Category: Viral

Last night, Chloe X Halle shocked the world (and disappointed Normani fans) with the remix to their buzzy hit single, “Do It.” Adding rappers City Girls, Doja Cat, and Mulatto to the track, the sister duo provided a little extra bite to their hit, as well as punching their tickets to the female solidarity train currently barreling through the hip-hop end of the music business. And while it was generally well-received, fans did take issue with one of the new additions: the oft-ridiculed Yung Miami, who has been branded the weaker rapper between the City Girls pair.

“waiting for the day yung miami find the beat,” wrote one fan. The sentiment seemed to be echoed from multiple quarters of the Twitterverse, with fans appearing to agree that Yung Miami’s verse was the worst one due to her offbeat approach.

However, Miami herself presented an unbothered response to the jokes, joining in with some self-deprecating humor of her own. “My verse was for the kids & tik tok period,” she wrote. “Y’all eating me up and I’m living for it.” To those who said that she “ruined” the song though, she shed a few sarcastic emoji tears and wondered whether her critics might grow to love her verse with time. “That’s wrong y’all said I ruined the song,” she joked. “Maybe it gotta grow on y’all idk.”

For what it’s worth, she’s not offbeat at all, but she does rap over a section of track where the snare drops out and leaves a lot of space in between her bars. As for her explanation of the backlash, Miami noted that it’s probably just because “it’s popular to drag me.” Considering the response to the track and its inevitable increase in streams, Miami will likely cry-laugh her way right to the bank.

Listen to Chloe X Halle’s “Do It” remix featuring City Girls, Doja Cat, and Mulatto above.

Moving halfway across the U.S. (during a pandemic, no less) isn’t an easy task, especially if one also considers that Joe Rogan needed to prepare a new studio for the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in Texas. He officially also moved over to Spotify this week with some pre-filmed episodes, including one in which Miley Cyrus flamed him, and one in which he wore a NASA suit while guest Duncan Trussell wore a shiny space suit. And now, it looks like there’s a space theme going on with Rogan’s new studio.

According to commenters on Rogan’s Instagram post, it’s going over well. Bob Saget wrote, “Holy sh*te!!!!” Chris Stapleton remarked, “It looks like Darth Vader’s bedroom.” And MMA commentator Robin Black added, “Dude it’s a f*cking spaceship of truth.”

It’s certainly snazzed up more than his California background, but a $100 million Spotify deal must have led to a few upgrades. Notably, he’s replaced Buddha with a statute of Lord Ganesha, known for removing obstacles in anyone’s way.

His next obstacle (the Friday podcast episode) will be Mike Tyson, although that installment was filmed in California. It should produce some interesting moments, although Tyson would have been a fantastic first guest in Texas, right? Meanwhile, Rogan’s fans are still holding out hope that he’ll bring Alex Jones back, despite Spotify leaving out some controversial episodes (including Jones entries) from his archive. Yet Jones has claimed that he has spoken to Rogan, and there’s no reason to worry because “Joe Rogan’s favorite 100 episodes of the last 10 years or so will be left on YouTube starting December 31 when he goes exclusively to Spotify. For this couple months no man’s land the content will be on both platforms and will be migrating over.”

The BTS Army has made it their task to ensure that everything BTS does will be superlative. That’s what they’ve done with the group’s recent “Dynamite” video, anyway. The video for the first English-language BTS song had the most concurrent viewers during a YouTube premiere of all time, it was the fastest video to reach 10 million views, and it was the first video to eclipse 100 million views in its first 24 hours on the site. On top of that, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making BTS the first all-South Korean artist to ever top the chart.

The “Dynamite” video (which currently has nearly 300 million views) is still out there getting plenty of attention, even two weeks after its release. In fact, it has broken another record: The “Dynamite” visual is now the most commented-on music video in YouTube history, with over 6.5 million comments currently. As Mashable notes, that breaks the record previously set by BTS’ own “DNA” video, which has about 6.3 million comments.

Times have been prosperous for BTS lately. Aside from all the aforementioned, they also performed at the VMAs and won all four of the awards for which they were nominated.

Watch the “Dynamite” video here.

