Jump Rope Gazers, the upcoming album from The Beths, was announced in April. The album is a couple months away now, so in the meantime, the group has shared another preview of it via a video for “I’m Not Getting Excited,” an energetic indie-rocker that’s accompanied by a stop-motion video.

The band’s Elizabeth Stokes says of the song:

“People always ask ‘are you excited!?’ and it’s a fair question, because exciting things do happen to us sometimes. Support slots, overseas tours, music releases. Stuff we’ve dreamed about for years. So the correct answer is always ‘yes.’ But the truth is that deep down there’s a tiny Liz saying, ‘don’t get excited.’ She is certain that anything good that could happen will most likely not happen, because of a freak accident. Or because somebody finally realizes that we aren’t worthy, shouts ‘phony!’ and takes everything away. I wrote ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’ last year, well before everything really did get taken away. From everyone. It feels like the song has a new context, but we don’t know what it is yet. And now we all share a blurry, uncertain future.”

Directors Callum Devlin and Annabel Kean (collectively known as Sports Team) also said that while making the video, they “turned our laundry into a film studio and spent our inside time mastering the art of stop-motion animation. We animated old towels, all the cardboard in the house and The Beths themselves… frame by bloody frame. There’s a lot of scary imagery in the song that we wanted to play on. There’s a madness too, in the contradiction between what the song is about and its frenetic energy. It has defined the lockdown for us — being locked indoors but furiously busy.”

Watch the “I’m Not Getting Excited” video above.

Jump Rope Gazers is out 7/10 via Carpark Records. Pre-order it here.

Keeping up with best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw a link-in between two of pop’s biggest stars and a hilarious new one from The Weeknd. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the best new music this week below.

Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande — “Stuck With U”

Headlining the best new music this week is a collaboration between two of the most significant pop stars of the past decade. The video features even more big-timers, but not Carole Baskin.

Kehlani — It Was Good Until It Wasn’t

Kehlani has followed-up her 2017 debut album with her sophomore effort, and she’s not alone on It Was Good Until It Wasn’t. It features contributions from Jhené Aiko, The Neptunes, James Blake, Masego, and others.

Nav — Good Intentions

It’s been a huge 2020 for Nav thanks to “Turks,” and now the single’s album home, Good Intentions, is out. The album also includes one of a pair of Pop Smoke features to surface this week. The other Pop Smoke guest spot…

Lil Tjay — State Of Emergency

…comes on Lil Tjay’s State Of Emergency. The mixtape also has a pair of features from Fivio Foreign, but Lil Tjay goes at it mostly solo on this thematically relevant project.

Kim Petras — “Malibu”

Petras told Uproxx of her new single, “I really feel like it’s going to make people feel like they’ve just been to the beach, and make people forget about the bad things that are happening for like three and a half minutes. I couldn’t ask for better timing for this to come out.”

Hayley Williams — Petals For Armor

The former Paramore leader has been omnipresent during the lead-up to her debut solo album, and now Petals For Armor is finally out. It’s a deeply personal record, and it even includes a mini Boygenius reunion.

RMR — “Dealer” Feat. Future and Lil Baby

RMR’s star has been rising following his emergence as a peculiar oddball country/trap star. Now his ascent has gotten some powerful co-signs via Future and Lil Baby, who hop on a new remix of “Dealer.”

Charli XCX — “I Finally Understand”

Not only is Charli XCX making a DIY album with real-time input from her fans, but she’s making it look really easy (even though it surely isn’t). She dropped “I Finally Understand,” yet another new track, and it’s stylistically diverse from its predecessors, showing off Charli’s ability to craft experimental-but-still-catchy pop in a number of ways.

Wet — “Come To You”

After a strong two-album run to kick off their discography, Wet appears to have a third record on the way. That was evidenced last week by “Come To You,” a synthy track that’s a promising sign of things hopefully to come.

The Weeknd — “I’m A Virgin”

The Weeknd had a dream come true this week when he guest-starred in an episode of American Dad (which he also co-wrote). For the episode, he teamed up with Electric Guest leader Asa Taccone to pen an original tune, which features lyrics like, “I’m a virgin / Never got close enough / Cell phone blowin’ up, but I’m waiting / For the right person / Tryna act super tough / But inside I’m a twelve-year old boy.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When Megan Thee Stallion received a guest verse from Beyonce on her viral hit “Savage,” she was understandably awestruck and ecstatic. That’s because not only is a co-sign from her hometown hero an almost instant pass to upper echelon stardom, but it’s also incredibly rare. Only one other female rapper has received that honor: Nicki Minaj, with whom Beyonce collaborated in 2014 for “Feelin’ Myself.” However, there was almost one other rapper the Queen Bey collaborated with, who like both Megan and Nicki, was the breakout star of the year: Cardi B.

