Category: Viral

Morgan Wallen’s 2021 is off to a phenomenal start and it’s all thanks to his sophomore album Dangerous: The Double Album. The project netted a huge debut on the Billboard album charts, with 265,000 equivalent album units sold. It also earned the biggest streaming week ever for a country album, with 240.18 million on-demand streams. The following week, Dangerous held on to the top spot, and now it’s done so for a third consecutive week.

That means that it joins Taylor Swift’s Folklore as the only albums in the last 12 months to do so. Dangerous is also the first album to top both the regular album and country album charts since Swift’s Red did in 2012 and 2013. In addition to that, Wallen becomes the first male artist since Elvis Presley to spend their first three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and the country albums charts. Presley’s Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits achieved this feat back in 2002.

Wallen’s label, Republic Records, is also responsible for the next three spots on the charts. Pop Smoke’s Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon came in at No. 2, Swift’s Evermore at No. 3, and The Weeknd’s After Hours at No. 4. This marks the first time a label has held the first four spots on the charts since Interscope, which did so in 1996.

(via Billboard)

The Utah Jazz entered Sunday riding an 11-game win streak that vaulted them to the top of the Western Conference standings with a 15-4 record, and were doing so thanks to the NBA’s best three-point shooting attack in terms of volume and efficiency. However, Sunday provided a stiff test in the form of the rival Nuggets in Denver, a rematch of their thrilling first round series in the Bubble that the Nuggets won in seven games.

As was the case in the Bubble, the game started with some ridiculous shooting from both teams, which Denver managed to continue for the entire first half en route to a 25-point lead at the break. Nikola Jokic led the way with 33 first half points, including a 22-point effort in the first quarter that was nothing short of sensational as the Jazz tried just about everyone possible on defense to no avail.

The rest of the way, Jokic was steady, playing the entire third quarter as Denver tried to put Utah away, but the Jazz kept hanging around, cutting the Denver lead to as few as nine. They were never able to sustain a run, though, thanks to Jokic and the unlikely heroics of Facu Campazzo in the second half, as he had 11 points and five assists off the bench to stabilize things for Denver after Gary Harris left the game early and never returned.

Jokic’s final bucket of the evening was a fitting encapsulation of his afternoon, as he simply bullied his way to the hoop and calmly flipped the ball into the hoop despite the contest from two Jazz defenders.

The loss was the first in weeks for the Jazz, who played pretty well in this one but just couldn’t overcome the shooting onslaught they got hit with by the Nuggets early. Denver as a team shot 18-of-28 from three-point range and 54 percent from the field overall. Jokic finished the game 17-of-26 from the field, including a perfect 4-for-4 from three, racking up 47 points to tie his career high along with 12 rebounds and five assists as he picked up his 20th consecutive double-double to start the season.

Sunday afternoon’s performance in a semi-national contest against the league’s hottest team was quite the bullet point on his early MVP resume. As for the Jazz, they fall behind the 16-5 Clippers with the loss but can get back on level terms at the top of the West against the Pistons on Tuesday, as they look to start another winning streak before heading East.

Newt Gingrich hasn’t had any official political power since leaving the House of Representatives in 1999, but he’s remained an active — or at least loud — member of the GOP. Back in December, he made news after complaining that Georgia was making it too easy to vote, implying that Republicans only win by making it difficult. And on Saturday he decided it was a good idea to tweet out something offensive in at least two ways.

Offensive part, the first: Gingrich was defending Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new representative known for her QAnon views and declaring some of her colleagues should be murdered, among other horrific things. Offensive part, the second: He did so while saying Democratic lawmakers of color who have come out against her have formed a “lynch mob.”

That Gingrich would use such language to describe Maxine Waters, who is African-American, coming after a white woman did not go unnoticed on social media.

Others reminded him of an actual, more recent mob.

Some made jokes about his most un-conservative personal life.

While Gingrich was coming out in defense of someone known to drop anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Mitt Romney — a Republican who’s still in power — was busy calling out her “nonsense.” But perhaps the GOP is more Newt than it is Mitt these days.

The last week has been a rocky one for the stock market, with the GameStop-Reddit business changing the way many look at it in the first place. In the wake of trading apps like RobinHood limiting buys of soaring stocks, many have looked to other stocks or even other currencies worth investing in, hoping the same crowdsourced push can lead to a rise in value.

