This past Sunday, Red Rocketdirector Sean Baker became the only person to win four Oscars in one ceremony for a single movie (in doing so, he beat Walt Disney, who did the same but with four separate movies) with Anora. The Mikey Madison-starring movie scooped up not only Best Picture and Best Actress but also the Director, Editing, and Original Screenplay statuettes, and the movie will soon hit Hulu for streaming. Meanwhile, it’s only natural to wonder what Baker and Madison will choose for their next projects.
That’s been a question that been circling for months, actually, since Madison’s IMDb page has offered no clues, and backstage on Sunday night, Madison didn’t drop any hints either, only that she has “been really trying to remind myself to stay as present as possible throughout all of this, so I don’t know.” The Once Upon A Time In Hollywood actress added, “I just want to keep making movies … tonight I’s going to go home to my new puppies and probably clean up their mess, and it’s gonna bring me right down to earth.”
As for Baker, he has also remained mysterious, but previously, he told Gold Derby that he will start scouting locations next month:
As for what’s next, Baker says he has plans to start traveling in April after the Oscars to figure out his next location. “Because location is very much involved with the development of these movies and these screenplays,” he says. “I do feel that we will continue with the comedy and lean towards what we’ve been doing already. And all I can say is this: it might have a Jonathan Demme feel.”
Hmm. Clear as mud, but at least a few prominent Anora actors’s plans have been shared with the world. Mark Eydelshteyn (Ivan) will appear in the second season of Prime Video/Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Best Supporting actor nominee Yura Borisov’s schedule is jam packed, to say the least.
Look for Anora to surface on Hulu starting March 17.
Gomez shared the list in the form of a photo on social media, in which she holds up a photo of a Polaroid of the song titles written on a blackboard. “benny & I are so excited to reveal the official tracklist for our album,” she wrote in the caption. You can see the full list below.
Blanco and Gomez are well-aware of the reputation that such projects can have. In an interview, Blanco said, “We said at the beginning, ‘If this ever is weird, we cancel it f*cking immediately,’ because we knew what we had was so important.” Gomez echoed that sentiment, but stressed that “I definitely didn’t feel any sort of pressure. I was maybe just nervous with jitters in the beginning, and then slowly but surely it was happening and it sort of fell into place with a lot of hard work and love.”
I Said I Love You First is out 3/21 via SMG Music/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope Records. Find more information here.
01. “I Said I Love You First”
02. “Younger And Hotter Than Me”
03. “Call Me When You Break U”
04. “Ojos Tristes”
05. “Don’t Wanna Cry”
06. “Sunset Blvd.”
07. “Cowboy”
08. “Bluest Flame”
09. “How Does It Feel To Be Forgotten”
10. “Do You Wanna Be Perfect”
11. “You Said You Were Sorry”
12. “I Can’t Get Enough”
13. “Don’t Take It Personally”
14. “Scared Of Loving You”
In 2020, AEG, the global entertainment company, sued Atlanta rapper Young Thug for $5 million, claiming he’d breached a contract with the company by promoting and performing at live events without AEG’s approval. Today, Billboard reports that the two parties have filed documents ending the dispute after coming to an undisclosed settlement.
The initial deal, signed in 2017, gave AEG exclusive rights to promote Thug’s concerts in exchange for a $5.3 million advance. However, AEG claimed that Thug immediately breached the agreement, performing at outside shows, and never paid back the $5 million. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, was delayed during Young Thug’s racketeering trial, in which he was accused of being the leader of a criminal organization by the Fulton County District Attorney.
Now that the lawsuit is settled, both parties can turn to a more recent legal dispute between them. In 2024, AEG sued Thug again, after he allegedly sold off the rights to 400 songs to Kobalt Publishing, despite using the rights to his recordings as collateral against the previous $5 million loan. He earned $16 million from the transaction, which AEG argues should be invalid as a result of their previous agreement.
