Category: Viral

We last heard from Bad Bunny on his 2023 album Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana. Well, here’s some good, unexpected news: Benito has a new album coming out very soon, as today (December 26), he announced Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which is set for release on January 5. He also shared a new song, “Pitorro De Coco,” as well.

The Apple Music page for the album indicates the project will have 17 tracks, including the previously released “El Clúb.”

In an interview from February, Bunny revealed he was in Puerto Rico, writing music. He said, “I walk around with my phone and any time an idea or melody comes to me, I write it up in the Notes app and record a voice note.” He was also asked about the future of Puerto Rico, and he said, “Man, I love that you’re asking me about this because yesterday I was writing a song about this. I don’t know when this interview will be out so I can’t share much about it, but if we were talking in private, I’d tell you so much because I woke up at 4 a.m. in a dreamlike state and wrote a beautiful song about this.”

Listen to “Pitorro De Coco” above.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos is out 01/05/2025 via Rimas Entertainment. Find more information here.

Earlier this year, Sault released a new album… sort of. Acts Of Faith came out in July, but the UK collective released it as a single audio file. Now, though, they’ve gone ahead and given the project a more conventional modern release, as it unexpectedly hit streaming services on Christmas yesterday.

This came after the group shared closing track “Pray For Me” as a single last week.

The band, of course, has a history of unconventional release strategies. Most notably, in November 2022, they released five surprise albums on the same day. Previously, they released the album Nine but only made it available for 99 days.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, creative director Tino Schaedler, a Sault collaborator, was honored at the 2024 UPROXX Sound + Vision Awards by being named the the Vanguard Virtuoso, which “highlights visionary collaborators who empower artists and help drive music culture forward.”

Listen to “Pray For Me” above and find the Acts Of Faith album cover and tracklist below.

Sault’s Acts Of Faith Album Cover Artwork

Sault’s Acts Of Faith Tracklist

1. “I Look For You”
2. “Set Your Spirit Free”
3. “God Will Help You Heal”
4. “Heal”
5. “Soul Clean”
6. “The Lesson Is Over”
7. “Someone To Love You”
8. “Signs”
9. “Pray For Me”

Acts Of Faith is out now via Forever Living Originals. Find more information here.

Will Elliot Stabler addicts ever see their hot-headed detective return to undercover life? Yes. Will it happen soon? That sounds increasingly unlikely.

Law & Order‘s customary Thursday night extravaganza hit a slight snag this fall when the flagship series and SVU returned, and Law & Order: Organized Crime was not among the crop of shows churning out new episodes.

The darker-than-usual Law & Order spin off had suffered from delayed renewal news before NBC announced that the show would move to Peacock. At the time, that update was promising, given the show’s more serialized format (wherein crimes are not handily solved within an hour) that could lend itself well to bingewatching. And although the show has been missing hot octopus drama of late, Christopher Meloni revealed that he was penning an episode for Mariska Hargitay to crossover as Olivia Benson.

Then the updates stopped for a few months, but Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva has acquired the latest scoop. Production had been humming along but was left dangling due to showrunner John Shiban leaving his position in late November. To make matters sound worse, Shiban was the series’ fifth showrunner, and production went on “pause” for weeks. The series reportedly resumed filming with original showrunner Matt Olmstead coming back as an executive producer, not as showrunner:

“No new showrunner of Organized Crime has been named. Olmstead has been drafted back to help with the remaining scripts. Most Season 5 scripts have been written, with production on the 10-episode installment about halfway through, I hear.”

Previously, NBCUniversal hadn’t revealed a return date for the fifth season, and that hasn’t changed. Yet.

Organized Crime last aired an episode in May, and it looks like the series won’t achieve a one-year return, but perhaps Olmstead will rally hard, and Stabler could surprise us. Also, Mariska Hargitay has been vocal about Meloni still being welcome on SVU, and that invitation could come in handy if Organized Crime‘s current troubles jeopardize its status in the long run.

If all else fails, the entire Law & Order universe is streaming on Peacock.

Kendrick Lamar‘s eventful 2024 will continue into 2025 with a Super Bowl Halftime Show performance and what’s expected to be a big night at the Grammys. The rapper is up for Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for “Not Like Us,” as well as Best Rap Song, among other categories.

Eminem think it’s going to be a clean sweep for Lamar.

“It’s very stiff competition. Kendrick is gonna sweep that sh*t,” he said during SiriusXM’s “Shade 45” 20th anniversary special. “He’s going to, and he should.”

Eminem and Lamar are both nominated for Best Rap Performance, while GNX likely would have been up for Best Rap Album, like The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce), but it came out too late to be eligible.

