Category: Worldwide

Harry Styles’ stardom is in full effect this year and he’s shown it in multiple ways. His first single of the year, “As It Was,” spent four weeks at No. 1 on the singles chart and it also became this year’s first Platinum song less than a month after its release. It took just three days for his third album Harry’s House to have the best vinyl sales week of the modern era. Then, the album debuted at No. 1 on the charts with the biggest sales week for a male singer since 2015. A day later, four songs from the project checked in within the top ten of the singles chart.

Now, for the second consecutive week, Harry’s Harry’s House checks in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. For the chart dated June 11, 2022, Harry’s House posted 160,500 album units sold compromised of 102,500 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 134.36 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. It also delivered 56,500 pure album sales. With its return to No. 1, Harry’s House becomes the first album that was released in 2022 to spend its first two weeks at No. 1.

Harry’s House beat out a former No. 1 to hold on to the top spot. The project outsold Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti by a little under 20,000 units to reclaim the albums chart crown. Behind Bad Bunny’s album is Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers which checks in at No. 3.

You can revisit our review of Harry’s House here.

The Utah Jazz have been one of the NBA’s most consistent franchises over the last six years, reaching the playoffs each season, almost always hovering in the 50-win range (or the equivalent in a shortened season) during the regular season. However, that has not translated to the postseason success, as they have three first round exits and three second round exits in those six appearances.

As this season wound down, there were growing rumblings that changes were coming this summer in Utah. The Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell dynamic grew increasingly strained during this year and some posited that the Jazz would pick between their two stars this offseason to try and start fresh. Others, like Bojan Bogdanovic, could find themselves dangled on the trade market if they don’t break up their star duo, as Utah seems desperately in need of at least some kind of shakeup to their roster.

On top of roster changes, there have been a number of rumors pointing to head coach Quin Snyder potentially leaving this summer as well. While Snyder didn’t bolt for the Lakers job as L.A. had hoped, last week it was reported that he was still mulling his future, and on Sunday, hours prior to Game 2 of the NBA Finals, word broke from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that Snyder was indeed stepping down as head coach.

The team confirmed the news shortly after.

The expectation is for Snyder to take a full year off to recharge and then potentially re-enter the coaching ranks next season. There are rumors that he is the preferred choice of Gregg Popovich to be his successor in San Antonio whenever he steps down, and this would certainly pave the way for that, whether that’s this offseason, next offseason, or beyond — with the key caveat being that Snyder would need to want that position. Whenever he decides to resume his coaching career, Snyder will be highly coveted given his success in Utah but will also have questions about his ability to adapt in the postseason that won’t be shaken until he gets an opportunity with a different team and roster.

As for the Jazz, they now enter a coaching carousel that’s seen Mike Brown go to Sacramento and Darvin Ham go to the Lakers, with the Hornets the last team still making up their minds, with Kenny Atkinson and Mike D’Antoni reportedly in the mix in Charlotte. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them lean on an offensive minded coach that could hopefully open things up for Mitchell and company, but we’ll have to wait to see what names get connected with a franchise that has plenty of questions on the horizon.

Mass shootings happen regularly in America now. The Gun Violence Archive — which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people are shot or killed, not including the shooter — counts at least 240 in 2022 so far. Indeed, there have been 32 since the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. And there’s no end in sight: Congress is deadlocked, and Republicans have issued insufficient, even bizarre solutions, offered surreal defenses, or, in Lauren Boebert’s case, made nonsensical, borderline psychedelic comparisons.

Speaking of the Colorado lawmaker (who’s made no laws in her year-and-a-half in Congress), she was once again the subject of online mockery when she weighed in the gun control debate. Her beef? Some people advocating for stricter gun laws are engaging in a relatively minor syntax discrepancy — which she decided to do the day after three people died in a mass shooting in Philadelphia and on the day three more were killed during one in Chattanooga.

“If your Representative thinks AR stands for ‘Assault Rifle’, FIRE THEM!” Boebert tweeted.

It’s true, the AR in AR-15 assault rifles does not stand for “assault rifle.” It means “ArmaLite,” after company that designed the guns, which can rip bodies into unrecognizable shreds, in the ‘50s. Now you know!

As for Boebert, she’s demonstrated again and again that she’s not one for learning. So when she tweeted about ignorant representatives, it was only a matter of time for lots of people to turn the tables on her.

In the meantime, everyone stay safe.

