Category: Viral

The Velvet Underground have influenced generations of musician, and now the band’s original label home, Verve Records, is honoring the group with I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground And Nico. The tribute album is set to release on September 24, and it features contributions from an all-star roster that includes St. Vincent, Kurt Vile, King Princess, Michael Stipe, Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett, and Fontaines DC, among others.

Vile says of his contribution to the album, a cover of “Run Run Run” that was shared today:

“I literally covered ‘Run Run Run’ when I was a kid. In my late teens with my band at the time. So it was pretty cosmic, let’s say. There is a direct connection to certain indie bands and beyond w/ the Velvets. That’s why the Velvets are a classic. You know it can have doo-wop in there and things like that, but it can also have this jagged noisy thing, and it immediately let me feel like I could do anything. The possibilities are endless. You’re completely free. Unapologetic and effortless.”

Listen to Vile’s rendition of “Run Run Run” above and find the I’ll Be Your Mirror tracklist below.

1. Michael Stipe — “Sunday Morning”
2. Matt Berninger — “I’m Waiting For The Man”
3. Sharon Van Etten — “Femme Fatale” Feat. Angel Olsen
4. Andrew Bird & Lucius — “Venus In Furs”
5. Kurt Vile & The Violators — “Run Run Run”
6. St. Vincent and Thomas Bartlett — “All Tomorrow’s Parties”
7. Thurston Moore — “Heroin” Feat. Bobby Gillespie
8. King Princess — “There She Goes Again”
9. Courtney Barnett — “I’ll Be Your Mirror”
10. Fontaines DC — “The Black Angel’s Death Song”
11. Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney — “European Son”

I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute To The Velvet Underground And Nico is out 9/24 via Verve Records. Pre-order it here.

Fans of microtransactions got a bit of good news on Wednesday morning, as 2K Sports announced that its signature sports game, NBA 2K22, will feature a trio of editions with three separate covers and five total cover athletes. Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic will get his first video game cover on the Standard Edition of the game.

The other two editions celebrate the anniversaries of the two primary professional basketball leagues in the United States. The WNBA, which is in the midst of its 25th anniversary season, will get a special edition of the game that features one of its biggest stars, Candace Parker, on the cover. Parker is the first WNBA player to make it onto the cover of an NBA 2K release.

The NBA, meanwhile, is on the verge of its 75th anniversary campaign, which is getting its own unique logo from the league. 2K Sports is getting in on the fun, too, with a special edition of the game that features a trio of legends — retired stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dirk Nowitzki alongside Brooklyn Nets standout Kevin Durant — on its cover.

Dirk, unsurprisingly, decided to have some fun with the whole thing.

NBA 2K22 is slated to be released on Sept. 10, 2021.

Following his first voyage to (technically, the edge of) space, Richard Branson stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night where he gushed about the flight, but also defended it from detractors who aren’t exactly thrilled with the notion of billionaires funding spaceship joyrides. As a geek himself, Colbert understands the scientific implications of Branson’s space mission, but that didn’t stop the late night host from pressing the mogul for his thoughts on the criticism he’s been receiving.

“I see a lot of value in people going to space, but there’s been a lot of pushback from people out there saying, ‘Why spend your money to go do that?’” Colbert said. “What would you say to those people who say that this is a misuse of resources?”

“I think they’re not fully educated to what space does for Earth,” Branson responded before explaining the benefits of the space trip. Via Mediaite:

“It’s connecting the billions of people who are not connected — on telephones, on other things,” he added, noting that placing satellites in space allows people to monitor food distribution, the degradation of rainforests, and climate change.”

Two of Branson’s critics are Seth Meyer and Amy Poehler who roasted the Virgin mogul over on Late Night shortly after his interview with Colbert. Granted, the comedians had words for both Branson and Bezo launching a space race while “we have sh*t to do down here,” Meyers really went to town on Branson’s “space” flight.

“You didn’t go to outer space! You just went pretty high for a plane!” Meyers joked. “You went to outer sky! I mean, really!?! You’re the astronaut equivalent of driving by your ex’s house to see if the lights were on.”

