Larry June cruises the nighttime LA streets with his collaborators in tow in his new video for “Bad Choices” featuring 2 Chainz and The Alchemist. The surprise track features a signature lilting sample from the LA producer, as 2 Chainz and June deploy some of their low-key luxury flexes, wondering on the chorus, “Where all the good girls that make bad choices?”
We may only be three weeks into the new year, but Larry June has, as always, hit the ground running with a slew of new videos for singles including “Jan 14th” and “I Ain’t Stoppin.” As none of the three new songs appeared on his 2024 album, Doing It For Me, it’s probably safe to assume that he’s got yet another new project on the way sooner or later.
2 Chainz, meanwhile, has been more or less out of sight since very early last year. His last full-length project was 2023’s Welcome 2 Collegrove with Lil Wayne, and his last solo album, Dope Don’t Sell Itself, came out in 2022, so he’s also probably due a new release sometime in the near future. The third member of this triumvirate, Alchemist, stays busy, however, producing for everybody from Big Sean to Kendrick Lamar last year, even getting peripherally entangled in the Compton rapper’s feud with Drake. You can bet good money he’ll be dropping something new this year as well.
Watch Larry June and The Alchemist’s “Bad Choices” video featuring 2 Chainz up top.
Netflix is ready to be your sweetheart for the coming month (after you’ve binged The Night Agent‘s new season and need to forget about Peter Sutherland for a few months). The streaming service will be largely rolling with Valentine’s counterprogramming (other than launching a new Love Is Blind season), and that’s just fine. So pull up a cozy chair for the end of Cobra Kai, the continuation of grifting stories, a bridge for The Witcher‘s next supply of wigs, and a limited series with Jesse Plemons, whose character will surely not threaten anybody in the process. Maybe.
Here’s everything coming to Netflix in February:
Cobra Kai: Season 6 Part 3 (Netflix series 2/13)
Say it with me: “COBRA KAI NEVER DIES!” Those are the words coming from both Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso in tandem in the above teaser. The final five episodes will put a vow on a forty-year saga. Of course, this series will be followed by the Karate Kid: Legends movie later this year, but first, the Sekai Taikai competition must come to a close, and somebody really needs to give Terry Silver a wedgie on the way out the door. Who’s gonna step up to that challenge? My money is on Chozen. (In all seriousness, the creative trio of Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg handled the The Karate Kid revival series with unadulterated respect, and good on ’em.)
Apple Cider Vinegar: Limited Series (Netflix series 2/6)
This series is bringing grifting back with Kaitlyn Dever (The Last Of Us‘s second season) and Alycia Debnam-Carey (Fear The Walking Dead) on opposite sides of a battle for Instagram glory over wellness remedies that surely don’t deliver as promised. The story is based upon The Woman Who Fooled the World, the 2017 book from investigative journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, and expect some Inventing Anna-scale drama about a deadly serious subject.
Zero Day: Season 1 (Netflix series 2/20)
Jesse Plemons has a knack for surfacing in political-adjacent thrillers about dire crises and scaring the hell out of everyone. This movie does, however, more prominently star Robert De Niro as an ex-president who helps trace a deadly cyberattack after it kills thousands of U.S. citizens. This limited series also stars Lizzy Caplan, Angela Bassett, and Matthew Modine and hails from Narcos creator Eric Newman. Also, the heightened reality of this series could maybe, just maybe, be a fine distraction from you know what.
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep (Netflix animated film 2/11)
This animated placeholder movie will take Geralt of Rivia into the sea, where he will apparently fight monsters that threaten land. And from here, Liam Hemsworth will take over the leather pants from Henry Cavill (with that handoff coming at an undetermined date this year).
Avail. TBA A Copenhagen Love Story
Graveyard: Season 2 Roosters
Too Hot to Handle: Germany: Season 2
Avail. 2/1 SAKAMOTO DAYS
Cult of Chucky
From Prada to Nada
Happy Feet
Happy Feet Two
Home Improvement: Seasons 1-8 It (2017) Magic Mike XXL
Miss Congeniality
The Nice Guys
Parasite
Queen & Slim
Richie Rich
Space Jam (1996) Spanglish
Two Weeks Notice
The Wedding Planner
Avail. 2/2 The Founder
Avail. 2/3 Bogotá: City of the Lost
Avail. 2/4 The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of January 24, 2025
Avail. 2/5 Alone Australia: Season 1 Celebrity Bear Hunt
Envious: Season 2 Grimsburg: Season 1 Kinda Pregnant
Prison Cell 211
Sintonia: Season 5
Avail. 2/6 Apple Cider Vinegar
Cassandra
Golden Kamuy -The Hunt of Prisoners in Hokkaido-
Supreme Models: Limited Series
Sweet Magnolias: Season 4
Avail. 2/7 A Different World: Seasons 1-6 The Conners: Season 6 The Greatest Rivalry: India vs Pakistan
Pokémon Horizons: Season 2 Wrong Side of the Tracks: Season 4
Avail. 2/8 SAKAMOTO DAYS
Spencer
Avail. 2/10 Aftermath
American Pickers: Season 16 Rambo (2008) Rambo: Last Blood
Surviving Black Hawk Down
Avail. 2/11 Felipe Esparza: Raging Fool
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of January 31, 2025 Peninsula
Train to Busan
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep
Avail. 2/12 Death Before the Wedding
Honeymoon Crasher
Avail. 2/13 Cobra Kai: Season 6: Part 3 Dog Days Out
The Exchange: Season 2 La Dolce Villa
Resident Alien: Season 3 Trial by Fire
Avail. 2/14 I Am Married…But!
