Despite his lengthy resume, even Berninger still battles with nerves. On his latest single, “Breaking Into Acting” featuring Hand Habits, Berninger sings all about it. The record serves as the second sonic dish from his forthcoming solo studio album, Get Sunk.
For the song’s supporting music video, directed by Hopper Mills, the pair shines a spotlight on those anxieties. “Breaking Into Acting’ is more than just a promotional single — it is a musical peek behind the curtain of Matt Berninger, the person.
In a statement, Berninger spoke about the inspiration behind the tune. “The song is about being on stage and feeling like you’re acting,” he said. “I write the script, but when I go to record or perform it, I turn into an actor. I love that, but it can get weird to turn on and off. It’s about forgetting you’re not that character.”
He continued, “Meg Duffy of Hand Habits joined and turned it into a little duet. They made the song much more than a metaphor about me.”
Watch the “Breaking Into Acting” video above.
Get Sunk is out 5/30 via Book/Concord Records. Find more information here.
Xavi is one of the youngest Musica Mexicana breakout artists. Thanks to Xavi’s youthful approach to his beloved tracks, the “Corazón De Piedra” musician has quickly gained a following online.
But the Grammy Award-nominee’s output, including collaborations, shows that Xavi has staying power. Today (April 18), Xavi reconnected with his fellow proud representative of Mexico, Netón Vega, for the vibrant new single “Hija De Papi.”
Although Vega is primarily known for his sonic blends of reggaeton, hip-hop, and pop, he had no issue merging that into Xavi’s carefully curated world. On “Hija De Papi,” the duo leaned into their careful party-filled life.
“She dresses really fancy, she’s daddy’s girl / With a Birkin bag, mommy looks really hot / Here my light queen, its no problem / To pamper her without limits, black card,” they sing.
Xavi continues the party in his solo verse. “That ass is hot, it’s hurting my mind / Sexy photo for the Story so I can reply / She’s got them all butted up, everyone’s replying / Barbie face, Bra-a-a-a-atz body,” sings Xavi.
“Hija De Papi” marks Xavi and Netón Vega’s follow-up to “Cuando Me Ocupes,” which dropped back in February.
Listen to Xavi’s new single “Hija De Papi” with Netón Vega above.
There’s no such thing as a bad Elliott Smith album. They’re all somewhere between “really good” and “era defining.” Figure 8 holds special significance, however, as it was the final album Smith released before his death in 2003. The mural on the cover remains a Los Angeles landmark to this day (just ask Phoebe Bridgers).
On the 25th anniversary of Figure 8‘s release, Interscope/UMe announced that a deluxe edition of the album is being released on vinyl for the first time.
Figure 8 (Deluxe Edition) features “the original 16 tracks spread across two LPs while a third LP boasts seven bonus tracks, six of which have never been on vinyl,” according to a press release. Those rarities are “Figure 8,” “A Living Will,” acoustic takes of “Son Of Sam” and “Happiness,” an alternate version of “Pretty Mary K,” and a cover of “Because” by The Beatles, which originally appeared on the soundtrack for Best Picture winner American Beauty.
You can pre-order Figure 8 (Deluxe Edition)here, and see the tracklist below.
Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 (Deluxe Edition) Album Cover Artwork
The Weeknd’s current project Hurry Up Tomorrow is a major production. There’s the album that dropped in January, of course, but there’s also the upcoming film of the same name that’s set to arrive in May. The Weeknd stars alongside Barry Keoghan and Jenna Ortega, and the latter appears alongside The Weeknd in his new video for “Drive.”
The clip, naturally, is cinematic, and full of highs and lows. The video sees The Weeknd and Ortega smiling as they enjoy a Ferris wheel together, but elsewhere, The Weeknd is full of emotion in a bathtub with a dangerously high water level. The visual is directed by Trey Edward Shults, who’s also the Hurry Up Tomorrow director.
A recent trailer for the film hinted at some inner turmoil for The Weeknd’s character, with Ortega telling him, “I know this is really intense, but I’m not trying to hurt you. You are hurting yourself and you are hurting everyone around you… something has to change.”
