In music, copyright infringement claims are fairly common. Earlier this year, recently-disbanded indie rock veterans Yeasayer hit Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd with a copyright lawsuit. The band claimed Lamar and The Weeknd had lifted a section of their 2007 song “Sunrise” to use in their Black Panther soundtrack number “Pray For Me.” Now, The Weeknd has officially responded to the lawsuit, denying Yeasayer’s claims.

In the lawsuit, Yeasayer claimed that a “distinctive choral performance” from their 2007 track was sampled for “Pray For Me.” According to the band, their song’s influence is “immediately recognizable” and they aimed to seek profits from the Black Panther song. But The Weeknd has now officially responded to the lawsuit with his own legal statement.

The Weeknd denied Yaesayer’s copyright claims in official court documents, according to NME. The singer said his song “does not capture any actual sounds” from the indie rock band’s music: “Each and every allegation contained in the complaint not specifically admitted herein is denied. The sound recording of ‘Pray for Me’ does not capture any actual sounds from the sound record, ‘Sunrise’.”

This copyright suit wasn’t the first time Lamar faced legal action over his work in Black Panther. In 2018, the rapper was hit with a lawsuit by a British-Liberian painter who claimed her artwork was copied for Lamar and SZA’s “All The Stars” video. The case was eventually dismissed out of court with Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment.

When Zach suggested “Diner Food” for this month’s cooking battle, I had one of those “How have we not already done that?” moments. Vince was on board too and just like that, we had our challenge set. It was way faster than the process has gone for at least six months.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though, as you’ll soon see. Diner food doesn’t photograph all that great. It’s mostly variations of tan, with vegetables few and far between. It’s also a food genre that people have scorching hot takes on. No one is particularly open-minded about what their beloved diner dishes ought to look like. If it can’t activate sense memory, it’s labeled “trash.”

To label our dishes trash, we brought in chef and filmmaker George Motz. Though Motz is probably America’s foremost burger authority — he’s the director of the Beard-nominated Hamburger America and authored a book by the same name — his months spent traveling America’s byways and backroads seeking out burger recipes has given him plenty of diner experience. he certainly didn’t hesitate to share some strong opinions.

Keep reading for our riffs on diner classics, guesstimate-filled recipes, and plenty of burns. Then plan to check out Motz’s new series: Burger Scholar Sessions, premiering May 5th.

— Steve Bramucci, Editorial Director, Uproxx Life

PAST 5 RESULTS (see full results here):

Breakfast Sandwich Showdown w/Chef Alvin Cailan: 1) Zach 2) Vince 3) Steve
Thanksgiving Showdown Rematch w/Chef Isaac Toups: 1) Zach 2) Steve 3) Vince
Christmas Movie Showdown: 1) Vince 2) Zach 3) Steve
Oscar Movie Showdown w/Binging With Babish: 1) Steve 2) Vince 3) Zach
Meatball Showdown with Chef Tyler Anderson: 1) Vince 2) Steve 3) Zach

CURRENT SCORE:

We’re giving three points to the winner and one to second place for each round. All votes are counted equally. As it stands, the score is:

VINCE: 43
ZACH: 42
STEVE: 36

VINCE’S $28 BISCUITS & GRAVY

This recipe is going to begin with a story, so if you’re against that kind of thing feel free to just head on down the dusty scroll knob…

When I was a kid growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, my family was into cooking but for whatever reason, we almost never fucked with Southern food. Maybe it was our vaguely classist way of separating ourselves from the Okies who flooded the region during the Steinbeck years, I don’t know. All I know is that it would always make my belated exposure to certain Southern foods feel like lightning bolts from the universe.

My great aunt Marie was regarded as the best cook in my grandma’s family. She’d stay with us in a beach house we’d rent every summer with some of our extended family. Her second husband had been a cook in the army in Vietnam. This dude was a blast, always showing me card tricks and telling me dirty jokes and basically being the best great uncle a kid could ever have.

One morning, I must’ve been about 9 or 10 at the time because he died when I was in fifth grade, he got up early to make us all breakfast before a big beach day. Breakfast was, you guessed it, biscuits and gravy. Now believe me when I tell you that I remember this meal like it was the fucking Kennedy assassination. I’ll probably forget my future children’s names before I forget my first taste of biscuits and gravy. I don’t know if he even homemade the biscuits or if they were some refrigerated Pillsbury garbage from a can. It didn’t matter. The very concept, that you could take a biscuit, slather it in creamy sausage gravy and call it breakfast, blew my prepubescent mind.

Thinking back on it, this may have altered my palate forever. I’m a dunker. Cookies always go right in the milk (or the coffee or espresso). If it’s clam chowder, I want extra oyster crackers and they’re all going right into the chowder. Chinese take out? Give me the Hong Kong-style chow mein with the crispy little pan-fried noodles that soak up the thick sauce. I live to soak starches in gravy. It is my life’s greatest passion.

Granted that’s not technically a “diner” story, but you better believe biscuits and gravy is my favorite diner food.

For The Biscuits

Biscuits are one of those debates you don’t want to just wade into. Southerners are damn near as rigid and contentious about their cooking as Italians. In any case, I read Amanda Mull’s piece in The Atlantic about how a flour made from soft winter wheat is the magic biscuit secret. I also saw Top Chef Brooke Williamson do a biscuit demo a few months back and soaked up all her tips. So for these, I bought the White Lily flour — which, thanks partly to COVID-19, only cost me $28 — and tried to incorporate most of Brooke’s tips.

• 2 heaping cups White Lily self-rising flour
• Pinch of baking powder
• 8 tablespoons very cold butter, cubed (I stuck mine in the freezer for a bit)
• 1 tablespoon lard, cold
• 1/2 cup Bulgarian buttermilk (the richer kind)
• Teaspoon sugar

What I learned from Brooke was not to overmix or use a rolling pin, and not to twist when I cut the biscuits out with a biscuit mold (which apparently keeps them from rising evenly). So I folded that all up by hand and patted it out to about an inch thick on my work table. Then I cut out my biscuits (no twisting!) and placed them on my greased baking sheet. Then I stuck them in the freezer.

According to Brooke (and probably others I’m sure), those intact butter pockets are key for proper flakage. If you check out my uncooked biscuits (a couple of them look like Pacmen ’cause I ain’t tryna waste dough) you can actually see the raw butter in there.

I baked these at 400 for about 12 minutes. The result?

Crunchy, airy, soft motherfuckin’ edible clouds. I know I’m not a Southerner but oh my God. They were the best biscuits I’ve ever had. Light and airy and buttery, soft but not doughy on the inside and just a little crunch on the bottom. If I were making a biscuit sandwich these would probably be a little too flaky, but for biscuits and gravy, perfect.

The Gravy

Now, I could’ve made a boar or bison gravy like Zach probably would have (if I had been able to find boar or bison at my local, which I could not). I could’ve used shellfish like I saw Brooke do, or done something non-traditional like duck or goose or whatever. But this was a diner challenge and a breakfast dish and I had the kind of hole that only pork can fill (much like Steve’s mom). I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel with breakfast gravy.

• Whole Milk
• Flour
• Country pork sausage (my local supermarket actually does really good in-house sausage)
• Black pepper (yes, I used the fancy Tellicherry peppercorns from India and ground them myself, I’m insufferable)

Again, nothing too complicated here. I browned the sausage (making sure to get a nice sear), added the fresh ground pepper, enough flour to soak up the sausage fat and juice, turned the heat down and added about three cups whole milk. I simmered that to reduce. It only needed a pinch of salt. A lot of restaurant gravy is way too salty. I don’t like mine overly thick either, it should still pour, in my opinion.