Do people still grow up wanting to be astronauts? It’s a fair question in a world where the space program hardly sparks the same level of awe or maintains the same visibility that it did years ago. It’d be unfair to hang the burden of flipping that trend on Away, Netflix’s new space-focused series (it’s streaming now). But no one associated with the show would likely balk at a suggestion that some might be inspired by this ambitious drama about our capacity for doing awesome things among the stars and the sacrifice endured by those who take on that adventure.

Away is, itself, inspired by something like that, taking both its title and a key part of its story from Chris Jones’ 2014 Esquire feature about astronaut Scott Kelly. Specifically, the telling of Kelly finding out that his sister-in-law, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, had been shot in a mass shooting while he was orbiting high above the Earth on the International Space Station in 2011. But while both Jones and Kelly are involved with this adaptation, Away pivots to a fictional (but one day possible) mission to Mars and a female commander (played by two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank) who is dealing with her husband’s horrifying medical emergency at home.

It probably goes without saying, but that last bit is something that might hit a little bit harder in the midst of a pandemic when Zoom funerals and Facetimed final moments are part of the equation of life and death. Series creator Andrew Hinderaker surely gets that, but he’s also long had an understanding of the pain of being just out of reach of a sick loved one, telling us about his own occasionally long-distance relationship with a partner managing a progressive disease. “She was diagnosed when I was opening up a play as a playwright in Chicago. The experience when someone you love suddenly faces a crisis, and you’re not there and what that feels like… I wanted to write about that,” he says when offering us some background ahead of our conversation with Swank, who he says “elevated, deepened, and complicated her character” before lauding her willingness to collaborate.

This is more than a family drama spread across an unfathomable expanse, though. Away is also about the sometimes repressed ambition of our species and a functional amalgamation of nations that might feel like the show’s most fantastical suggestion in this divisive climate. It’s also about gazing at a sci-fi epic through the eyes of a female commander and flipping genre norms, something that inspired both the show’s creator and its lead. In the following interview, we spoke with Swank about that and how Away stands out in a crowded field, the daunting physical challenge of playing an astronaut, and developing chemistry with castmates like Josh Charles, who plays her husband.

Obviously, you’ve been through quite a few grueling roles. Where would you rank this in terms of physical preparation?

It was more challenging than I thought. I thought that we’d be on these cables or harnesses. Someone in another room is pulling you up and down like your dance partner, so I thought that’s what it was going to be like. I thought, “Oh, that’s not going to be too hard. You’ve just got to move around and look like you’re floating.” It was way harder. The spacesuits weighed like 35 pounds, we were being held by the lowest part of our hips like a pendulum, squeezing our glutes to move forward, squeezing our abs to go back. Lifting and trying to make it sound and look effortless. It was greatly challenging.

This has been adapted and changed a bit from the original source material, but I’m curious how much time you spent with Scott Kelly trying to get a handle on the gutting emotional aspect of this story?

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a lot of time with him. He was on set at one point because he wrote an episode and I got to spend a little bit of time with him, but I didn’t get as much time as I would have naturally liked. There was so much preparation, and so much we were doing and he wasn’t on set at that time. But I did get to speak to a lot of astronauts, which is very informative and helpful for the development process of the character and the story.

I’m sure most of them don’t deal with a circumstance like Scott dealt with or like your character deals with, but what did they tell you about how they handled the distance from loved ones?

Well, they all say that they know that that was a sacrifice they had to make, yet it was still harder than they imagined. It’s something that I think we all take for granted when someone’s with you and you know they’re going to be there. That’s something that I can really relate to. Being an actor, we travel so much and we’re constantly on the road. So we’re constantly away from our loved ones as well, albeit a little differently. But the astronauts I spoke to were in a position where they could communicate via phone, or Skype, or very much like was depicted in the story, but there was definitely an ache in their heart. They would go away for… Jessica Meir was just in space for seven months.

Chemistry is obviously so important for your character and Josh’s character even though you’re not necessarily next to each other for large parts of this. How was that forged?

