Category: Viral

Smashing Pumpkins are as ambitious as ever. The Billy Corgan-led alt-rock legends debuted their hauntingly electric new single “Beguiled” through TikTok on Monday night (September 19) before premiering the full official music video this morning (September 20). The anthem is the lead single from their newly announced 12th studio album, Atum (pronounced “Autumn”), billed as a three-act rock opera featuring 33 tracks.

Written and produced by Corgan over the last four years, Atum will serve as a sequel to past epics Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (1995) and Machina/Machine Of God (2000). Corgan will reveal the track list one-by-one on his, yes, also newly announced iHeartRadio podcast series Thirty-Three With William Patrick Corgan. The first two episodes are available here, debuting the title track and a song titled “Butterly Suite.” The official release dates are November 15 for Act 1, January 31 for Act 2, and April 21 for Act 3, as well as a special box set with 10 additional unreleased songs. Pre-order/save is available here.

The “Beguiled” music video sets the tone for the Atum era. Corgan confidently jaunts toward the camera in a multi-layered white gown. He’s slowly joined by his bandmates (and ballerinas) as the song establishes a clear message in the hard-charged chorus: “Return the faith.”

Smashing Pumpkins faithful have plenty to look forward to. Smashing Pumpkins will perform “Beguiled” for the first time this Friday on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and they’re set to embark on a joint North American Spirits On Fire arena tour with Jane’s Addiction beginning October 2.

Watch the “Beguiled” video above and find the Atum art and Smashing Pumpkins’ upcoming tour dates below.

10/02 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
10/03 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
10/05 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
10/07 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
10/08 — Hollywood, FL @ Hard Rock Casino
10/10 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
10/11 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
10/13 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun
10/14 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
10/16 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
10/18 — Washington, D.C. @ Capital One Arena
10/19 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
10/21 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
10/22 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
10/24 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
10/26 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
10/27 — Quebec City, QC @ Centre Videtron
10/29 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
10/30 — Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
11/01 — St. Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center

Atum is out 4/21/2023 via Martha’s Music/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order it here.

Between Joe Biden declaring the pandemic over on 60 Minutes, Queen Elizabeth II finally being laid to rest, and Donald Trump claiming he would have gotten a much better seat at the Queen’s funeral than Biden did, despite not even being invited, the news cycle has been overflowing with content. And while Jimmy Kimmel made time to talk about all the big stories on Monday night, he also saved a few minutes to discuss Trump’s not-so-quiet return to Mar-a-Lago — his first trip back to his Palm Beach lair since the FBI paid it a visit in search of classified documents the former president was most definitely not entitled to have on the premises. While Trump should have been complaining about the mess he has made of his life (and, by extension, ours), the self-described germaphobe instead wanted to complain about the mess federal officers made of the place.

As Kimmel shared, Trump had a lot to say on his TRUTH Social about what he’s describing as a “Break-In of my home” (caps all his):

Trump has been mashing his little fists together more than usual lately. He had not been back to Florida since the FBI showed up to repo the documents he decided were his. He wrote: ‘I’ll soon be heading to the scene of the unwarranted, unjust, and illegal Raid and Break-In of my home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.’

‘Unwarranted’? The FBI literally had A warrant.

And let’s clear another thing up: What happened at Mar-a-Lago was not a raid or a break-in. They asked him to return the documents, and they only showed up to take them when he didn’t. They told him they were coming before. This is not a raid or a break-in. A break-in is what Trump used to do in the Miss Universe dressing room, ok?

But Trump was even more riled up following his arrival home, as he shared on his failing social media network. “He didn’t like what he saw,” said Kimmel. “He wrote: ‘Arrived in Florida last night… after what they’ve done, the place will never be the same. It was ‘ransacked’ and in far different condition than the way I left it. Many agents — and they didn’t even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!’”

“Out of all the terrible qualities Donald Trump has,” Kimmel wondered, “who would’ve guessed that he’s also one of those people who makes you take your shoes off in his house? What a Karen!”

(Apologies to all the Karens reading this.)

You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 3:20 mark.