Love Is Blind: Season 8 Melo Movie
Valeria: Season 4 Dhoom Dhaam
Love Forever
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Umjolo: There is No Cure
Avail. 2/15 SAKAMOTO DAYS
Avail. 2/16 Don’t Let Go
Gold
Ted 2
Avail. 2/17 Gabby’s Dollhouse: Season 11
Avail. 2/18 Court of Gold
The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of February 7, 2025 Offline Love
Rosebud Baker: The Mother Lode
Avail. 2/19 My Family
To Catch a Killer
Avail. 2/20 Operation Finale
Zero Day
Avail. 2/22
SAKAMOTO DAYS
Avail. 2/23 The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
Avail. 2/25 Full Swing: Season 3 The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: The Week of February 14, 2025 Really Love
Watcher
Avail. 2/26 Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Seasons 5-6 Miss Italia Mustn’t Die
Avail. 2/27 Demon City
Running Point
Toxic Town
The Wrong Track
Avail. 2/28 Aitana: Metamorphosis
Despicable Me 4
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Squad 36
And it’s your last chance to stream these titles:
Leaving 2/1 Cocaine Cowboys 2
Plus One
Run All Night
Leaving 2/11 The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast Five
Fast & Furious 6
The Pope’s Exorcist
Leaving 2/14 The Catcher Was a Spy
White Boy
Leaving 2/15 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
Blackhat
Pearl
Leaving 2/20 Book Club
Southpaw
Leaving 2/21 All Good Things
Leaving 2/24 U Turn
Leaving 2/25 Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Seasons 1-2
Leaving 2/28 21 Bridges
A Haunted House
A Haunted House 2
Aloha
The Angry Birds Movie
Blended
Cinderella Man
Due Date
Green Lantern
Inception
Legends of the Fall
Little
The Mindy Project: Seasons 1-6 Oblivion
The Other Guys
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Sixteen Candles
Stand by Me
Without a Paddle
After more than a decade without a college football game, EA Sports College Football 25 was a sight for sore eyes. Football fans were so starved for a CFB game that they made it the best-selling sports title in video game history, and I think for the most part people enjoyed the game. There were, as always in simulation games, some hiccups, but the game absolutely scratched the itch that we all wanted it to.
Earlier this month, EA Sports confirmed the game will be back for this summer for another edition (which was a lock given how well it sold), and we are hopeful they will build off of their success to make ’26 even better. The ’25 edition was, by design, a fairly stripped down model as they wanted to get the important things right and had to spend a ton of development time just building out all of the things that make college football what it is — stadiums, mascots, bands, traditions, etc. Now that they have all of that done, we hope they can shift a bit more focus to the game play and game modes to give them more depth. Here, we identified six things that we hope will be the focal points of ’26 and make it a game worth investing in again as fans.
Coordinator mode in Dynasty
I absolutely love Dynasty mode, and think that for the most part, they got it right in their first year back. My one gripe is that I’d love it if you could choose to start your career as a straight-up coordinator with your responsibilities being exclusive to being a coordinator. That means only calling plays and recruiting on one side of the ball, and then when you take a head coaching job, your team has an edge in one way or another that is in line with your coaching archetype — for example, if you’re a recruiter who starts as a defensive coordinator, when you take a HC job, you automatically have a leg-up in recruiting defensive talent, but recruiting on offense and in-game/player development stuff on both sides of the ball is something you have to work on. It’d be a fun way, I think, to make the climb to becoming a successful head coach a little more difficult.
Make coordinator hires mean more
Kind of going off of that: There’s a very delicate balance that needs to be struck between making this matter and making the game more difficult. Having said that, I think leaning into coordinators having specific archetypes and there being consequences related to your coordinators would be a fun twist. Part of this comes via their specific archetypes — say, hiring a recruiter means player development is harder and in-game stuff is more difficult — but also, coordinators taking head coaching jobs and bringing players from their current school is a common thing in college football. Why would that not be a common thing here?
How To Play mode
I know a lot of people who still complain about, say, how many interceptions they throw, while I know I can really struggle with the defensive side of things. A big part of this, in my opinion, is that you get thrown right into games, and have to learn stuff based entirely on in-game reps. John Madden wanted the Madden franchise to exist as a way to teach fans the game, so why not do something in the spirit of that here? Give fans an instructional mode where they can learn how to follow their blocks in the running game, or how to read coverages before the snap and during a play, or how to understand defensive assignments/gap integrity/whatever else on that side of the ball. A lot of people went a long, long time without seriously playing a football video game, so this can help them get up to speed now that a college football game is back.
