grand swells of emotion.
That was the formula of Folklore and Evermore, as well as the last two National albums, Sleep Well Beast and I Am Easy To Find. But it reaches an apotheosis on How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?, in which Dessner for the first time on record steps forward as a frontman. He sings in a shy, Elliott Smith-style croon on confessional songs such as “Brycie,” a touching ode to his twin brother Bryce about how he lifted him out of a deep teenaged depression, set to music that evokes The National’s “I Need My Girl.” (Only in this case it’s “I Need My Bro.”) Elsewhere Dessner makes his presence felt via the carefully considered soundscapes that appear on affecting songs such as “Hutch” and “June’s A River,” the latter of which spotlights the fine singer-songwriter Ben Howard, whose 2021 LP Collections From The Whiteout was produced by Dessner.
While the original idea of Big Red Machine was to give the creators an excuse to breakout of their usual molds, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? seems like the opposite of that. It doesn’t redefine what Dessner does so much as reiterate just how distinct and pervasive his current musical mode is. While he’s about a half-dozen big-ticket pop smashes away from being as overexposed as Jack Antonoff, there is the possibility that this highly productive period for Dessner has run its course. At 65 minutes, the album feels about 15 to 20 minutes too long, with a surfeit of tasteful, samey-sounding piano ballads. While Dessner’s musical acumen can’t be questioned, I did occasionally yearn for a singer with a big personality for him to play off of — whether that’s Matt Berninger or Taylor Swift — who might have also injected more humor and insight into the record.
As good as many of these songs are — how nice is it to hear Justin Vernon sing over piano chords on tunes like the jazzy, Steely Dan-esque “Reese”? — How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? seems more like a capstone to an era than a new beginning. I have no doubt that Dessner is already pondering his next move. (Here’s an idea: Get the five guys from The National in a room and knock out a rock record in two weeks. Bring it back to Alligator for the heads!) But it seems like it’s time to move on.
How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is out now via Jagjaguwar/37d03d. Get it here.
Beyonce has a handful of No. 1 singles to her name, but what is perhaps her biggest song isn’t actually one of them: “Halo,” which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2009, recently became Beyonce’s first song to eclipse a billion streams on Spotify. One of the song’s co-writers is OneRepublic leader and songwriter extraordinaire Ryan Tedder, who guested on The Tonight Show yesterday. While there, he spoke about how he and co-writer E. Kidd Bogart were able to pen “Halo” in just three hours.
Tedder told Jimmy Fallon:
“I had a three-hour gap in the middle of the day. My wife was gone, I called a friend [Bogart], and I said, ‘Hey, get over here, Beyonce wants me to write a song, let’s do it together.’ He had written a big No. 1 for Rihanna [‘SOS’]. I turned the keyboard on and — I wish every session went like this, but they don’t — the first sound that happened to play on the keyboard was the opening sound of the song. It sounded like angels and I was like, ‘Why don’t we do a song about angels, like her guardian angel, like Jay-Z is her guardian angel?’ Two minutes later, it evolved into, ‘Ooh, ‘Halo,’ that’s such a cool title, let’s go with ‘Halo.” Three hours later, the song was done, and then like 12 months later, the song came out, and it was that simple.”
Meanwhile, OneRepublic performed “Someday” on the show, so check that out below.
Eminem‘s Shady Records has had a bumpy go of it over the years, as the label’s head honcho’s star power seemingly overpowered the shine from every new member of the roster, from Cashin and Stat Quo to Slaughterhouse and Yelawolf. Lately, though, it seems that the imprint has regrouped somewhat, recruiting members of Buffalo-based Griselda Records, Compton’s Westside Boogie, and most recently, Atlanta rapper Grip, who released his debut album for the label, I Died For This!?, today.
Naturally, Eminem appears on the album to show his newest artist some support, delivering a rapid-fire verse full of sage advice for the younger rapper. To be honest, it’s probably one of Em’s most coherent and focused verses in years, and you love to see him showing support for an up-and-coming prospect rather than trying to compete with him. “No pun intended, but GRIP, hold on to this moment,” he advises. “‘Cause soon as you reach the top, they gon’ want you to fall from it.”
It’s similar to Em’s progress on the “Side B” deluxe version of Music To Be Murdered By and his recent “Killer” remix featuring Cordae and Jack Harlow. He’s taking a longer view of the rap game — even though he still finds time to give the long-dead Autotune horse a couple more kicks for some reason — and as for Grip? Not only is his career in good hands, but he’s also showing he’s got the talent to take it far into the future, big-name co-signs or not.
Listen to Grip’s “Walkthrough!” featuring Eminem above.
I Died For This!? is out now via Shady Records. Get it here.
During last week’s episode, Steve and Ian wondered if the latest album from Lorde, was going to follow a similar trajectory to recent releases from Clairo and Billie Eilish — LPs with rollouts that feel very muted and underwhelming, but the final product ultimately left them feeling pleasantly surprised. Solar Power, however, never manages to spin the narrative and truly deliver, offering a collection of songs that feel bland and difficult to connect with.
