Daniel Ek co-founded Spotify in 2006 and has long been the public face of the company. Things are about to change, as it was just announced that he is stepping down as CEO. Instead, Gustav Söderström (currently the co-president and chief product and technology officer) and Alex Norström (co-president and chief business officer) will take over as Spotify’s co-CEOs, while Ek will move into the role of Executive Chairman.
Per Spotify, Ek’s new role “will more closely reflect a European Chairman setup, where he will determine capital allocation, map the long term future of Spotify and continue to provide support and guidance to its senior team.”
Notably, this comes after artists like King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard, Hotline TNT, and Massive Attack removed their music from Spotify, in protest of Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia investing millions of dollars in the military AI company Helsing. Per Spotify, though, it doesn’t appear the change is in response to this: Their post notes that the shift “formalizes how Spotify has successfully operated since 2023 with the co-presidents largely leading strategic development and operational execution of Spotify.”
Ek said in a statement:
“I always believed that Spotify could play an important role in revolutionizing listening around the world, and with more than 700 million users, we’ve truly charted a new course bringing creativity to every corner of the globe. Over the last few years, I’ve turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav — who have shaped the company from our earliest days and are now more than ready to guide our next phase. This change simply matches titles to how we already operate. In my role as Executive Chairman, I will focus on the long arc of the company and keep the Board and our co-CEOs deeply connected through my engagement.”
It’s settled: Bad Bunny will be performing the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show in 2026. He offered a statement when the news was shared this past weekend, but now he has spoken about it more candidly.
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden, Bad Bunny discussed getting the call from Jay-Z, saying, “It’s crazy because I was in the middle of a workout. So I remember that after the call, I just did like a hundred pull ups. I didn’t need more pre-workout sh*t or whatever. It was very special. It was so special.”
He also spoke about what it was like to finally share the news, saying:
“I was keeping this secret for so long and it felt good. It felt good. As I said, you know, what I felt so emotionally… it was the first time that I showed the video one of my friends and I saw his reaction and he was so excited. As I said, I’m really excited but this is making me feel so happy, because more than me, for everyone else. I’m really excited for my friends, my family, Puerto Rico, all the Latino people around the world. I’m excited about my culture. I’m excited about everything, not just for me.”
Every month, Uproxx cultural critic Steven Hyden makes an unranked list of his favorite music-related items released during this period — songs, albums, books, films, you name it.
1. Geese — Getting Killed
After listening to Getting Killed for the past few months, I have no doubt that it is the greatest album of 2025. But I am even more confident that is the most 2025 album of 2025, the record that, by far, best captures how scary and chaotic things seem right now, in this age of smart robots and dumb authoritarians and passionately litigated talk-show controversies and memory-holed sex-trafficking conspiracies. Getting Killed nailed that “tragicomic horror show” vibe from the moment the video for “Taxes” dropped, when Geese depicted themselves playing for an audience of unhinged freaks who rip each other apart as the music hits an exhilarating peak. That was back in July. At the start of fall, we are currently in full-on self-immolation mode. Threats, invective, limbs, bullets — they’re all choking the air like vultures. And now, finally, the appropriate soundtrack for the madness has arrived.
2. Wednesday — Bleeds
From a lyrical perspective, Bleeds is as chaotic as the music is (relatively) orderly. Whereas the narratives on Rat Saw God often seemed linear and coherent, nearly every lyric on Bleeds feels like a story onto itself. And Karly 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.
3. Liquid Mike — Hell Is An Airport
I fell in love with this band upon the release of their previous album, Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot. I root for them because they hail from Upper Michigan, and because they love Guided By Voices and songs about drinking and small-town life and how the former informs the latter. All admirable traits in my book. The best thing about their latest LP is that they didn’t mess with the formula. Hell Is An Airport is 27 minutes of non-stop hooks and guitar fuzz, by the best band to come out of nowhere in a while.
4. Brian Dunne — Clams Casino
A fascinating record for how “normal” it is, which in most contexts doesn’t sound like a compliment, but in this instance, I swear that it is. If this were 1995 instead of 2025, Dunne would be on a major label and touring with Counting Crows and Gin Blossoms. Clams Casino is made up of extremely well put-together heartland-ish rock songs that are perfect for radio formats that no longer exist. Most contemporary artists who work in this vein apply some form of air quotes to their music — they make it sound lo-fi or downright crappy, or the lyrics scan as somewhat ironic or subversive. But Dunne just does it with straight-up earnestness, which might be the most subversive approach of all, honestly.