You do this fun thing where you’re like… When you have a character with a house, it’s supposed to be a family with years of memories, so you have this day where you’re creating memories for photos to go into the house. So we would go and do all these fun things where we’d have a picnic with horses because they’d need to photograph that. So it’s like a crash course of family time with all these different events that we do, like get on bikes and we go for a little bike ride while they’re photographing us. And it’s funny, it’s something that you don’t think about. All the little ins and outs of telling a story that you don’t realize that when you look at a scene and you’re in someone’s house. Of course, those aren’t just faces put on someone else’s body. So, we did get a nice amount of time together and it formed our relationship in a way that was so important. Doing most of our scenes via Skype just added to the element of wanting to see the other person. But it’s an interesting way to, like you said, when you’re not with somebody, to develop that relationship and chemistry.

There have been a lot of interesting space-based dramas that have taken a deeper look at the emotional strain. How do you think this stands out, or stands with things like Ad Astra or Gravity?

I would say that even though this is a story, for sure about a mission to Mars and all the different human beings on their way to Mars on that journey together and what that entails, it’s also this beautiful love story between all those humans, those five astronauts and that gravitational pull of love back on Earth for all of them. It’s the common thread through all human beings that breaks down stereotypes between different races, it shows the human quality that we all want to give and receive love and how important it is to have no regrets. This story deals with those earthly human qualities as much as it does with living your whole purpose and going on a mission to Mars.

Was that the primary pull for you to take this on, to speak to that common thread within a big epic sci-fi story?

Yes. 100 percent. I love that it was dealing with all these layers of humanity, and different races and the LGBTQ storyline as well. I find that a lot of content that we see is mostly told, or has been in the past… it’s getting better now, [but it’s been told] through the white straight male point of view. When you walk down the street, it’s really colorful, there are so many different ways to move in your life and this show, I feel, depicts that. That was a huge drawing point for me. To show all the different colors that are actually out in the world.

‘Away’ is streaming now on Netflix

With most of the year somehow already behind us, it’s time to look ahead to what we are expecting from the remaining months of 2020. In the latest episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen discuss upcoming projects that are slated for release this fall. There’s so much good music to look forward to this fall, and we’ve compiled it all in one convenient list. For the podcast, however, Hyden and Cohen each choose five albums they’re looking forward to for an in-depth discussion.

Each host’s individual list of anticipated albums covers a wide range of genre components, including upcoming projects from artists like A.G. Cook, Sufjan Stevens, Bartees Strange, Mary Lattimore, Matt Berninger, Deftones, Lana Del Rey, Idles, Touche Amore, Beabadoobee, and Respire. If you’re looking for more music, check out Hyden’s full list of anticipated albums here.

Plus, in addition to the albums Hyden and Cohen are looking forward to this fall, this week’s Recommendation Corner is dedicated to Bill Callahan’s forthcoming Gold Record and the debaucherous 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, starring Steve Coogan.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 5 below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

In the months following his release from prison, Tekashi 69 has been building up hype for his next album, TattleTales, which has finally arrived today. To mark the occasion, the rapper has shared a video for “Tutu.”

Considering the often aggressive nature of Tekashi’s music, “Tutu” is a relatively calm track, carried by light synths floating atop a hard-hitting beat. The track sees Tekashi bragging about his affluence and success, saying, “I get money when I want to / I get b*tches when I want to / Tote this pistol when I want to / Money dance step, hit the one-two.” As for the video, it’s mostly Tekashi and some scantily clad women (one of them being Blac Chyna) surrounded by colorful vehicles.

While the rapper’s return to music after prison was highly anticipated, interest seems to have waned in recent months, at least when it comes to the commercial performance of his singles. “Gooba,” his comeback song, managed a peak at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Its follow-up, the Nicki Minaj-featuring “Trollz,” earned him his first No. 1 song. After that, though, “Yaya” barely cracked the chart with a peak at No. 99, while its successor, “Punani,” failed to make the Hot 100 at all.

Watch the “Tutu” video above.

Netflix ushers in September with a new space drama starring Hilary Swank and a creepy Charlie Kaufman film about meeting the in-laws.

Swank and Josh Charles play a couple trying to make it work on different planets in Away, which feels less thrilling than it should be despite the fairly good special effects. For something a bit more grounded — and let’s face it, weird — Kaufman’s family drama starring Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemmons is here to scare you off that relationship milestone for good. Seriously, when will people learn not to let Toni Collette throw their dinner party?