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

In the week leading up to the release of his latest, self-titled album, Vince Staples, Long Beach native Vince Staples appeared on Apple Music’s Radio 1 show to premiere the single “Are You With That?” for host Zane Lowe. In describing the record’s new, more mainstream-friendly sound, Vince said this: “I was just having a lot of conversations with a lot of people around me… and people always say, ‘Oh, you used to always say these stories and this and that, and I don’t notice much about these specific things. Why don’t you put it into the music?’ And it’ll be stuff that has been in songs for years. And then I realized the backdrop wasn’t right for certain things I was saying or vice versa.”

To translate: Civilians missed the pungent reality of Vince’s detailed storytelling and trenchant, hard-won observations because they couldn’t get past the admittedly sometimes bonkers beats he shared them over. Now, Vince Staples is way too good of a rapper with way too much authenticity behind his rhymes to be getting overlooked this way — a flag I’ve been waving since first hearing him tearing up Common’s “Kingdom” back in 2014 — so it was one of those problems that needed correction, despite being a much better problem to have than the ones he describes in his music.

Vince is currently at a place in his career where this approach makes all the sense in the world. I’ve had conversations about his music similar to the ones he described to Apple Music, where fans of all ages and affiliations would argue that they just couldn’t get past those alarming beats — even those who were inclined to see past his galling comments about the ‘90s being overrated or his profuse praise for Millennial whipping boys like Bow Wow and Ray J. Rap, for all the noise its greatest proponents make about the importance of lyrical innovation, is prefaced by the beats that rappers choose to rhyme on, making the production every bit as important as the bars themselves.

To that end, he’s recruited longtime friend and frequent collaborator Kenny Beats to recalibrate the abrasive soundscapes that scared away potential listeners who warily approached his music after finding that they loved his incorrigible online personality. Rather than the bombast of a “Blue Suede” or the mid-apocalyptic futurism of his work on Big Fish Theory, listeners are now confronted with the easygoing haze of “Are You With That?” The subject matter is no less harrowing but now, the spoonful of honey helps mask the flavor of the bitter medicine with which Vince laces each of his stony-eyed recollections — which even he sometimes seems to feel ambivalent about.

We saw a little bit of this with FM!, the bouncy collection of summery bangers from 2019 that saw Vince leaning a bit toward the territory of radio friendliness, but here, he finally wholeheartedly embraces the role of an artist — something he always claimed he wasn’t. Now that he sees value in sharing the sometimes grim stories that have made up his oeuvre in a more accessible fashion, Kenny’s beats make his responsibilities a much lighter lift. It’s easier to sink into the fatalism of “Sundown Town” when the song sounds almost like a PBR&B standard made for lounging on a lazy summer day.

Likewise, “Take Me Home” would be right at home on a YouTube lo-fi station, even with its sobering depiction of gangbanging activities and their deleterious effect on his relationships. And the mellow mood of the top-down cruising anthem “Taking Trips,” camouflages the paranoid tension sizzling just below the surface without undercutting it. Instead, chill-inducing lines like “Can’t even hit the beach without my heat, it’s in my trunks” hit harder because of the relaxed atmosphere — just like an outbreak of gunshots on a warm summer day, right when you least expect it.

Clocking in at a truly breezy 22 minutes and with two interludes among its 10 tracks, it’s an even quicker listen than FM! — yet, due to its comforting sonic palette, it feels more cozy than disappointing, prompting repeat playthroughs to try and catch the witty wordplay and cushy vibes of Kenny Beats’ production. Vince Staples is just one of two planned projects this year, marking an uptick in productivity for the young rapper and as functions as something of a checkpoint delineating the break between Vince Staples, the defiant upstart, and Vince Staples, the potential star.

Vince Staples is out now via Blacksmith Recordings/Motown Records. Get it here.

Tinashe looks like she’s having the time of her life in the video for “Bouncin,” a simple but exuberant affair in which she sticks to her strengths — namely, performing elaborate choreography as she flirts with her male co-star. In this video, the twist is the addition of some small trampolines for Tinashe and her dance team, which allow for some theme-appropriate moves that bring a new dimension to the usual kinetic direction of Tinashe’s visuals.