Bring back Mascot Mashup
Self-explanatory. If you played the game when Mascot Mashup was in it, you get it. If you did not, imagine playing an exhibition game, only with mascots. It rocks. Next!
Back to the drawing board for Road To Glory
In the game’s first year back, EA Sports made it very clear that Dynasty mode was the focal point. That was the correct decision, as it’s the mode people play the most and is what made the original game so popular. While there are things to improve there (as discussed), it has the strongest foundation for them to build on. Road To Glory, on the other hand, was a swing and a miss.
The stated goal for RTG was to have it be a shorter playthrough option (10-20 hours) but the truth is, it was just a very shallow career mode experience. They attempted to make it realistic by making you balance your time across different areas, but there wasn’t anything really to do other than practice or push a button to study/get treatment/etc. I don’t know what exactly the formula should be, but they either need to go all-in on making that part of the game more interactive (which, to be clear, could lead to backlash) or scrap it all together and just really lean on the football part of things. I know they want to replicate the “student athlete” experience, but what they did in ’25 just didn’t work.
Even the on-field portion of the game left something to be desired. At the non-QB positions, rotations made little sense and you could be a star at running back who would go long stretches without playing or touching the ball because you had no influence on play-calling or who was in the game. Coach Trust was vital (it literally determined if you’d play), but even as a veteran star QB, your ability to influence play-calling was extremely limited. All of that is perhaps realistic to being a college football player, but it’s also a miserable experience for a video game mode.
There has to be a better middle ground between creating a simulation of the authentic college athlete experience and making a video game mode that is fun to play for more than a season. I tried a few different times at a few different positions and never got more than a year and a half into a RTG career before I just stopped playing and went back to Dynasty. There was little depth, very little that changed from year-to-year, and even playing the games could be wildly frustrating. If that’s going to change for ’26, they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out where to really add depth to the mode, where to possibly scale back (or eliminate all together), and be more cognizant that the entertainment and fun factor should matter more than creating the most realistic mode.
Some combination of the following players on the cover
Jeremiah Smith and Caleb Downs, Ohio State
Garrett Nussmeier and Harold Perkins, LSU
Arch Manning, Texas
Ryan Williams, Alabama
Cade Klubnik, Clemson
Drew Allar, Penn State
Dylan Stewart and LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina
DJ Lagway, Florida
Lucy Dacus has long been a supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community (and is a member herself), and now she has launched a new venture that’s putting her money where her mouth is.
On X (formerly Twitter) today (January 22), Dacus wrote:
“if trans people wanna comment surgery gofundmes, I’m gonna give away 10k in $500 increments until it’s gone, & if other people wanna scroll through and make donations, please do. the government will never be the source of our validation or protection, we have to do it ourselves.”
As of this post, Dacus’ tweet has over 300 replies, many of them linking to GoFundMe pages.
This comes after President Donald Trump said during his recent inaugural address, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”
He expanded on that in an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” which reads in part, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality.” It goes on to define and address terms like “sex,” “woman,” “man,” “female,” “male,” “gender ideology,” and “gender identity.”
Heart To Gold wear their hearts on their sleeves. The Minneapolis emo/punk trio, composed of vocalist-guitarist Grant Whiteoak, bassist Jim Kiser, and drummer Blake Kuether, write soaring anthems filled with cathartic choruses and blistering breakdowns. Their third full-length album, the Will Yip-produced Free Help, oozes with the band’s belief in their vision and why that self-assurance often yields an honest portrait of their artistry.
Having wrapped up a tour with Mannequin Pussy, Movements, and Softcult (plus some supporting slots for Militarie Gun, Ben Quad, and Prince Daddy And The Hyena), Heart To Gold paid attention to the moments of their live show that resonated most with audiences. Bringing those elements into Yip’s Studio 4 resulted in Free Help, their most intoxicating work yet.
Following the album’s release in November, Whiteoak sat down with Uproxx to talk about Katy Perry, King Krule, margherita pizza, and more in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Loud, abrasive, energetic, fun.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I would like to be remembered for being a glimmer of light in a pattern of darkness. For being one of the best organically live alternative punk rock bands.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Probably Kurt Cobain, King Krule, or John Dwyer. All three have things that make them uniquely themselves. They have something that others don’t. That’s really inspiring. Skateboarding has been a huge influence also.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?
Punch Pizza. It was a margherita pizza.
Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.
Weezer with the Pixies haha. Seeing them as a headliner in a stadium was pretty magical. Crazy pyrotechnics.
What song never fails to make you emotional?
“These Days,” the Jackson Browne version. Makes me think about my parents. Also “I’m Having A Rave In My Room All By Myself” by Memo Boy. Both beautiful songs.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
How to spell “Giuseppe”.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
Oh man. We’ve camped illegally in a few forestry areas and playgrounds. Maybe some crusty hardwood floor in the Midwest. Some little kids room with stuffed animals or something.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?