The National love to surprise. Not necessarily in their live performances — their setlist generally remains consistent, frontperson Matt Berninger will go out into the audience during one of their rockers, and the Dessner twins will hold their guitars over their heads during the “Fake Empire” finale so that they look like a Rorschach inkblot — but in a much more zoomed-out, big picture sense.

Only those that followed Taylor Swift’s curated playlists would have guessed that Aaron Dessner would somehow become one of her closest collaborators in recent years. Their last album, I Am Easy To Find, was a left-turn collaborative smorgasbord that found filmmaker Mike Mills and Berninger’s wife Carin Besser firming roles as creative partners. They’ve aligned themselves with some of the most exciting indie artists to emerge in the last decade, with everyone from Bartees Strange to the Boygenius trio being welcomed into their extended family. The scrappy band that steadily raised favor with a series of aughts-era masterpieces has never grown stagnant or complacent, even finding time to curate a Grateful Dead tribute album and music festivals along the way.

The most recent National surprise came last week following their performance at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. It was my first time at the historic venue — whose majesty cannot be oversold and should truly be a pilgrimage for all live music fans — and the set went splendidly, as expected. The new songs that they’ve been trying out, including the recently released “Weird Goodbyes,” foretell another top-notch affair from the five-piece, and they made their way through a mix of hits (“Bloodbuzz Ohio,” “Terrible Love,” “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”), deeper cuts (“Wasp Nest,” “England,” “Pink Rabbits”), and special moments (opener Lucy Dacus joining for a next-level version of “Rylan”). Berninger kept joking that the venue had grown more beautiful and bigger since their previous visits, but still marveled at the space, that his band could continue to fill seats in such a glorious locale.

But the surprise came the next day. Leaving Denver to return to Los Angeles, my wife and I both wore our shiny new National t-shirts, not really thinking about the number of people that also might have traveled to the show. Taking the rental car shuttle, a thirty-something woman commented on our new merch, noting that she was also there and loved the show. Suddenly, a man nearby chimed in, wondering why they didn’t play much from I Am Easy To Find, with us going on to discuss the female personnel on that record and then how we all miss the unamplified “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” as a show closer. A family with a teen son chimed in that they were also there, with the teen eager to share that it was his third National concert. The fanbase on just the bus alone ranged several decades, exemplifying the kind of camaraderie you might find on the subway home from an NYC arena show or the L in Chicago after Lollapalooza. Here, it was just the short ride to the airport from the Hertz rental lot.

There were more compliments in line at security, and on the actual airplane. During beverage service, a grey-haired flight attendant squealed from behind her mask, unaware that The National had played Red Rocks the night before. “I really want to see them in a New York City theater,” she exclaimed, adding, “I just think [Berninger] has the best voice.” It hadn’t hit me at that point just how wide the range of ages of people at Red Rocks the night before was, from the children in the front row of the ADA section and the 21-year-old woman next to me who “wooed” insanely throughout — how does someone woo during the entirety of “Light Years”? — to the seasoned Denver locals that surely frequent the venue. It might seem like you know exactly what a National fan looks like or is into, but the truth is that they might be one of the more widely appealing artists in contemporary indie.

For a band that many write off as too boring (an undignified critique) and too white (fair), the hard-to-pin-down community that they foster is rare in the indie rock world, usually seen more in the jam or emo or even pop communities. The band’s quotable lyrics, expansive arrangements, and earworm melodies form a tight bond with the initiated, to the point that few (if any?) of their mid-aughts peers are maintaining the same level of creative juice that seems to come naturally for The National. They are a band that’s easy to obsess over, easy to love, and yes, easy to find (they tour often!). Their biggest surprise yet is that they manage to keep it all fresh and keep us all coming back for more.

Deciding on a game to play every week can be hard. There are new games coming out all the time. Sometimes an old game will suddenly start trending because of recent news, or maybe a hidden gem is finally getting its due. Not to mention, with so many games receiving constant updates, it can feel impossible to stay up to date with the latest big changes and events going on with your favorite live service games.

So, let’s make it easier on you! Here are a few games that we think people should be playing this week — live service games, a new release, and something that was already available.