The second lawsuit was also put on pause throughout Thug’s criminal trial, but after he reached a plea deal with Fulton prosecutors, AEG pushed to renew litigation. While there has been little movement on that case since, it’s possible that their new settlement could mean that the second lawsuit can move forward. In any event, it turns out Thug is set to begin performing again, setting his first show since prison at a Belgian festival.
The Scholars is a self-described rock opera that’s set at a fictional college campus, Parnassus University, and follows the “students and staff whose travails illuminate a loose narrative of life, death, and rebirth.”
The rest of the logline reads:
Rosa studies at the medical school of Parnassus University. After an experience bringing a medically deceased patient back to life, she begins to regain powers suppressed since childhood, of healing others by absorbing their pain. Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day. Reality blurs, and she finds herself taken deep into secret facilities buried beneath the medical school, where ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans.
Car Seat Headrest — which consists of singer Will Toledo, lead guitarist Ethan Ives, drummer Andrew Katz, and bassist Seth Dalby — have also shared the album’s epic first single, the nearly 11-minutes-long “Gethsemane.” Above, you can watch the track’s cinematic video, directed by Andrew Wonder.
Also check out The Scholars‘ album cover and tracklist, as well as Car Seat Headrest’s upcoming tour dates, below.
Car Seat Headrest’s The Scholars Album Cover Artwork
Car Seat Headrest’s 2025 Tour Dates: The Scholars Tour
05/16 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party
06/07 — New York, NY @ Governors Ball
06/28 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
07/12 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
07/26 — Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed (Fairgrounds)
08/08 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek
09/12 — Philadelphia, PA @ Highmark Skyline at the Mann Center
09/27 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall
11/01 — Oakland, CA @ The Fox
The Scholars is out May 2 via Matador. Find more information here.
Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.
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Model/Actriz – “Cinderella”
When Cole Haden was a kid, he briefly entertained the idea of dressing up like Cinderella for his birthday party. Although he soon dismissed the thought for fear of judgment, Haden finally gets the party he wanted so long ago on Model/Actriz’s latest song, “Cinderella.” The lead single for their sophomore album, Pirouette, functions perfectly as the soundtrack for the noise-rock band’s ball. A syncopated dance beat, rumbling bass, and rhythmic guitar harmonics accompany Haden’s spoken-word erotica: “The way you speak it makes me want to cry / Velvet jacket lined with satin resting on your thigh.” It’s by no means a conventional party, but Model/Actriz is by no means a conventional band.
Jenny Hval – “To Be A Rose”
Even the faintest scents can conjure the most powerful memories. On “To Be A Rose,” Jenny Hval recalls all the cigarettes her mother smoked. Invoking Gertrude Stein, the Norwegian artist sings “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a cigarette.” In Hval’s world, natural, floral smells turn into chemical vapor. As the lead single for her ninth album, Iris Silver Mist, it’s a potent reminder that nothing is what it seems in her surrealist universe. It’s a construction of her own making, where anything can be anything, where olfactory stimulation induces self-reflection.
Panda Bear – Sinister Grift
Noah Lennox cannot be stopped. Following a renaissance with his band Animal Collective and several collaborative records with Sonic Boom, Lennox has shared the first Panda Bear solo album in six years. Sinister Grift plays like an amalgamation of his variegated career, such as the dub-inflected “50mg” and the Beach Boys-channeling opener “Praise.” It hammers home the notion that Panda Bear is as far from a monolith as you can possibly get.
Cloakroom – Last Leg Of The Human Table
Cloakroom’s last album, 2022’s Dissolution Wave, was a concept record centered on an asteroid miner lost in the vast nothingness of space. It may not come packaged with a sci-fi narrative, but Last Leg Of The Human Table, the Indiana trio’s new record, conjures similarly gloomy visions of a society on the brink of total collapse. Concise, dreamy, and noisy, Last Leg Of The Human Table is the group’s best work yet. Their varied influences, from shoegaze and doom metal to new wave and dream-pop, come together on an adventurous record that both expands and crystallizes their core sound.