One fairly popular topic has been Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency based on a meme about a smiling Shiba Inu. The price of Dogecoin has stayed extremely low since it was first created in 2013. But with a massive influx of people now looking to make memestocks popular, it’s apparently one of the next targets of Redditors to, as they say, go “to the moon.”

Elon Musk has even gotten on board, causing Reddit day traders to freak out.

By Sunday, the hashtag #dogetothemoon was trending, the latest Doge-related hashtag to gain momentum ahead of what could be another hectic week of trading. Things haven’t been so smooth for the cryptocurrency, though, which has been unstable to say the least. According to Bloomberg, Dogecoin dipped precipitously on Saturday before seeing a slight rise on Sunday.

The digital coin fell 46% in 24 hours to $0.02582 as of 4:35 p.m. in New York on Saturday, according to CoinMarketCap data. It recovered to $0.03 Sunday, although still less than half of its Friday high, when a blistering sevenfold surge sent the coin to more than $0.07.

Amid the rally, Robinhood temporarily halted instant deposits for crypto buying on Friday, citing “extraordinary market conditions,” a spokesperson told CNBC. Users could still use funds already deposited in the platform to buy cryptos.

Time will tell if the coin, which is worth a fraction of a dollar right now, will ever reach the point Redditors hope. But if you’re hoping to join in, it’s important to know that RobinHood is already limiting buys on the coin as well, meaning it may be just as tough to keep things going for Dogecoin, as it has been for other retail stocks in recent days.

The Warriors thrashed the Pistons on Saturday night but after the game the conversation was focused on some postgame chirping that happened between Juan Toscano-Anderson and Rodney McGruder, which got Golden State’s All-Star vets strangely fired up. First, Klay Thompson who was on the Warriors broadcast for the night, ethered McGruder, saying he’s probably mad because he might be “out of the league” soon.

Draymond Green then followed that up with a two-minute rant on how there’s a lot of “fake tough guys” he’s noticed in the NBA this season, and wanting to know why McGruder of all people is being the enforcer for the Pistons. All of this stemmed from McGruder apparently taking offense to something Toscano-Anderson said to Wayne Ellington in the first half of the game, and Ellington addressed the sudden beef on Sunday.

Ellington called out Thompson and Green for attacking McGruder and his career, while also saying that Green was the one embodying a fake tough guy when he went after McGruder in his postgame presser.

In all, this is, by far, the strangest NBA beef of the season, and the two sides won’t meet again until the yet to be announced second half of the season schedule in Detroit to settle any outstanding issues. Ellington has now said his piece and all parties involved will probably move on, but it is pretty incredible that for a 24-hour period the talk of the NBA world was a Klay/Dray/JTA vs. Ellington/McGruder war of words.

Comic book movies have gone reunion crazy of late, bringing back actors who used to play beloved characters and having them do it again in some kind of multiverse tomfoolery. Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are both popping up in the third Tom Holland Spider-Man (and ditto Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Jamie Foxx’s Electro), while Michael Keaton will return as Batman in the long-in-the-works Flash movie.

One person who hasn’t been asked back is Michelle Pfeiffer, but maybe she should be. In Batman Returns, the actress memorably played Catwoman. And though she has a side hustle as a minor part in the Ant-Man wing of the MCU, she told ScreenRant she’d be down to return, saying, simply, “I would if anyone asked me but no one’s asked me yet.”

You hear that DC? Get your priorities straight! Pfeiffer’s version of the Catwoman was as a woman done wrong — killed, actually, by a rich and powerful man — who comes back as an avenging angel decked out in leather and whips. Her performance is arguably the most raw and righteously furious in the entire comic book movie canon. Besides, at Batman Returns’ end it was suggested that Selina Kyle hadn’t wasted all of her nine lives. And on top of that, Michelle Pfeiffer is a great actress who should be in everything. For now, you can catch her in the quirky cruise ship comedy French Exit, opposite Lucas Hedges, which should hold you over until DC gets on the trolley.

(Via ScreenRant)

It’s been 32 years since Mike Myers and Dana Carvey first teamed up as Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, Illinois music and pop culture nuts with their very own public-access TV show. Over the last handful of years the two have dusted off the beloved characters, popping up on SNL’s 40th anniversary special and, out of costume, at the Oscars and over a mid-pandemic virtual hang. On Saturday they reunited yet again, this time in full Wayne and Garth regalia, for the loftiest reason possible: an Uber Eats Super Bowl promo.

