Category: Viral

After Taylor Swift’s Folklore swept in last summer to dominate 2020, and ended picking up the Grammy for Album Of The Year at the ceremony a few months ago, it seemed like her stranglehold on the industry might finally be rescinding, leaving room for her acolytes like Olivia Rodrigo to shine when it comes to record-breaking pop. But they’d be wrong — and forgetting about one little thing. Folklore wasn’t even the only album Taylor released while the rest of us were just barely keeping afloat during quarantine. Her second 2020 record, Evermore, came out right before Christmas, and it seems like that timing might have something to do with that album’s latest record-breaking feat.

According to the Twitter account for industry monitor, Chart Data, Evermore is on pace to break the all-time record for most vinyl sold in a week, with between 80,000-100,000. Is that fans who are just now getting the album in the mail? Buying extra copies for their friends to stream all summer? Is it Olivia fans realizing they need to check back in on the woman who inspired their fav? No, truthfully this is the first weekend where the album has been available on vinyl in stores, and perhaps the pre-orders are counted in that whopping number, too. Given this impressive introduction, Evermore just became the next album on the docket to rack up accolades for Tay. Odds are, this album’s story has only just begun.

The NBA Playoffs is often described as a marathon, not a sprint, but in the current era of social media many struggle not to overreact wildly from game-to-game during seven game series. It can be hard to take the long view and not resort to hyperbole based off of one result, and as such some analysts and talking heads can’t help but have their takes swing violently from night to night when discussing the same series.

Among those who feels it is his duty to fire off a take about every game and offer a proclamation about what it means going forward is ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, who fired off this thought after the Blazers dropped Game 3 to the Nuggets as Nikola Jokic went off once again.

Calling out Kanter’s defense isn’t necessarily breaking news, but lumping Jusuf Nurkic in with Kanter, when by every possible metric the Blazers have been buoyed by Nurkic’s presence in the second half of the season on that end, was a significant misstep. On Saturday afternoon, Nurkic dominated in a Portland win to even the series at 2-2, and afterwards he responded to Perkins by saying it was a “weak” thing to say and noting that in the modern NBA, Perkins would be little more than a mascot.

Perkins, unsurprisingly, had a response ready, highlighting his own defensive prowess in his prime in Boston.

https://twitter.com/KendrickPerkins/status/1398781633868845056

The way Perk’s career came to a close has certainly clouded the memory of how solid he was for those Celtics teams of the late aughts, and he did have some tremendous defensive performances. That said, Nurkic’s point about the modern NBA is salient as how often bigs are tasked with guarding in space would’ve likely made Perkins less effective. The real lesson in all of this is to remember that in seven-game series, especially one that has gone back-and-forth with each team getting wins, is to fight the urge to make wild declarations, even if your job is to be a takesmith as Perkins is at ESPN.

The baseball gods, if you believe in such divine creatures, are fickle as hell. Especially when you play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Already besieged with cost certainty and ownership more interested in the bottom line than investing in talent on the field, the Steel City’s baseball team has seen some wild things happen over the years. And often they unfortunately go against their favor.

Earlier in the week, for example, the Pirates gave up a run on a play best described as the entire team forgetting how to play baseball. But on Saturday, the Pirates got one back in a game against another team struggling to prioritize winning, the Colorado Rockies.

With the Pirates already up 1-0 in the third, a wild throw into left field gave them an easy second run on an E2. But the throw never really needed to happen: the pitch that led up to the throw to third was outside for a ball. A fourth ball, which would have put the man trying to steal third on the base anyway.

Instead, the ball got past the third baseman nowhere near the bag, and that runner trotted home instead. It’s little consolation for what happened earlier in the week, as it was an error far more routine than a first baseman forgetting that he can simply tag first base to record the final out of an inning. But it is a sign that even teams that forget how to play baseball can benefit from the weirdness of the sport we know and love to see people struggling to execute during the summer months.

While a huge portion of the streaming audience is spending their Memorial Day weekend watching the Friends reunion special, those with Disney+ were given a new add-on option in the new Cruella movie. The Emma Stone-led origin story of the villain from 101 Dalmatians franchise is best described as “gritty,” even if the biggest news from the movie was anything but. That’s because a supposed leak of a pivotal scene from the film went viral, in large part because it was bizarrely funny out of context.

Serious spoilers ahead here, as the rest of the post discusses one of the major reveals from the movie that hit the Disney streaming service (and theaters) this weekend. But, well, Cruella’s origin story apparently follows a lot of other famous works: namely that she’s evil and really hates Dalmatians for a very personal reason: they killed her mother.

In a clip that went viral on Twitter this weekend, a scene from the movie apparently showed the death of Cruella’s mother in front of her as a child. And it was, well, dogs to blame. Dogs running wild and pushing her mother over a cliff to her death. No, really. Many people were shocked that the film resorted to a classic motivational trope here, especially with it being dogs killing a human. Which is why the clip, and many tweets referencing it, quickly went viral.