Eminem previously called Kendrick “at the very, very top tier of lyricists. Not just of this generation, but of all time.” Ed Sheeran also once shared a story about how Lamar impressed the “Lose Yourself” rapper:

“Eminem heard that Kendrick Lamar was the best rapper and he invited him to the studio to get him on a song. He arrived and Kendrick came with all his mates and Eminem said, ‘I just want you in the studio, just you on your own and then my engineer is gonna come in and then record you doing it, but your mates aren’t allowed in.’ Kendrick did it, wrote a sick verse, and then everyone came in to listen to it. Eminem said that he did it to test Kendrick because he thought he had a ghostwriter. He then realized that he didn’t then claimed [Kendrick] was the best.”

You can listen to the “Shade 45” interview here.

LeBron James stared into the camera after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in a Christmas Day thriller and decided to address the elephant in the room. For years, Christmas has been the NBA’s premier regular season showcase, only in 2024, that looked like it was not going to be the case for too much longer. Its slate of games lost some luster over the course of the year due to injuries and teams not quite meeting their preseason expectations, while the NFL put four playoff teams on the air, along with a halftime performance in one of the games by Beyoncé.

It set up for a pretty familiar feeling, one where the NBA does something and it doesn’t matter, because it is not football. And then, the games happened. Four of the five on the NBA side of things were spectacular displays of the sport played at the highest level. One of the NFL games was a dud and the other (the one that had Beyoncé!) was something even worse than a dud the league hadn’t seen since the 1960s. Considering all of this, along with a Lakers win where he was excellent, James looked dead into the camera and said something that sure seemed like he’d prepared to say if the situation presented itself.

“I love the NFL,” James said, “but Christmas is our day.”

The entire day came at what feels like an increasingly strange spot for the NBA. For some reason, everyone has a theory for why things are, in their eyes, going poorly for the league. Defining “going poorly” is pretty impossible and varies from person to person, but for the most part, it involves pointing at ratings and then blaming it on whatever longstanding issue the person has had with the NBA, with problems ranging from “they shoot too many threes” to “Charles Barkley doesn’t take his job seriously enough” to “there are too many uniforms”, among numerous others.

This is all happening at the exact same time that the NFL (and college football) is more popular than ever. Football is as American as [insert bad simile here], and its ability to envelop anything and everything it wants is pretty remarkable. The slow creep into Christmas has gone on for a few years, but in 2024, things were taken to a new level by Roger Goodell and company. The NFL had the bigger games than the NBA. The NFL had the bigger stars from the world of entertainment than the NBA. The NFL had the flashy new streaming platform, while the NBA had ESPN, where Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins hit their word count goals admirably.

But there’s this funny thing about the NBA, which is that for all the bellyaching about one thing or another, the league is better than ever in a number of different ways. It has never had the level of talent spread across the entire league quite like it has now. The very best players in the league are capable of reaching heights no one else ever has. It just worked out a new, $76 billion media rights deal that Adam Silver seems morally opposed to bringing up whenever anyone asks him about the league’s perceived ratings problem in literally any capacity.

Other than that last thing, you can see this by simply turning on a basketball game and watching the level of play. I promise you, as someone who has to watch all of this stuff for a living, the act of sitting down and watching a good basketball game is as good as it gets — again, the level of skill and refinement that exists league-wide is worthy of celebration. Yes, you’re gonna get duds every night when each team plays 82 games (although it is fair to wonder if anything is as bad as a 31-2 NFL game involving two teams that could play at some point in the postseason), but you’re also going to get some absolutely sensational basketball if you know where to look.

Christmas Day served as an emphatic reminder of that. Victor Wembanyama was the latest superstar to have a monster game at Madison Square Garden, as his 42 points were the most that any visitor has ever scored in MSG, but it came in a tight loss to the Knicks. The Mavs, despite trailing by as many as 28 points and seeing Luka Doncic leave with an injury, scratched and clawed their way back before ultimately coming up a bit short against Anthony Edwards and the Wolves. The Sixers, which desperately needed to show some guts, did just that by holding off the Celtics in Boston for their biggest win of the year, and while Nuggets-Suns was the worst game of the day, it still featured two of the 20 or so greatest players of all time in Nikola Jokic and Kevin Durant.

And yet, as has often been the case in the NBA over the years, no two players reminded people of why the game of basketball is so great better than LeBron James and Steph Curry. The two immortals wrote the latest chapter of the greatest rivalry between a pair of individuals since Magic vs. Bird, and you can make a pretty strong case they’ve surpassed that by now. They consistently found answers, they made big plays, hit big shots (Curry even got a double “bang!” from Mike Breen), and rose to meet the moment that inherently comes whenever they step on the floor together. This battle was won by James, maybe the next one will be won by Curry, and before we know it, we’ll blink and realize that there are no more battles for them.