Minneapolis, MN. Next up I would love to perform “Tokyo” in Tokyo, Japan.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Start right now lil bro. Don’t wait to make rock/punk tracks. Avoid the wacky outfits for attention, specifically beach shirts. You’ll feel better about it all when you’re in your late 20s.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
We could make some really beautiful quieter alt-rock indie shit if we wanted. We can jam together pretty good.
If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?
Suicide prevention. Lost some real ones in the mix of life. Depression is hard. We all need help.
What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?
I’m cool with it until it isn’t cool I guess. Hard to say. A bit scary and even dystopian. I’m not going to stop making music the way we do it now. All I’d say is that if it turns out to spiral out of control and cause more harm than progress – we as a species may have asked for it.
You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.
Somewhere in London. Too hard!
Right now I’d say King Krule/George Clanton collab set, Mannequin Pussy, Turnstile, Underoath, H2G/Hotline TNT/Title Fight secret set.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?
Haha I have no idea. Maybe Djbonerboy. Giuseppe’s Garage. Aldo2swag.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
Well it would be my grandmother’s name, or “fuck” poorly tattooed on my back. Enough said.
What is your pre-show ritual?
Run. Punch the air. Vocal warm-ups. Jumps. Handstands. Then we put our hands together and say “1, 2, 3, – H, 2, G!”
Who was your first celebrity crush?
Katy Perry.
You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?
I’m going to Whistler Canada on a snowboard trip with my snowboard dawgs Tom, Sid, & Blake.
What is your biggest fear?
Fear itself for sure. For days.
Free Help is out now via Memory Music. Find more information here.
In the Disney+ era, there’s been seven live-action Star Wars shows: The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew. Of those, The Mandalorian is the most popular (it’s even being turned into a movie), Skeleton Crew is the most Stranger Things-y, and The Book of Boba Fett has the most Hutt twins. But Andor is the best.
The prequel to Rogue One, which itself is a prequel to Star Wars, is exactly what a Star Wars show should be. And fortunately, after a long break, it’s coming back for a second and final season soon. Here’s everything to know.
Plot
Andor season 2 will bridge the gap between the ending of Andor season 1, in which Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) demands that Rebel leader Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) either kill him or recruit him, and Rogue One. “I think people watching Rogue One, after watching season 2, are going to see a different film,” Luna shared to Entertainment Weekly.
Disney+ has yet to release an official synopsis for season 2, but the cast and creator Tony Gilroy have given some hints about what fans can expect.
“He’s a man fully committed to the Rebellion,” Luna told Empire about Cassian. “It’s someone who has to ascend. There’s a huge mountain for him to climb in order to [become] the guy we meet in Rogue One.”
“This second part of our story will follow Cassian over the period of four years as he grows into the rebel hero we see fulfill his destiny with the ultimate sacrifice in Rogue One. Every slice of time charts Cassian’s evolution into our revolution, but in this season, the stakes are greater, the enemy is more organized, and the clock is ticking. As the imperial threat grows and the lines have become more dangerous, Cassian is fueled by a sense of high purpose: to fight for freedom and a better tomorrow.”
The La Máquina actor also hyped the (re)introduction of K-2, a fan favorite droid from Rogue One. “From an audience perspective, they’ve probably made their own story about how Cassian and K-2 got to work together,” he said. “It tells you a lot about Cassian that his best friend is a droid. And a droid he had to reprogram. But how did that actually happen and who was he before? Those questions are going to be answered.” (Another Rogue One character in Andor season 2? Imperial baddie Orson Krennic, played by Ben Mendelsohn.)
The positive response to Andor, which was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys and appeared on numerous Best Shows Of 2022 lists, gave creator Tony Gilroy the flexibility to take creative chances in season 2. “The critical appreciation of the show was really helpful, if not essential, in helping Disney choke down the price of what this is,” he told Empire (the two seasons reportedly cost a collective $645 million). “In terms of creative notes, no one has come to me and said, ‘No, they shouldn’t say that.’”
Cast
Much of the Andor season 1 cast will be back in season 2, including Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen Rael, Adria Arjona as Bix Caleen, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, Denise Gough as Deedra Meero, and Kyle Soller as Syril Karn.
Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is confirmed to return as Saw Gerrera, as is Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic. And don’t forget Alan Tudyk as K-2SO!
Release Date
Andor returns to Disney+ a few weeks before Star Wars Day, on April 22.
Trailer
A teaser trailer for Andor season 2 debuted at D23, but it hasn’t been released ro the public yet. So until then, why not revisit Kino Loy’s stirring monologue?
And it was where I discovered SaxKixAve, a two-man duo hailing from New Orleans consisting of two guys named “Al.” Albert Allenback — the white Al — is an accomplished musician turned producer, who had played with bands like Tank And The Bangas. Alfred Banks, the rapper, is a mainstay of the city’s indie-rap scene. The pair had been making music together since early 2020, but I came across them on TikTok as a result of their wickedly ingenious promotion strategy on the app.