In a clip from a recently-surfaced interview that appeared on an Instagram fan page, producer J. White Did It — the beat maker behind Cardi B’s No. 1 hits “Bodak Yellow” and “I Like It,” as well the original version of “Savage” — revealed that a rumored 2017 collaboration between Beyonce and Cardi was almost a reality. He shares his reaction, demonstrating how dumbstruck he was upon hearing the complete version, as he also details the reason the collaboration “went sour”: Unfortunately, the song was leaked and considering how tightly both stars try to control their output and image, it was eventually scrapped.

It isn’t like Cardi needed the help to pump up her sales — she’s the first female rapper to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 multiple times — but it would have been cool for her to be one member of a trifecta of rap superstars to have a song out with Beyonce.

Watch the excerpt of J White Did It’s interview above.

About a year ago, it was revealed that Post Malone was starting his own cannabis company, Shaboink. In recent days, Malone planned to relaunch the entity as a lifestyle brand, but in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, he decided to do something different. Now, Shaboink is back, and they’re partnering with Direct Relief to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to doctors and nurses, with 40,000 N95 face masks being donated to healthcare workers across the country.

Malone told Rolling Stone, “I’ve been working with my team on a number of unreleased products that fit into my lifestyle that I can’t wait to share with my fans, [but] when faced with COVID-19, I knew it was important to pivot to products that could help us stay clean now, so we can get back to shaboink’ing later. […] I just wanted to make something that’s fun, and Shaboink is about having fun at all times. We’re all in a pretty sh*tty time right now but we’ll get through it; let’s keep clean and kick this thing’s ass.”

On top of that, the Shaboink website offers “Clean Kits,” boxes that include things like face masks, hand soap, hand sanitizer, disposable gloves, disinfectant wipes, and more, so check that out here.

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Hannah Gadsby released one of the most-discussed comedy specials in recent memory with the Emmy-winning Nanette, leading to headlines like, “The Comedy-Destroying, Soul-Affirming Art of Hannah Gadsby.” The Australian comedy is about to release her follow-up, Douglas, and in the trailer above, she reveals her one regret about Nanette.

“Had I known just how wildly popular trauma was going to be in the context of comedy, I might have budgeted my sh*t a bit better. But I went and put all my trauma eggs in one basket like a f*cking idiot and now here we are,” Gadsby jokes. She also riffs on “Americanizing” her language, including her love of the gender-neutral word “y’all.”

Here’s more on the special:

Having given herself her very own tough act to follow, Gadsby decided to name her difficult second album after one of her dogs in the hopes he could inspire comedy obedience. Did it work? Fortunately, you can make up your own mind because after taking her metaphorical muse off for a world tour of a walk she filmed the fucker in Los Angeles.

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas is a grand tour of guffaw that takes you from the dog park to the High Renaissance and back into an unnamed box. With one of comedy’s most sparkling and surprising minds as your guide of honor, you can expect your expectations to be set and then met in the most unexpected ways. Woof.

Douglas premieres on Netflix on May 26.

Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt puts a bow on its four-season run on Tuesday, May 12 with an interactive special called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend. Yep, this madcap group of characters is going out Bandersnatch-style, yet not in a dystopian, terror-filled way at all. Granted, there are moments of darkness to be had if one selects the corresponding options in this choose-your-own-adventure installment. As fans know, however, even the most potentially bleak subjects on this show are treated in the most resoundingly light manner. It’s a carefully achieved balance, and it’s certainly not unwelcome or depressing news to learn that there’s an option to see/hear an extended version of the show’s relentlessly catchy theme song.

There’s actually an easy (and guaranteed) way to make this happen. When the choice — and this one will be familiar to all Netflix users — to “Skip Intro” pops up after the first handful of minutes in this special, don’t do what you assume that you should do to hear the song. Go ahead and choose to skip that intro, and comedian Mike Britt (he portrays Walter Bankston, who witnessed the Mole Women being freed from their bunker at the start of this series) will immediately pop in with a mini-lecture. In a fourth-wall-breaking way, Bankston will tell you that if you’re gonna cut his part, then prepare for his vengeance. In other words, you’ll receive the extended version, complete with visuals.

Enjoy!

As it turns out, this extended version of the song isn’t exactly new. It actually surfaced a few years ago on YouTube, but now, one can feel the full effect by enjoying it within an Unbreakable Kimmy episode. It’s a nice way for the show to troll anyone who doesn’t appreciate what’s perhaps the last great theme song on TV, and given the power of Netflix (and the fact that they don’t have to make time for commercials), one has been able to enjoy getting this tune stuck in their had for years.

