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According to NPR—and the ABBA blaring from my young adult daughter’s headphones—we’re in the midst of an 80s music revival. As a Gen Xer who came of age in the 80s, I think most of that decade should stay locked in a time capsule, but there are a few songs that have managed to remain timeless despite the synthesizers and bad hair.

A-ha’s “Take On Me” is one of them. Despite its consummately-80s sound, the song with the famous sketch animated video is still enjoyable (if not a little earwormy—good luck once it gets stuck in your head).

But a lesser-known 2017 arrangement of the song is actually, miraculusly, even better. A-ha performed “Take On Me” for an MTV Unplugged Summer Solstice album, and it’s significantly different than the original. The Norwegian band filmed the performance live on the island of Giske, dropping the electric piano as well as the tempo for a stripped-down version that has become a fan favorite. As of this writing, the video has 97 million views on YouTube.

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“Take On Me” is one of 17 songs in the unplugged performance, but naturally the most popular.

“We’ve talked about this idea for so many years,” guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy said. “And in many of our concerts we’ve also played some acoustic songs. But if you consider that we don’t use much technology at all when we write the songs, the idea of an entirely acoustic show makes total sense. Playing all these songs now in their acoustic versions is like returning to their origins.”

Watch and see how the slower tempo and simple instrumentation creates a sadder, more haunting version of their biggest hit.

“The fact he’s still got such a good voice after decades is incredible,” wrote one fan.

This is music at its purest form. No light show, distortion pedals, autotune and massive audiences. Spotless,” wrote another.

“By far the best version of this song that I have ever heard. It totally transforms the song when performed like this,” shared another.

Another commenter made a poignant observation:

“The original version is like a soundtrack for a man living in the fast-paced life in the 80’s all cool and hip. This one is like when the same man grows old and saying farewell to the fun memories of his youth.”

And another summed up what most people feel seeing this:

“One version makes you dance and the other version makes you cry.”

This article originally appeared on 9.26.23

David C. Smalley, a comedian and podcaster, regularly gives us some generational humor by exposing his 19-year-old daughter Talissa to relics of the past. You know, things like CDs, phonebooks, remote controllers…feeling old yet?

Recently, Smalley challenged Talissa with navigating a standard U-Haul storage truck. She had to 1) unlock the door 2) roll down a window and 3) start the engine.

For those of us who grew up before the 90s, this might sound like the easiest challenge ever. But apparently, for Gen Z, it’s like being asked to maneuver a horse and buggy.

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Despite growing up in a key fob generation, where simply pressing a button on a tiny remote controller could magically open doors, Talissa aced unlocking the door with a key.

Next, she was understandably baffled over the amount of physical labor required to simply roll down a window.

“Are you serious? They haven’t updated that?!” she exclaimed while doing the tedious hand-cranking move we all know so well. “Are you kidding me?! I would not do this every time.”

She definitely had a point on this one. Electronic windows have been the standard for decades. Is U-Haul just sentimental or what?

Having checked off two of the three tasks, Talissa then had to start the car—which proved to be the biggest challenge of all.

Looking on the center console, where she’s used to seeing the ignition button, Talissa found the airbag and radio (two foreign objects in their own right) but no way to start the car.

Finally…success! Talissa found the ignition hiding behind the steering wheel.

“I’m not going to make it explode, am I?” she joked as she turned the key and celebrated her victory.

Watch below. Hearing Talissa ask if the radio is a “fidget game” is entertainment in itself.

@davidcsmalley #daughterissues #daughterpod ♬ original sound – David C. Smalley

It’s always fun to see the ways in which different generations navigate the world through fashion, slang, entertainment, dating, food, the list goes on. But technology, which continues to evolve at a rapid rate, always feels like the biggest culture shock.

And unlike bell bottoms, outdated tech rarely makes a comeback. So once the more energy efficient, more convenient appliance becomes mainstream, its predecessor is forever obsolete. Unless of course you count the cool, hipster folks hanging onto vinyl for the superior sound quality.

Speaking of vinyl, Talissa was also previously challenged by Smalley to work a record player, to equal hilarity:

@davidcsmalley #daughterissues #daughterpod #genz #genx #recordplayers #vinyl #talissa ♬ original sound – David C. Smalley

Somehow, seeing how far we’ve come through the look of bafflement from the young ones is the only thing that never gets old.