Aside from sharing a monosyllabic diminutive first name, the thing that really bonded these two was their sharp, dry sense of humor, which translated into shorts featuring the duo standing side-by-side deadpanning their way through live performances of both their own songs and covers of rap classics with freestyles from the deceptively polished Alfred. His witty raps might reference their matching ensembles (very high cut shorts, mile-high man-buns), the cartoons and TV shows playing on the TV behind them, or Albert’s purposefully off-beat bopping.
Rather than doing a broad overview of “what TikTok means,” wouldn’t it be interesting to find out how it affects the artists who most directly benefit from the opportunities and tools it provides? With that question in mind, I reached out to SaxKixAve for an interview. There was just one problem; as it happens, they weren’t sweating the then-impending (since postponed) loss of a potential promotion platform/revenue stream.
“We had a cross-platform approach from the jump,” Albert said. “So, when we first started making videos and tried and when we actually had the social media strategy. Because the way the platforms work, we’re like an Uber driver with a decentralized form of authority changing the rules constantly, formats change, algorithms change. And so we made sure that we were posting on both platforms, but we also got lucky that we broke through on Instagram around the same time that we did on TikTok. So we are not feeling super pressed about it, because we have such a large Instagram presence.”
Alfred echoed his ambivalence, saying, “I’m in the middle. I’m not really scared, but I am like, “Aw man,” because we did a mass nice little following there, but at the same time, again, out the gate, I remember when we first kind of broke through on TikTok, I was like, “Yo Al, if we breaking on the Gram, that’s how we…” And then, we broke through. We’ve always posted on four to five different accounts every time. So when you see a video on TikTok, that video is on the ‘Gram, it’s on YouTube, it’s on Facebook, it’s on X, and it’s on Threads now. So, that’s what we’ve always done. And so, I think we’ll be okay.”
However, with that out of the way, there was still plenty to talk about: The group’s newly released album, Terrell Charbonneau (so titled from the duo’s middle names), their upcoming collaboration with New Orleans icon Big Freedia, their Abbott and Costello-inspired double act, and what happens when you play Paul Simon at a Juvenile concert in Baton Rouge — all of which discussed through a nonstop barrage of jokes and the requisite laughs they evoked.
Okay, so you guys basically wrecked my entire plan for this. You posted the Big Freedia video, literally like 90 minutes before we were supposed to do this interview. So now I have to ask about Big Freedia, which I wasn’t planning on doing. What’s the plan with Big Freedia guys?
Albert: It’s on our song “Tryna Get Down,” and we’ve got a remix with Freedia on our song Tryna Get Down, because the song itself, while it’s not a bounce beat, it comes from the energy of the bounce rhythm from down here. So, it just fit Freedia. Like I can’t listen to the original now because Freedia completed the song.
Alfred: Being from New Orleans and also being formally of the management company that we all were a part of, we encountered Freedia a lot in passing and doing shows and stuff. So it was just, I think, inevitable that at some point we were going to do a record — and shouts to Freedia for being so gracious. Pulled up, did the work, was out of there. It’s a beautiful thing.
I think it’s fascinating how tight-knit the New Orleans musical community really is. It doesn’t matter if you’re the biggest star there, or just up and coming, so many of the New Orleans artists are just plugged in. Can you talk about that? Where do you think that comes from?
Alfred: Well, I guess at the base of it, all we have is us, right? And all we have is us, all we have is the community here. That’s what our foundation is based off of collaborating with each other frequently and in so many different ways. So we have to collaborate, even if you are this big act, because nine times out of 10 we’re probably related, right? Somebody’s auntie is somebody’s cousin. My father told me before he passed away, that I was third cousins with Fats Domino.
Albert: Hard stop. Hard stop. You’re a nepo baby? I can’t even do this with you anymore. We can’t have a privileged, beautiful white man and a f*cking nepo baby.
Here is a very, very short answer from someone who’s not from the town. And I think that people from New Orleans are so good at music that people from New Orleans can barely enjoy music, so that when they find ultra talented amongst themselves, they gravitate towards those people.
Terrell Charbonneau is you guys’ longest project to date. I went back noticed, “Oh, they’re slowly getting longer and longer as they go along.” Was that something that was intentional or has that just been a natural outcropping of you guys’ chemistry growing over the years?
Albert: I don’t appreciate having my soul read that accurately. There’s things we have consciously tried to carry forward. I think it was during Nectarine Peels, we looked at each other and we were like, I as a producer, I was like, “I can make full songs now, dude.”
Alfred: Yeah, the projects getting longer… The first project I Don’t Wear Suits was really me and Albert feeling each other out. It was kind like, okay, I want to get weird lyrically I want to do some weird stuff. You’re capable of making this weird stuff and you want to start collaborating in a more hip hop space, so let’s get together and see what happens.
Nectarine Peels is like, okay, we’ve kind of created a synergy here to where we both enjoy creating with each other. That was first. We enjoy creating with each other, so let’s really get in and make a project. Let’s make an album. That’s what that is. Terrell Charbonneau, it actually started off as a song a month in 2024, pretty much up until October. We dropped one song a month and at the end we proverbially ran out of juice, and we was like, “Man, you know what? Let’s do an album. Let’s put this together.”