Deafheaven – “Heathen”
2021’s shoegaze exercise Infinite Granite marked a first for Deafheaven: clean vocals. Although the black metal band has gone back to their heavier, punishing sounds for the forthcoming Lonely People With Power, its latest single, “Heathen,” shows that Deafheaven haven’t completely done away with melodic singing. The song opens with George Clarke’s soft voice in the verse, but by the time that first chorus comes, he unleashes his signature curdling screams. Wielding ugliness and beauty in tandem is one of the band’s most compelling tricks, and Deafheaven pull it off with aplomb on “Heathen.”
Momma – “Bottle Blonde”
Momma’s next album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, is just a month away from release. But the Brooklyn band, led by songwriting duo Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, have given us another glimpse of what’s to come. “Bottle Blonde” concerns itself with the sometimes arduous, sometimes fun lifestyle of a touring musician. When 2022’s Household Name garnered Momma a significantly larger fan base, they traveled from city to city, again and again, to play show after show. Despite the manifold demands of touring, Momma perseveres and comes out the other side, reinvigorated.
Jane Remover – “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed”
The last time we heard from Jane Remover, it was through their sprawling post-rock side project, Venturing. Now they’re fully back in Jane mode with “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed,” a digicore anthem for the ages. Their dizzying production, from aggressive sidechaining and beat switch-ups to glitchy chiptune synths and noisy drum machines, remains one of the best qualities of their music. Taken from the forthcoming Revengeseekerz, “Dancing With Your Eyes Closed” hints at a record guaranteed to be among the best of the year.
Jim Legxacy – “Father”
On 2023’s Homeless N**** Pop Music, Jim Legxacy invoked his father on “Call Ur Dad,” in which he chastised him and asked in a pleading falsetto: “Why would you leave me in this house to burn down? We were a team and you abandoned all our dreams.” On his latest single, “Father,” he revisits the difficulties of growing up without a dad, and he meets a woman with a similar story of abandonment. “She said she grew up all alone, had no father / She’s independent, wanna spend my money on her,” he sings in the chorus. Incorporating a sample of George Smallwood’s “I Love My Father,” Jim Legxacy flips the source material on its head to present his own contextualization.
Julien Baker & Torres – “Tuesday”
Indie rockers Julien Baker and Torres (AKA Mackenzie Scott) are diving headfirst into country with the forthcoming Send A Prayer My Way. It’s something of a reclamation, a reminder of women’s contributions to country music and how they have gone long overlooked by larger institutions like Nashville and commercial radio. On “Tuesday,” its latest single, Scott takes the lead, regaling us with a tale of sapphic love and a homophobic mother. Although the relationship eventually turns sour, Scott does get the last word, appropriately at the track’s end: “If you hear this song, tell your mama she can go suck an egg.” End of discussion!
Mdou Moctar – Tears Of Injustice
Mdou Moctar’s Funeral For Justice was the sound of a ferocious revolution, one that railed against settler colonialism and upheld the virtues of the Tuareg people. Whereas the Nigerian quartet’s 2024 record was a forthright condemnation and call to arms, its re-recorded acoustic version, Tears Of Injustice, wrestles with the sorrow inherent in cultural erasure. “Sousoume Tamacheq,” for instance, takes on new shades of meaning; on the original album, Moctar sounded angry at how French has usurped Tamasheq as Niger’s predominant tongue, but here, he sounds lamentful. The penultimate “Oh France” transmutes its fury for the titular country’s “lethal games” into grief for Niger’s denizens. Similar to its source material, however, Tears Of Injustice shows that sadness and rage are often closely linked.
The Dallas Mavericks’ nightmare season continued on Tuesday when imaging on Kyrie Irving’s knee revealed a torn ACL that will end his season and likely cause him to miss much of the 2025-26 campaign. Irving suffered the injury just nine minutes into Dallas’ loss to the Kings on Monday night.
