Category: Worldwide

With the internet aflutter with those trying to preorder their Playstation 5’s in the past 12 hours, it made sense to wonder when exactly the new generation Xbox models were going to come out. Thanks to a report by Kotaku, we no longer have to do so.

According to the gaming website, both the Series S and the Series X will be available for preorder at 11 AM EST/8 AM PST on September 22nd (a date we’ve known about for a little bit) at every major retail website including Amazon and Walmart. Which for those who missed out on Sony’s next gen console, makes this likely the last chance for gamers to get their hands on a next-gen console at launch.

The fragmented release of the Playstation 5 preorders allowed Microsoft to throw a jab on Twitter about allowing everyone the chance to preorder. The universal release allows gamers the chance to prepare instead of playing whack-a-mole on retail sites.

It’s fair to ask that because there is a concrete time for everyone to preorder their consoles on the internet, does this make it more likely that bots will eat up most of the preorders online? Or will this buck the trend that we’ve seen everywhere else on the internet and will regular people get a fair shot at preordering one? We’ll find out on the 22nd, and may the odds ever be in your favor if you’re chasing one of the new Xbox consoles.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are respectively priced at $499.99 and $299.99 and officially launch on November 10th.

Tucker Carlson, who recently blamed Lindsey Graham for Trump confessing his COVID-19 lies, is fuming mad after his latest pandemic report put him in the crosshairs of fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram. A video of the Fox News host promoting a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is man-made is now flagged with warning labels by the two social media giants, and Carlson is not happy.

“Facebook has censored our video with a Chinese whistleblower. Big tech wants control over the facts you see,” Carlson griped on his Wednesday night episode.

However, the facts are not on Carlson’s side. The controversial video from Carlson’s Tuesday night broadcast was captioned, “Chinese whistle-blower to Tucker: This virus was made in a lab & I can prove it,” which set off internal triggers inside Facebook as part of the platform’s ongoing initiative to prevent the spread of misinformation about COVID-19. Via Variety:

On the warning labels placed over Carlson’s posts on Facebook and Instagram, the company links to three fact-checking articles on the issue: two from FactCheck.org — “Baseless Conspiracy Theories Claim New Coronavirus Was Bioengineered” and “Social Media Posts Spread Bogus Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory”— and one from USA Today, “Coronavirus not man-made or engineered but its origin remains unclear.” The consensus among pandemic experts is that COVID-19 appears to have originated as a bat-borne virus in China before it mutated and jumped to humans.

While Facebook and Instagram took a pro-active stance against Carlson, the video is still actively shared on Twitter with no warning whatsoever. As for YouTube, there is simply a link at the bottom of the video directing users to the Center for Disease Control’s website. There is no mention of the YouTubed video containing misinformation, or that it promotes a conspiracy theory published by non-profit groups with ties to far-right figure Steve Bannon.

(Via Variety)

It’s often been said that pop music is formulaic — or, more recently algorithmic, because the zeitgeist — but when a Twitter user posted a video of himself playing songs from The Weeknd on a mini-piano, users on the app went nuts debating just how true of the Canadian singer’s catalog that aphorism is.

The user in question was Andrew Huang, a self-declared “music human” who is best-known for his “Song Challenge” video series on YouTube (ironically, he too is Canadian, from Ottawa). Known for making music with unconventional tools and techniques, Huang posted a video playing the chord progressions of songs from The Weeknd’s catalog, positing in the caption, “Every Weeknd song uses the same 4 notes.” The songs played included “Tell Your Friends” and “Often” from Beauty Behind The Madness, “Reminder” and “Starboy” from Starboy, and “Heartless” from After Hours.

It didn’t take long for fans to rev up their best arguments for whether the video was accurate, inaccurate, good, or bad. A number of replies explained why The Weeknd does this in musical theory terms, with one clarifying that ‘the man found his key signature” and pointing out “some Broadway singers even have parts written specifically for them in their prefered key signatures.”

Others had some fun with the conceit, using it to make fun of both pop music and its critics, while others used it to criticize what they perceived as a lack of songwriting growth from The Weeknd, despite his ever-increasing popularity. There’s a pretty good pun in there too.