Albert: We actually made enough juice too fast because we made two songs in one month. So, we ended up with 12 songs and we got to pinch it off.
Alfred: True, true. “Pinch it off” is crazy. Nah, but the album came out the way it came out because of the songs we released every month, and then we added a few extra joints. We needed a full body to let people know what we can bring to the table. I’m saying the lyrics, the musicality, the comedic kind of aspect. I feel like it’s great.
Albert: We had to use 2024 to show, we had to make some music, because we made all these awesome videos in the second half of 2023 and people were like, “This is really cool,” but it was predominantly covers. So we had to show that we have the actual chops. I have the actual production chops. Alfred is one of the best rappers in the world. So we had to prove on our own terms, with an actual recording, that somebody presses play on. We wanted to try to get some of ourselves in there.
Just go with me here. I feel like you guys can handle this. I want to hear you guys’ one sentence, tagline, elevator pitch for specific songs from the project. Let’s start with “Love Muffin.”
Albert: Have you ever wondered why songs from the 1960s gave such direct and terrible metaphors for love? Like “Your love is like a plunger” or “Your love is like a hubcap?” Did you ever think that advice was wrong? Check out Love Muffin.
“Done With” featuring Kr3wcial. You are done with the bullshit, but what is the bullshit that you are done with?
Albert: If you’ve been such a nice person that people think you actually don’t have problems, but really you’re just keeping your problems simmering under the surface and you might snap, “Done With” is for you.
“Whatyougotwhatigotwhatyougottosay?”
Albert: Are you sick of falling in love with AI chatbot waifus and then the company changes the terms of service, and it falls out of love with you? Then “Whatyougotwhatigotwhatyougottosay” is for you.
Alfred: Are you afraid of meeting people in real life? “Whatyougotwhatigotwhatyougottosay” is for you.
Albert: Are you scared to go to a Kroger because of incel bullets? “Whatyougotwhatigotwhatyougottosay” may be for you.
I think my readers would find it instructive to hear the story about, you guys opening for Juvenile.
Albert: So we’re opening for Juvenile in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and we’re playing our songs. We have a very eclectic set, right? We have originals, we have hip hop classics, we have American classics. And we decided to play one of those American classics without proper consideration of the demographics of a Juvenile show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Alfred: Yeah, for your people. You can “Call Me Al” by Paul Simon and great classic song, great song. It’s cool because both our names are Al, but oh, did we not think about the audience in which we would be. It didn’t go over well. So we did the song, and as I’m singing it, I went to a young lady in the crowd. I was like, “Come on, baby. Sing along. You know you know it.” And she was like, “No baby, I don’t know this damn song.” Which is amazing.
Albert: Can you be more specific about the demographics of the crowd than I was able to be? Numbers-wise.
Alfred: It was about 500 people. There was about 425 Black people in there, and when we played, “You Can Call Me Al,” the 75 White people lost their mind. I mean they went… Yeah, it was like we played Metallica.
Albert: They held their Stanley cups up, dude.
Alfred: Oh, it was great.
Albert: They were going for it. They were in it.
SaxKixAve’s album, Terrell Charbonneau, is out now. You can find it here.
If you ask most any NBA fan, they’ll tell you the best player in the league right now is Nikola Jokic. The three-time MVP has a good chance to make it four this season, as he has somehow taken his otherworldly production over the last five years and gotten even better. Jokic is averaging 30.1 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 9.9 assists per game while shooting 56.3 percent from the field and an absurd 47.8 percent from three.
Despite being a multiple MVP winner and leading the Nuggets to a title two years ago, Jokic remains something of a mystery off the court. If you ask anyone what Jokic likes other than basketball, they will all say horses and probably not much more. That’s because Jokic has managed to keep his personal life pretty walled off from the rest of the world, but every once in awhile a teammate will give us a little glimpse into who Jokic is off the court. Recently, Jokic’s backup DeAndre Jordan revealed that the big fella’s favorite song (non-Serbian folk music division) is “Many Men” by 50 Cent, and that the MVP “knows every word.”
That naturally raised some eyebrows and on Tuesday night after the Nuggets thrashed the Sixers on TNT, Adam Lefkoe and Shaq did their best to get Jokic to rap the song’s lyrics, which Jokic refused (while laughing pretty hard about it).
He did say he liked the song and might consider a performance after he had some time to practice, but I think Jordan was maybe taking some liberties with the “knows every word” thing, as Jokic laughed and said “DJ is a bad teammate”. Jordan also pointed out to Jokic his song was playing in layup lines and the two laughed about it before the game, so I’m guessing the veteran big man was having some fun embellishing Jokic’s love for the 22-year-old hit 50 Cent. That said, we do know Jokic is a fan of rap music and might be withholding how much he knows, because we’ve seen him rapping along to “Not Like Us” earlier this season before a game.
Say what you want to about Drake, but he really is a trendsetter. After he filed a defamation lawsuit against his own label, Universal Music Group, for promoting Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” it appears another entertainer has been bitten by the litigation bug.