The new LP from Big Red Machine does not experience the same fate, with Aaron Dessner/Justin Vernon delivering an album that outshines each of their solo output over the last few years. It marks both of the acclaimed indie artists’ transition into a world that feels markedly more “pop,” integrating massive names like Taylor Swift to elevate the project.
Last but certainly not least is Glow On, the anticipated new album from Baltimore hardcore band Turnstile. Currently in the top 10 at Album of the Year, Glow On is a good example of how more bands should be making melodic hard rock records. Melodic hard rock is one of the most popular genres of all time and so few people make it now! Turnstile once again prove to be a shining example of how exciting rock music can be.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Steve is paying tribute to the life and music of Charlie Watts, the longtime Rolling Stones’ drummer who passed away earlier this week. Meanwhile, Ian is plugging Asbestos Weak Hood, the new album from Ohio emo band Narrow/Arrow.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 53 on Spotify below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
As the Biden Administration navigates the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, which has descended the region into chaos, as expected, former president Donald Trump has been increasingly chiming in with his two cents in an effort to criticize Joe Biden, who thoroughly beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election. In essence, Trump is trying to craft a narrative that he would’ve handled the Afghanistan withdrawal much better, but he keeps smacking into the problem of not having any idea what he’s talking about. (Praising the Taliban, who the Trump administration cut a disastrous withdrawal deal with, hasn’t helped his case either.)
On Thursday morning, shortly before terrorists attacked the Kabul airport, Trump made an odd boast on The Hugh Hewitt Show that he killed bigger terrorists than Osama Bin Laden during his presidency. Not only was the claim a blatant swing at the Obama Administration, which successfully took out Bin Laden, but like all things Trump, the claim was wildly inaccurate. Via Mediaite:
“Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden,” Trump said. “The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden.”
“Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center. But these other two guys were monsters,” Trump said. Bin Laden ordered a number of terrorist attacks against the United States, including two attacks on the World Trade Center, the first of which occurred in 1993.
To the surprise of no one, this wasn’t Trump’s only bumbling remark in an attempt to bolster his anti-terrorist credentials. While appearing on Hannity later that evening, Trump repeatedly referred to the new offshoot of ISIS-K as ISIS-X. Considering this new iteration of ISIS formed during his administration, you’d think the man who claims to be the only one who can defeat ISIS would be aware of the new faction’s name, but clearly, not so much.
About a year ago, young drumming prodigy Nandi Bushell forged a relationship with Dave Grohl by challenging him to a virtual drum battle, a challenge that the Foo Fighters leader accepted. The pair went back and forth some more after that, and now the situation has reached a new peak: Foo Fighters brought Bushell on stage to perform with them.
The band performed at The Forum in Inglewood, California last night, and their very last song of the evening was “Everlong,” the song Bushell performed to start this whole thing. Introducing the song, Grohl spoke about Bushell and about how inspiring she was before calling her to the stage. Once there, she got behind a drum kit and joined the band for a ripping performance of “Everlong.”
Bushell shared a video of the whole thing and wrote, “It Happened!!! It was #EPIC!!! Tonight I jammed with the @foofighters live @theforum!!! Wow!!! What an INCREDIBLE night! THANK YOU @foofighters @davestruestories! Thank you @taylorhawkinsofficial thank you everyone who made this possible!!! #foofighters #davegrohl #theforum #everlong — It’s my Daddy screaming a lot and filmed this video. MORE TO COME!!!”
There’s more to come from the band as well, as they are set to receive the Global Icon Award at the 2021 MTV VMAs next month.
Despite essentially inserting himself into the Jeopardy! host selection process, which very publicly went down in flames and tainted the revered game show with scandal, Mike Richards was allowed to return to his executive producer role this week. However, after the hosting debacle, that transition is not going smoothly as Richards isn’t exactly beloved behind the scenes, and his return has been plagued with rumors that Sony Pictures Television is prepared to negotiate his exit. Via The Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Richards still has obstacles to clear. He still must win over the anti-Richards camp inside “Jeopardy!” Many longtime staffers have not taken to him since he succeeded the beloved Harry Friedman, who ended his long run as executive producer in 2020. Mr. Richards has a force-of-nature type of persona, with sharp elbows that rub many of the “Jeopardy!” veterans the wrong way, people close to the show said. Earlier this week at a staff meeting, Mr. Richards apologized to employees for his past comments and said he was committed to regaining their trust, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Richards also caused a great deal of contention by sidelining Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, who many fans and crew believed was Alex Trebek’s choice to be his successor. According to the WSJ report, Richards had inserted himself into the running to be host, and by the time serious deliberations began, Jennings was never under real consideration for the top hosting job. Would he have been without Richards’ manipulating the selection process? That’s an argument that’s no doubt being revisited as Jennings has emerged from this whole debacle as a top choice to be the new Jeopardy! host.
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