The extended version of the tune is even more catchy, I think, especially since Walter Bankston gives a little speech at the end about all the great theme songs disappearing. He’s not wrong, and there’s no better way to begin Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend, which is playing on Netflix now. Of course, you can also choose not to skip that intro and see the regular version of the theme song. It’s up to you, and that’s the beauty of an interactive special, Kimmy Schmidt style.

When Tame Impala performs live, what fans see on stage is not indicative of how Tame Impala albums are made. While Kevin Parker is joined on the road by a touring band, in the studio, he is by himself, playing all the instruments on his own.

Meanwhile, nowadays, it’s hard for full bands to get together and perform thanks to the ongoing pandemic. So, when Parker performed on The Late Show last night, he did what he does best by playing all the instruments himself for a performance of The Slow Rush track “Is It True.”

He pulled this off by recording his instrumental parts separately and combining the footage in a split-screen format, so there were three versions of Parker on screen at once. The result is an example of how at-home performances don’t have to be as simple as strumming an acoustic guitar in a bedroom, that there’s real room for creativity in this format, even in ways that aren’t possible with a traditional late-night performance.

That said, Parker has also given a more standard at-home performance. Last month, he participated in a charity livestream, on which he sat on his couch, grabbed an acoustic guitar, and performed “On Track.”

Watch Tame Impala perform “Is It True” above.

Despite his franchise experience, having starred in five sparkly vampire movies, it was still a surprise when Robert Pattinson was announced as the next Batman. He, an art-house favorite who took daring roles in films from the likes of Josh and Benny Safdie, Claire Denis, and Robert Eggers, seemed like the last guy who’d want to play a superhero, let alone a superhero (the superhero) that has been portrayed many times before. But that, actually, is one of the reasons why Pattinson agreed to the role.

“I think sometimes the downsides—which I’ve definitely thought about—the downsides kind of seem like upsides. I kind of like the fact that not only are there very, very, very well-done versions of the character which seem pretty definitive, but I was thinking that there are multiple definitive playings of the character,” Pattinson told GQ. “I was watching the making of Batman & Robin the other day. And even then, George Clooney was saying that he was worried about the fact that it’s sort of been done, that a lot of the ground you should cover with the character has been already covered.” And that was 1997, two Batmans (three, if you include Will Arnett, which you absolutely should) ago.

Pattinson continued:

“And then there’s Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck’s one. And then I was thinking, it’s fun when more and more ground has been covered. Like, where is the gap? You’ve seen this sort of lighter version, you’ve seen a kind of jaded version, a kind of more animalistic version. And the puzzle of it becomes quite satisfying, to think: Where’s my opening? And also, do I have anything inside me which would work if I could do it? And then also, it’s a legacy part, right? I like that. There’s so few things in life where people passionately care about it before it’s even happened. You can almost feel that pushback of anticipation, and so it kind of energizes you a little bit. It’s different from when you’re doing a part and there’s a possibility that no one will even see it. Right? In some ways it’s, I don’t know… It makes you a little kind of spicy.”

You’ve seen playboy Batman. You’ve seen mopey Batman. You’ve seen nipple-y Batman. Now get ready for spicy Batman.

The Batman, which also stars Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell, comes out on October 1, 2021.

(Via GQ)

Last week, Doja Cat knew that “Say So” (and its Nicki Minaj-featuring remix) had a chance to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. So, she compelled her fans to stream the song with a simple and risqué promise, tweeting, “If say so hits #1 I’ll show you guys my boobs really hard.” She followed up the next day, “These boobs ain’t gonna show themselves you guys. Stream say so !!!!!!!”

Sure enough, “Say So” has hit No. 1, so it is time to see if Doja was joking about exposing herself, or if she was actually being serious. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that Doja never really intended to show off her breasts, really hard or otherwise.

After it was revealed that “Say So” topped the Hot 100, Doja hopped on Instagram Live and told her fans, “I’m nasty with it. I’m extra nasty with it, with a side of scam scam. I’m on my pirate sh*t right now, man. I’m f*cking ruthless. If I say I’m gonna show boobs, just know, I’m not gonna show boobs. And I’m okay with you guys thinking from now on, when I try to use that trick — which I won’t — if I do, just know motherf*cker, I am not being serious. It’s a lie. You know, what you gonna do?”

Even Minaj got in on the joke by joining the droves of fans waiting for some skin, as she tweeted, “What time r u showing ur boobs?”

Meanwhile, one fan hilariously documented this whole saga, so check that out below.