Enjoy more fun interactions from Smalley and Talissa on TikTok.

This article originally appeared on 9.25.23

We tell our best friends everything, right? But even knowing your friend’s deepest darkest secrets don’t always prepare you for what they may reveal unprompted. For Mary Howe, she found out her best friend had a weird quirk that she just wasn’t prepared to hear on their 4 AM trip to the airport. Howe’s friend is a biologist, which may or may not be important information.

On the way to drop her friend off to catch her flight back out of town, the soon to be airborne bestie revealed she had to hurry home to her pet praying mantis. This information was a bit jarring for Howe but it was when she found out that the praying mantis was left out in the apartment, laid eggs on the ceiling that she started to question her friends sanity.

But the strange pet saga was just beginning in the most randomly unhinged story about pets on the internet.

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“My brain was just not prepared at four in the morning to hear about how her pet praying mantis, that she found outside and brought inside, laid eggs on her ceiling and then they accidentally hatched while she was here visiting me. So now when she goes home she has to corral hundreds of baby praying mantises in her bedroom and put them back into the cage,” Howe reveals.

The friend wasn’t done, yet. She told Howe that she has a pet water but about three to four inches long that sometimes gets out of its cage and eats the tadpoles. At this point Howe looks frightened and maybe a bit concerned for her friend’s mental stability after her friend attempts to explain why she has tadpoles in her bedroom.

@maryhowe23

My bestie is a biologist and tbh i still couldnt have guessed any of this conversation. #tooearlyforthis #prayingmantis #waterbug #why #help #foryourpage

Clearly, she is starting her own bug and amphibian petting zoo, she just hasn’t gotten the permits yet. But people in the comments did not disappoint in their analysis of the best friend.

“I think your best friend needs to stop touching grass,” one person writes.

“Your friend has Disney princess energy but for bugs instead of forest mammals or birds,” another says.

“Bug girls are so casually unhinged,” writes another commenter.

But one person asks the million dollar question, “mama…what bugs did she bring into your house.” Hopefully the answer to that is none, because Howe does not look as if she is interested in keeping random yard bugs in her bedroom.

Teaching kids emotional intelligence isn’t always easy, especially if you weren’t taught emotional intelligence as a child. Many parents are just trying to do the best they can to produce good humans. But the thing about children is that they have a lot of emotions and since they’re fairly new to the planet, they don’t always know the names of the emotions they’re feeling or appropriate ways to express them.

It’s up to parents to help kids navigate the emotions that come along with the human experience. A man that goes by the name of Dope Dad on TikTok is giving parents a quick glimpse into how he teaches his own kids about emotions with something called “emotion soup.”

The dad has a bowl with colorful puff balls laid out in front of him. Each ball represents a different emotion and the bowl of course, is for the soup. No worries parents, there’s no actual water or messy ingredients involved.

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“If you’ve seen the Disney Pixar movie “Inside Out,” we follow those basic colors to represent the emotion. “Inside Out 2″ was just announced so we have a few new emotions being added to the mix,” the dad says before holding up each color to reveal the emotion.

He also explains that he has an emotions wheel that shows more emotions in case what his kids are feeling don’t fit into the color coded puffs. The bowl is to place the puff balls in for emotion soup which gives the dad a chance to see how his kids are feeling and why.

“The idea is that whatever emotions are in this bowl are the emotions that you’re feeling right now, or today or over the past week and these are the emotions that we need to digest or process,” he reveals.

The kids are in control of their soup, how many emotions go in the soup and what they do with the emotions they share with their dad. If the soup is too “hot,” meaning they need help managing their emotions, the dad gives them tools to help get the emotions under control.

It’s a really clever way to explain emotions to kids and can be great for parents who aren’t quite sure how to implement emotional intelligence with young kids. You can check out the video below to see how it’s done:

@simpiest_simp_dad

Have you ever watched a James Bond movie and noticed that as he races his Astin Martin through the hills of an exotic European locale, the street signs look a lot different than those in America? Did you also notice that they don’t have many words, mostly shapes and pictures?