Notable, given recent news, the the Ferris wheel featured in the video. Yesterday (April 17), The Weeknd teased something going on at the upcoming second weekend of Coachella 2025: a “Ferris wheel takeover,” although it’s not currently clear exactly what that will entail. Whatever it is, it’ll be active on April 18, 19, and 20.
One of the highlights of Coachella weekend 1 was Yeat‘s set, dubbed “Yeatchella.” With Justin Bieber and Tate McRae in attendance, the prolific rapper covered Drake’s “Feel No Ways” and performed the live debut of “The Bell” complete with a towering on-stage bell. Yeat has now released a music video for the track, which shows how the performance came together.
Last October, Yeat’s Lyfestyle debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, his first album to do so. “Lyfestyle [is] basically just my normal rap sh*t. It’s not futuristic, it’s not like a whole different world,” he told The Fader. Yeat also discussed where his lyrics come from. “I don’t write anything, everything just comes off the top,” he explained. “It could feel very personal, but then four bars later I’m sh*t-talking. It’s like your life, everything’s back and forth.”
Yeat, who is headlining Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash music festival in June after becoming the first rapper to perform at Sphere in Las Vegas, will return to Coachella for weekend 2. He’s scheduled to play at 9:10 p.m. on Friday, April 18, on the Sahara Stage after Lisa and ahead of GloRilla.
You can watch the livestream here, and check out “The Bell” video above.
In the 1990s, Michelle Williams came to fame as a member of Destiny’s Child. At the same time, Michelle Williams gained notoriety with a starring role in Dawson’s Creek. No, that’s not the same person, but two different celebrities with the same exact first and last name. For years, this has caused some confusion, and although their fates have been linked, they have somehow only just now met each other.
The Destiny’s Child member (who will be referred to going forward, for simplicity’s sake, as “the musician Williams”) is starring in the musical Death Becomes Her at the moment, and a fan captured a video of her meeting the other Williams (“the actor Williams”). Although the interaction was filmed from far away, the two both seem very excited about the meeting.
The musician Williams had some fun with it on Instagram, too. Yesterday (April 17), she shared a video of her sharing a vlog-style update after a Death Becomes Her performance. In the clip, she notes she has things to sign for fans, then produces photos of the actor Williams. Looking off camera, she asks for help, then changes the shot to reveal the actor Williams seated next to her. The actor asks, “Who should I make it out to?” The singer replies, “Would you make them out to meeee?”
The musician Williams also captioned the post, “#FINALLY,” indicating that this truly was the first time they’ve ever met.
Back in March, Dom Dolla took New York City by storm performing two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. During the “Eat Your Man” producer’s sets, he treated the crowd to a host of special guest cameos and song premieres.
Today (April 18), Dom Dolla’s “Forever” collaboration with Kid Cudi exclusively heard at MSG is now available for all to enjoy. On “Forever,” the pair shine a beaming light on eternal bliss brought forth by pure love.
“Slip and see, I float through heaven / No words you speak, just so lost forgettin’ / What the world can bring, I’m in my world, it’s better / Ain’t no time to think, I wanna stay forever / Slip and see, I float through heaven / No words you speak, just so lost forgettin’ / What the world can bring, I’m in my world, it’s better / Ain’t no time to think, I wanna stay forever,” sings Cudi.
To celebrate its public release, Dom Dolla shared photos of their MSG debut of the track. He also discussed working with Cudi. “We finished [‘Forever’] the night before Madison Square Garden,” he wrote. “we had no idea how it was going to go down. we’d never performed together before, but afterwards we immediately knew this was the one.”
On “Wrk,” JID has a direct response to those upset with how long the project has taken.
“Been criticized and been scrutinized, it ain’t sh*t to me, I’m just shooin’ flies / It ain’t sh*t to me, it’s just you and I / Then me and God, and my crew of guys / They can’t get to me, Lord knew they tried / But like Denzel Washington in Book Of Elijah, n****s movin’ blind / And a lil’ behind, and if you forgot / Here’s a lil’ reminder that I’m still choppin’ / Wood, still grindin’, still rhymin’ / Poppin’ in, I be on kill timin’ / In the rough, I’m like a real diamond,” he raps.