5. Will Olsen — 5 4 1
This actually came out at the end of last year, but I didn’t hear it until last week. And if people are going to put Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal on their year-end lists for 2025, I feel that I can shout out this woefully under-recognized singer-songwriter. His EP 5 4 1 is an example of what I was just talking about with Brian Dunne, sort of. These are, essentially, demo recordings for what ought to be a million-dollar pop-rock record, though Olsen’s songs sound just right in their simpler, stripped-down form. With melodies this good — they remind me of The Waterboys with a dash of L.A. Garage Sessions ’83 era Springsteen — you don’t need much (or any) production.
6. Joanne Robertson — Blurr
I’ve described this album as sounding like a woman softly singing and playing guitar at the bottom of a very deep well. (I call this genre “Baby Jessica-core.”) It would be simpler, I suppose, to just point to the album title as a signifier of its sonic properties. Operating at the nexus of singer-songwriter folk and dream pop, Robertson’s music is so mysterious and atmospheric it makes Jessica Pratt sound like Shania Twain.
7. Shallowater — God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars
This doesn’t sound at all like the Joanne Robertson record, but in my mind I’ve paired them together. This West Texas trio makes music as vast and dusty as their homeland, with slowcore grooves gradually giving way to rangy and unruly guitar jams. It’s a record that puts you in the well this time, though the feeling is less claustrophobic than starry-eyed and constantly trained on the flickers of light above.
8. Zach Top — Ain’t In It For My Health
Okay, I’ll stop with the “well” analogies. This album is nothing like the last two. It’s a country record I wish had come out in May or June instead of September, so I could have listened to it all summer, preferably on a pontoon boat. While most country artists his age tend to emulate the Willie ‘n’ Waylon-style outlaw music of the 1970s, Top is drawn more to the genre’s ’90s wing, a time when lantern-jawed and mustachioed neo-traditionalists like George Strait and Alan Jackson scored hit after hit about having fun on Saturday night and asking for forgiveness on Sunday morning. That’s what Top is after, and his music is a blast.
9. Guerilla Toss — You’re Weird Now
“Wacky” is one of those adjectives that automatically comes across as a pejorative in an artistic context. It denotes trying too hard to “be different,” to an annoying and even insufferable degree. But “wacky” need not be qualitative; It is, after all, merely a way to say that something is (according to Google) “funny or amusing in a slightly odd or peculiar way.” And that’s what You’re Weird Now is. I mean, “weird” is literally in the title. But Guerilla Toss has an adventurous spirit that doesn’t for a moment seem pretentious, which I would liken to jam-band music even if one of the songs didn’t feature Trey Anastasio (along with Stephen Malkmus!).
10. Jeff Tweedy — Twilight Override
I admit that I haven’t spent as much time with this as I should. It’s been a packed month for music, for one, but also this is a triple (!) record with 30 songs. And that’s on top of all the music Tweedy has put out in the past few years, on his own and with Wilco. He’s turned into Robert Pollard in late middle age, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Which is awesome, even if it inevitably makes each record feel like less of an event. Over time, I suspect I’ll feel about Twilight Override as I do other recent Tweedy projects. I’ll start with “this all kind of sounds the same” to “this all kind of sounds the same, in a good way” to “I can’t believe I used to think this all sounds the same, this really moves me.”
This past weekend, The Fastest Kids In School, a local band from the Santa Barbara area, were playing a small outdoor gig. Their set included a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast.” What they didn’t know when they launched into the song was that Del Rey herself was nearby. She was also apparently in the mood for some spontaneity, as she went ahead and joined the group on stage to sing the song with them.
The band shared a clip of the performance. On Instagram, the group’s Dan Grimes explained the situation, writing, “A moment I will never forget [exploding head emoji] Lana Del Rey joined us onstage today to sing the chorus of her song ‘West Coast’. I still can’t believe that just happened. Thank you Lana!!!” He added in a comment, “She just happened to be walking by while we were playing her song and motioned to see if we wouldn’t mind if she came on stage. Of course we obliged and that is when my head exploded. She was just ‘out getting some ice cream’ she said.”