Still others just used the opportunity to marvel at the talent and hidden complexity of songwriters like The Weeknd and the fact that they are able to create so much diversity with just a handful of notes (there are only so many keys, chords, and sounds the human brain can interpret as music, yet we’vve been reinterpreting them for centuries and they all sound different — mostly). Meanwhile, one responder summed up the hype in one clever observation, remarking that while Huang never gave commentary on this tendency by The Weeknd, Twitter commenters have rivaled songwriters in their ability to turn basically anything into an argument.

Check out more replies below.

Though the Cavaliers are out of the spotlight right now as the NBA playoffs wrap up, Kevin Love is not backing away from his space as one of the faces of mental health activism in sports. He wrote a new essay in the Players Tribune on Thursday entitled “To Anybody Going Through It,” which details his continued fight with anxiety, depression and anger, as well as examples of how he’s coped during a difficult year.

“Even after all the work I’ve tried to do on myself over the last two-and-a-half years, some days are just brutal,” Love writes.

Without basketball for going on seven months, Love has had to re-examine his relationship with his career and the game, and what truly is fulfilling. The absence of the NBA as well as the challenges of the pandemic have been difficult on Love, and he writes that he expects it’s been difficult for many. Being unable to work or having the routines of everyday life disrupted is hard.

From Love:

“Way before I was in the NBA or even in college, my self-worth was all about performing. I was what I did, which I think a lot of people can relate to, whether they’re a chef or a lawyer or a nurse or whatever the profession. I just happened to play basketball.

When I wasn’t performing, I didn’t feel like I was succeeding as a person.”

As he continues to be outspoken about mental health, Love also wants fans to know that his openness does not equal complete recovery. The process is long, with many steps back that can counter incremental progress. Love tells a story of a simple day walking into an appointment with a therapist in which he felt far more at peace and comfortable in his own skin than any on-court accomplishment, even the 2016 title in Cleveland. But he notes that he’s dealing with plenty of challenges to this day, and especially this year, in balancing that comfort with missing basketball and the state of the world.

The topic of mental health has jumped to the fore in sports the past week or so in regard to Dak Prescott, who expressed many of the same feelings as Love in an interview with Graham Bensinger. Despite athletes returning to competition and the sports news cycle in full gear once again, Love puts into context the challenges that exist even for the successful and famous.

My position on award shows like the Emmys and the Oscars is pretty simple: I think the whole exercise is very silly, this attempt to find an objective winner in a totally subjective format, but I also think that, if we’re going to insist on doing it (and it sure seems like we are), then we might as well try to get it right. It’s a good policy in a lot of ways, but mostly because it allows me to be dismissive of the things I don’t care about while also getting unreasonably angry about the things I do. It’s good to bake a little hypocrisy into your positions. Gives you some wiggle room. It’s why I never understood how “have your cake and eat it too” is a bad thing. Try to stop me from eating my own cake once I have it. Seriously. I dare you. You might lose a finger.

All of which is to say that I’m mad about the Best Song category at this year’s Emmy awards. Look at this list of nominees.

• The Black Godfather, “Letter to My Godfather” — Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo
• Euphoria, “All For Us”‘ — Labrinth
• Late Week Tonight With John Oliver, “Eat Shit, Bob” — David Dabbon, Joanna Rothkopf, Jill Twiss, Seena Vail
• Little Fires Everywhere, “Build it Up — Ingrid Michaelson
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “One Less Angel” — Thomas Mizer, Curtis Moore
• This is Us, “Memorized” — Siddhartha Khosla, Taylor Goldsmith
• Watchmen, “The Way It Used To Be” — Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross

I bear no ill will toward any of these nominees and wish them well in this and all their future endeavors, but you see the problem here, right? The glaring omission? I assume you picked up on it by now because you clicked on the article and saw both the headline and large image at the top of the page, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: How the hell is “Misbehavin’” from The Righteous Gemstones not on this list?

Come on!