Prior to its release JID’s opened up about the track’s origins on his official Instagram page. “Starting this new journey coming off ‘The Forever Story’ has been a very strange, productive, yet tedious process,” he wrote. “I remember not feeling like I got what I think I deserved after that album came out, and it sent me into a dark place.”
He continued: “Fast forward to Pluss playing this beat for me in the studio and all I could hear was my OG coach saying, ‘Let’s get to work.’ I live my life by the saying ‘you can only control what you can control.’ So this is the first step into a new world that I control. And its f*ckin ugly.”
At the risk of stealing my Indiecast co-host’s bit, the question isn’t whether Caribou has passed the Five Albums Test. If it’s just a matter of making five great albums in a row, there’s at least two runs of sustained excellence that one can point to, at least if you appreciate his debut Start Breaking My Heart as much as I do. Rather, has he created the Eight Album Test?
It feels like an odd thing to ask while simultaneously wondering whether Dan Snaith is under-appreciated. Yet, while Snaith has made nothing but excellent albums as Caribou (and Manitoba, prior to a ridiculous 2004 cease-and-desist from punk knucklehead Handsome Dick Manitoba), he’s made nothing but excellent albums; Maybe one or two could be claimed as a minor masterpiece, but even those ones failed to crack most decade (or even half-decade) lists. Combined with his relative lack of prolificity and aversion to interviews, he’s a guy that is pretty easy to take for granted, the sort of artist who you revisit and think, “Man, I should spend more time with him,” before getting distracted by whatever’s shaping the narrative of any given year.
Fitting that the inspiration for this list is the 20th anniversary of The Milk Of Human Kindness, an excellent Caribou album that probably wouldn’t inspire a 20th-anniversary piece on its own merits; It’s hard to identify ways that Caribou signified “2005” or set trends in motion. But that’s the beautiful thing about Snaith’s work, and why everything on this list has aged remarkably well. Rather than dictating the direction of electronic indie music over the past 25 years, Caribou blithely hovered above the fray, absorbing IDM, lap-pop, house, techno, Kraut-rock, psych-rock, and anything else Snaith saw fit.
If you’re familiar with those genres but not Caribou, you’ll find something to love here. If you already love Caribou, you might have a completely different ranking of his catalog. Start with the classics, start in chronological order, there’s literally no way to go wrong.
8. Suddenly (2020)
Despite coming off the longest break between Caribou albums and an increased focus on the dancefloor-oriented Daphni, I don’t think anyone was questioning whether Dan Snaith had “still got it” in 2020. But whatever “it” was, Suddenly was happy to provide: the H&M-friendly soul of “Home” felt like a proper follow-up to “Can’t Do Without You,” “New Jade” and “Sunny’s Time” made surprising use of grime-like samples, “Cloud Song” closed things out with a return to Andorra‘s skyward psychedelia. While perhaps the best demonstration of Snaith’s range as a producer and a vocalist, I can’t think of anyone who’d call Suddenly the best Caribou album; That honor is reserved for Snaith’s work that tells us something we didn’t already know about him.
7. Our Love (2014)
If Swim was Dan Snaith’s attempt to create “dance music that sounds like it’s made out of water rather than the metallic stuff,” Our Love was a middle ground of electronic pop made out of ice — more rigid and frigid than its predecessor, less suited for dancing than staring off into the distance at the club. If he hadn’t spent his entire career avoiding “hot and not” discussions, you’d think Our Love was Caribou’s attempt to ride the neon wave of Italians Do It Better and the Drive soundtrack. At least that’s what most of it does. For better or worse, Our Love is defined by its opener “Can’t Do Without You,” a big beat rave-up that turned out to be Caribou’s biggest hit while overshadowing the more modest and intriguing forays into house and minimalist synth-pop that take up its remainder.
6. Honey (2024)
An interesting quirk about Caribou’s catalog is how every album is not just critically acclaimed, but critically acclaimed to about the same degree. After Up In Flames established Manitoba/Caribou as the type of artist every mainstream publication had to review, the next five albums scored between 81 and 84 on Metacritic. No such thing as a “divisive” Caribou album existed… until Honey.