Meanwhile, Del Rey recently revealed her upcoming album that was once titled Lasso and The Right Person Will Stay is now called Stove.
The American and Japanese cultures are different in many ways, one of them being the concept of the “rental family,” which is more widespread in the latter country than the former. The service sees actors portraying family members of their customers, whether for a social event or for general companionship.
That’s the topic tackled in Brendan Fraser’s new movie Rental Family, from mononymous director Hikari (who you might remember directed some of the first-season episodes of Beef). The movie was shot in Tokyo, making Fraser a fish out of water both on screen and off.
Ahead of the movie’s release, keep reading for everything you need to know before it hits theaters.
Plot
The logline reads, “Set in modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an American actor (Brendan Fraser) who struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese ‘rental family’ agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the quiet beauty of human connection.”
“The word ‘rental family’ is a wacky idea, but when you really talk to people who are running it or who get the service from them it actually makes sense. In the modern world or in a metropolitan setting, people are really lonely and you can just hire someone to be friends to fill the void. And I played the guy who runs Rent Family, and then Brendan Fraser was sort of a lost American guy in Japan. And by accident, I end up recruiting him into my team and he ends up working for a rental family business.”
Cast
The movie stars Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, and Shino Shinozaki.
Fraser told Deadline of shooting the movie in Japan:
“I couldn’t resist making this film for the opportunity to work there and to also blaze a trail. I think more and more productions are likely going start working their way towards shooting in Japan, considering there’s the production value.
The talent pool itself is extensive and, of course, behind the camera and at camera, for that matter, there are excellent filmmakers, technically and creatively, design — everything is meticulous. The whole manner of working itself was refreshing and new to me. It’s something that I love about my job when I get to see and learn from others who have done this in a different way.”
Austin City Limits Festival is generally the sign that the year’s festival season is nearing an end. And what a season it has been! This year featured the best of all worlds, in all genres, with many surprise guest appearances. Over the years, Austin City Limits has been known for that particular feature. Fans who descend upon Austin’s Zilker Park have often been caught off guard when an artist who wasn’t supposed to be there hops on stage, creating a special one-of-a-kind moment.
Here are a few of the most prominent examples in the fest’s history while we wait to see who pops up this year.
Pearl Jam brings out Ben Harper and Perry Farrell, 2009
Pearl Jam sets are always full of surprises. Over the course of their 24-song, ACL closing set in 2009, Pearl Jam mixed in songs from the then-recently released Backspacer along with other festival-friendly hits and covers. Throughout the first North American leg of the Backspacer tour, they were joined by Ben Harper for a version of “Red Mosquito,” and this show was no different. However, during their second encore, the band had a bigger surprise, bringing out longtime pal, Perry Farrell, to cover Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song,” which they played for the first time.
Drake bringing out Future and J. Cole, Weekends 1 and 2, 2015
Back when Drake was at the top of the world, there was nothing he could have done that wouldn’t have garnered headlines. In this case, at his headlining set at ACL 2015, it meant bringing up not just one, but two special guests over the course of the two weekends. During weekend one, fresh off their collaborative mixtape, What a Time to Be Alive, Future joined Drake to perform “Jumpman” and “Big Rings.” Not to be outdone, on weekend two, J. Cole, who had traveled from Washington, D.C., where he had participated in the Million Man March, joined Drizzy. The duo performed “My Way,” and needless to say, the crowd was psyched about the surprise guest.
Mumford and Sons bring up HAIM, Weekend 2, 2016
Billed in the coveted festival-closing, Sunday night slot, Mumford and Sons were riding high, at the peak of their powers, and didn’t need much support to captivate a supportive audience. Even so, they had a little help from their friends. In this case, that was HAIM, who performed earlier that evening, and they covered the Beatles’ ”With a Little Help From My Friends” to close the set. On the nose? Sure. Entertaining? Definitely.