Since mid-January, Irving had led the league in minutes played per game (38.7 minutes average in 18 games since January 16) as the absence of Luka Doncic, first with injury and then being traded, shifted a tremendous burden onto Irving’s shoulders. It is an unfortunate end to a disastrous season for the Mavericks, and hopefully Irving will be able to make a full recovery and return some time next season.
After a spectacular Finals run a year ago, the Mavs have had horrible injury luck and compounded matters with one of the most bizarre trades the league’s ever seen. Doncic missed more than a month with a calf strain before they traded him for Anthony Davis, who got hurt in his Mavs debut and has been out since alongside the rest of the Mavs center rotation of Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. It’s hard to imagine a way for a season to go worse for the Mavericks, and looking ahead to next year they figure to be without Irving for at least some of next season. ACL recoveries are each unique, so it’s impossible to pinpoint when Kyrie will be back, but for a team that made clear its goal was to win right now by trading Doncic for Davis, their already shortened window just got even smaller.
It also complicates the Mavs plans this summer. Irving has a player option for next year (worth just over $42 million) and figured to have talks this offseason about a new long-term deal, but injuries can throw a wrench in those conversations. The Mavs will also now have to shift from just trying to find some upgrades alongside Irving in the backcourt to also finding a short-term replacement at the point guard spot until he can return.
In case you missed it, Fyre Fest was bad, so bad that there were multiple documentaries made about it. So, naturally, Billy McFarland, the master(?)mind behind the failed event, is launching Fyre Festival 2.
Well, that may not actually be the case.
Supposedly, Fyre Fest 2 is happening from May 30 to June 2 this year on Isla Mujeres, a Mexican island near Cancún. However, island authorities haven’t actually heard anything official about the event (as Stereogum notes).
Edgar Gasca, a representative of the Isla Mujeres tourism directorate, told The Guardian in an interview, “We have no knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it. For us, this is an event that does not exist.”
He also noted, “I think they thought they would just announce it and see if it got traction, then ask for the permits halfway down the path. It’s a bit of a naive way to think.” He also said, “This festival is not going to happen. There are red flags all over the place. If you go on their website and take the coordinates they provide, then put them in Google Maps, it takes you to the ocean — between Cancún and Isla Mujeres.”
Scowl have shared a new track from their upcoming album, Are We All Angels. Much like previous singles “B.A.B.E” and “Not Hell, Not Heaven,” “Tonight (I’m Afraid)” respects the balance between melodic alternative rock and hardcore intensity. The mid-song breakdown, leading into Kat Moss screaming over her affecting singing, is what makes Are We All Angels one of the most anticipated indie albums of the year.
On Are We All Angels, Scowl — made up of Moss (vocals), Malachi Greene (guitar), Mikey Bifolco (guitar), Bailey Lupo (bass), and Cole Gilbert (drums) — were inspired by everyone from Negative Approach, Bad Brains, and Hole to Billie Eilish, Radiohead, and Julien Baker.
“The majority of us were really not proficient musicians when this band started,” Moss explained. “It was very Germs-esque in that way, like baby’s first hardcore band, which is awesome. But now, we still might not know what we’re doing, but we have a better idea of what we want to do.” Greene added, “Hardcore and punk have sculpted how we operate, what we want to do as a band, and how we participate. At our core, we are a punk and a hardcore band, regardless of how the song shifts and changes.”
You can watch the flipbook-animated video for “Tonight (I’m Afraid)” above.
Are We All Angels is out 4/4 via Dead Oceans. Find more information here.