The Hot Sauce

Okay, here’s where I went slightly non-traditional. I normally just put Tabasco or Crystal hot sauce on my biscuits and gravy, but I wanted to chef it up a little. This was $28 flour, after all. But I wanted to stay within the diner theme, so I thought about what you usually get with diner breakfast. Orange slice and a sprig of parsley, right? The parsley in my garden is growing like gangbusters right now and I have a big bag of lemons from the in-laws’ tree. So I added serrano peppers and a little vinegar and olive oil to those to create a lemon-parsley hot sauce. My first blend wasn’t as hot as I expected, so I actually used about triple the amount of serranos in this picture.

All Together Now

It’s by no means necessary, but I like an egg with my biscuits and gravy. It’s hard to beat that yolk/gravy/biscuit combination. In a diner, I’d probably order them over easy but the sunnyside photographed better (that’s a little peek behind the cooking battle curtain for you folks). I topped it with my homemade hot sauce and some chives, which add a little fresh garlicky-onion flavor and crunch and are really easy to grow.

There are a lot of great diner comfort foods. But for me, nothing will ever be quite as comforting as a plate of warm biscuits slathered in gravy. Biscuits and gravy is the granddaddy of all comfort food. Just looking at these pictures transports me back to yesterday when I actually had this meal. This isn’t a dish you just eat, it’s a dish you eat, then take a nap, and then reminisce about over a bourbon on a warm evening weeks later. It’s just that good. It doesn’t just stick to your ribs, it sticks to your mind.

Steve on Vince’s Dish:

I like Vince’s food takes because they’re so on the nose. “Biscuits and gravy are amazing,” isn’t really break the internet shit, but damned if I didn’t dig hearing about my boy Mancini’s grand-uncle making him a plateful before their Central Valley beach day or whatever. It filled me with recognition: “THAT THING YOU LIKE, I ALSO LIKE” — which, Zach and I are thoroughly convinced, is at least part of why Vince wins so damn much. That said, the biscuits look lovely and I already cut and pasted the recipe into a folder I keep.

My general problem with biscuits and gravy is in evidence here. I love the flavors but the ratios are always off. It’s based around grease-filled liquid and yet it always finds a way to always seem a little dry. Someone, somewhere is going to break this game open — Biscuit cones filled to the brim with gravy! Baby biscuits in sausage soup! — but it ain’t happening here, Vince. Instead, you went the other way with thinner gravy and lots of sausage. Man, what if you made a BIG ASS BISCUIT and then cut it open with a little whipped butter and the gravy on that? A little cheese aspect? Two fried yolks but skip the egg whites?

Besides the paucity of unique ideas, this generally looks delicious and I’d slam my face in it, you know that. Everything except that weird-ass green sauce that combines the vegetal raw parsley taste with raw garlic and lemon and probably isn’t even that spicy because you de-seed your peppers (your mom de-seeds mine, thank her for me)! Clearly you felt really proud of this sauce because it shows in exactly one photo and just barely, at that. Stand behind it, man. Celebrate it. Because if there’s one southern refrain you never stop hearing down Mississippi way, it’s “This gravy needs more lemon sauce!”

Zach on Vince’s Dish:

I grew up on my (adoptive) grandfather’s biscuits and gravy who incidentally was also a cook in the Navy during the Korean War era. Coincidences abound! He has taught me a lot about cooking over the years when I come to think about it. Anyway, I love biscuits and gravy deeply in my soul.

I think your biscuits look fine. In fact, this is the best part of your dish (I’m not judging the “hot sauce” {which I also think you added on because you knew you were losing. I see you, Mancini}). They could be a little fluffier and more layered. I put my butter in the freezer the night before I bake biscuits and then use the large teeth on a cheese grater to make little morsels of frozen butter. You were so close, my dude. Yet, so far. Still, I would kill one of these biscuits with butter and a nice jam.

I almost feel like you made a thin and un-creamy gravy on purpose. I mean, the mom jokes are right there. But let’s look at what you did wrong. Use equal parts whole milk and half-and-half or cooking cream that has at least 15 percent fat. Sear off your sausage in oil, add butter near the end. You could also add in some fresh parsley near the beginning and let it cook down with the sausage to add depth.

And, man, your gravy is a thin mess. I know your mom likes it sloppy and everywhere, but this is just listless. The biggest selling point of a great plate of biscuits and gravy is a sausage country gravy that’s not too thick (like your mom) but thick enough to be real comfort food. I shouldn’t be looking at biscuits and gravy and see biscuits under the gravy.

George on Vince’s Dish:

First of all, I need to preface this response by saying that I too once had an out-of-body experience the first time I ate biscuits and gravy. It was in New Orleans. I was severely hungover and sleep-deprived and that dish saved my ass. I will never forget that order of biscuits and gravy. And as fate would have it, the place is GONE, of course, so it lives on in my memory.

That said…since then nothing has ever lived up to that first plate of hot, creamy, sausage-y goodness, nothing (with the very rare exception of chef Robert Stehling’s Big Nasty at Hominy Grill in Charleston. It was a fried chicken-biscuit-gravy thing…and that’s gone too for fuck’s sake!). And your version Vince, although created with passion, is not really doing it for me. For starters, Steve is right that gravy looks too damn thin, though I’m sure it tasted just fine. Also, a trick I’ve learned to make even passable B+G taste great is to SPLIT THE BISCUITS before dumping the gravy on top. That’s the best way to scientifically adjust the per-bite ratio. Also, get that green gooey shit away from my damn biscuits, totally unnecessary. The flavor profile of B+G should stand alone. And $28 for flour? My southern Granny, who grew up on a farm in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, made the best biscuits ever and I’d be damned if she didn’t spend $28 on flour over five years! She’s gone now (rest her soul) but if I told her tales of your high-brow flour she would belly-laugh your ass right out of the kitchen.

But now I need some biscuits and gravy…

STEVE’S CHICKEN & WAFFLES

I remember the first time I had chicken and waffles. Roscoe’s on Pico, 3 am. Such an extremely LA early 2000s scenester experience that it got a shout out in Swingers (Made is a better movie, you can @ me on that). For the next decade, I took out-of-towners to the fried chicken joint with all the authority of someone who’d been born in the kitchen. “Oh, you have to get Herb’s Special,” I’d gush. As if people need help ordering fried chicken at 3 am.

Around 2007, chicken and waffles became “a thing” in the New American dining scene, a pretty classic example of the particular brand of soul food appropriation where a chef bro would put a little sharp cheddar in his waffle batter, sprinkle a few Marcona almonds on the plate, and pretend like he’d reinvented the shit. And while I stayed loyal to Roscoe’s, I also tried all of these hipster-fied dishes. What can I say? A boy loves his sweet-salty combo.

What I found over the years is that various riffs were, to generalize, pretty freaking fantastic. Because chicken and waffles are pretty freaking fantastic. And while it would take a lot of very calculated tweaks to improve the Roscoe’s recipe at all, it’s fun to see different iterations of the classic approach. The recipe below is mine stab at the dish — calibrated for my particular palate and what I crave. If you like the flavor combinations that I like, you’ll say “Oh, that’s an interesting set of tweaks!” but if anything is off-putting to you, you’ll be like, “Eh, just give it to me the regular way.”

That’s the great equalizer of all diner food, in my opinion, and really what this challenge is all about.