That disbelief, however, soon gave way to memes that doubled down on the absurdity of dogs plotting the death of a girl’s mother. Especially out of context, the clip was pretty absurd.

It had a few people offering up ideas for future origin stories.

Or even more nuanced origin ideas that would have spawned fewer memes.

There were just other really good Cruella memes out there, too.

We’ll see if Disney continues down this path for antagonist origin stories, but this one didn’t go down as gritty as they hoped this time around.

After Denver swiped homecourt back in a thrilling Game 3 performance, it was imperative for the Blazers to get at least one win at home to tie things up at 2-2 going back to Colorado in Game 4. They managed to do just that, blitzing the Nuggets from the opening tip and following the lead of Jusuf Nurkic, Norman Powell, and CJ McCollum in a rare game where Damian Lillard was an afterthought.

Nurkic was the best big man on the court for either team in Game 4, dominating his matchup with Nikola Jokic. Jokic had just 16 points and nine rebounds on 7-of-18 shooting, looking a touch out of sync against his former teammate who for the first time all series was able to truly get the best of the presumptive MVP. Nurkic had 17 points, six rebounds, and two blocks in 27 minutes of action, posting a ridiculous +32 in those minutes to help the Blazers run away with an easy win.

The scoring load fell to Norman Powell on the night, as he was hot from the opening tip, scoring the Blazers first two baskets on his way to 29 points on 11-of-15 shooting, including knocking down four threes. Powell started by getting downhill and then found his stroke from distance, as he took immense pressure off of Lillard who was getting the focus of Denver’s defensive efforts.

McCollum then helped to finish things off in the third quarter as the Blazers ran out to a 32-point lead at one point, putting to rest any thought of a Denver comeback.

The game was done by the late third, and the Moda Center crowd even had time to serenade Carmelo Anthony with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday for the legend.

In the end, Denver’s bench pulled things back to look a touch more respectable in a 115-95 loss, but it was simply an overwhelming performance by the Blazers in a much-needed win. The Nuggets shot just 34 percent from the field and 29.5 percent from the three-point line, unable to overcome an off-night from Jokic to stay attached to Portland, who lit it up at a 50 percent clip from the field and 36.9 percent from deep. The series now returns to Denver tied at 2-2, with neither team seemingly able to grab a firm hold on the series for very long, as each adjusts and counters the other.

Last year’s pandemic certainly threw a wrench into new music plans for plenty of performers, including some of the biggest pop stars in the world. And unlike his good friend Taylor Swift, who used the pandemic to churn out both folklore and evermore, Ed Sheeran has been sitting on a big new single that he says will usher in his next era.

In a recent interview with Radio 1’s Jordan North, Sheeran let fans know that he was planning to have a brand new song to kick off his set at his Big Weekend show for the station. “My first single was meant to be ready for now, and I was meant to be playing it at One Big Weekend,” he said. “So it does feel a bit weird playing — starting with ‘Castle On The Hill’ instead of the new tune, but, it’s great, I’m using a band for the first time, and it feels like the next stage.”

The show this weekend will be the first time fans have seen Sheeran perform with a full band, as he explains to the interviewer. “I’ve done band stuff before, but only kind of at the request of TV shows,” Sheeran explained. “I’ve done the loop pedal thing now for fifteen years, ten years professionally, and the last tour that I did… the most people of any tour went to that tour. So I’m kind of like I’ve done that, I’ve done the loop pedal show I need to do something different. What I like about it is what I felt were the weakest bits of the tour are some of the songs that needed a band, like ‘Castle On The Hill’ and ‘Thinking Out Loud’ and the best bits of the tour needed pedal, like ‘Shape Of You’ and ‘Bloodstream.” Now the set feels very on level with each other. It’s kind of a learning experience for me.’”

Sheeran said he’s doing two new songs he’s never played live, “Afterglow,” released at Christmas, and another new one he’s played only at a funeral before. And to the question of expecting a new album soon Sheeran answers: “Yeah, yeah, the new album is coming.” So there you have it. Watch the whole interview above, and look out for new music from Ed Sheeran coming up very soon after this weekend’s performance.

The Dallas Mavericks looked like they were headed for a 3-0 series lead on Friday night when they jumped out to a 30-11 lead in the first quarter against the Clippers, but saw L.A. steadily claw their way back into the game, eventually pulling away for a 118-108 win to suddenly make it a series at 2-1.

That the Clippers got the win in a game where Dallas remained scorching hot from three (20-of-39) and Luka Doncic went for 44 points has to make them feel pretty good going forward. On the other side, the Mavs still have to be happy with the looks they’re creating and the fact that their star continues to dominate, but there is some concern about Doncic’s health moving forward.