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of September 4.

Away (Netflix series streaming 9/4)

Hilary Swank heads to space in this new sci-fi series that follows an international crew of astronauts going where no man (or woman) has gone before: Mars. Swank plays Emma, a calculated and controlled captain at NASA who leads a team of eclectic geniuses from various ethnic backgrounds — there are astronauts from China, Russia, India, and the UK on board — to the red planet while back home, her husband (Josh Charles) and teenage daughter face their own struggles.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix film streaming 9/4)

Charlie Kaufman’s latest film is based on a book of the same name and stars Chernobyl’s Jessie Buckley as a young woman meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time, which normally would be a happy event except she’s secretly been planning to break up the with the guy. That guy is Jesse Plemons, who seems to be in everything these days, and along with Toni Collette and David Thewlis who plays his parents, they make for hellish dinner mates.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 8/31/20
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace

Avail. 9/1
Adrift
Anaconda
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
Barbershop
Barbie Princess Adventure
Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices
Borgen: Season 1-3
The Boss Baby: Get That Baby!
Children of the Sea
Coneheads
Felipe Esparza: Bad Decisions
Glory
Grease
La Partita / The Match
Magic Mike
The Muppets
Muppets Most Wanted
Not Another Teen Movie
Pineapple Express
Possession
The Producers (2005)
The Promised Neverland: Season 1
Puss in Boots
Red Dragon
Residue
Sex Drive
Sister, Sister: Season 1-6
The Smurfs
True: Friendship Day
Wildlife
Zathura

Avail. 9/2
Bad Boy Billionaires: India
Chef’s Table: BBQ
Freaks – You’re One of Us
Afonso Padilha: Alma de Pobre
Love, Guaranteed
Young Wallander

Avail. 9/4
Away
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
The Lost Okoroshi
Spirit Riding Free: Riding Academy: Part 2

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 9/5/20
Once Upon a Time: Seasons 1-7

Leaving 9/8
Norm of the North: King Sized Adventure

Leaving 9/10
The Forgotten

Amazon Prime’s super-cynical take on superhero culture, The Boys, is back with a deeper (and still graphic) second season. Showunner Eric Kripke maintains the same momentum as his first stab at adapting Garth Ennis’ comic book series, and fortunately, Antony Starr’s Homelander remains the most irrepressible part of the show, even with fierce competition from Aya Cash’s Stormfront. Starr’s magnetism in his role cannot be denied, even if it’s slightly guilt-inducing to watch him botch a transatlantic plane rescue before casually dooming all passengers to death to save his own reputation, moments after dazzling them with a smile. More than any other Supe, he’s actually an outstanding supervillain, and the show’s fans love to hate the guy in the best way.

Starr was cool enough to hop on the phone with us to discuss his anti-Captain America-Superman hybrid, whose escapades grow (as difficult as it might seem to believe) even more f*cked up this season. Homelander fully immerses himself into the depths of his depravity, with Starr driving those acts home. The New Zealand actor told us how he gets into this guy’s super-sick head and why it’s so refreshing to make sure Homelander is a straight-up bad guy. We also discussed a Homelander scene that didn’t make the Amazon cut last year, but there’s hope for the future on that note. And we discussed the sitcom that Starr would enjoy lasering the hell out of, given the opportunity.

It’s gotta be bizarre to promote Season 2 through computer screens and phones after last year’s events and junkets before launch.

Yeah, oh god, where do I start with that? First of all, it’s kind of a blessing and a curse. Obviously, COVID is a curse completely, but doing press in the middle of a pandemic? On the one hand, you get to stroll into your living room, and you don’t have to travel anywhere, but the bummer is that you don’t get to travel anywhere and see any fans, like at Comic-Con, for example. With Season 1, we went to San Diego, so after all that hard work, you get to celebrate the release. So there’s nothing like that now, other than a drive-in screening, but that’s about it. So, it’s a bummer not to have that interaction, out there in the world and to feel it in a slightly more tangible way. The response across the board from the fans and 95% of critics has been very positive, and I’m always tentative about these things, but we feel really good about the season. So it seems like it’s on the right track to keep building a good base and keep the fans that we have happy.