I think I snuck this into my review of Vince’s apple pie a few months back, but I like stewed apple flavor and sorta despise fresh apple flavor. That’s why I always go crumble > pie — the apples get cooked down more. So my goal here was a whole lot of apple references but more in line with what Zach’s whiskey reviewing persona would call “whispers.”

The first apple nods are seen in my brine, pictured above:

• 2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 cups apple cider
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 cup salt
• 1 tsp chili flakes
• 3 cut apples

I brined the chicken for a full 18 hours. Playground DTSA chef Jason Quinn — a longtime friend of UPROXX — has an “Uncle Lou’s” fried chicken that is brined in a heavy vinegar mix, which I love. I knew this would have strong notes but I wanted that. I didn’t quite calculate the effect of the molasses — though Zach probably already sees it coming and is shaking his head. More on that later.

I take waffles very, very seriously. Here’s the recipe I used for this batch:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons synthetic vanilla extract
• 1/2 vanilla bean pod
• 2 cups AP flour
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• two glugs of Wildcraft single-varietal hard apple cider
• 1/4 cup 18-month aged white cheddar

You can see scenes from the “putting shit in a bowl and mixing in” portion of this recipe below.

Moody AF.

Action shot.

I call this: “Life in quarantine has been hard for us all and I just stared into some waffle batter while contemplating my place in the universe for a solid seven minutes.”

Anyway. After the batter was done I made my caramel.

• 2 glugs Westward bourbon
• Six cranks of sea salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• three pieces of brined apple
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Cooked until it thickens. I also mashed the apples to the bottom of the pan and rubbed them around a little to extract apple flavor. Really scientific stuff.

Sorry to cheat here, but my actual fried chicken recipe is literally just poached from Zach. The dredge was buttermilk. The flour mix was:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne

That’s it. This dish is all about proving yourself a master of salty and sweet.

So… the chicken got a little dark. But I swear! I swear it was wonderful and delicious! I’ve puzzled over it a little and I think the blackstrap molasses from the brine sort of colored the batter from the inside? And then with the paprika it got even darker? I’m sure it’s roast topic #1, but — the flavor and flakiness!

*Screams into void* YOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU GUYSSSSSSSSSSSS EYEEEEEEEEEEE SWEEEEARRRRRRRRRRRR!

Anyway, the apple cider really played in the chicken and I loved that. It was sharp enough to offset the savory and sweet flavors a little. The waffle was a dream and, like any good appropriating hipster, I added a few Marcona almonds on top for crunch.

Zach on Steve’s Dish:

I’ve never truly loved this dish in any diner and this has not changed that opinion. I’m sorta with Vince. Whenever I order this, I love the chicken and the waffle ends up getting ignored or wasted, even when it’s a good waffle.

I do think you did a great job with the waffle. I would almost argue you could have gone full Waffle House and just made an amazing pecan (not almond) waffle with a bespoke syrup and called it a day. But that wouldn’t be the Steve we know and love. No, no.

Look, you know what you did to that chicken. Molasses isn’t the answer to everything. Brines need granulated sugar just like they need granulated salt instead of seawater. I mean, you know the mistakes you made in brining and frying so I’m not going to harp. But pretty photography aside, you know this is an end result where Tom Collichio would be looking at you with that all-knowing smirk of he’s “got ya” and asking, “So, you wanted it to look like it’s burnt? Right. But, it’s not Cajun or Blackened, right? Okay.” Then Padma would come over and give you that “Oh, sorry bud, and no, never touch me” look before taking a sympathy bite and moving on. You wouldn’t be eliminated but you’d be called out for having a least favorite dish.

In the end, this was about diner food and to me that says something you order over and over again drunk or sober and it’s always just what you need. I don’t need this dish. Sorry.

Vince on Steve’s Dish:

My favorite part of Steve getting further and further behind in this competition has been watching him try to anticipate any and all critiques of his dish and becoming increasingly unglued, shrieking at shadows in his kitchen and loudly defending his excess herbs to the house plants. “I can see you staring at me, ficus, but I wanted it grassy!” Steve, take a Xanax. This chicken and waffles are perfectly fine.

But I’ll be honest, I still don’t really love chicken and waffles as a combination. I love fried chicken possibly the most of all foods and I enjoy a nice crunchy fluffy waffle but I don’t really get what the waffles are bringing to a chicken dish. Seems like they’re adding more sugar and starch to an already kinda sweet and starchy dish. And you can’t really get them both in one bite. I always mow down the chicken and then take a few bites of the waffle. I’d rather have the fried chicken with some greens or mac and cheese or gravy or corn. I don’t want empty calories taking up stomach space that could be filled with fried chicken.

But people seem to love it. Like gourmet mac and cheese as a main, I just sort of accept that it’s not really for me. It’s fine. As for your take, I appreciate your thousand-ingredient waffle, which does look nice and crunchy. Those unfinished edges seem like they added surface area. I like it. No real shade on your brine, though I’m slightly confused why you wanted to make apple pie-flavored fried chicken. It’s like someone showed an AI bot a bunch of comfort food pics and had them generate their own. Your batter, though, somehow looks not quite as soft-crunchy as an original-recipe kind of batter and without the crags and crispies of an extra crunchy-style batter. Sort of the worst of both worlds, smooth yet hard.

And for God’s sake, what the hell are Marcona almonds doing in there? If you wanted some nutty flavor, why not some sesame seeds? Instead, you’ve got big weird chunks of almonds chopped by a blind man that look like I’d have to chew carefully so I don’t accidentally inhale an almond shard while I’m wolfing the chicken. This is the first time I’ve ever looked at a chicken and waffles and thought it’d be improved by removing the chicken. Where did the caramel go? Is it on top of the chicken or the waffle? This looks like subpar fried chicken on top of a great waffle.

Did you guys ever use to make bacon waffles growing up? Where you put chunks of bacon in the waffle batter? I haven’t had those in a long time. This is making me want that, weirdly.

George on Steve’s Dish:

I too have never truly understood chicken and waffles as a dish, except when drunk then it makes perfect sense. I’ve also never had good chicken and waffles, ever. Fried chicken is hard to get right, so when you find a great place you chow down on savory fried chicken. There’s no place for sweet waffles in this scenario.

Steve’s 18-hour-marinade fried chicken, however, looks damn tasty and I’d crush that for sure, even though it looks burnt. The molasses was likely the culprit. And again, my granny made the BEST DAMNED FRIED CHICKEN so nothing else compares. I’ll be testing this brine for sure though, minus the big chunks of fruit.

Your waffle recipe, however, is borderline insanity. What the hell are you doing putting cheddar and apple cider into waffles for?? And why the kitchen sink of vanilla flavoring that all taste the same in the end? I think my recipe has 5 ingredients. That’s all you need to make great waffles. And a waffle maker.

ZACH’S PATTY MELT

The patty melt is a hamburger sandwich dialed up to eleven in my humble opinion. It takes the best parts of the burger and focuses in on that: patty, butter toasted bread, melty cheese, and onions. It’s simple yet incredibly easy to screw up if you’re not paying attention.

There’s no secret to this recipe. I’m simply taking great ingredients and combining them into a single, almost-perfect dish. No reinventing the wheel here. I’m just working off my nostalgia for my go-to American diner order (though, I do love a good French Dip every now and then too). This is Zach laid bare for y’all to judge.