In a number of ways, James and Curry are the two main characters in the story of the NBA over the last 20 years. Even as Father Time is catching up to them, there are few things as good as a game where LeBron is in total control of his surroundings, or Steph tells the rest of the Warriors that he’ll take care of everything — in my lifetime, the list of athletes as consistently magnetic and compelling as these two is awfully short. Beyond all the incredible things that they do off the court, at the end of the day, everything with them comes back to the brilliance they’re capable of producing on it.

There’s a lesson in there for the NBA to take away and apply to itself. A major part of the reason that fans think the NBA is in a state of crisis is how the NBA — the most online professional sports league by some margin — reacts to things. Why would fans not think that, say, the All-Star Game is broken to the point that it triggers an existential crisis when the commissioner and numerous past and present players act like it is? Why would fans not think that there are too many threes being taken when James says there are too many threes being taken, or Silver says the league is “constantly having discussions about whether there are ways to improve stylistically the game on the floor.”

Of course, dismissing criticisms out of hand is not the right answer, but the league shouldn’t spend so much time publicly trying to respond to every critique that gains a bit of traction online. Aside from the benefit of playing football, the NFL’s greatest strength is in its messaging as a league and getting the discourse to bend to its will (which, to be clear, is not always a good thing). They also tinker with the rules constantly (see: the awful new kickoffs), but they’re better than any sports entity at steering and controlling the conversation to, eventually, end at their desired destination, which is that the NFL is the best thing to ever exist.

With that in mind, think about the quote from Silver just above. How, exactly, is anyone supposed to square that quote with what he said right before that?

“I think the game is in a great place,” Silver said, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN. “I love watching the games, and I think we have some of the most skilled athletes in the world competing — and it’s unfair, I think, to the players to lump them into categories as 3-point shooters or a midrange shooter or big man playing under the basket. It’s an amazing game.”

Basketball is, truly, an amazing game — I am extraordinarily biased as someone who makes a living watching it, but I do not think there is a better game on earth. For myriad reasons, the game can feel like it’s either broken or secondary to the off-court drama that, to be clear, is compelling in its own right. On Christmas, we got a reminder of just how great the game of basketball can be as it went head-to-head with the monolith that it has long tried its hardest to avoid (which is a lesson in and of itself). Now, the NBA and everyone around it has to spend the next 364 days remembering this, acting like this, and doing whatever it can to put everyone’s focus and attention on how great the NBA is when played at its highest level.

Netflix did not miss with this year’s holiday programming and counter programming arrangements on the streaming platform. Hot Frosty had the Hallmark-movie-loving contingent covered, and Black Doves was all over the spy-series contingent. The platform then unfurled a Die Hard-like premise in Carry-On, starring Taron Egerton and menacing Jason Bateman with a side of up-to-no-good Theo Rossi for good measure.

The high concept film paired those Die Hard vibes with a Phone Booth-esque execution, and as viewers know, the film ended with Egerton’s TSA agent defeating Traveler and Watcher’s plan, thereby saving countless lives that could have been snuffed out via a nerve agent over the Christmas travel season. The film has rocketed into the Top 10 Netflix weekly chart and already has a path to the all-time chart, so of course this question was coming.

Will There Be A Carry-On Part 2 On Netflix?

At present, no plans have been announced, but in all likelihood, it’s only a matter of time before that Netflix tosses a greenlight out for a second film. This could go various ways, including a story about now-LAPD officer Ethan being targeted by a similar plot at his new job. Or perhaps his own travel plans (as with that trip he took at the end of the first movie) give way to a threat that he must diffuse in the sky. Or Netflix could fully shake up the cast and go with a new TSA agent having a similarly hellish experience.

Egerton, for his part, seemed down for another movie while speaking with Today (via Screenrant): “Yeah, why not… [Sequels] work for Die Hard, so who knows?” He also made sure to specify, “It’s kind of like an extraordinary set of circumstances, so I think it would need a really innovative, creative idea to feel like a worthy idea for a sequel.”

And the wait begins.

The user-voted worst episode of Glee on IMDb is season 5’s “Previously Unaired Christmas.” But that is not Chappell Roan‘s least favorite episode of Fox’s musical comedy-drama that aired for six seasons between 2009 and 2015. Heck, it’s not even her least favorite Christmas episode of Glee.

Earlier this week, Roan capped off her incredible 2024 by sharing her thoughts on the Glee season 3 episode “Extraordinary Merry Christmas” (which received a rare “F” review from The AV Club) on an Instagram account run by Roan and her creative director, Ramisha Sattar.

“This is the worst episode of Glee I’ve ever seen,” Roan said with the episode in the background. “I’m turning it off. I hate it. Next.” She was joking… but also not. In a follow-up post, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer fake-apologized for the backlash to her take. “This is my apology video for the Gleeks that I offended. I am so sorry,” she said while someone off-screen was threatening her with a pair of scissors. “I love every episode of Glee, and I love Kurt and Blaine.”