The music world is sending their condolences to Metro Boomin as news arrived of a horrific tragedy that involved his family. TMZ reports that the famed producer’s mother, Leslie Joanne Wayne, was found dead on Friday night. Her body was discovered by cops outside of the Atlanta area and according to sources connected to the investigation, Wayne was allegedly killed by her husband who is not Metro Boomin’s biological father. The report adds that Wayne’s husband committed suicide once he killed her. TMZ notes that an autopsy will soon be conducted for an official cause of death.

Metro Boomin has yet to comment on the reported death of his mother, but representatives for the Savage Mode II producer confirm that Wayne passed away over the weekend. They added that the producer and his family are requesting privacy during this difficult time. Metro has often credited his mother for helping find success in life. One of those times came during a 2016 interview with Fader.

“My name is Leland Tyler Wayne,” he said during the sit-down after calling her his “biggest inspiration.” “My mom wanted to give me a name where, no matter what I wanted to do, I’d be able to do it. An astronaut. President. Whatever. Leland Wayne.” Leslie herself also shared her thoughts during the interview and she said that the absence of Metro’s father and how it affected him is what led her to strongly support his musical aspirations. “I knew that he was hurting so much,” Leslie said during the interview, “which is part of what made me support him so much in the music.”

John Waters has always had great taste about bad taste. The filmmaker, performer, and wit has made a long career out of the shocking, the transgressive, the offensive, the crappy. He’s been called the Pope of Trash, the Duke of Dirt, the Prince of Puke, the Ayatollah of A*sholes, and other, more unprintable nicknames. But now, he says, bad taste is dead, and the culprit is Donald Trump.

“Trump ruined it,” Waters told The Guardian. “As soon as Trump was president, it just ended the humour of it. He was the nail in the coffin. He’s the first person that had accidental bad taste that wasn’t funny.”

Waters also discussed camp, a term that has long been hard to define. “Usually, accidental bad taste is what camp originally meant,” he explained. “But today people try too hard. And I think that never works. Because true camp is innocent, it doesn’t do things on purpose. It takes itself very seriously.”

Does that mean his own films — classics like Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living, which lean into their own crapulence — technically aren’t camp? Maybe not. “I am parodying everything,” Waters explained. “I think I’m parodying writing a novel in the first place, by even calling it a ‘feel-bad romance’, something that no one would put on their book.”

Anyway, clearly Waters wasn’t amused by the time Trump freaked out over trucks. Or when he bought athletes McDonald’s. Not to mention his wife’s notorious holiday decorations. If John Waters doesn’t think those examples of bad taste are funny, they’re probably not. RIP bad taste.

(Via The Guardian)

Lizzo has never been one to back down from clapping back at a hater. It was just a couple of months ago that shot back at a person on Twitter who took issue with her being “allowed to get her BARE ASS on a plane” while “Olivia Cuplo former Ms Universe is forced to wear her boyfriends hoddie to fly Cabo.” In her response, Lizzo wrote, “Like what you see?” before directing them to the website of her Yitty Shapewear collection with Fabletics. This time around, Lizzo didn’t clap back at a specific person, but rather, her message was aimed at men who have used her name to insult women.

“Dudes be ugly w no b*tches talking bout ‘oK LiZzO’ as an insult in girls comments,” she wrote in a tweet. “I’m beautiful rich & get immaculate d*ck… ISSA COMPLIMENT. If u can’t make it past the cheeks, just say that.” It’s unknown which post(s) sparked Lizzo’s message, but we do know that the “immaculate d*ck part of her message is in reference to her new boo. The two were spotted together at Los Angeles restaurant Craig’s on Valentine’s Day and she confirmed that she was still romantically involved with them during an April conversation with Andy Cohen for his SiriusXM series Radio Andy.

You can read Lizzo’s tweet above.

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

Reboots, revivals, and reunions have been all the rage for ages now, but somehow that’s eluded Scrubs, the hospital comedy from Spin City — and future Ted Lasso — creator Bill Lawrence. The closest they’ve come to that is a panel at this weekend’s ATX TV Festival, which featured Lawrence and the main cast, Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and John C. McGinley among them. As it happens, that’s where they revealed that they’d love to join the reboot/revival/reunion train — when they have time.

As per Deadline, the panel found Lawrence gushing about seeing everyone back together again. “We’re all so grateful any of you still care, it gives us an excuse to hang out together,” he said. “We are happy to spend time with each other in any way.”

That brought up the idea of a proper reboot. The good news: They’re game. The less good news: It would have to be something small.