During the second half of Game 3, Doncic had a heating pad on his shoulder and was dealing with neck and left arm pain, and after some evaluation on Saturday, he is now listed as questionable for Game 4 on Sunday with a cervical strain (neck strain).

That is obviously worrisome for the Mavs, as they will only go as far as Doncic takes them, particularly with the struggles of Kristaps Porzingis early in this series. Doncic was still able to hit some massive shots down the stretch as he dealt with the neck injury, but it’s certainly not an ideal situation for Dallas or Doncic. It would be fairly shocking if he were to not play in Game 4, but how effective he can be remains to be seen in a game Dallas needs to win to avoid seeing homecourt slip back to L.A.

The Friends reunion special may not have satisfied every fan with new details and more scripted comedy, but it sure did draw a lot of eyeballs on HBO Max. According to reports, the special saw a superhero movie-level audience in its first few days on the platform, rivaling movies like Wonder Woman 1984 as far as the initial audience reached.

As Variety detailed, a third party metrics site measured the Friends reunion compared to other major releases on HBO Max and found it actually came close to the biggest title HBO Max has seen to date. The reunion’s numbers dwarfed major movie releases like Mortal Kombat and even got close to the Christmas Day release of the Wonder Woman sequel.

“Friends: The Reunion” was watched by an estimated 29% of U.S. streaming households on May 27, the first day of its release, as measured by TVision, a connected-TV analytics provider. Viewers of the special on HBO Max were 55.4% female, and more than 50% were in the 35-54 age demo.

By comparison, DC’s “Wonder Woman 1984” reached 32% of U.S. streaming households when it bowed on Christmas Day 2020 on HBO Max, per TVision. According to Nielsen, “WW84” was the most-viewed title across U.S. streaming services for Dec. 21-27, 2020, registering nearly 2.3 billion minutes streamed.

Despite not beating out Wonder Woman 1984, nearly 30 percent of the entire streaming landscape is a huge portion of viewership for a single event in the ever-fragmented landscape. But it’s no surprise the reunion got plenty of eyeballs: that’s why HBO Max was willing to pay millions for the show’s stars to reunite in the first place. Streaming Friends has never been more popular, and anyone who already had HBO Max to do so was obviously going to check out what the special had waiting for them. And whether it was worth the long wait or not, people sure did tune in to find out.

[via Variety]

Lil Yachty has been extremely busy for well over a year now and all that’s added up to the strong comeback he’s made since the release of Lil Boat 3 last spring. More than a year later, Yachty returned with a brand new project, Michigan Boy Boat, an effort that saw him working with some of the best rising and established rappers from the state’s Detroit and Flint areas. A month removed from the mixtape’s release, Yachty continues its promotional run with a brand new video for “Plastic.”

In it, Yachty is accompanied by Icewear Vezzo and Rio Da Yung OG, rappers who both appear on the song, as well as members of his decently-sized crew. The greyscale visual features the group in a fairly laid-back state as they lounge and kick it in a room together. Clips of them recording music and spending time at a strip club also appear throughout the video.

Prior to dropping Michigan Boy Boat, Yachty extended his Lil Boat 3 project with new songs and later shared videos for tracks like “In My Stussy’s” and “Asshole.” He also flexed some freestyle skills in a visual for “Cortex” which came after he was confirmed to appear in the upcoming season of Lil Dicky’s show, Dave which premieres next month on June 16.

You can watch the “Plastic” video above.

At multiple points over the last decade, Future has been given the crown of “toxic king” for things he’s either done outside of music or things he’s said in his songs. The passionate lover that showed his heart on Honest, the rapper’s 2014 album, was quickly replaced by toxicity on his 2017 effort, Hndrxx. Fast-forward to the present and Future once again reached for the “toxic king” crown during his guest appearance on 42 Dugg’s track, “Maybach.”

On it, Future raps, “Tell Steve Harvey I don’t want her / One thing I never seen was a bitch that leave,” which is of course directed at Lori Harvey whom he dated last year.

However, it turns out there was much more to that diss than fans heard on the final version. On the original version of the track, which 42 Dugg shared in a TikTok video, Future not only took a shot at Lori but her current boyfriend Michael B. Jordan as well.

“Must’ve forgot to tell her daddy she begged me not to leave,” Future says after the aforementioned line. “Put baguettes on ya ankles damn near up to ya knees / She didn’t have a choice, but to go f**k a lame after me.”

During a recent interview with The Breakfast Club, 42 Dugg reveals he pushed Future to rap the line because of the attention it would get.

“I told his ass, you need to say that sh*t three more times,” he said. “I was loving it…Future knew too though. He knew what was going on. Future a bad motherf*cker.”

You can listen to the unofficial version of “Maybach” above.

42 Dugg is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.