Well, when you do travel, and when you step onto an airplane… are people afraid? Even though you don’t really have blonde hair, people must recognize you.

That’s hilarious, yeah! Actually, that hasn’t happened on a plane, but when we were shooting Season 2 up in Toronto, there was a lot of it then because I had the blonde hair, and unless I wear a hat and glasses, there’s no real way to hide it. In the middle of summer, I tend not to, so it’s funny because there were a lot more odd glances at the potential psychopath in their midst. At the end of the season, the only way to fix the damaged hair is to shave my head. As soon as that happens, the world backs off. The place that it comes up the most on social media is with people taking photos on planes, like, “Oh my god, Antony Starr just got on the plane!” It does make me chuckle, but it’s great. I love to see the fan responses to things because that’s why we do all this. No show is made for anything other an audience.

This season’s certainly more graphic, but it’s also emotionally deeper for the characters. Obviously, Homelander is going through a lot.

That’s what the intention always was for Season 2. Not only to go bigger but deeper, so it would be at least as fulfilling storylines because of that. And I think we pulled it off, and it actually got bigger as well, which is no mean feat. But Eric Kripke was always very conscious of making this a step up or at least as good as Season 1, and I think the very rightful way was to do that to go deeper with characters. Like you say, Homelander is facing a lot of challenges, and that’s one of the things that we really tried to do in Season 2. To take this usually in-control character and really destabilize him. At the start of the season, he feels pretty good about where he’s at and what he’s done in Season 1, and then very swiftly, he has all of that terra firma removed and is basically struggling to find solid ground and reassert himself… which was a lot of fun to fiddle with and discover.

How do you get into the mindset of playing such a reprehensible sadist? I mean, you seem like a pretty nice person.

Ahhhhhhh, but you haven’t met me! See, we’re only talking on the phone! But honestly, it’s just one of those things where everyone’s got a dark side, and we live in a world of duality, and everything contains its opposite, so I think you have to be in touch [with it] if you’re in a creative workplace, the darker parts of yourself as well as the lighter parts because otherwise, it’s gonna be a little saccharine and not honest and probably a bit one-dimensional, so I think there’s that. And then maybe the shorter answer would be that you just really have to have a warped mind in some way, and just let it rip on camera and be able to turn it off.

There is a character who goes through redemption this season. It is not Homelander, but do you think he’s capable of any form of redemption?

I don’t think, oh geez, no, I really don’t think so!

[Laughs] Yeah, he is simply screwed.

I think the damage is done! I wanna say yes, but two things: (1) I think it’s impossible because this guy is so deeply screwed-up from what’s happened to him and the environment he was raised in and going from that to basically becoming a corporate product. I think he’s so messed up that there’s only glimpses and maybe a little bit of hope here and there that’s never gonna be realized; and (2) I don’t think you ever wanna see him redeemed. At least I don’t. I like the idea of the bad guy just being the bad guy. That doesn’t mean that we don’t wanna understand what makes the guy tick, and every now and then, have conflicted feelings about him, but with redemption as a broader sort of ideal, I don’t wanna see Homelander turn into some good guy.

It is refreshing to not see some sort of anti-hero thing going on because that’s flooding movies these days. And then you’ve got Homelander. He really hits you with what he is, and audiences can appreciate that right now.

Yeah, I think so! The way that you described the character is the micro-version of the macro of the show. A lot of what people have appreciated about the show thus far is that we’re not pulling any punches. It is in your face. We’re not trying to be, well, the show has no moral ambiguity. Bad things are bad, and good things are good. it’s very clear, but those things are kinda turned on their head when it comes to character, and I think we pretty saturated with comic-book adaptations and graphic-novel adaptations, and 95% of them are pretty morally upright. Our heroes are pretty morally bankrupt, so I think people like that. There’s still a very clear sense of right and wrong, it’s just being messed with. I think people are ready for a fresh take on the whole genre.

If you could ever plop Homelander into another TV show or movie and have him just destroy everything, what would it be?

Ohhhhhh, you’re basically saying, which show don’t I like?