The ad found the pair — now in their late 50s and mid-60s, respectively — recreating their old show, complete with cut-rate logo and basement setting. “2020 was a great year…NOT!” they joked, before trying to sell people on the delivery app for next Sunday’s big game.

There was one catch: They couldn’t legally say the words “Super Bowl.” As per Entertainment Weekly, the term is trademarked by the NFL, and they charge a pretty penny for ads that mention the game, even ones ostensibly reminding viewers about it. And so Wayne and Garth had a little fun with the legal loophole.

“We just wanted to say that we’ll see you soon for the game, which for legal reasons cannot be named,” said Myers’ Wayne, while Garth later mentioned the “gigantic bowl.” It’s not quite up to the classic bit in the first Wayne’s World film in which they mocked product placement, but they gave it the old college try.

You can watch the commercial in the video above.

(Via EW)

Neil Young is currently in the midst of sharing a number of projects from his large archive collection. Last year, he dropped his Homegrown album, which was made up of material Young recorded between June 1974 and January 1975, as well as a compilation project of records he made between 1972 and 1976. Now, thanks to an announcement he made on his official website, it looks like 2021 will see the arrival of a “lost” album from his archives as well.

The singer revealed that the unearthed album, which is titled Johnny’s Island, will see the light of day at some point in the near future. The project dates back to 1982 and was recorded at Commercial Recorders in Honolulu, Hawaii, with help from the same crew that recorded his 12th album, Trans.

“‘Johnny’s Island’ a complete album now being prepared for release at NYA, includes a majority of unreleased tracks including ‘Big Pearl,’ ‘Island In The Sun,’ and ‘Love Hotel,’ plus others you may have heard before,” Young said in the announcement on his website. “It’s a beautiful record coming to you soon.”

If Johnny’s Island arrives this year, it will join Young’s upcoming live album, Way Down In The Rust Bucket, as two of the projects his fans will receive in 2021. Way Down In The Rust Bucket is set to arrive on February 26 with a concert film that was recorded during a 1990 show with Crazy Horse in Santa Cruz, California, which occurred shortly after he released his 18th album, Ragged Glory.

For more information on Johnny’s Island, click here.

Neil Young is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Last summer Blackpink released their long-awaited debut album, The Album, to massive fan excitement and critical fanfare. The group had arrived, even if their ability to perform these gargantuan pop songs live was hampered by the restrictions on concerts globally imposed by the pandemic. Still, the live show is just as much a part of who Blackpink are as anything they’ve ever recorded, so the group concocted a special livestream concert they dubbed “The Show” to run live on Youtube. The live event went down last night, and fans were thrilled to see some of the group’s songs off The Album performed live for the first time.

They were also pleasantly surprised to get a glimpse of Blackpink busting out their collaboration with Lady Gaga on her album Chromactica, which came out last spring. Now a beloved part of the K-pop group’s canon, obviously this track hasn’t been performed live either because Gaga has faced the same touring restrictions they have. And though Gaga didn’t have the ability to appear for her part on the song, the group still pulled it off with flawless choreography and vocals. Clearly, as soon as they can get back on the road this track is going to be a fan-favorite — and the chance to see them perform it with Gaga is hopefully something we’ll all get to experience soon. Check out the clip above.

The Boston Celtics lost a heartbreaker on Saturday night to the Lakers in a 96-95 back and forth affair, but the bigger news coming out of the game was Marcus Smart leaving with a calf injury early in the fourth quarter.

Smart was initially diagnosed with a calf strain, with an MRI to come on Sunday to determine the severity of the injury and the timetable for his return. The results of that MRI were a Grade 1 tear of his “right medial gastrocnemius” muscle, which is the calf muscle, that will keep him out for 2-3 weeks.

The good news is that the injury isn’t so severe to require any surgery, and Smart seems to be in good spirits following his MRI.

Smart’s absence is obviously notable for the Celtics, as he logs the third most minutes on the team and is their fourth leading scorer, which doesn’t even begin to address what he does for Boston’s defense. With Payton Pritchard also out with a knee injury, the backcourt rotation in Boston becomes quite thin, and we’ll have to see if they’re willing to extend Kemba Walker’s minutes a bit more — he’s yet to play more than 29 minutes in a game — as well as who else gets the nod for more minutes in Smart’s absence. Rookie Aaron Nesmith could see more of the floor just to have a larger guard out there.