“Here’s the deal: I think we all want a reboot and want to work together again but it couldn’t be a full season. Maybe like a movie or something we could shoot in a few months,” Faison told the crowd. “With everything Bill is doing now, he’s never going to be free again. If he finds the time, we’ll do it.”

Still, Lawrence was adamant that it happen, in whatever form it takes. “We’re gonna do it because people still care about it and we enjoy spending time with each other,” he said.

Lawrence is very busy. Along with Ted Lasso, he’s also working with Vince Vaughn on a crime series called Bad Monkey, which will also be on Apple TV+. But when he has some time off from making a show about a nice guy starring a nice guy, maybe Lawrence can get everyone back in their old hospital outfits.

(Via Deadline)

There are some collaborations that you might have expected from Jack Harlow this year, one of them being work with Drake. That came to fruition with their “Churchill Downs” record which recently received the visual treatment. There are also some collaborations we did not expect to receive from Jack Harlow. Aside from songs with Pharrell and Justin Timberlake, the Louisville star recently linked up with KFC for a new partnership. Sure, both Jack and the food chain share roots in Kentucky, but it’s not exactly the first brand partnership that comes to mind with Jack.

Nonetheless, just days after Jack announced the impending arrival of his own combo meal at KFC, he brought his talents to one of the chain’s Atlanta locations on Saturday. It’s here that Jack worked the drive-thru window at the KFC in Smyrna, located in Atlanta’s Cobb County. The restaurant featured a huge mural of the rapper on the side of its building and an enormous chicken bucket featuring Harlow’s face.

Jack’s combo meal will debut at KFC restaurants nationwide for a limited time starting Monday, June 6. The Jack Harlow Meal includes KFC’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich, Secret Recipe Fries, Mac & Cheese, a side of ranch, and a lemonade and it will be served in special packaging.

You can view some fan-captured videos and pictures of Jack Harlow’s day at KFC above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Atlanta rap community, and the music world overall, are left to grieve at the loss of another one of its artists. On Sunday morning, reports arrived that rapper Trouble had passed away at the young age of 35. The reports allege that Trouble was shot and killed, but these reports have yet to be confirmed. One of the first people to share their condolences about Trouble’s death was fellow Atlanta rapper Young Scooter, who posted his reaction to the news on his Instagram Story. “DAM SKOOB,” Scooter wrote with a picture of Trouble. “REST UP MY BOY.”

Trouble had been making waves in the rap community since 2011, the year that he released his debut mixtape, December 17th. The project gained plenty of attention for the Atlanta native as it was placed at No. 23 on Complex’s The 25 Best Mixtapes of 2011 list. For the next six years, Trouble would continuously release mixtapes before inking a deal with Mike Will Made-It’s Ear Drummers Records and Interscope Records in 2017. During this time, Trouble also laced notable collaborations with the links of Young Thug (“Theif In The Night“), YFN Lucci (“Key To The Streets“), and more.

In 2018, he released his debut album Edgewood. Highlighted by “Bring It Back” with Drake, the project carried 16 songs with additional features from The Weeknd, Quavo, Fetty Wap, Boosie Badazz, and more. It was later extended with five songs highlighted by an appearance by Offset. Trouble’s most recent project arrived in 2020 with Thug Luv. That delivered 18 songs with help from 2 Chainz, Quavo, Jeezy, City Girls, and more.

You can view a screenshot of Young Scooter’s post above.

How it normally works with blockbusters is this: They have a huge opening weekend, grossing over $100 million. Then the second weekend, the rabid anticipation drops and so does the money it rakes in. But something funny has happened with Top Gun: Maverick: People keep going to see it in droves.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the long-delayed, very belated sequel to the top grosser of 1986 dropped a mere 32 percent in its second weekend. When it opened over Memorial Day weekend, it Hoovered up $126.7 million in the first three days alone, and another $33.8 million on the holiday itself — by far the biggest opening of star Tom Cruise’s career. This weekend, it grossed a whopping $86 million.

That means Maverick has broken another record: the lowest second weekend dip for a movie that opened to over $100 million, according to THR. For context, consider that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which opened bigger than Maverick, with $187.4 million, dropped to $61.7 million its second weekend.

The news is pretty much the opposite of what befell Morbius, the Jared Leto-starring comic book movie, which was given a slight re-release in theaters after becoming a jokey social media meme sensation. On its first day back in theaters, it grossed a mere $85,000. That same day, Top Gun: Maverick made $25,00,000, or almost 300 times what Morbius made. Poor Morbius.

(Via THR)