You remember “Misbehavin’,” right? I’m sure you do. In fact, I bet you just got it out of your head as recently as last week. And now it’s back in there because I mentioned it again. I’m sorry but also you are welcome. It’s so good and fun that it’s almost a good thing to have it stuck in your head for weeks at a time. Very few songs can pull off that trick. Usually, after about four or five hours or so you’re ready to scream and banish the songs to the fiery depths of hell forever. Not with this one. I just listened to it again for maybe the 200th time and I still giggled at “Runnin’ through the house with a pickle in my mouth.” It might be my favorite song from any television show this year. It’s kind of perfect because, like, on one hand, it’s such a weird and specific example that it barely makes sense, but on the other hand, picture a little boy running around his house with an entire pickle in his mouth and then picture his mom chasing after him and shouting “Stop running around the house with a pickle in your mouth!” Misbehaving confirmed.

I refuse to believe all of these songs are better than “Misbehavin’.” I don’t even need to listen to them to know it. It’s not the only upsetting omission, either. “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” was such an invasive little earworm that I had it buried in my skull for a week despite the fact that I did not watch a single episode of The Witcher. And while I’m glad to see a song from Watchmen get nominated, I’m annoyed that it wasn’t “Nun With a Motherfucking Gun,” which I had been calling “The Regina King Doing Cool Stuff Song,” because it usually played while her character was… well, doing cool stuff. But their title is good, too.

If you want to be very technical about this, I suppose you could point out that this song does not have any lyrics, and is therefore not a great candidate for a category with the full title of “Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics,” but please consider this: the song’s title contains a twelve-letter cuss word that Regina King’s character shouted multiple times on the show. There’s nothing stopping us from creating a remix with her shouting emmeffers over the instrumental track. Bingo bango, problem solved

But mostly, this is about “Misbehavin’.” Watch the video again. Watch how Walton Goggins and Jennifer Nettles sell it. Look at their extremely on-point “Christian sibling duo singing an upbeat song about the dangers of Satan” energy. And then remember that the song was actually an important part of the plot. It was a big deal! This wasn’t some song someone else sang in the background while other action took place. It was performed in its entirety by two important characters and played a large part in explaining the strained relationship between the main family and their primary antagonist. How does that not get a nomination?! I’m so angry I could… I could… okay, I’m probably not going to do anything beyond writing this article, but still. I am doing that. Which is kind of a lot for me. We’re coming up on 1,000 words here.

Are there more consequential snubs to focus on? Sure. Rhea Seehorn did not get a Best Actress nomination for her work on Better Call Saul, which is madness to a degree that it taints the entire proceedings. How can we take any of this seriously if they can’t even get the simplest part correct? It’s like when the Oscars didn’t nominate Paddington 2 for Best Animated Movie. I mean, these are layups. These are gimmes. Or, to put it all another way that I’m going to apologize for ahead of time and again afterward…

Could have picked the good ones
Picked some others anyway
Misbehavin’

Yeah, again, I don’t feel great about that, but they forced my hand. This all could have been avoided so easily.

Mike Hadreas created one of 2020’s music highlights with the emotional and soaring new Perfume Genius album Set My Heart On Fire Immediately. For fans who want more, more is on the way: Hadreas is releasing a companion book for the album, Immediately.

The book will come out via Hat & Beard Press in two editions: 900 copies will be softcover editions with French flaps, and 100 more exclusive copies will be hardcover and signed by Hadreas. Hadreas wrote the book, while French photographer Camille Vivier took the pictures. Additionally, Andrew J.S. is credited with design and art direction.

The publisher’s summary of the book calls it the “the indispensable book companion” to the album and notes:

“Featuring iconic portraits of the artist from celebrated French photographer Camille Vivier, this limited-edition monograph reveals the unseen procedures beneath the music–vivid conjurings that became songs and tactile byproducts from exercises in world-building.

Within its pages, beguiling still life is situated amid corroded collage, handwritten lyrics take shape, words emerge as emotionally-charged objects. The results are all collected here in a process made permanent.