Splatoon 3 – Nintendo Switch

We really like Splatoon. Nintendo’s unique shooter is a great time with its biggest weakness right now being some really irritating server issues. Well, let’s hope those servers manage to hold this week, because the best part of Splatoon will be happening over the upcoming weekend: the first official splatfest. For the uninitiated, a splatfest is where players of Splatoon get to choose a team based on a prompt of some kind and then represent their team in multiplayer battles against other players. Whoever wins the most matches as said team wins the splatfest.

Not only do players get extra rewards and gear for playing in the Splatfest, but it’s almost always when the most players are sure to jump online to play matches. With a good theme, you can get some really great matches as everyone swarms online to defend their choice. If any of this sounds of interest to you then you can pick up Splatoon 3 for $60, play throughout the week to get used to the controls, and then be ready to defend your choice in the Splatfest by Friday.

Shovel Knight Dig

Shovel Knight Dig is the latest Shovel Knight game from Yacht Club Games and they’ve partnered with development studio Nitrome to make it happen. Following the trend of many other Shovel Knight spin-off games, Dig is a completely new gameplay style focused on Shovel Knight taking his trusty shovel and digging to the bottom. It feels like a mix of puzzle elements, platforming, and some of the traditional Shovel Knight gameplay blended together for a really interesting gameplay concept.

The game was first announced in 2019, so it feels like they’ve put a lot of work into this game and it looks really fun. It also seems perfect for mobile play since its platforms of choice are PC, Switch, and iOS through the Apple Arcade. This is going to be a must-get for Apple Arcade players, because if you have an Apple Arcade subscription, then the game will be available for free. It’s $24.99 for everyone else. A low barrier to entry title that costs less than $30? It’s definitely worth a try for any fans of Shovel Knight out there.

Deathloop – PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC

Deathloop came out for the PlayStation and PC back in 2021 to critical acclaim thanks to some fun gunplay and some incredible writing. The rapport between Colt and Julianna really makes the experience of Deathloop as great as it is and it’s why everyone should at least give it a try. Thankfully, the game just became far more attainable with its addition to Game Pass on September 20.

Anyone that pays GamePass’s subscription fee can now download and play Deathloop at no extra charge. With such a low barrier to entry, it’s impossible to not recommend right now. The game itself is maybe 16-20 hours in length, so it has a decent amount of game to it, but those hours will fly by to anyone that really falls in love with it. At worst, if you don’t like it then you can always load up one of the many other games on Game Pass right now so there’s no loss in giving it a go.

Ava Max is gearing up for the release of her highly anticipated sophomore album, Diamonds And Dancefloors, which is set to arrive in January. Ahead of the album’s release, the “Million Dollar Baby” hitmaker sat down to detail the creative process behind the upcoming project.

“I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted the first album, Heaven And Hell, to be about because it was everything I was going through trying to make it as a woman in the industry, and just how hard it was,” Max says. “Now, the second album, Diamonds And Dancefloors, is all about my personal relationships, and it’s a lot more vulnerable because it’s a side no one sees of me.”

Max is a fan of all genres of music, however, she admits she gravitates more toward pop music. As an artist, Max and her team put a lot of effort into her craft. As she and many of her fans often stream music from their phones through their earbuds, Max wants listeners to get the full experience of her music.

“A lot of headphones compress audio quality all the way from 24bit to 16bit,” Max says. “That is a lot to lose. The Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro don’t. They maintain the 24bit quality and play the music exactly how it’s meant to be heard. High fidelity.”

Check out the full clip above.

Ava Max is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The latest artist to join the trend of selling his publishing is Future, who pulled in a price in the “high eight figures” from Influence Media Partners, according to Variety. Influence, which recently announced a $750 million fund backed by BlackRock, Inc. and Warner Music Group, has bought catalogs from the likes of Jessie Reyez, Julia Michaels, and Tainy. In purchasing Future’s catalog from 2004 to 2020, they’ve acquired rights to hits like “Life Is Good,” “March Madness,” “Mask Off,” and “Move That Dope,” among other lucrative hits.

In a statement, Future said, ” “I put everything into my music, and I wanted to make sure these were in good hands as I thought about the next chapter of these songs. I’m proud to partner up with Rene [McLean, Influence Media partner and founding advisor] and the team at Influence Media and send a signal that this music has timeless value. My music is my art, and these songs represent some of the most precious artwork of my career.”