Ingredients:

I know. Everyone is baking bread right now. That’s great. I’m not because my oven is broken. There’s a bakery in my neighborhood that does a “farmhouse” style sourdough rye that I’ll never be able to replicate with my meager home oven that I can barely control the temperature of. So I’m going with that. It has a nuttiness that’s crucial for this recipe as I’m going to braise off my onions in a nut-forward Spanish brandy. The bread is also just so damn good. I ate two slices with just butter and salt when I got this loaf home and I regret nothing.

So, anyway, my ingredients:

• Two Yellow Onions
• Unsalted Irish Butter
• Swiss High-Elevation Aged Emmentaler
• Irish 6-Month Aged Yellow Cheddar
• 80/20 Beef Grind
• Neutral Oil
• Sea Salt and White Pepper
• Cardenal Mendoza Brandy
• Farmhouse Rye

Prep:

The first thing you have to do is get your onions going. They’re going to need at least 45 minutes to really cook down into a jam. Just browning them off does not break down the sugars enough to create a real caramelization. Chef Roy Choi calls that “fool’s gold.” So, I’m taking a page from chef Choi’s playbook and making a sort of onion jam that he uses for the base of his French Onion soup.

I’m using two yellow onions that I cut roughly from pole to pole, this helps to maintain the integrity of the structure of the onion. I heat up a medium pan on medium-low heat with a glug of vegetable oil. I drop in the onions and salt generously. Then, you basically just let them do their thing while stirring with a wooden spoon until this …

looks like this:

Once the onions have cooked down and a nice brown fond has formed from the sugars (at least 30 minutes), I deglaze with maybe one-eighth cup of brandy. I let that cook off completely and we’re done.

Cook:

In the meantime, I’ve formed three-ounce balls with the ground meat. I’m careful not to compress the ground meat too much. Keeping it loose will help the integrity of the patty down the road.

I’m doing a standard smash burger. Heat skillet to smoking hot with veg oil, add in meat, smash with a large spatula, salt and pepper generously. As soon as I get the great Maillard reaction on the patty, I flip.

I don’t want to overcook these patties. So they’re only in the skillet for about two minutes tops (probably closer to 90 seconds).

Now, it’s time to melt some fat and make this masterpiece. I turn the heat down to medium-low. I use a paper towel to clean out the still-hot skillet. I then place a buttered slice of bread in the pan. I then build.

Emmentaler, patty, onions, cheddar, buttered slice of bread up top. I’m only using one, large patty here. Having two patties on a sandwich this stacked makes it hard to finish. And, trust me, the single patty was more than enough.

I then cover the skillet and let it grill off for about two minutes. As soon as the bottom is well-toasted, I flip the whole affair over to toast off the top. I put the lid back on and let it melt all that cheese until the bottom is as toasted as the top and it looks like this…

Serve:

I shuffle the Patty Melt onto a cutting board, making sure to bring along all the melted and crispy cheese. I let it sit for two to three minutes and then slice it in half.

The result is damn-near perfect. The bread is buttery toasted, nutty, and has a hint of bitterness thanks to the crust. The cheese is a melty mess, which is what you want from a Patty Melt. The onions have a beautiful sense of pure onion sweetness with an underlying nuttiness thanks to the brandy, tying it to the rye. The patty is juicy on the inside with a nice crunch on the edges.

This took me straight to a diner where the only thing on the menu was comfort and joy.

Vince on Zach’s Dish:

Damn, you just love a nut-forward brandy, don’t you. You must’ve inherited your mother’s palate for nut. Sorry, I’m trying to think of things to criticize here. But I have to admit, this looks god damn delicious. Folks can keep their thicc drippy burgers, I’m a thin-patty daddy until the day I die. It’s not a steak, give me that surface area, baby. I will say, the only thing that keeps me from ordering patty melts more (which was my go-to as a kid) is the lack of fresh veg. Is it lame to say that the fresh veg is a big part of what I love about hamburger?

That being said, fuck I want that German dark rye bread in my belly right now. I know, I’m supposed to be roasting. Your mother shares her bed with unwashed sailors.

Steve on Zach’s Dish:

I have never ordered a patty melt in my life, but I would order this. It’s actually kind of my dream food. Cheesy with exceptional bread, some onions, and a thin patty (I’m with you and Vince on the flat burger train). It looks delicious.

But yo…

You reduced down some onions and laid a patty on bread you didn’t make. I know we tease you about three-day projects and you’re probably still busy eating pate twice daily to get through the excess you made last month, but this is like you did the quickfire challenge rather than the main course.

Last month you had three sauces. This month: None. I love this dish, but the most inventive thing is “I picked a really good bread.” And maybe “I used cool cheese.”

Sorry, I like my Zach Johnston like I like my lovemaking — creative, overly verbose, and left dripping with various sauces. Too far? Probably too far.

George on Zach’s Dish:

Ok, now we are in my wheelhouse, which is good and bad. Zach, love you, but this patty melt looks like a disaster. A deeply tasty disaster! But let me start at the beginning.

The beef — yes, thank you for using fresh ground beef and smashing a loosely formed ball to make a patty. The only issue here is that the beef looks a bit too lean. It could be 80/20 but looks a little leaner. Fat is flavor.

And why did you wipe out the pan with a paper towel?? That rendered beef fat is pure GOLD man. Cook in it! And I’m not sure what you did here with the hot pan but the temperature difference between searing a smashed patty and a grilled cheese is dramatic. I actually take the pan off the burner for a few minutes to cool with the constructed patty melt inside, then return to a super-low/slow heat to finish. Also, sourdough and burgers should never be a thing. Good old white bread is your friend.

And let’s talk cheese – get that goddamn cheddar away from your patty melt. Cheddar won’t do the thing you actually need to make a magical patty melt…MELT. The swiss is fine, but I’m reaching for American Cheese every time for real reliability. American Cheese melts fast, which is what you need here otherwise you’ll overcook that patty and burn your bread.

This brings me to the disaster part of this evaluation — I’m sure it tasted fantastic but from the photo, this thing looks impossible to pick up. This is always the biggest turn off for me. If I can’t get the thing in my mouth I’m pissed off.

The onions look amazing though.

The central villain of The Last Dance is Jerry Krause, the former Chicago Bulls general manager who drafted Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen but got over-zealous in the late 1990s and is believed to have torn the team down far too soon. Speaking with Uproxx earlier this week, director Jason Hehir said that based on his research and interviews during the making of The Last Dance, the breakup of the Jordan Bulls was a result of “pettiness and jealousy,” not a major gaffe by Krause.

Their time together had simply run its course.

“Jerry Krause is not dunking from the foul line,” Hehir said. “But he did do all that leg work. He did do the work necessary to put the pieces in place. His reputation and his legacy is fraught and I think that one of the things that I wanted to do in this is demonstrate how difficult it was for him to navigate those relationships and how cruel they could be to him.

“So, some people are misinterpreting that as the film ridiculing him. If anything, it’s the opposite. I want to demonstrate to people just what this guy went through on a daily basis.”

Because backlash comes for everything beloved, The Last Dance, the docuseries airing on ESPN over the course of five weeks, generated criticism this week from the likes of filmmaker Ken Burns over the idea that it is not true journalism because it was produced by Jordan. While that line of thinking misunderstands the process of making the film (Jordan had full control over the footage), one part of the argument that does hold up is that no one in the movie is there to represent Krause’s perspective.

Perhaps that’s because it’s hard to find anyone who stands by him all these years later, sad as that may be. Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf appears throughout the documentary, but uses the opportunity to distance himself from Krause’s decision even though as the owner of the team, he had final say over everything.