In the book’s foreword, Ocean Vuong writes, ‘This is music to both fight and make love to. To be shattered and whole with. If sound is, after all, a negotiation/disruption of time, then in the soft storm of Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, the future is here. Because it was always here. Welcome home.’”

Pre-order Immediately here.

If you’re someone who watches TV, there’s a high likelihood that you’ve heard Joe Wong’s music. Over the last several years, the Milwaukee-raised multi-instrumentalist has scored numerous TV shows, including Master Of None, Russian Doll, Ugly Delicious and Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens. On his debut album Nite Creatures, Wong teamed up with Ex Hex’s Mary Timony for a collection of songs that utilize Wong’s skills as a composer to create a world in which his deeply personal lyrics reveal an intersection of joy and introspective melancholy.

To celebrate the new album, Wong sat down to talk Quincy Jones, podcasts, and ‘Modern Romance’ in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Feeling life through sound.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

I’d like for it to make people feel a sense of connection and joy.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Mumbai.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Quincy Jones. I’m inspired by his ability to segue from his “original craft” as a trumpeter into an arranger, composer, producer, and impresario. I love that he can make his own ingenious artistic statements or help bring out the best in others. He also produced the first album I owned (I wore Thriller out on my Fisher-Price turntable).

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Milan.

What album do you know every word to?

The Kick Inside by Kate Bush.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Elvin Jones, Cambridge, MA, 2000.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

A bespoke frock and a sterling silver medallion featuring my insignia, 4″ in diameter. Because 5″ is too heavy.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

Comedian, Jon Daly.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

Podcasts.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Which year I saw Elvin Jones (see above).

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Come to My Garden by Minnie Riperton

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Fort Thunder (RIP), Providence RI, 1999 — weird in the most beautiful way.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

N/A

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

Mary Lattimore, Sharon Van Etten, Tony Allen, Angel Olsen, Soundgarden, Mary Timony, The Walker Brothers, Love, Thelonious Monk, Minnie Riperton, Brigitte Fontaine.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

My dad bought me my first drum set, and my mom put up with me playing it.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Speak to yourself as you would speak to a friend.

What’s the last show you went to?

The Sea And Cake, Zebulon, Los Angeles.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Modern Romance.

What would you cook if Kanye were coming to your house for dinner?

We’d probably fast together, meditate, and stay up all night making some beats.

Nite Creatures is out September 18. Pre-order it here.

After Toronto’s narrow loss to Boston in the Eastern Conference semifinals, much of the criticism for the Raptors’ stagnant offense was directed at All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, who was unable to get much of anything going against the Celtics’ dominant wing group.

Siakam scored just 14.8 points per game on 38 percent shooting from the field in the second round, but Raptors President Masai Ujiri told reporters Thursday that while he understands some of the criticism, he thinks it went too far.

“Let’s not forget now, Pascal helped us win a championship,” Ujiri said Thursday.

While in the Bubble, Ujiri said the Raptors rallied around Siakam to not let his struggles affect his confidence or his belief in himself. As Ujiri noted, Toronto was perfectly capable with Siakam as a secondary scorer during its 2019 championship run, but was simply not ready to be a No. 1 option following the departure of Kawhi Leonard.

“Sometimes we need this, almost like a kick in the butt,” Ujiri said.

Even with Siakam’s struggles and the team’s loss in the second round, Ujiri praised the team’s maturity and how each player raised their game in the absence of Leonard (and Danny Green).

“Everybody grew up a notch, and that was incredible,” he said.

While Ujiri and his staff may acknowledge the limitations of Siakam’s game, his growth and that of the whole team is certainly nothing to dismiss. Toronto remained a top team in the East after losing its best player and was a game away from a return to the conference finals.

Click to download here.

Greetings, podsiglieres and vafongoolios, today is your lucky day because Pod Yourself A Gun, the internet’s only Sopranos rewatch podcast, is back for season three. If you’ve never heard or seen an episode until now, well, it’s a perfect time for a bada-binge.