Roan was brave to speak to her truth (even if “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” might be worse). You can watch the whole saga play out here.

Beyoncé put her stamp on Christmas this year by teaming up with Netflix and the NFL for a halftime show during one of yesterday’s games, which serves as Beyoncé’s first live performance of the year.

Given that Beyoncé hadn’t performed since the end of the Renaissance World Tour in 2023 and Cowboy Carter was released in 2024, her setlist was all live debuts (as setlist.fm notes), giving fans the chance to see Bey perform these songs on stage for the first time.

It wasn’t just Beyoncé, though: for “Blackbird,” she was joined by Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts, while Shaboozey popped up for a medley of “Spaghettii,” “Riiverdance,” and “Sweet Honey Buckiin’” and Post Malone showed up for “Levii’s Jeans.”

Meanwhile, after the performance, Beyoncé teased something coming soon, on January 14. There aren’t any strong clues about what that might be, but some have speculated that Beyoncé is gearing up to announce the first tour dates in support of Cowboy Carter, while others think another album could be on the way.

Find the full setlist below.

Beyoncé’s Christmas Day NFL Halftime Show Setlist

1. “16 Carriages”
2. “Blackbird” with Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts
3. “Ya Ya”
4. “My House”
5. “Spaghettii / Riiverdance / Sweet Honey Buckiin’” with Shaboozey
6. “Levii’s Jeans” with Post Malone
7. “Jolene” (Dolly Parton cover)
8. “Texas Hold ‘Em”

Ice Spice came through with a Christmas gift this year: Yesterday (December 25), she released Y2K!: I’m Just A Girl (Deluxe).

The release features five new songs, including “Hannah Montana” with NLE Choppa and DaBaby, as well as “Popa remix” with Anuel AA.

Back in 2022, Choppa released a song named after Ice Spice. In a 2023 interview, he said of her (as HipHopDX notes), “I got her number, I hit her personally, we talking about music. I don’t text her no more. She changed her number so I like from a distance. She do a lot of big things…Would I date her?…If she wanna go.” In a different interview, he spoke about Ice changing her number, saying, “I mean, she ain’t change it on me! People change their number. Was I part [of] the reason? I don’t know. Probably. You never know.”

Listen to “Hannah Montana” above and find the Y2K!: I’m Just A Girl (Deluxe) cover art and tracklist below.

Ice Spice’s Y2K!: I’m Just A Girl (Deluxe) Album Cover Artwork

Ice Spice’s Y2K!: I’m Just A Girl (Deluxe) Tracklist

1. “Phatt Butt”
2. “Oh Shhh…” with Travis Scott
3. “Popa”
4. “Bitch I’m Packin’” with Gunna
5. “Plenty Sun ”
6. “Did It First” with Central Cee
7. “BB Belt”
8. “Think U The Shit (Fart)”
9. “Gimmie A Light ”
10. “TTYL”
11. “GYAT”
12. “Hannah Montana” with NLE Choppa and DaBaby
13. “So What?”
14. “BB Belt remix” with BB Trickz
15. “Popa remix” with Anuel AA
16. “Like”

Y2K!: I’m Just A Girl (Deluxe) is out now via 10K Projects/Capitol. Find more information here.

On every Taylor’s Version re-recording, Taylor Swift has featured at least one special guest: Maren Morris on Fearless (TV), Phoebe Bridgers on Red (TV), Kendrick Lamar on 1989 (TV), etc. Will Dolly Parton be next?

The country music legend started following Swift on Instagram, which has some Swifties convinced that she’s going to appear on one of the two remaining Taylor’s Version albums: her debut, 2006’s Taylor Swift.

“I’ll never shut up if Queen Dolly is on Debut TV,” one fan wrote, while another added, “IF DOLLY IS ON DEBUT TV IM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PERSON I’LL BECOME.”

Maybe we could get Dolly on “Crazier”? It would be a full circle moment, since the song first appeared on the soundtrack for Hannah Montana: The Movie starring Miley Cyrus… who is Parton’s goddaughter.

Last year, Swift discussed her admiration for Parton.

“Dolly is a force of evolution and transformation in our industry, but she does it with such playful levity it almost looks effortless,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “Her sense of humor and mischief are easily my favorite things about her, because I think it forces the world to reconcile that a woman can be a serious artist and writer who also has raucous fun with it, can make people laugh and be in on every joke. She’s never stopped challenging herself to clear new hurdles and explore new territory artistically, and I think that speaks to her great curiosity about the human condition. She’s a legendary empath and the storyteller for the ages. She’s also having the most fun doing it.”