According to Billboard, Chris Brown has filed his own defamation suit against Warner Bros. Discovery and Ample Entertainment over the newly released documentary, Chris Brown: A History of Violence, accusing the film of “promoting and publishing false information in their pursuit of likes, clicks, downloads and dollars and to [Brown’s] detriment.”
Brown’s attorneys, Arnold Shokouchi and Levi McCathern, write that the Jane Doe accuser quoted in the film “had not only been discredited over and over but was in fact a perpetrator of intimate partners violence and aggressor herself.” They continue, “Mr. Brown has never been found guilty of any sex related crime…but this documentary states in every available fashion that he is a serial rapist and sexual abuser.”
The accuser filed a lawsuit against Brown in 2022, claiming he drugged and raped her after inviting her onto a yacht. Brown published the text conversation between the two as “proof” of his innocence and countersued for defamation. The accuser withdrew the case in August that year.
Welcome to another installment of Ask A Music Critic! And thanks to everyone who has sent me questions. Please keep them coming at [email protected].
I’m already seeing 10th anniversary posts for 2015 albums. Some of my favorites from that year are Beach House, Deerhunter, Deafheaven, Viet Cong, Protomartyr, Royal Headache, and Thee Oh Sees. How do you rate 2015 for album releases and what’s some of your personal favorites? — Alex from Melbourne, Australia
Australia! I love Australia! I hope you don’t mind, but I edited out the “u” in “favorites,” so as not to confuse my American readers. I also removed all the adorable koala bear noises from your email, so we can stay focused on the task at hand.
I have also noticed the rush of mid-2010s nostalgia lately. Lots of people apparently are looking back fondly on the final year before the Trump era. For me, it was the year I turned 38. Was I ever so youthful? My cheeks were so rosy, my beard so free of gray. I was personally invested in the first season of Mr. Robot and I tolerated hearing “Uptown Funk” every 15 minutes. Pretty heady time.
Musically speaking, I regard 2015 as a solid year, but not an all-time year. If there’s an overarching trend, it’s that a lot of artists put out good (or really good) albums, but not necessarily their best albums. Let’s start with some of the acts you mentioned. Depression Cherry is considered a really good Beach House album, but probably not as good as Teen Dream. Fading Frontier is a worthy Deerhunter release, but few would put it above Halcyon Digest. New Bermuda is a good effort by Deafheaven, but Sunbather is their definitive LP. The same can be said of several other indie or indie-adjacent artists — Lana Del Rey, Sufjan Stevens, Kurt Vile, Car Seat Headrest, Wilco, Jason Isbell, and Joanna Newsom all did good work in 2015, but you would likely pick a record from a different year as your personal favorite.
As far as my own personal favorite LP of the year, I want to briefly hold off on answering that question. In the meantime, let’s take a wider view of the year, so we can really marinate in the 2015-ness of it all.
THE BEST-SELLING ALBUM OF 2015: ADELE’S 25
This one doesn’t require a personal value judgement. It’s all about the hard, cold data. And in 2015, nobody moved more units than Adele, who sold just over eight million copies of her third album. Because she only seems to put out new music every five years or so, it’s easy to forget amid the nonstop media onslaught of megastars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé that Adele has owned the nation’s minivans for the past 15-plus years. The silent majority of mothers can’t get enough of this record.
THE CRITICAL CONSENSUS FAVORITE OF 2015: KENDRICK LAMAR’S TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY
As my friend Rob Mitchum shows in his annual spreadsheet charting year-end lists, Kendrick killed it with music writers in 2015 in a way few artists ever replicate. He landed in in the Top 10 on 15 different publication lists, far more than any other artist that year. (Courtney Barnett came closest, landing in the Top 10 on 10 lists with her debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit.) Even more impressive, Kendrick topped seven of those lists and landed at No. 2 on five more.
(It’s worth noting that Charli XCX’s Brat was even more dominant in 2024, landing in the Top 10 on a whopping 29 lists, with 12 No. 1’s.)
THE MOST 2015 ALBUM OF 2015: HAMILTION (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)
We’re moving into the subjective categories now, but just barely. Is there a better choice for most 2015 record than the project that inserted Lin-Manuel Miranda into our grills for all eternity? One of my most lasting memories of the year is reading a different thinkpiece every other day by some media professional who lucked into an absurdly expensive Hamilton ticket, and came away waxing rhapsodic about the experience in terms that seemed histrionic in the moment and in retrospect are sort of silly. I can’t imagine what it was like to be a high school kid in 2015 who was involved in theater. This record is either your life or the bane of your existence.
2015 ALBUM THAT AGED THE BEST: DESTROYER’S POISON SEASON
Ten years ago, I would have grouped this with all the indie and indie-adjacent acts who put out good (or really good) albums in 2015, but not necessarily their best album. A decade later, however, I have talked myself into at least considering that this might be Dan Bejar’s finest. It gives you all the elements that you want from a Destroyer album — there’s the “bar band” Destroyer, the “yacht rock” Destroyer, there’s the “chamber music” Destroyer,” there’s the “making arcane references to Escape From New York and Billy Joel” Destroyer. Poison Season rules.