Among other artists who’ve recently sold their catalogs are big names like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Chuck D, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, and Sting (David Bowie’s catalog was also recently posthumously sold for $250 million). These moves are likely to change the face of the music industry in coming years.

The first reviews for in for Andor, the latest Star Wars series for Disney+. Set five years before the events of Rogue One, Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor as the show explores the rise of the Rebel Alliance in the shadows of the Galactic Empire that’s grown over-confident in its decadence.

Under the direction of Tony Gilroy, the prequel series is being roundly praised for taking a more nuanced and adult approach to the Star Wars universe. (Sorry, Baby Yoda.) Where The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi traded in fan service, Andor is being described a slow-burn espionage thriller that’s not afraid to meander as it builds an epic tale of the Empire’s inevitable downfall.

You can see what critics are saying about Andor below:

Mike Ryan, Uproxx:

Whereas other Star Wars properties can feel like a story made in a committee (the word offender being The Rise of Skywalker, a truly terrible movie), Andor feels like one person’s vision of what a Star Wars series based on Cassian Andor should be. This is an incredibly focused series.

Kelly Lawler, USA Today:

There are times when adults want to sit down and watch a mature show made just for them, outside the realm of family-friendly and without any toy tie-ins. Fans of “Star Wars” rarely get such an opportunity, but it makes sense that the most serious, grownup series from the sci-fi franchise so far would be Disney+’s “Andor,” a prequel about Diego Luna’s character from “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”

Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge:

It’s rare for Star Wars projects to end up feeling like stronger, more interesting stories for hewing close to the tentpole movies that came before them. But that’s very much the case with Andor, Disney Plus’ new prequel series that keenly understands and expands upon everything that made Rogue One such a standout part of the franchise.

Caroline Framke, Variety:

Where “The Mandalorian,” “Boba Fett,” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi” wove their biggest reveals into the larger fabric of the Lucasfilm universe, “Andor” doesn’t rush toward those moments that might make fans gasp out of pure recognition. Instead, it does something more surprising still: it tells the story of people who have nothing to do with Solos, Skywalkers or Palpatines, but whose lives matter nonetheless.

Daniel Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter:

It may be the first Star Wars project that critics have ever needed to refer to as “slow” and definitely the first that needs to come with the warning: “The first two episodes will probably bore younger viewers to tears.” But at the same time I appreciated its efforts to create a wholly grounded and mostly ground-level piece of storytelling in this world.

Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine:

The cast surrounding Luna is solid. [Fiona] Shaw with every look/exchange conveys the depth of Maarva and Cass’ top-secret bond, Arjona is a delight as the spirited Bix, O’Reilly clearly reveled in the chance to explore what makes Mon Mothma tick, and [Stellan] Skarsgård gets a variety of notes to play as the enigmatic Luthen.

Maggie Lovitt, Collider:

The first four episodes of Andor present a story that is unlike any Star Wars series that has come before it. It opts to approach its protagonist from a distance, giving its story the chance to organically evolve as the world at large starts to come into focus. While series like The Mandalorian chose to go in guns blazing, Andor leans into the uneasiness of a slow-burning story thread that is unraveling at both ends.

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair:

Andor could almost exist on its own as an engrossing mystery untethered to any larger saga. Gilroy and Luna—along with actors like Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Fiona Shaw, and a beguilingly villainous Kyle Soller—make a strong case for their doleful thriller, temporarily shifting a massive connected universe away from the cozily nostalgic and toward the jolt of something a little bit new.

Andor premieres September 21 on Disney+.

Billy is back. To promote Bros, the first major studio movie with an all-openly LGBTQ+ cast, Billy Eichner enlisted Paul Rudd for a special installment of Billy on the Street. In the video, Eichner and the Sexiest Man Alive trek around NYC yelling at strangers.

When one woman tells Eichner — who rounds up straight people to see the gay rom-com and later surrounds himself with a “pack of wild lesbians” — that she’s sorry, she has to go, he yells, “I’m sorry I’m not Florence Pugh!” He also confronts a teenager who wonders if there’s a Playboi Carti song in Bros. “You know Playboi Carti?” the teen asks Eichner, who gets called out for not being able to name any of the rapper’s songs. “Name one song by Barbra Streisand, bitch,” he fires back. Missed you, Billy.