The video arrived just five days after the song premiered on New Music Friday, following a rollout strategy that has gotten rarer and rarer in the streaming era. It’s Tinashe’s second video of the year after the clip for “Pasadena” featuring Compton rapper Buddy and appears to be building up to her new, independently released fifth album, which fans believe will be titled 333 after Tinashe shared a teaser about the album on social media.

That speculation was reinforced by Tinashe’s announcement of the 333 Tour which will start in September and include 22 stops, concluding with a live stream on Moment House in late October. 333 will be Tinashashe’s first album since 2019’s Songs For You, which she also released independently after leaving RCA Records in 2018.

Watch Tinashe’s “Bouncin” video above.

It’s been more than six months since MAGA insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6th, and as individuals involved in those riots continue to be apprehended and questioned, while others have their day in court, we’re learning more about exactly what went down. Stephen Colbert shared some of the latest news concerning the matter in a segment he likes to call “Seditionist Round Up Roundup.”

Among those included in Colbert’s roundup was Pauline Bauer, a pizzeria owner—also from Pennsylvania—who reportedly demanded that a police officer “Bring Nancy Pelosi out here now… We want to hang that f*cking bitch.” But Bauer isn’t worried about any legal repercussions. She has opted to represent herself, and offered up a rather surprising defense: that she cannot be held accountable for her actions because she is “a divinely empowered entity immune from laws.” Which led Colbert to wonder: “If you’re chosen by God to be above the laws of government, why do you care who’s in charge of it?”

Even more amazingly, there was Douglas Jensen. “Like a lot of these idiots, he posted a video of himself at the insurrection,” Colbert explained. “Unlike a lot of them, he didn’t know exactly where he was.” In the video, Jensen provides some on-camera narration where he shows himself “touching the f*cking White House!” (It was the Capitol Building.) He went on to repeat, “I am at the White House, just so you know.” (Again, he was not, just so you know.) As for where he is now?

“Today, Jensen was released from federal custody to house arrest because a judge found that he couldn’t have preplanned his actions because ‘he didn’t even know where he was,’” Colbert explained. “That is a new one—pleading not guilty by reason of stupidity.”

You can watch the full clip above.

Unlike Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Joel Kinnaman, Jared Leto will not reprise his role from David Ayer’s Suicide Squad in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. The superhero film won’t feature the Joker at all, so don’t expect to see Joaquin Phoenix or another actor (Tim Robinson or GTFO) playing the Clown Prince of Crime either. Back in 2019, Gunn fielded a question from an Instagram follower about how he could “justify a Suicide Squad movie” without the Joker. “No one but me and a few others know all the characters in the movie, but if the Joker isn’t in the film, I don’t think it would be strange as he isn’t a part of the Suicide Squad in the comics,” he wrote. Gunn elaborated on his decision to leave out “Mr. J” in a recent interview with the New York Times.

“Joker, no. I just don’t know why Joker would be in the Suicide Squad,” the filmmaker said when asked if he considered bringing back the Joker or Will Smith’s Deadshot. “He wouldn’t be helpful in that type of war situation. Will — I really wanted to work with Idris [Elba]. It is a multi-protagonist film. We go off for a while with Margot, and Daniela [Melchior] is the heart of the film in a lot of ways. But if there’s one protagonist, it’s Idris”:

I wanted somebody who had that gruff, Unforgiven-type feeling about him. This guy who had been reduced from being a bigshot supervillain — he took Superman out of the sky — who is now scraping gum off the floor at the beginning of the movie. He absolutely doesn’t want any part of it — he just has accepted this is his life. And I just think that character is Idris Elba.

Good call. Also a good call: keeping The Suicide Squad set a rat-free zone.

(Via the New York Times)

The ’90s — specifically, the year 1990 — was a great time to be Robert Matthew Van Winkle, who is better known as Vanilla Ice. His major label debut album, To The Extreme, was No. 1, as was his career-defining single “Ice Ice Baby.” He hasn’t experienced a high level of commercial success with his music since then, though, so it’s understandable that he looks back on the time fondly. He took it to the extreme recently, though, by declaring that no decade since the ’90s has been as good because computers have “ruined the world.”