Though Krause is remembered as the man who dismantled a dynasty, Hehir hopes fans also see how masterful a job Krause did building it in the first place.

“Jerry Krause has an enormous amount to be proud of and that’s the kind of relationship I hope I would’ve forged with him,” Hehir said. “Once he sat down, that he knew where I was coming from and he felt safe with me, but of course he’s got regrets. I would ask him if he had any regrets, if he had any regrets about the way that situation was handled in the late ’90s and if he does have regrets, what he would have done differently.”

The idea that everyone has regrets is in the DNA of every scene of The Last Dance, but it’s a cruel twist of fate that the villain isn’t around to explain himself.

Verzuz has rapidly become a favorite weekend diversion in Quarantine-Land, as music fans tune in for a social distancing walk down memory lane with some of hip-hop and R&B’s iconic artists, producers, and songwriters. Swizz Beats’ classic hits showcase announced its next big-name guests today, focusing on two of the pioneers of the neo-soul subgenre of the late ’90s and early 2000s: Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. The

Next weekend’s big event is co-sponsored by entertainment promotions company Femme It Forward, which presents woman-centric concerts, festivals, panels, and tours whenever we aren’t all stuck in the house. Since the coronavirus hit, Femme It Forward was relatively unoccupied with all its events pushed back to the end of summer, but was able to come together with Swizz, Timbaland, and Verzuz to help bring Erykah Badu and Jill Scott’s “battle” to live.

Fans had previously clamored for Erykah Badu to face off with Lauryn Hill, an unofficial member of the neo-soul movement, but Badu shut down the speculation, tweeting that she believed she’d get “pulverized” by the first woman in hip-hop to score a No. 1 album and single on the Billboard charts. It took twenty years for her record to be broken, which Cardi B did in 2018 with “Bodak Yellow.”

However, if fans couldn’t see Lauryn Hill play her favorite hits on Instagram Live (which, let’s face it, was probably never going to happen anyway, considering Ms. Hill’s general antagonistic disposition toward clocks and technology), Jill Scott is a worthwhile replacement. Debuting in 2000 with Who Is Jill Scott? Words And Sounds Vol. 1, Scott turned R&B on its head with singles like “Gettin’ In the Way,” “The Way,” and her biggest hit, “A Long Walk,” becoming a mainstay on R&B radio in the two decades since. Interestingly enough, she also performed on the original chorus of The Roots’ Grammy-winning 1999 single “You Got Me” before being replaced by none other than Erykah Badu.

Badu similarly shook up the sound of R&B music in the ’90s with her own debut, Baduizm, becoming a symbol of soulfulness that many artists still imitate with songs like “On & On,” “Tyrone,” “Bag Lady,” and “Love Of My Life” featuring Common. In the process she also became one of music’s favorite long-running memes, with fans joking about her mystical properties affecting her paramours’ sense of style — so much so, that she even got in on the joke by selling incense made of her um… underwear.

Watch these two soul queens face off on Instagram Live on May 8 at 7pm EST / 4pm PST.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating the restaurant scene since states across the country first started locking down in March. Now that strain is beginning to be felt all the way up the supply chain. Farmers have produce, meat, and other goods piling up as commercial demand across the country has sharply declined, yet at the same time, The New York Times reports that millions of Americans across the country are flocking to food banks — sometimes for the first time — due to food insecurity caused directly by the current pandemic.

This irony isn’t lost on celebrity chef José Andrés who used two photos of seemingly unrelated problems to illustrate just how broken our nation’s food system is.

The first photo shows a mountain of potatoes from a farm in Idaho that are going to waste because the stadiums, cafeterias, and restaurants that rely on them are currently shut down, while the second photo shows thousands of cars lined up at a food bank in San Antonio. The two photos were originally shared through unrelated accounts.

“How is it possible these two photos exist at the same time, in the most prosperous and technologically advanced moment in our history? It’s because all along the way, we have a food supply chain that we treat as invisible when it’s working… and only notice it when it’s not.” Tweeted Andrés in an extensive thread highlighting the long chain of workers that our food system relies on — many of whom are struggling as a result of the shutdown. He also called on the President and leaders of Congress to make feeding Americans a bigger priority.

Chef Andrés also waved the flag for an increase of public pressure, tweeting “Call your elected officials & ask what they are doing to make food part of the solution. Ask what specific legislation they are supporting to increase #SNAP, empower food banks & nonprofits, involve restaurants, and ensure the govt is buying from farms. Accept nothing less.”

The subject of food insecurity and farm-to-table solutions is one Chef Andrés is passionate about, not just because he’s a chef dealing with the supply chain first hand, but because he’s the founder of the World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that devotes itself to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. In short: If we should be listening to anyone’s food takes in this social/ political moment, it’s probably Chef Andrés. His commitment to surfacing these issues and seeking solutions is unparalleled.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — It’s weird to get sentimental about a project that features a huge inflatable penis, but here we are

I was admittedly the target audience for Beastie Boys Story, the Apple+ documentary that converted the group’s live stage show into a film experience. I love Beastie Boys. I’ve loved them for decades. I spent most of high school driving around with Ill Communication blasting out of my very crappy car. I’ve spent a not-insignificant amount of time this year blasting Hello Nasty out of my somewhat nicer car. I read Beastie Boys Book — a kind of history of the group told through a series of essays and stories by the surviving members of the groups and their famous friends — in about two days. I was pretty sure going into the movie that I was going to like it. And I did. It’s funny and silly and sweet and sad. I was expecting all of that. What I did not expect was for it to stick with me the way it did.

It is really sticking with me, too, a lot more so than the book did, which is weird, because the book is a more thorough version of what the documentary is. I’ve been putting a lot of thought into it — the why of it all — and I think I’ve narrowed it down to some combination of three reasons.

The first is that seeing them tell their story helped drive it home for me, the whole concept of change and growth. It’s not just the music, although it is very much the music, too. (It’s wild to think that the same group that made, like, “Girls” also made “I Don’t Know.”). It’s more that the snotty kids who snarled and sprayed beer on the audience grew into thoughtful dudes with regrets about their childish behavior. I can relate to that. I think a lot of us can. There’s this tendency we have, collectively, as a society, to hold up something someone said five, ten, or twenty years ago and refuse to let them off the hook for it today, as though people can’t course correct in the time between then and now. If we’re always holding people to their words and behavior from the past, then what’s the point of trying to improve, to become better? There’s a good line in the movie that’s taken from an old interview with Adam Horovitz: “I’d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.” Yup, that about sums it up.

The second reason is the emotions. Horovitz and Michael Diamond, the surviving members of the group, are still rascals. They always will be. It’s one of my favorite things about them. They have a long history of refusing to take things seriously. It is refreshing to see that they still have a healthy dose of that even today as they creep into their 50s. That’s why it caught me off guard to see Horovitz have trouble wrangling his words while talking about Adam Yauch, the third member of the group, who passed away after a battle with cancer in 2012. It makes sense, though. They were all best friends and collaborators for about three decades. Of course there are raw emotions there. But seeing it happen, after they described it as too sad to discuss in the book, really got me. Strong men also cry. So do rascals, apparently.

And the third reason, which is substantially less serious and profound than the first two, is that it’s always strange for me to see them now, in the future. I mean, look at the image at the top of this post and then look at this picture of them on Fallon a little while ago.