I joked on Indiecast that, had I been more of an astute electronic music critic, I’d be able to write a trendwatch about the rise of “smart-dumb” electronic music in 2024 — maybe it was the proximity to artists like Skrillex and Fred Again.., but egghead types like Floating Points, Jamie xx, and Four Tet all returned to making Coachella-friendly big beat after years of catering to aesthetes and chin-strokers (of course, this was the year where Brat, the ultimate smart-dumb/dumb-smart electronic album, swept best-of lists).
Those were Caribou’s peers throughout most of the 2010s and Snaith followed suit, though no one would have expected Honey to be the most gloriously basic of the bunch. We’re talking “Pump Up The Volume” samples, Daft Punk rips, and, most controversially, the use of AI to alter Snaith’s voice into that of a house diva and, in one head-slapping moment, a rapper. Whether or not it’s more artistically successful or better than Suddenly or Start Breaking My Heart is besides the point; its willingness to piss people off ensures it can’t possibly be the lowest-ranked thing on this list.
5. Start Breaking My Heart (2001)
As the only thing here that completed an album cycle as the work of Manitoba, Start Breaking My Heart is bound to be an anomaly by default. And indeed, Dan Snaith’s debut stands out as the first and last time he’d be lumped into a dominant, contemporary trend. By 2001, IDM had started to morph into “lap-pop,” which kept the clicks and kicks of its brainier antecedent while often adding twee vocals and an emo-like sentimentality. There was none of the former here, but the latter was borne out by song titles such as “People Eating Fruit,” “Lemon Yoghourt,” “Dundas, Ontario,” and “Brandon” (the second-largest city in Manitoba). All of which made Start Breaking My Heart a state-of-the-art project — there are the nostalgic tones of Boards Of Canada, an occasional pivot into Squarepusher-y egghead jazz, and the music box melodies of Richard D. James Album, fused with the redlined analog drums and overdubbed horns that would soon become Caribou signatures. It’s a strong debut, enough to still be included in “Best IDM Albums” lists on its own merits even if Caribou never came to pass.
4. The Milk Of Human Kindness (2005)
I don’t remember The Milk Of Human Kindness being received as a disappointment, but my research shows otherwise — an unusually circumspect 3-star review in All Music, nabbing a Best New Music upon release but getting left out of Pitchfork’s 2005 year-end list, a general sense that it’s “the other one” between Up In Flames and the subsequent two albums which are deemed “essential” by Apple Music.
There’s nothing wrong with The Milk Of Human Kindness: it’s an often-beautiful and always-engaging album that diversifies Snaith’s artistry with Krautrock grooves, hip-hop breakbeats, and cinematic interludes. But that very diversity can come off like Caribou dabbling in styles rather than making them his own. In a catalog that was nothing but Bold Statements and Startling U-Turns for its first 15 years, The Milk Of Human Kindness is the only one that truly felt transitional, but it’s also the only one that can be considered underrated now.
3. Andorra (2007)
Though Caribou had been shifting more towards traditional verse/chorus structures over its previous two albums, they were still more of a “sounds” than a “songs” project; Snaith’s reedy voice was just another texture, and rarely the most compelling one in the mix. While another leap backwards through rock history to ’60s sunshine pop wasn’t exactly shocking after The Milk Of Human Kindness, giving Snaith nowhere to hide as a frontman felt like a massive risk. At least until you remember that Revolver and Forever Changes and Odessey and Oracle, most of Andorra‘s touchstones, were examples of pop icons hunkering down in the studio to make untourable masterpieces.
There’s certainly an element of time travel to Andorra, where “Melody Day” and the double-drum freakout “After Hours” are visions of The Beatles or Zombies or Love covering the most dense Up In Flames songs with the technology available at the time. Yet, “Desiree” and “She’s The One” prove that Snaith can work in restraint, opening up an entirely new lane of psych-pop balladry so compelling that Andorra‘s late-album deviance into droning Krautrock feel like an unwelcome “return to form.” Contrary to the fear that Snaith would go too far into pop songwriting, Andorra might not have gone far enough.
2. Swim (2010)
To be honest, I didn’t frequent too many record stores in the late 2000s, but I imagine that most of them would’ve still stocked Caribou in the “electronic” section. No matter how much Snaith continued to draw from ’60s and ’70s art-rock, the remixes, the lack of a fixed band, and his unassuming personal appearance signified “producer,” someone who cobbled together sounds rather than knocking out sketches on an acoustic guitar and expanding them from there.