Run the Jewels bringing out Danny Brown, Weekends 1 and 2, 2017
By the time Run the Jewels performed at ACL in 2017, they’d long been a festival-circuit favorite. Killer Mike and El-P were the go-to hip-hop group of the moment, capable of bringing the fire and fury that would get crowds moving. Austin City Limits was no different. The duo brought up none other than Detroit hip-hop chameleon Danny Brown to bring the thunder on “Hey Kids (Bumaye),” both weekends, treating fans to the rare two-of-a-kind experience that made both crowds happy without feeling like they missed out on a special set.
The National brings out Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES, 2018
The National is a band that hardly needs any help. The band’s catalog and live performance speak for themselves, but at the band’s second weekend set at ACL 2018, they enlisted CHVRCHES singer Lauren Mayberry for a stunning version of “Guilty Party.” Trading verses with singer Matt Berninger, Mayberry stunned with the tenderness and warmth that gave the new song a new dimension and depth.
Megan Thee Stallion brings out Miley Cyrus, 2021
As the world reopened following the pandemic, Megan Thee Stallion made the rounds on the festival circuit as one of the highest-billed and most anticipated artists to see that year. To kick things off on weekend one at Austin City Limits, the Houston rapper brought out Miley Cyrus, who was making selective festival appearances. Their version of “Do It On The Tip” featured twerking not just between the pair, but also brought fans to join the party.
Chris Stapleton brings up Willie Nelson, 2024
If you’re a country rock star and playing in Austin, like Chris Stapleton is, who better to tip your hat to than the Austin king himself: Willie Nelson. That’s precisely what Stapleton did to kick off his second weekend set by performing Nelson’s traditional set opener, “Whiskey River,” and “Bloody Mary Morning.” It’s safe to say that the songs went over well with the hometown crowd.
The breakout star of the 2024 Summer Olympics wasn’t one of the athletes. Instead, it was NBC’s special correspondent Snoop Dogg, who brought his unique perspective to some of the lesser-known events and cultural festivities. Uproxx joked multiple times throughout the games that nobody had more fun than Snoop — and now, it looks like his adventures abroad will return for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.
NBC announced Snoop would be returning for its Olympics coverage via the ad above, which finds Snoop standing on a green-screened mountaintop in the snow. The juxtaposition of the East Side Long Beach OG with the picturesque landscape promises plenty of amusing antics, as Snoop explores northern Italy, taking in the local culture and commentating on the snowbound sports with his perpetually bemused outlook. We can’t wait to see what he thinks of those ski jumps or his reaction to curling, the best sport at the Winter Games.
In a press statement, Snoop offered, “I am excited to be back with my main man Mike Tirico for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina. The D O double G will be on the scene, and I am looking forward to celebrating with the athletes and their families. The Olympics is the biggest stage in the world and, as everyone knows, I’m all about sports, bringing people together, and unifying while bringing the fun. I’ll be bringing my puffy jackets, snow pants, goggles, skates (and will definitely be iced out).”
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will run from February 6-22; you can find more info on NBC’s coverage here.
Cardi B’s second album, Am I The Drama?, has avoided the dreaded “sophomore slump.” Like its predecessor, her 2018 debut, Invasion Of Privacy, Am I The Drama? finished its first week at the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart, with 200,000 equivalent album units earned.
Cardi was rightfully ecstatic about the achievement, which makes her the first female rapper in history with back-to-back No. 1 albums to start her career. On Twitter (never calling it “X”), she posted a short compilation video of behind-the-scenes clips from the album’s creation and her family time with her kids. In the caption, she joked about celebrating without one key ingredient, writing:
Thank you sooo much everybody that supported my album!! Two weeks ago the album was projected to do 115k off of “Outside” and “Imaginary Players“.. I didn’t know what the outcome was gonna be I didn’t put out a album in 7 years and haven’t put out as much music in the last year but we just surpassed all that expectation… Thank you to everyone who gave the album a listen, did a video to the songs and everything!! You don’t know the confidence and boost you gave me in my music to keep pushing.. I can’t wait to see you guys on tour. Tonight we celebrate!!! I can’t pop no champagne… but maybe I can open up some cranberry juice or something!
Unfortunately, Cardi B won’t be able to toast her accomplishment, as she’s pregnant with her fourth child, with NFL star Stefon Diggs. She revealed the pregnancy just a few days before releasing the album, and after announcing the dates for its accompanying tour.