On this, the day of your daughter’s wedding, my cohost Matt Lieb from Newsbroke and I are back discussing “Mr. Ruggiero’s Neighborhood,” part one of The Sopranos season three premiere, which originally aired March 4, 2001. There’s a gang war heating up in the garbage racket and the FBI is determined to pin Tony to the wall. To that end, they’re cooking up a surveillance plan to try to get a wire into Tony’s basement. To do that though, they have to make sure that everyone — Papa Bing, Mrs. Bing, Princess Bing, Baby Bing, and the Polish housekeeper (no codename) are out of the house. Which turns out to be more complicated than they ever imagined.

This episode is a bit of a meta look at the FBI as they, essentially, watch The Sopranos. Ay, Ton’, da friggin FBI is just like us! It includes the introduction of a braless tennis instructor from Iceland and a mash-up of The Police and Henry Mancini that, curiously, seems to be the centerpiece of the entire episode. As Matt says, it’s almost like they came up with the mash-up first and then built an entire episode around it. Meanwhile, Patsy Parisi is distraught about his dead identical twin brother, and Meadow has a wacky roommate at Columbia, whose mental health will later become another classic Sopranos episode.

So join us, will you? In this spirited discussion of episode 301 of television’s greatest mob dramedy, The Sopranos. And remember, just like they say on The Sopranos, when you’re here, you’re family. If you love it, don’t forget to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.

The NFL season started with an entertaining Week 1 slate and, in this space, the action was relatively kind to us. The end result was a 3-2 week, punctuated by a narrow cover by a home underdog on Monday evening, and we’ll take a 60 percent clip anytime.

Still, there is no time to rest, thanks to another jam-packed selection of games to evaluate and handicap in Week 2. Before we get to our five-some of picks to fade the public this week, here is a quick look at our overall progress.

• Week 1: 3-2
• 2020 Season: 3-2

Come get these winners.

Denver Broncos (+7.5) over Pittsburgh Steelers

We got to the window (barely!) with the Broncos in Week 1 and we’re going back to that well. Granted, Denver is a little scarier away from home, and the world is on Pittsburgh here after a win in their opener. However, the Steelers aren’t great as a favorite, posting a 14-21-1 mark against the spread in that situation since 2017. Moreover, this is a lot of points for a team in Denver that remains undervalued in my view, and the hook takes it over the top.

Indianapolis Colts (-3) over Minnesota Vikings

You’re reading that right, folks. We’re giving out a favorite. It’s rare in this space to see the minus sign next to a number, but this is a perfect storm. Indianapolis looked awful in losing to Jacksonville in Week 1 (and giving us a win in the process), but the Colts are, at least in my view, still a good football team. From there, more than 75 (!) percent of the tickets are on the Vikings, with the public remembering just how bad Indy looked and banking on a bounce-back from the Vikings after they lost to the Packers last week. It’s a “fade the public” favorite, and we like those.

Miami Dolphins (+6) over Buffalo Bills

We’re back to the basics with a home underdog that absolutely no one wants to bet. Buffalo didn’t impress me, even while covering in Week 1, and now they’re laying six in a division game. Yes, the Bills are better than the Dolphins, but I’m willing to buy low on Miami in this spot. For good measure, the universe is on Buffalo to the tune of more than 80 percent of the action, and this is where we shine.

Philadelphia Eagles (PK) over Los Angeles Rams

You might be able to get a point or so with the Eagles, but we’ll give out the consensus line. This is a classic overreaction spot for the public, with the Eagles losing in ugly fashion in Week 1 and the Rams knocking off the Cowboys in a standalone window. As such, this line is a few points off and, for me, the Eagles would be a play all the way up to -2.5 or -3. Do what you will.

Las Vegas Raiders (+6) over New Orleans Saints

We had success with a home underdog on Monday evening and it’s happening again here, albeit in different circumstances. The Raiders did get a win in their opener, but it wasn’t a dominant performance, while the Saints cruised over the Bucs in a standalone spot. New Orleans is arguably the best team in the NFC at full strength and, well, it isn’t fun to bet against them. Still, the Raiders are feisty and, more importantly, the Saints are operating without Michael Thomas in this spot. It’s not sexy, but everybody’s on the Saints, so you know where we’ll be at the end of the week.