You could read it like that, yes. Or even something that you do like and want to really see him be a part of.

I think it’d be really interesting to see Homelander. I’ll answer both questions. First of all, I wouldn’t mind seeing Homelander laser all the characters on Full House, the original one. And then in terms of a battle, I would like to see him go into some kind of cartoon world and battle like The Incredibles.

I’m here for that. Sorry, Uncle Jesse! You lost to The Incredibles.

A cartoon version of Homelander! Something to behold, I think.

Now when The Boys arrived, people were feeling some superhero burnout, and this show still hit the spot. Now, however, fans are starved for superhero movies, so do you think the reaction will be different now?

Well, I think that burnout is exactly what [I was talking about above] for Season 1, but for Season 2, you’re right. It’s definitely slim pickings out there. No movies are being released. Bizarrely, a few of us jokingly referred to this show as “a virus we were unleashing on the world,” and of course, the world has unleashed its own virus on us, and that’s kinda created a captive audience to a large extent. It’s a horrible way to have people find the show, but perhaps people are a little more excited about it because there has been such a reduction in the content that’s out there. We’ll see, it’s all speculation right now, but I’m in favor of the timing of it coming out because I think people need relief. It’s a pretty grim time for a lot of people out there, and if we can offer some entertainment and distraction, that can only be a good thing.

Amazon Prime’s ‘The Boys’ premieres Season 2 with three episodes on September 4, with episodes to follow every Friday.

On Thursday, the Atlantic published an article claiming that President Donald Trump canceled his trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in 2018 because, as he reportedly asked senior members of his staff, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” He also referred to the Marines who lost their lives during the World War I battle as “suckers” and, to return to his favorite word, called naval aviator-turned-senator and presidential candidate John McCain a “f*cking loser” for… why?

Trump remained fixated on McCain, one of the few prominent Republicans to continue criticizing him after he won the nomination. When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides.

Trump has since responded to the Atlantic article on (where else?) Twitter.

“I was never a big fan of John McCain,” he wrote, “but the lowering of our Nations American Flags, and the first class funeral he was given by our Country, had to be approved by me, as President, & I did so without hesitation or complaint. Quite the contrary, I felt it was well deserved. I even sent Air Force One to bring his body, in casket, from Arizona to Washington. It was my honor to do so.” Trump added that he never called McCain a “a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES.”

But there’s always a tweet.

The tweet links to an article from 2015, where Trump said, “I don’t like losers” in reference to McCain at an Iowa GOP event. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured, OK. I like people that weren’t captured.” This did not go unnoticed.

Maybe he meant to say “I don’t like the movie Loser with Jason Biggs.” Probably that.

(Via the Atlantic)

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.

Bill Callahan once was known as the quintessential reclusive indie-rock singer-songwriter. Journalists would describe him in profiles as a difficult, remote subject, a taciturn figure spoke in low tones and laconic riddles. A cipher whose exterior blankness concealed layers of inconceivable darkness underneath.

Try to square that image with “The Mackenzies,” a song from his new album, Gold Record. Over a pokey, homey guitar strum that evokes the old cowboy song “Home On The Range,” Callahan tells a story about a man whose car breaks down in front of his house. After he tries to turn the engine over, an elderly neighbor rushes out and warns him that he’ll ruin his car if he keeps doing that. The neighbor then invites the narrator into his home. “It’s almost beer-thirty,” the neighbor says. “You must be thirsty.” The narrator is quickly disarmed by this man’s hospitality, in spite of his natural shyness. (“See I’m the type of guy / Who sees a neighbor outside / And stays inside and hides.”) Before he knows it, he’s spent his whole day with this family he’s never previously met.

Callahan doesn’t oversell any of this; “The Mackenzies” unfolds as naturally as a John Prine tune. We learn by the end that the old couple has welcomed this man in because their own son has died. But “The Mackenzies” isn’t delivered as some kind of family tragedy. It is, like so many Bill Callahan songs, imbued with a zen-like stillness and sense of space that is so unadorned and lived-in that you might mistake it for one of your own memories.