The Bronx rapper had previously admitted that the album took so long to finish because she worried about the response, but it looks like she had nothing to worry about. In comparison to Invasion Of Privacy‘s first-week numbers, Am I The Drama? took a dip, but that was to be expected: While Cardi’s first album was buoyed by the insane response to her breakout hit “Bodak Yellow,” neither “Outside” nor “Imaginary Playerz” was as commercially successful; “WAP” and “Up” did not count toward the album’s streaming totals, or that 200,000 would have been more like 400 or 500K.
Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Doja Cat continuing to toe the pop/rap line and Tate McRae drop a surprise new single. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Doja, the “rapper that makes pop music,” is back with Vie, a new album. The retro-styled “Gorgeous” is a highlight, especially when paired with its video drawing from old-school cosmetics commercials.
Tate McRae — “Tit For Tat”
McRae is in the midst of her Miss Possessive Tour tour, and while on the road, she wrote a new song, “Tit For Tat.” The smooth pop number sees McRae moving on from an ex.
Young Thug — “F*cking Told You”
After delaying Uy Scuti to accommodate Cardi B, Young Thug is back. It’s Thug’s first album since being released from jail last year, but he shares the spotlight with producer Metro Boomin in the video for “F*cking Told You.”
Geese — “Getting Killed”
If you ask Uproxx’s Steven Hyden, Geese’s Getting Killed is the best indie album of 2025. Of the project’s title track, he writes, “You can hear traces of Physical Graffiti and Sticky Fingers in the remarkably limber title track, where a bluesy riff bangs against the chants of a sampled Ukrainian choir and a hopped-up, arena-rock backbeat.”
Cardi B — “ErrTime” Feat. Latto
Cardi shouts out Latto on the original version of “Errtime,” but the mentioned rapper didn’t actually appear on the track. She does now, though, as Cardi came through with a deluxe edition of Am I The Drama?, which includes a new version of the song actually featuring Latto.
Tame Impala — “Dracula”
We’re a month out from Halloween now and Kevin Parker is ready after releasing his latest Tame Impala song, “Dracula.” There’s not exactly a Vincent Price spoken intro here, but there are definitely some spooky vibes.
Magdalena Bay — “Second Sleep”
Imaginal Disk was one of 2024’s best albums and now Magdalena Bay have shared their first new songs since the project. Last week, they unveiled a pair of new tracks, originally written during the Imaginal Disk sessions, including the soaring “Second Sleep.”
Ice Spice — “Baddie Baddie”
Following the Latto link-up “Gyatt,” Ice Spice is back with another new single, “Baddie Baddie.” Here, producer RiotUSA builds the track on a sample of M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls.”
FKA Twigs — “Cheap Hotel”
Eusexua Afterglow, not a deluxe expansion of Eusexua but a full album in its own right, is on the way from FKA Twigs. She provided a taste of it last week with “Cheap Hotel,” which starts as a rapid-fire dancefloor anthem before Twigs takes the tempo to more relaxing territory.
Sexyy Red — “Is You Coo”
Sexyy has popped up a handful of times this year and the latest sighting is last week’s “Is You Coo.” The track sees her calling out detractors with lyrics like, “B*tches hating on Big Sexyy, is you cool? / I’ll pull up on a b*tch and act a fool.”
Lola Young had a scary moment while performing at the All Things Go Festival in New York this weekend: In the middle of performing “Conceited,” Young suddenly collapsed and the performance was ended early (here’s a video).
In an Instagram Story shared after the show, Young wrote (as BBC notes), “Hi, for anyone who saw my set at All Things Go today, I am doing OK now. Thank you for all of your support, Lola.”
Earlier in the performance, Young told the audience she had “had a tricky couple of days” due to a “sensitive matter.”
She later cancelled her performance at the Washington DC edition of the festival, sharing on Instagram, “I’m sorry to confirm that i won’t be playing all things go in DC today. I love this job and I never take my commitments and audience for granted so I’m sorry to those who will be disappointed by this. I hope you’ll all give me another chance in the future. Thank you to all those who listen and care. To all the people that love to be mean online, pls give me a day off. [heart emoji] Lola.”
The next scheduled performance listed on Young’s website is for October 6 in her native UK.
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