So, after a decade of retreat from a proper “electronic” “producer” debut, Snaith pulled a 360 on Swim, making intelligent dance music that couldn’t possibly be confused with “IDM.” Every second of Swim is in motion, filled with burbling synths, liquid bass lines, and disorienting panning effects, memorably described at the time as music for the “club somewhere in the galaxy where the blue squid lady from The Fifth Element is a regular.” And yet, the subject matter of a Caribou album has never been more “singer-songwriter” — dead-end relationships that refuse to die, drugs that stop working, divorce, quiet despair. Whether Swim is the “best” or “most important” Caribou album is a matter of personal taste, but as the peak of Snaith’s songwriting powers, it’s pretty much undeniable.
1. Up In Flames (2003)
By 2003, “electronica” was a punchline as a genre, but not as a concept. Kid A, “Losing My Edge,” and Give Up reinforced its thesis that rock was simply a way station for anyone looking to shape the future of music, which would always be electronic. This was also the year where the most stunning shoegaze album was made entirely of synths and the most gutting breakup album was made by a turntablist. And so Up In Flames wasn’t just a startling rebrand for Manitoba after Start Breaking My Heart, it was downright antagonistic on a cultural level, Dan Snaith forsaking the snobbery of electronic music heads for… psych rock? Like, the kind that Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips were doing five years ago?
Though in some ways driven by spite, Up In Flames is the sound of joyful discovery — “Kid You’ll Move Mountains” and “Every Time She Turns Round It’s Her Birthday” are the emotional baseline here, recognizable to anyone who ever spent their first go at Logic or an MPC layering ten drum sets at a time and using the backmasking effect on every vocal. Expansive in every direction, miles-deep and panoramic, immersive and yet impossibly dense, Up In Flames doesn’t grow on you: it impresses and overwhelms from the first second. Snaith would refine his craft over the next 20-plus years, but Up In Flames remains at the top because it’s that very sense of leaping into the unknown that makes it irreplicable, by Snaith or anyone else.
Joe Goldberg has been turning on Cardi B for four full You seasons, and she is down with the final stalker-antics rodeo, too. The Netflix series’ grand finale promises to be brutal and bloody while aiming for the same comeuppance that the Netflix series has hinted at all along (and always winking at why viewers have been so obsessed with this show), and soon, it will be time for the masses to devour it alive.
You will debut its fifth season later this month after Stalker Joe murdered his way across several dating relationships and a pair of marriages, and now, he’s returned to his Manhattan stomping grounds for an adventure partially focused at Mooney’s Books, home of rare tomes and an unsettling murder cage. No matter where Joe goes (Los Angeles, a picket-fenced neighborhood, Europe), though, you know that this show will deliver the dark goods, so it’s now a matter of logistics… and whether Netflix will or won’t be disappointing binge-happy viewers with a split-season approach.
Will You Season 5 Premiere All At Once On Netflix?
Yes, and it will happen on April 24.
That’s when all 10 episodes of this season will arrive, and Netflix made the right call with not opting for two chunks because a mid-season cliffhanger would have been even more sadistic than American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman could accomplish.
The list of final season characters includes a detective portrayed by Nava Mau, which suggests that the walls will be closing in on Joe during this final stand. Even the most ardent Joe Goldberg obsessives will agree that he’s got it coming, and the mystery lies with what that “it” could be. What was he thinking, really, by returning to the scene of his earliest TV crimes? Exactly.
As always, we can also expect some hauntings and/or literal visitations by former Joe targets including Beck (Elizabeth Lail), Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), Candace (Ambyr Childers), and Love (Victoria Pedretti). A new potential victim, Bronte, will be portrayed by Madeline Brewer, and the rest of the new cast includes Anna Camp and Griffin Matthews with Charlotte Ritchie still somehow hanging as Joe’s current wife, Kate. She, and the rest of the women and men (Dr. Nicky, amirite?) who fall into Joe’s orbit deserve vindication, so here’s to rooting for final justice on You.
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