(The flaw in this argument is that my favorite Destroyer album changes depending on whichever Destroyer album I played most recently. But that’s a conversation for a different day.)
2015 THAT AGED THE WORST: BEACH SLANG’S THE THINGS WE DO TO FIND PEOPLE WHO FEEL LIKE US
2015 was an unusual year for me in the sense that I didn’t publish an official year-end list. I lost my job in October after the website I was working for was unceremoniously shut down. (Actually, I technically still had a job since I was under contract. I was just paid to do nothing until the contract expired eight months later. Best job I ever had.) However, I did post a list on the social media app former known as Twitter, and this album was at the very top. When I still was being paid to write in 2015, I described it as “a mix of nostalgia and forward-looking optimism communicated via fearlessly shiny riffs and florid clichés redeemed by the all-in conviction of a true believer.” I’ll take 2015 Me’s word on that because I have not listened to this record in at least five years.
Honorable mention: On a more macro level, Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Goon is notorious as a 2015 flavor of the month that aged like milk. And I feel okay saying that because Jesso went on to a successful career as a pop songwriter and producer. (He has two credits on 25, which I assume bought him a large house or a fleet of expensive cars.) So he can take the heat. Regarding Goon, I initially liked its throwback retro rock sound, which evoked Todd Rundgren or Randy Newman’s most accessible moments. And then I interviewed Jesso and found that he was — how do I say this respectfully? — a bit of a simple-minded himbo. The conversation made me like the record less, which is a less common phenomenon for me than you might think.
MOST INFLUENTIAL 2015 ALBUM: CHRIS STAPLETON’S TRAVELER
Country music is in the midst of a mainstream commercial moment in the mid-2020s, and it’s striking how much of that music resembles this record. At the time it was considered somewhat of an outlier, a neo-traditionalist hit that racked up Nashville industry awards in what felt like a rebuke of the dead-eyed bro-country hordes. But now it just sounds like the establishment. A burly-voiced quasi-outlaw type with genuine pop bonafides, Stapleton set a template that artists like Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, Luke Combs and (to a lesser degree) Morgan Wallen later took to the bank.
Honorable mention: My second favorite record of 2015 — and the one I have certainly played the most — is Currents by Tame Impala. It’s hard to overstate how much indie rock, pop and even R&B and hip-hop sounds like this album. It’s easily one of the touchstone indie-adjacent releases of the past 10 years. And it felt like that was preordained when it came out. I hung out with Kevin Parker in an L.A. diner for a profile before Currents dropped, and he already seemed bewildered by the success he hadn’t yet fully experienced. “I used to smoke weed and I don’t even smoke weed anymore,” he told me, “because, it’s like, the world’s intense enough as it is.”
MOST MEMORY-HOLED ALBUM OF 2015: DONNIE TRUMPET & THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT’S SURF
On Rob’s annual year-end spreadsheet, this is the 29th most critically acclaimed of 2015, right before Jason Isbell, Deerhunter and Beach House and just ahead of Wilco, Earl Sweatshirt, Chris Stapleton, and Kacey Musgraves. You could ask 100 music fans to name one song from this album, and I doubt you would have greater than a five percent hit rate. It has been wiped off the face of the planet. I think it’s a ska record? The title sounds like the name of a ska record? I could just press play, I guess, but I don’t want to.
The album’s original appeal stemmed from the group’s connection to Chance The Rapper, who might be the most memory-holed superstar of the 2010s. So, Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment suffer from the double memory-hole, a devastating predicament to be sure.
Honorable mention: It seems cruel to pick on possible ska bands when Dr. Dre put out Compton, generated glowing press for about three days, sold almost 300,000 records, and then convinced the world that none of it really happened.
[One more special category before I get to my favorite album of 2015,]
MY PERSONAL MOST HATED ALBUM OF 2015: FALL OUT BOY’S AMERICAN BEAUTY/AMERICAN PSYCHO
This band has pissed me off for years by being irredeemably terrible, with a uniquely grating and obnoxious singer and a bad habit of taking the worst aspects of emo and pop and turning them into inedible sonic shit sandwiches. But I was singularly offended when they dared to call their 2013 comeback LP Save Rock And Roll, which is sort of like claiming that the United States military “saved” Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. But then they really crossed the line with this album, which unleashed their most annoying (and annoyingly popular) song ever, the crushingly ubiquitous “Centuries,” a favorite of the sadomasochists who pick the bumper music on sports telecasts.
Seriously, if you take nothing else from this column, remember this: Fuck Fall Out Boy.
[Sorry, I’ll finally answer your question now.]
MY PERSONAL FAVORITE ALBUM OF 2015: FATHER JOHN MISTY’S I LOVE YOU, HONEYBEAR
You know that list I mentioned earlier, the one with Beach Slang at the top of it? This album wasn’t even on it! 2015 Me was not smart! I dread discovering what 2025 Me is like in 10 years.
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