Here’s more on Bros:

From the ferocious comic mind of Billy Eichner (Billy on the Street, 2019’s The Lion King, Difficult People, Impeachment: American Crime Story) and the hitmaking brilliance of filmmakers Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Judd Apatow (The King of Staten Island, Trainwreck, The Big Sick), comes Bros, a smart, swoony, and heartfelt comedy about how hard it is to find another tolerable human being to go through life with.

Bros opens in theaters on September 30.

Marilyn Monroe had a prolific life in the spotlight that unfortunately ended too soon. She has been back in the spotlight as of late after Kim Kardashian famously wore Monroe’s iconic dress at the Met Gala earlier this year, which sparked an online debate over what crosses the line when it comes to deceased celebrities.

Ana de Armas was also trying to figure out a way to honor Monroe’s legacy while filming Blonde, the upcoming biopic which chronicles Monroe’s tragic yet eclectic life. In order to get “permission,” de Armas said that the cast and crew wrote a note and left it on Monroe’s grave.

“We got this big card, and everyone in the crew wrote a message to her,” the actress explained to AnOther Mag. “Then we went to the cemetery and put it on her grave. We were asking for permission in a way. Everyone felt a huge responsibility, and we were very aware of the side of the story we were going to tell — the story of Norma Jeane, the person behind this character, Marilyn Monroe. Who was she really?”

The Knives Out actress said that she felt Monroe’s presence all throughout filming, and began to think that she was giving de Armas her blessing. “I would go to sleep and dream I had long conversations with her, or little things — like once we were choosing which color vase we’d put flowers in,” de Armas said. “I don’t want it to seem like I’m saying, ‘Marilyn and I were connected’ — not at all. But I was thinking of her so much, some days I would go home and have dinner and as I was washing the dishes I would just start sobbing, crying and crying, because I had this terrible feeling — I knew I couldn’t fix it.”

Blonde will debut on Netflix on September 28th, though the movie has been in select theaters and has been met with some mixed reviews with talk of questionable sequences. Perhaps it’s time to really let Monroe rest.

(Via IndieWire)

Rudy Giuliani is a walking public gaffe. From his infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference to his unexpected cameo in Borat 2 — and his even more unexpected Cameo, period — the former New York City mayor seems to be his own worst enemy. But it turns out that his unpredictable behavior led some people within the Donald Trump administration to believe that he might be an enemy of the state, too.

As Insider reports, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general H.R. McMaster — who served as Trump’s National Security Advisor for approximately 14 months between 2017 and 2018 — was so convinced that Rudy was acting as a foreign agent that he made sure to be in the room whenever Trump’s pal-turned-personal lawyer came calling around the Oval Office.

That intel comes courtesy of The Divider: Trump in the White House, a new book co-written by The New York Times‘ Peter Baker and The New Yorker‘s Susan Glasser. The book claims that McMaster, who replaced Michael Flynn as security advisor, told others that he was “so concerned about Trump’s friend Rudy Giuliani acting as an ‘influence agent’ on behalf of Turkish or other interests that he had a policy of making sure he was in the Oval Office whenever the former New York mayor visited.”

As Insider’s Sonam Sheth notes, it wasn’t the first time Giuliani had been suspected of operating as a foreign agent:

While working as Trump’s personal defense attorney, Giuliani spearheaded a campaign to dig up dirt on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 US election. His efforts came under prosecutorial scrutiny in 2019 as investigators began examining whether he broke foreign lobbying laws.

Specifically, the Manhattan US attorney’s office wanted to know if Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine were carried out solely in his capacity as Trump’s lawyer or whether he was also working on behalf of foreign interests who believed they would benefit from Trump’s reelection.

In early August, The New York Times reported that the investigation into Giuliani was “winding down with no indictment expected.”

Unfortunately, Rudy’s legal troubles are far from over. He remains the target of a grand jury investigation in Georgia into his and Trump’s alleged election meddling. Marrying his cousin, however, was not illegal.

(Via Insider)