It isn’t by accident. Many years ago, there was a movement to get America on board with the rest of the world so all of our street signs would be the same, but it never happened. For better or worse, America, once again, exercised its independent spirit and stuck with its signs.

The whole story was recently told on YouTube by Half as Interesting. This channel prides itself on being an “Education-y explainer videos that are almost good enough to watch.”

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The chasm between the U.S. and the rest of the world regarding traffic signs started in the early 1900s when Henry Ford began mass-producing automobiles and America quickly became the car capital of the world.

This also made the U.S. the road capital of the world.

Why US Signs Look Different Than The Rest Of The World’s

The signage across the U.S. in the early days of the automobile was inconsistent, which would cause problems as people drove from region to region and couldn’t make sense of the signage. So, in 1931, a committee of traffic sign organizations created a joint committee that ultimately came up with the 1931 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

This Bible of signage gave us the stop sign we all know and love, along with the iconic “One Way” and “Railroad Crossing” signs that are still used today.

As the rest of the world caught up to the U.S., the United Nations attempted to get the world on the same page regarding traffic signs, but the U.S. wouldn’t go along. “It turned out that Americans, still riding the intoxicating high of World War II propaganda and American exceptionalism, did not look kindly on European triangles telling them how to drive,” the video says.

In 1968, the Vienna Convention on Road Signs & Signals created a universal road sign system joined by 69 countries, and today, it governs the road signs seen in most of the world. The United States refused to sign the agreement. Why? Half as Interesting cites 3 big reasons.

“Technically, legally, roads are under the purview of the states, not the federal government and so the federal government signing a treaty telling them how to handle their roads is a bit legally murky, the video says.

“Second, at the time of the treaty, the US was working on the Interstate highway system, which they felt would require a lot of breathless, fast-paced innovation in the rough and tumble world of roadside signage and they didn’t want to be bogged down by the strictures of a treaty,” the video continues. “Third, given that the US had the most robust driving history in the world, Americans were pretty much their existing signs and they didn’t much want them to change.”

If the UN figured out how to tell the British to drive on the other side of the road, Americans could get a rental car in London.

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It’s no fun when a family feuds, but it gets particularly nasty when the public gets involved. After Cardi B accused her estranged husband, Offset, of wrongdoing during an explosive Instagram Live, fans quickly began to take sides. Despite denying rumors that he was romantically connected to Chrisean Rock, people online have begun to flood Offset’s social media comment sections with nasty messages.

Although the personal attacks haven’t phased him, Offset put his foot down when people began to turn their attention to the late Migos member Takeoff. In a disgusting attempt to hurt Offset, several accounts made tasteless jokes about Takeoff’s tragic death. On Saturday, December 16, Offset reached his boiling point.

“Fan wishing death on Takeoff is crazy. Y’all lil ass better chill,” wrote Offset.

He later posted, “Correction: Fans using Takeoff’s name in the middle of all this isn’t cool. I’m still grieving my brother and would like for his name not to be brought up.”

Quavo also chimed in on the matter, coming to the defense of his late nephew. “Nephew ain’t wit the soap opera. LONG LIVE Rocket pray for y’all tho,” he wrote.

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

Everybody loves TV revivals. Well, maybe not everybody. For every Night Court, which has enjoyed critical and commercial success, there’s a Frasier, which is not as beloved as the original, to put it mildly. Could the fate befall, let’s say, Everybody Loves Raymond? We’ll probably never find out.

Per Variety, Ray Romano went on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday, where the subject of reviving one of the biggest sitcoms of the ‘90s and aughts came up. Romano didn’t even see that as a possibility.

“As far as a reboot, well, it’s now out of the question because unfortunately the parents are gone: Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts,” Romano pointed out.

Still, Frasier 2.0 managed to eke by without even most of its surviving cast members, including David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves. Couldn’t a Raymond 2.0 focus on the remaining Barones? Alas, Romano had another reason to keep on keepin’ on: He doesn’t think reboots are so hot.

“They’re never as good,” Romano said. “We want to leave with our legacy with what it is.”