In a new TMZ video, the person behind the camera asked Ice why everybody is “so infatuated with the ’90s.” With no hesitation, Ice responded, “Because it was the greatest decade ever before computers ruined the world. You have to realize that in 2004, the iPhone came out, right? What’s happened in pop culture since 2004 to ’21? Nothing! It’s the lost generation. Pop culture’s dead! So [it was] the last generation where pop culture was alive where you had fashion that actually mimicked the music.”

Although the rapper continues to perform live, his most recent album was 2011’s W.T.F. (Wisdom, Tenacity And Focus). He also makes occasional movie appearances, like in the 2020’s The Wrong Missy and 2017’s Sandy Wexler.

WARNING: Spoilers for Loki Episode 6 will be found below
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Heading into the Loki season finale, rumors abounded that Kang the Conqueror would reveal himself as the puppet-master behind the Time Variance Authority, and more importantly, the person behind the circumstances that brought Tom Hiddleston’s Loki Variant and Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie together. But while the show was peppered with numerous Easter eggs pointing to Kang, there was just as equally a chance that the series’ big bad would be a Loki. Thematically, it would fit with the show’s depiction of Loki as a survivor who’s doomed to be alone, and some seemingly savvy MCU fans didn’t think Marvel would just drop Kang into the final episode of Loki.

Surprise! That’s exactly what Marvel did, and the entire MCU is about to go through some things.

Played by Jonathan Majors, Kang has a long comic book history of being one of The Avengers’ most formidable foes as he’s shown no hesitation in tearing apart time and reality to crush his enemies. In the Loki finale, Loki and Sylvie match wits with a version of Kang who has been “pruning” the Sacred Timeline to prevent a Multiversal War from happening. He offers Loki and Sylvie a choice: Take over for him, keeping the timeline in order, or kill him and watch as the Multiverse tears itself apart. Sylvie chooses the latter, and it’s not going to end well, according to Loki head writer Michael Waldron.

Via Marvel:

“You had to leave a lot of meat on the bone in terms of how evil he could be, because that’s He Who Remains’ whole thing, that it’s not me who you should be afraid of,” Waldron continues. “‘It’s the other versions of me that are going to come.’ It was trying to really hint at that terrifying evil within without going all the way there.” In Waldon’s own words, he was just trying to write him as a “very charismatic sociopath.”

With the Multiverse officially unleashed, Kang’s conquering is already in motion as Loki arrives in a TVA that no longer recognizes him and now has a single statue of Kang looming in the background instead of the Time Keepers. While Marvel has only confirmed that Kang will appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, his presence will undoubtedly be felt in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (It’s right there in the title.) The now-splintering Multiverse will only further fuel theories that Spider-Man: No Way Home will have some alternate reality shenanigans, and it’s a pretty safe bet that Marvel has been holding back its trailer until the events of the Loki finale unfolded.

Welcome to the age of Kang, folks.

(Via Marvel)

Baltimore hardcore band Turnstile — aka “the friendliest hardcore band on the planet” — are officially following up their 2018 record Time & Space with a brand new project. Eagle-eyed fans already caught wind of the release due to the band posting a local billboard announcing the record on their Instagram earlier in the week, but today marks the official announce along with new music. Glow On is coming out on August 27, and the lead single, out today, is called “Alien Love Call” and features Blood Orange. Another recently-shared new single, “Mystery,” will also be included on the record.

The band worked with producer Mike Elizondo on the album, and it was also co-produced by their own Brendan Yates. This full-length album follows up their recently-released new EP, Turnstile Love Connection, and includes the title track of that release. Along with his feature on “Alien Love Call,” Blood Orange also appears on the tracks “Lonely Dezires” and contributes vocals on “Endless.”

Listen to “Alien Love Call” above and check out the Glow On tracklist below.

1. “Mystery”
2. “Blackout”
3. “Don’t Play”
4. “Underwater Boi”
5. “Holiday”
6. “Humanoid/Shake It Up”
7. “Endless”
8. “Fly Again”
9. “Alien Love Call” Feat. Blood Orange
10. “Wild Wrld”
11. “Dance-Off”
12. “New Heart Design”
13. “T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection)”
14. “No Surprises”
15. “Lonely Dezires” Feat. Blood Orange

Glow On is out 8/27 via Roadrunner Records. Pre-order it here.