They look like wacky sitcom dads now. Horovitz looks like he could be Topher Grace’s uncle. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over this. It’s shaken me to my core. Possibly more than the first two things. Maybe this is why it’s sticking with me the way it is. Beastie Boys forever.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Ahhhh, I get it

Extraction is fine. It’s fine. The new Netflix original movie starring Chris Hemsworth is violent and fast-paced and not entirely unlike The Raid or a John Wick movie, with the notable exception that both of those have a kind of cool/charming energy and style to them whereas Extraction is just brutal. John Wick is all bright colors and pulsing techno and Extraction is just, like, various shades of tan. Again, it’s fine. It would be better if it was 25-30 percent more fun, but it’s fine.

I guess you’re probably wondering why I have a picture of a broken rake at the top of this section instead of a picture of Chris Hemsworth. It’s a fair question to be asking, all things considered. Allow me to explain via bullet point:

• Chris Hemsworth’s character is named Tyler Rake
• While fighting a henchman early in the movie, he spots this broken rake on the floor
• Tyler Rake kills a man with a rake in the first 20 minutes of this movie

Here, look.

This is what I mean about the fun. How is this scene not fun? A dude named Rake murdered another dude with a rake and not a laugh or giggle was had by anyone involved. And it wasn’t just a coincidence because there was that shot of the rake. It’s perplexing, especially since we know Hemsworth has a sense of humor. We’ve seen Ragnarok. The man is hilarious. It’s infuriating how funny he is. No one that tall and strapping should be that funny. It’s not fair.

You know what? I take it back. The scene with the rake is good as is. Anything better would have been rubbing it in.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Well guess what, there’s a baby in a trash can

I’m so tempted to just leave this here with no context. I really want to. But I feel like I should explain it at least a little. Right? Ugh. Okay, fine.

It’s from Killing Eve. The baby is okay. There was a whole thing where the people in the background started freaking out about a baby in a trash can (as one does) while the lady who dropped it in there went right back to having a pleasant lunch. It was really funny. As funny as any scene I’ve ever watched that involved two psychopaths laughing about stuffing a baby in a trash can.

Hmm. Yeah, I regret providing context. Let’s all just pretend I didn’t.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Hey, look who it is!

Very few television characters have made as big of an impression in as small a role as the person I lovingly refer to as The Car Guy from I Think You Should Leave. You know who he is. If you don’t, watch the “Focus Group” sketch now and then please seriously take an account of what you’ve been doing with the last year of your life. Things are strange out there. You deserve nice things. Don’t deny yourself the nice things!

I bring this up now for two reasons. Number one, because I haven’t posted the “Focus Group” sketch in a while and it felt good to do it again; number two, because the actor who plays Car Guy, Ruben Rabasa, popped up out of freaking nowhere in an episode of Better Things this season and I howled with joy when I saw him. You can howl with joy, too, because here are some screencaps.

To be fair, I didn’t see this when it happened because I am very behind on Better Things. My former colleague Alan Sepinwall informed me. None of you did, though. Not a single one of you reached out to tell me the Car Guy was on Better Things talking about tequila. Jesus Christ. I’m legitimately angry now. After all I’ve done for you people. No emails, no tweets, nothing. Come on.

Anyway, I recommend Googling Rabasa. He’s having a lot of fun with his new fame, achieved at the age of 82 after a multi-decade career as a working actor. I spent a solid 45 minutes clicking around and reading articles about him this week. Here’s a fun one from The Guardian:

Originally from Cuba, Rabasa moved to New York, then later to Miami, where he says he found more work, and LA. However, it was not without its downsides. “In Miami, every movie I get, they killed me. So I moved to LA. The first movie I get in LA, I play a ghost. I said: ‘What the hell is happening?’”

I love him. Let him play the villain in the next Mission: Impossible. I am not joking.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Let’s check in with some quarantined celebrit-… she said WHAT?!

Well, it’s time for another edition of what is quickly becoming my favorite recurring segment: Let’s Check In With Quarantined Celebrities. Two weeks ago, we were treated to a video of former Mad Men star January Jones doing some truly awful tap dancing. It was great. She’s a huge goofball. I support this with all of my heart. And I am pleased to report that she’s back again, this time doing some sort of awkward ballet set to strings that…

Hold on.

At the end.

Is that…

Is she…

IS JANUARY JONES DOING CRAPPY BALLET TO THE SCORE FROM JURASSIC PARK?

I… I think she is. Wow. Wowwww. That’s honestly incredible. I’m so proud of her. This is the content people need right now. I really don’t see how anyone can top this one this time around. It would take something pretty impressive. Something so flabbergasting that it stops me dead in my tracks. But I don’t th-…

Okay. I really must insist you click play on that video. It is the most riveting 11 seconds of television I’ve seen all year. Maybe longer. Britney Spears burned down her home gym six months ago. With candles. And she’s so nonchalant about it, like it could have happened to anyone. Like it maybe happened to her before. I love everything about it, especially how hard she hits the word “down” in “it burned DOWN” and especially the part where I’ve been singing “Oops I burned down my gym” to the tune of “Oops I Did It Again” for over 24 hours now with no sign of it letting up.

You’re doing it now, too. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

ITEM NUMBER SIX — MURDER DOG

It is my great pleasure to report that Into the Dark, the new Blumhouse horror anthology series coming to Hulu, will have an entire episode about a murderous emotional support dog that belongs to a character played by Judy Greer.

The film centers on Maggie (Greer), a woman who gets an emotional support dog to help quell some of her anxiety. Only, she finds him to be even more effective than she could have imagined because, unbeknownst to her, he kills anyone who adds stress to her life… Guttenberg [plays] Don, Maggie’s “misanthropic but at times soft around the edges” boss, while Wong is Annie, a former baby-sitting charge of Maggie’s who recently moved to Los Angeles and rekindles their friendship.

Three notes in closing:

• If this dog doesn’t talk, either on-screen or via voiceover, I will heave my laptop out my window and into the parking lot below my apartment
• The picture at the top of this section is from Dog With a Blog, a real show that aired on the Disney Channel for much of the 2010s, which feels like something I would have made up to try to trick you
• MURDER DOG

WE GOT A MURDER DOG.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Michael:

What game show would be the best setting for a horror movie? I am not up on what game shows are on nowadays, but I am thinking it is The Price is Right. The Showcase Showdown wheel could become sentient and chew up Drew Carey like a saw blade. The yodeling cliff hanger guy becomes a Chucky-like doll and starts hacking away at contestants with his pickaxe. The Plinko board has actual spikes and contestants are dropped down the board to be impaled on those spikes. Who is doing the dropping? Does it really matter? Let’s say the models have become zombies or something.

Am I missing a game show that is a better setting for a sudden breakout of a horror movie? And why has Hollywood not done this before? Or have they and I missed it, which is entirely possible. Probably likely.

This is a terrific email and now I’m a little terrified of you, Michael. The Plinko thing is so good I can’t believe it’s not a thing already. Although Bob Barker seems like more a demonic hellhost than Drew Carey. Sometime to consider.

As far as my suggestions go, I have two. First, Wheel of Fortune, but Pat and Vanna have people strapped to the wheel. Spinning and screaming with blood flying everywhere as the two hosts cackle with unhinged murderous glee.

The second is Jeopardy. You know how when a contestant finishes with a negative score they’re not on the screen for Final Jeopardy? Well, maybe there’s a trap door under the podiums and these people get dropped into Trebek’s torture pit to work off their debt. I don’t see how we can rule it out. I mean, where do they go?

WHERE DO THEY GO?

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Belgium!