How incredible has it been to witness the personal and artistic evolution of Bill Callahan over the past 30 years? In the ’90s, under the self-explanatory moniker of Smog, he was part of the generation of lo-fi auteurs who twisted and distorted traditional song forms with various means of sonic self-destruction and lyrical dadaism laced with extreme sardonic fatalism. While his music could at times be beautiful, it was rarely pretty in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. He was always sure to put some sort of distancing agent between himself and the listener, be it a blast of unruly noise or some disturbing turn of phrase that would rattle around your brain long after the song ended.

But as Callahan has aged, retiring Smog and putting out music under his name, the cloudiness has also evaporated from his songs. In his most recent work, which includes 2019’s double-album Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest and the new, relatively succinct and thoroughly lovely Gold Record, Callahan is as direct as he’s ever been. And the subjects that now preoccupy him — love, domesticity, man’s mundane place amid the vast, unknowable mysteries of existence — invite a kind of earnestness and even sentimentality that would have been inconceivable when he first started making albums in his 20s. He is, in other words, very much a man who no longer hides in his own house when his neighbors appear. On Gold Record, Callahan basks in the reciprocal warmth that he himself now seems determined to put out into the world.

It is, again, a pretty incredible arc for a man whose music was once required listening for anyone experiencing the most severe emotional breakdown of their life. The shift seems to have occurred back in 2013, upon the release of his album Dream River. I interviewed Callahan at the time, in spite of being warned that he could be non-responsive and off-puttingly awkward in conversation. Happily, neither of these things proved to be true, though it’s also apparent in retrospect that I caught him in the midst of a transitional period. Callahan noted that he changed his work habits for Dream River; he once would work for many hours at a time on a song, lost in the music and his own interior world, obsessively driving himself to plug away until the moment he felt he was finished. But now, he would make himself stop at a certain point, confident that he could pick up where he left off the following day.

“For this record, I thought, I want to find another way. I want a richer life,” he told me. “I don’t know if you saw that Pollock movie? That type of approach to art where you just destroy yourself and your loved ones, like dying for your art — I think I used to embrace that philosophy. But lately, especially with this last record, I’ve been trying to — because I don’t want to die alone — find a new way of still making good work, but not at the expense of the rest of your life.”

That quote came to mind when I heard one of my favorite tracks from Gold Record, “Another Song,” in which he describes a similar scenario about stopping the day’s work in order to enjoy the company of a partner: “We will finish our songs another day / And watch the light as it fades away / Lonesome in a pleasant way / I guess the light that is gone belongs to yesterday.” When I interviewed him several years ago, Callahan hinted, but wouldn’t confirm, that he was in a new relationship. Years later, upon the release of Shepherd In Sheepskin Vest, he talked openly about his wife, the filmmaker Hanly Banks (whom he married in 2014) and their young child, as well as the recent death of his mother, who passed away from cancer in 2018. He presented himself as an artist whose songs were now being fitted into the contours of his life, rather than vice versa. Bill Callahan is content, it seems, and is now writing contented-man songs, which give off the ambiance of a quiet house in the middle of the night filled only with the sleeping sounds of the most important people in your life.

Certainly there will be those who will miss the deeply unsettled intensity of Callahan’s early work. Gold Record has the vibe of Dylan’s Nashville Skyline or the records that Paul McCartney made in the early ’70s with his wife, Linda. He now revels in comfiness; even the sorta-political “Protest Song,” which mocks a doofy MAGA-head — Callahan, hilariously, pronounces “hurt” like “hoit,” as if he’s John Fogerty singing “Proud Mary” — feels more like a charming dad joke than a broadside. (The best dad joke on Gold Record comes at the start of the first track, “Pigeons,” in which Callahan deadpans, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.) There is also, literally, a song called “Breakfast” on this album. If Arcade Fire hadn’t already used the title, Callahan could have called this album The Suburbs.

For jilted Smog fans, this all might seem a little like imagining Leonard Cohen shopping at Costco. But for me, the meditative quality and low-key humor of Callahan’s recent work is endlessly fulfilling and inspiring. Gold Record moves me precisely because Bill Callahan shows you can eventually move in rhythm with life, rather than be ground down by it.

Gold Record is out today via Drag City. Get it here.