Anyone who says “R&B is dead” clearly missed the news: not only is R&B alive and well, but one of its contemporary vanguards may be coming soon to a city near you. SiR, the Inglewood singer affiliated with Top Dawg Entertainment, has announced his Step Into The Light Tour. Promoting his 2024 album, Heavy, the Step Into The Light Tour will continue SiR’s 2024 Life Is Good Tour.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday, March 7 at 10 AM local time. Prior to that, an artist presale will begin Wednesday, March 5. You can sign up for access here. You can find more information at inglewoodsir.com.
SiR Step Into The Light Tour Dates
05/07 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
05/08 – Portland, OR @ McMenamins Crystal Ballroom
05/11 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
05/13 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Civic
05/15 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
05/20 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues Dallas
05/22 – New Orleans, LA @ The Fillmore New Orleans
05/24 – Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues Orlando
05/25 – Miami Beach, FL @ The Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theatre
05/28 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte
05/29 – Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
06/01 – Wallingford, CT @ Dome at Toyota Oakdale Theatre
06/02 – New York, NY @ The Rooftop at Pier 17
06/04 – Toronto, ON @ REBEL
06/06 – Grand Rapids, MI @ GLC Live at 20 Monroe
06/07 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
06/10 – Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
06/11 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues Cleveland
06/13 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart’s
06/15 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fillmore Minneapolis presented by Affinity Plus
The tried-and-true network reign of procedurals has yielded several lengthly (and continuing) franchise runs with spin offs. Upcoming attractions include NCIS: Tony and Ziva (coming to CBS and Paramount+) but also more of Law and Order: Organized Crime (supplementing NBC’s long-lived shows over on Peacock). Then there’s CBS’ Criminal Minds, which ran for fifteen seasons before graduating into another form, Criminal Minds: Evolution, which revived much of the gang for Paramount+.
The only downer with that latter series is that Matthew Gray Gubler (who has portrayed the Dr. Spencer Reid for over a decade) was seemingly no longer part of the Behavioral Analysis unit due to being on “a special assignment.” Word surfaced a few months ago, however, that Gubler would make a third-season appearance to bring his lustrous hair back for the masses. Gubler, as well, has been busy with his next procedural series, Einstein, so let’s open the book on what to expect.
Plot
Last year, CBS revealed their intent to remake a German series, also called Einstein, which starred Tom Beck, ran for three seasons, and is currently available to stream on Prime Video/Amazon. Gubler, of course, was an automatic pick to portray a genius after doing the walking-encyclopedia thing on Criminal Minds for so long.
In Einstein, Gray will flex his procedural muscles again with dramatic tones. In doing so, he will portray a mess of a lazy and tenured college professor, Lew Einstein, who happens to be the great grandson of the great Albert Einstein. Lew is a pain in the butt, and according to CBS, he is “[i]rreverent and misguided,” but his “genius and famous name weighs heavily on him, but using his gift to help solve homicides may – finally – offer his life some direction and purpose.” Lew has also, until now, been able to earn a comfy living at Princeton University, but those days of coasting are over when “his bad-boy antics land him in trouble with the law and he is pressed into service helping a local police detective solve her most puzzling cases.”
Variety recently updated with word that this detective shall be Maddie Paris, portrayed by Rosa Salazar (Captain America: Brave New World, Brand New Cherry Flavor), who is “a Detective Inspector for the New Jersey State Police, who went into law enforcement after the death of her husband. Sharp and disciplined, Maddie demands a lot from her colleagues and even more from herself and feels conflicted about working with Professor Einstein.”
For now, the project has only been ordered to pilot, although that could change at any time, especially with Gubler’s presence being front and center.
Release Date
The Ontario Creates industry website pinpoints February 27 for a starting date on filming on Einstein. If everything goes well with a full season order, Fall 2025 or Spring 2026 could be a realistic timeline.
Cast
Gubler and Rosa Salazar are the only confirmed cast members at present.
Trailer
Since Gubler devotees haven’t been graced with footage or a trailer yet, here’s a Criminal Minds compilation video of Gubler’s Reid bromancing with Shemar Moore’s Morgan for seven minutes straight.
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