Belgians are being called upon to eat fries at least twice a week as more than 750,000 tons of potatoes are at risk of being thrown away.

Just a whole lot going on in this sentence. Quite a lot, really. I know this story is going to get less fun if we keep reading. It has to. A big part of that is because there’s nowhere to go but down after “Belgians being asked to eat fries twice a week in the name of patriotism,” but also because that’s how the news works. I’m tempted to just stop here. But I won’t. I’m too curious. I must press on.

The coronavirus crisis has led to a surplus of potatoes in the small European country, as demand for frites — a national dish of twice-fried potatoes often eaten in bars and restaurants — has slumped amid Belgium’s government-enforced lockdown.

Ahhhhhhhhh, dammit. I knew this was headed toward “because pandemic.” Why can’t I just have one nice story about a nation demanding its citizens eat more french fries without the hammer dropping on me like this? It’s not fair.

“We’re working with supermarkets to see whether we can launch a campaign asking Belgians to do something for the sector by eating fries — especially frozen fries — twice a week during the coronavirus crisis,” Cools said. “What we are trying to do is to avoid food waste, because every lost potato is a loss.”

YOU: Jesus, slow down. You’re going to choke.

ME: [mouth absolutely jammed full of fries, just a disgusting mush of potatoes a grease spilling out of my face as I try to talk] Itfff’s fah the ah-conomy.

“A lot of people are really optimistic in my country and in the potato sector,” he added. “But to be very honest, as we say in Dutch, I’m holding my heart for the months to come.”

Buddy, a whole lot of people are going to be holding their hearts for months if they’re eating french fries twice a week until they put a dent in a million-potato mountain.

Halsey kicked off the new year by releasing her record Manic, which quickly became certified Platinum in the US. While much of her record touches on earnest issues like toxic relationships and a struggle with mental health, Halsey also has a knack for crafting more lighthearted tunes. The singer teamed up with producer Marshmello to release the buoyant anthem “Be Kind” just in time for summer.

The new single boasts an impressive effort by both musicians. Marshmello’s jaunty instrumentals are effervescent under Halsey’s soaring vocals, which details her unwavering commitment to a partner. “I know you’re chokin’ on your fears / Already told you I’m right here / I will stay by your side every night,” Halsey belts.

In a statement, the electronic DJ praised Halsey for her work on the single. “As soon as we finished the song, I was instantly obsessed!” Marshmello said. “Halsey and I connected and were both on the same page with what we wanted the final outcome to be! And it turned out great.”

The single arrives after a prolific year for Marshmello. The producer recently linked up with Saint Jhn and Southside for “Been Thru This Before” and his effort “Project Dreams” with Roddy Ricch earned a Platinum certification.

Listen to “Be Kind” above.

Manic is out now via Astralwerks. Get it here.

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

Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.

Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of April below.

Mac Miller — Circles (Deluxe Edition)

Mac Miller’s first posthumous album dropped earlier this year, and now it has made its way into vinyl. The record contains the two bonus tracks from the Circles deluxe edition: “Right” and “Floating.”

Get it here.

Wavves — King Of The Beach (10th Anniversary Edition)

King Of The Beach helped position Wavves as one of the most buzz-worthy indie bands of the 2010s, and the 10th anniversary vinyl edition of the record has some neat features. Namely, the cover was the original art meant for the album that was scrapped, and this release contains a bonus 7-inch that boasts “Mutant” and “Stained Glass (Won’t You Let Me Into Yr Heart).”

Get it here.

The Strokes — The New Abnormal

In some respects, The Strokes’ new album, The New Abnormal, is a real return to form for the group. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s Julian Casablancas’ fourth-favorite record that he ever made!

Get it here.

Nightmares On Wax — Smokers Delight (25th Anniversary Edition)

Nightmares On Wax’s sophomore album is a trip-hop classic, and now it has gotten a slick new vinyl edition to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Most excitingly, it includes a previously unreleased bonus track, “Let’s Ascend.”

Get it here.

Pavement — Wowee Zowee (7-Inch Picture Disc)

Pavement’s Wowee Zowee is 25 years old, and the band is celebrating it with an atypical sort of release. This vinyl record is shaped like the speech bubble on the original album art, the record features two tracks that are making their vinyl debut: “Sensitive Euro Man” and “Brink Of The Clouds/Candyland.”

Get it here. And while you are at it, get Guided By Voices’ excellent Alien Lanes reissue.

Wiz Khalifa — Kush & Orange Juice (10th Anniversary Edition)

Wiz Khalifa’s 2010 mixtape Kush & Orange Juice was a big moment in his early career, and now it has gotten its first physical release. It’s a nice one, too, as the two cloudy green-colored 180-gram discs come wrapped in a dimebag-style zip-lock shrink wrap.

Get it here.

Peggy Lee — Ultimate Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was one of music’s biggest stars of the middle of the 20th century, and May will mark what would have been her 100th birthday. To celebrate the milestone, this clear 2LP retrospective release compiles some of her most recognizable tracks.

Get it here.

Thundercat — It Is What It Is (Deluxe Picture Disc LP)

Thundercat has returned with another gem, and it’s available on a striking picture disk vinyl edition. Uproxx’s Aaron Williams said of the album, “It’s serious but not too serious, reflecting the times in which it was made — we’re all facing plenty of darkness, trying to find the light, and forced to accept that sometimes, it just is what it is.”

Get it here.

The Rolling Stones — “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (55th Anniversary Edition)

“Satisfaction” became one of The Rolling Stones’ defining songs, and now the original vinyl single has been re-released for its 55th anniversary. The limited edition, 180-gram, emerald-colored vinyl features both of the original UK and US b-sides: “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” and “The Spider And The Fly.”

Get it here.

Fiona Apple — Fetch The Bolt Cutters (Vinyl Me, Please Edition)

Fiona Apple’s new album is getting an exclusive aubergine vinyl release, courtesy of the artisans at Vinyl Me, Please. Fetch The Bolt Cutters is one of the year’s most critically acclaimed albums, and Uproxx’s own Steven Hyden wrote of it, “I can’t imagine another person on Earth, living or dead, making this album. This, ultimately, is what was happened during Fiona’s hiatus away from the rest of us: She became her own genre. How lucky are we that it just grew by one more classic.”

Get it here.

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

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Competitive Madden is nothing new — you have, assuredly, found yourself watching games broadcast somewhere on the ESPN family of networks at one point or another while you’ve been flipping the channels in the search of something to watch. But in our current climate, one defined in part by a lack of sports, the increasingly-popular option of watching eSports is turning into an opportunity to get lost in some sort of sporting event to one extent or another.

This increased popularity, something that was occurring even before society found itself caught up in a pandemic, has led to increased visibility for those who participate in eSports. An example from the world of Madden will be on display this weekend, as two competitive players — Noah Johnson and Dwayne Wood, known respectively by their competitive names “Noah” and “CleffTheGod” — will get featured on ESPN’s Road to the Madden Bowl. The program airs this Saturday at 11 a.m. ET on ESPN2.

Both Johnson and Wood will compete against one another in group play during the upcoming Madden NFL 20 Bowl, a tournament that looks to determine the best Madden player in the world. The pair have some history against one another, as Johnson topped Wood in a recent Madden NFL Championship Series event.

Prior to the program hitting the airwaves, Uproxx Gaming spoke to Johnson — a 17-year-old high school senior who’s headed to the University of Maryland next year — about the game, the upcoming tournament, and balancing his two lives as student and a competitive gamer.