Luckily, those who love the suburban adventures of the Barones can watch them on either Peacock and on Paramount+. Perhaps 210 episodes across nine whole seasons is enough.

As for Romano, he’s doing just fine. He’ll soon be appearing in Netflix’s No Good Deed, a dark comedy starring him and Lisa Kudrow. Heck, he’s even been (great) in a Martin Scorsese picture, even if the great director had no idea he was a big deal.

(Via Variety)

Everybody loves TV revivals. Well, maybe not everybody. For every Night Court, which has enjoyed critical and commercial success, there’s a Frasier, which is not as beloved as the original, to put it mildly. Could the fate befall, let’s say, Everybody Loves Raymond? We’ll probably never find out.

Per Variety, Ray Romano went on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday, where the subject of reviving one of the biggest sitcoms of the ‘90s and aughts came up. Romano didn’t even see that as a possibility.

“As far as a reboot, well, it’s now out of the question because unfortunately the parents are gone: Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts,” Romano pointed out.

Still, Frasier 2.0 managed to eke by without even most of its surviving cast members, including David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves. Couldn’t a Raymond 2.0 focus on the remaining Barones? Alas, Romano had another reason to keep on keepin’ on: He doesn’t think reboots are so hot.

“They’re never as good,” Romano said. “We want to leave with our legacy with what it is.”

Luckily, those who love the suburban adventures of the Barones can watch them on either Peacock and on Paramount+. Perhaps 210 episodes across nine whole seasons is enough.

As for Romano, he’s doing just fine. He’ll soon be appearing in Netflix’s No Good Deed, a dark comedy starring him and Lisa Kudrow. Heck, he’s even been (great) in a Martin Scorsese picture, even if the great director had no idea he was a big deal.

(Via Variety)

“Sorry Not Sorry” singer Demi Lovato might have split from their longtime manager, Scooter Braun, not so long ago, but they’ve rebounded. Lovato’s team shared an exclusive with People, revealing their relationship with songwriter Jordan ‘Jutes’ Lutes is heating up.

According to the outlet, on Saturday, December 16, Lutes asked for Lovato’s hand in marriage, to which they said yes. Now the pair are happily engaged and excited about their future together. The duo first met when they penned Lovato’s song “Substance” together. Since then, they’ve been spotted at multiple industry events, including the 2023 Pre-Grammy Gala in February.

On December 9, Lovato gushed about their relationship during the musician’s appearance on the The Jennifer Hudson Show. When asked about their adorable tattoo exchange, Lovato said, “So my boyfriend was on tour with me, visiting, and we had a tattoo artist there, and he wanted to get a tattoo of a song title of mine called ‘Forever for Me,’ which is a song I wrote about him. And while he was getting tattooed, he was like, ‘I want you to do it.’”

Lovato continued while laughing, “I assisted. I wouldn’t say that I gave the full tattoo. Otherwise, that would have looked really bad. But I did a good portion of it, and it turned out ok.”

Last month, multiple explosive lawsuits were filed accusing the entertainment industry’s biggest names of several egregious acts. On Saturday, December 16, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee’s name was added to this ongoing list. In documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Lee has been sued by a Jane Doe plaintiff, alleging that he sexually assaulted her during a helicopter ride in February 2003.

In the filing, Doe claims that while traveling from San Diego County to Van Nuys, California, Lee forcibly groped, kissed, penetrated her with his fingers, and attempted to force her to perform oral copulation.

“At one point, Lee penetrated the plaintiff with his fingers while fondling her breasts,” reads the paperwork. “Lee then pulled down his pants and attempted to force the plaintiff’s head toward his genitals. By this point, the plaintiff was in tears but had nowhere to go — she was trapped with little mobility to leave the cockpit.”

Lee isn’t the only party named in the lawsuit. Mayhem Touring, Tommy Lee Inc., A Natural High Helicopters, and Social Helicopters are also named as defendants. Although the flight’s pilot, David Martz, who died in 2015, was mentioned in the recounting of the incident, which accused him of facilitating the alleged assault, he was not posthumously listed as a co-defendant.

The defendants are being sued for sexual assault, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. Doe is asking for past, present, and future damages, including but not limited to medical expenses, loss of earnings, and loss of earnings capacity.