With everything that’s been going on over the last month or two, have you been playing more Madden than usual or have you been staying in your routine of what you would normally do with training and focusing on getting better in the game?

I’ve actually been playing a lot more Madden recently just because I’ve been at home almost all day every day because of what’s been going on. I’d be going to school from like 9-3 and then have baseball practice after that. So I wouldn’t be getting home until 7:30, 8:00 and only be able to play like three to four hours a day. But now, I can play a lot more just because I have a lot more time. So it’s actually been kind of nice.

Before all of this, when you’ve gotten a chance to really focus on playing Madden, what would go into a normal day of just training and focusing on improving in the game?

I’d probably play from 8:00 to 11:00, 11:30, so like three and a half hours and that’s mostly just the games against, like on the leaderboards or wagers against other people for money because I feel like that’s the best way for me to get better. Because if people are putting money up, then obviously they’re going to be playing their best game. So I know what I’m going after and also I can win some money, too, if I’m playing well.

I want to ask about that routine and whether you get into any sort of rhythm, especially when you have a big event like the Madden Bowl coming up. Do you try and follow the same routine day in and day out, or do you alter that within the context of you have school, you have baseball, those sorts of things, even when you have some sort of really serious event upcoming?

I just kind of play it by ear. Obviously, I try to get on the game and usually when I prepare on the game, I’ll go into practice mode for a little bit and before the games. But no, I don’t really have like a crazy schedule like that. I just kind of play it by ear because sometimes I’ll be on the game until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. So I’m still trying to get a couple hours of sleep at night. It really just depends.

So you’re in high school, believe I saw you’re heading Maryland next year. How do you balance being a normal high schooler with dedicating time to getting to the level that you are in Madden?

There’s a lot of time management that goes into it, because obviously, I want to do everything that a normal senior in high school would want to do. But being one of the best at the game obviously takes a lot of time. So I really don’t have that much downtime as opposed as other people. I’m always doing something, whether it be hanging out with my friends, doing schoolwork, going to school, or obviously playing the game.

So when you’re playing Madden against normal folks, like your friends, someone like me who is a very casual Madden player, what’s normally the biggest difference in terms of how the more casual player plays compared to a more competitive player?

Well, right away, once we load up and we’re on the play call screen, I can tell if someone’s a casual or not. Because if they pick their play instantly, I know more than likely they’re using coach suggestions. And so I can tell right there that they’re more of a casual guy. And also if they’re not using a linebacker, which is what most competitive people do — linebacker or a safety — if their user is the defensive line, I could tell that they’re probably not that competitive.

Interesting. So when did you decide to start participating in more competitive games of Madden and how did that lead to you participating in the Madden Championship Series?

I’ve been playing Madden for six or seven years and I would play their Ultimate Team game mode and just play their leaderboards on that. And then once I realized that I was pretty good on the leaderboards and growing pretty high, I realized I could take it to the next level and compete in these tournaments. But I had to wait until I was 16 because they have an age limit. So I didn’t start playing until the last year, but I didn’t really put that much time into it as opposed to this year because I was more focused on school. But I went all in this year and it all paid off.

Let’s talk about your game. I read that one of your biggest strengths is your rushing attack. Before we get into that specifically, I imagine when you play competitively, you can decide to focus on any aspect of the game and refining that and having that become a strength of yours. Is that fair?

Yeah, for sure. For this year, I focused, going on your point about my running attack, I focused my game style to running the ball because I feel like this year, it’s run-heavy, you’re going to have a better chance if you run the ball. And so I’m always going to do whatever it gives you the best chance to win. So this year, it was running the ball a lot, so I really tried to make my running game the best it could be.

So you’re basically letting the game dictate what you decide to be good at. Is that a good way of putting it?

For sure. Some people, no matter the game mode, probably the most popular formation in the game is a gun bunch if you’re going to pass the ball. And no matter the game, people are going to be coming out on that every single game and that can have its pros and cons. Like, this year, it’s really hard to pass. So I might’ve been in gun bunch last year when it was easier, but now, I’m going to be in I formation running the ball, just because it gives me the best chance to win.

So if all things are equal, a Madden game isn’t designed so you are best running the ball or best out of certain formation, what is your ideal way to play the game?

Well, playing the game when you’re passing the ball, I must say. Passing the ball is probably a lot more fun to watch, in my opinion, like if you’re watching a football game. And it can be fun when people are in the trenches running the ball for three to four yards a carry, but watching, like, Patrick Mahomes airing out the ball, that’s probably the best way to watch football, in my opinion. That’s the same way with Madden. When two passers are going at it, it’s a super, super fun to watch, and I enjoy passing the ball as well. But this year it’s really hard to.

What makes you say that?

The added abilities to this year’s game. There’s D-line abilities that make it so they just shed really quick. The blocking isn’t that great this year, in my opinion. It’s kind of more realistic, so you have less time in the pocket and you gotta make quicker reads. Running the ball’s a lot easier. A lot less that goes into it, you just got to play the numbers game, realize who’s blocking who, and yeah, find a hole.

And your other strength is rattling opponents. How do you do that and why is that such an important part of the game to you?

I’m one of the youngest, I was actually the youngest to win a belt, but I’m one of the youngest always in the tournament. Other guys, they’re are a lot older than me. I really like to get in people’s heads and I feel like that’s just what helps me a lot, because I know if I can get in your head, then you’re not focusing on the game, you’re focusing on me, and I know that I’ve already won the game if you’re not even focusing on the game anymore. So I’ll be talking trash almost all game and if I’m doing well, you’re going to hear about it. So I feel like that’s probably my biggest strength.

So let’s talk about the tournament. First, could you just map out how you got to this point?

To the Madden Bowl?

Yeah.

I qualified via the challenge, the Madden Challenge, which was the last tournament, and I won that tournament. So that allowed me to qualify for the Madden Bowl.

Cool. And for just a second, how much experience do you have against the other three players in your group and to whatever extent you have them, what are your thoughts on them?

I actually played Cleff, one of the people in that group in the championship in the Madden challenge and I ended up beating him. But I know he’s a super good player, so that’s going to be a really good game. And same with Lil Man and Schemin. I’ve watched these guys play a lot in the other tournaments. I’ve never played them in a tournament, but I’ve played them offline a ton, and I’m prepared for them. I know they’re really good players, so it should be some really good games.

And how do you make sure that you get out of your group and move on to the knockout portion of the bracket?

I just really try to take it one game at a time. I realize if I win my first game, you have a really good shot of moving on. Because all you need to do is you just got to get third out of the group, and all I care about is advancing. I don’t care if I’m first, second, or third. So I just really want to win at least one game, take it one game by one game, win the first game, then win the second game, then try to win the third game. But got to make sure I win the first game.

Among the other 12 people in this, is there anyone you especially want to play and why them?

No, I don’t really care who I play. I kind of play the game instead of the name. I’m just going to play my game no matter who I’m playing. But I’m not going to let who I’m playing dictate how I play, I’m just excited to play anyone.

A few final questions here. First off, if you end up winning this, I know you’re going to college in the fall, would the belt be coming with you or would you leave that one at home?

I already got one. I might have to leave one belt here and bring one to college. We’ll see. We’ll make that decision when it happens.

Then my last question, you could play Madden with anyone in the world. Who are you picking and why?

Man, that’s a good question. Put me on the spot here. I don’t know, I’ve seen [Baltimore Raves receiver] Hollywood Brown play, I just saw him play in a celebrity tournament. He was a really good player. I’d love to play against him sometime.