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Of the MANY Taylor Sheridan shows coming our way, the most exciting might be Matthew McConaughey’s Yellowstone spinoff. Little is known about the series, other than it’s a “franchise extension to continue the Dutton saga,” but it will be the Oscar winner’s first live-action role since before the pandemic.

“I am now becoming more interested in actually going to play another character in a TV show because the last four years of culminating and writing and getting these things together and getting more into public service,” McConaughey explained on the Armchair Expert podcast. “The idea of going to act in the right kind of role, in the right kind of movie, film, or series right now sounds like an awesome vacation.”

Anywhere can be a vacation when you wear a cowboy hat while shirtless, even Montana.

McConaughey thinks his mini-hiatus from acting will be beneficial. “I’ll be a different or improved actor in my own right after this last [four] years,” he said. “What I have is so much respect for the vocation of acting. I think I have a healthier relationship. I’m not looking at it for my survival and my thrive-all. I think good acting emulates life. Real life is where this stuff comes from.”

You can listen to the podcast below.

(Via CNN)

When last the LoFi Girl YouTube Stream made headlines, it was because bogus copyright claims had crashed the stream, ending two years, four months, and two weeks of nonstop streaming of pleasant, downtempo “beats to study to.”

This week, though, LoFi Girl made headlines for another reason: After apparently receiving a message via a blue light flashing Morse code in one of the distant windows behind her, the stream’s mascot, Jade, mysteriously vanished. That’s right: LoFi Girl has lore now — and it’s kind of glorious. (Apparently, Jade finally took a break from studying to nap earlier this month, too)

With the titular LoFi Girl out of the picture, as it were, the stream instead began to slowly zoom in on the distant blue window over the next 24 hours. As of press time, it’s apparently stopped doing so after settling on a new room — this one decidedly more cluttered and masculine, according to fans in the chat — but that same familiar pair of headphones rests on the desk.

Meanwhile, fans who hashed out the Morse code message discovered that it directed them to a new website, lofiworld.com. Clicking a button on the site marked “launch” sends users to another YouTube stream, this one playing ambient music in yet another bedroom (with a fishtank! and Gundam models! and a GameCube!) where a clock on the wall has been counting down. As of press time, about 30 minutes remain; we’ll update you when we know exactly what’s going on.

So there you have it: A nice, relaxing little mystery to start your day. Let’s all tune in together.

Fire up FIFA and there’s a decent chance you’ll hear one of your favorite songs (or something you’ve never heard before but admittedly slaps). Music from some of today’s biggest artists plays a significant role in sports video games, increasingly so as the music and game industries continue to evolve. The relationship between sports games and music is so strong, in fact, that musicians are actually using them to debut new music now: 2 Chainz previewed a new album in NBA 2K21 and Madden NFL 23 featured new songs from artists like Killer Mike and Cordae.

That’s where we’re at these days, but how did we get here, and where do we go from here? Let’s start exploring those questions by rewinding a bit.

Recently, I was reminiscing about the main menu music from 1995’s Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball on the Super Nintendo, specifically about how hard it goes. Show me somebody who’s heard a better video game soundtrack synth solo from the mid-’90s and I’ll show you a liar. At that point, sports games were soundtracked by bespoke music created specifically for the game by in-house composers, not commercially available songs you could hear on the radio or buy at your local record shop.

Nearly a decade after Big Hurt, EA Sports pivoted from its long-running Triple Play MLB games and launched the short-lived MVP Baseball series with the 2003 installment. I grew up playing MVP Baseball 2004 and 2005 on the original Xbox, and what I remember about those games more than anything (aside from maybe the Jacob Paterson cheat) is the soundtracks.

Instead of newly composed music, these games (and many of their contemporaries) compiled soundtracks from songs of the day. Both games had carefully curated and relatively limited tracklists (2004 had 13 songs, 2005 had just nine), which meant I got intimately familiar with those songs. As I browsed in-game menus, tracks like Steriogram’s “Walkie Talkie Man,” Chronic Future’s “Time And Time Again,” The Donots’ “We Got The Noise,” and Hot Hot Heat’s “You Owe Me An IOU” became ingrained in the deepest wrinkles of my still-forming brain. The games and their soundtracks made each other better; those songs make me think about the games, the games make me think about those songs.

Yay, good for me and my childhood fun, but what does this mean in terms of a musician’s relationship with sports games today? Well, for a musician now, playing a role in a sports game is not only possible, but actually a desirable goal, and an attainable one at that.

Here’s an example: a 25-year-old (to choose an easy-to-work-with young-adult age) playing MVP Baseball 2005 didn’t necessarily grow up with sports games. In 1990, that fictitious person was 10 years old and home video game consoles were a relatively emerging market in terms of widespread adoption. There’s no guarantee they and a majority of their peers had strong childhood memories of playing games like Jordan Vs. Bird: One On One for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Furthermore, games like that had original, relatively minimal, composed music, not songs pulled from the contemporary music industry.

Over time, video games became more widespread, sports titles became more robust, and the music in those games played a larger and larger role. Today, a 25-year-old here in 2023 was 10 in 2008, when games featured memorable compilation soundtracks. So, for a modern 25-year-old, there’s a far stronger chance sports video games and their soundtracks — comprised of regular, non-video-game music — were at the center of core childhood nostalgia. A young-adult 2005 musician didn’t grow up with the idea that their songs could be in sports video games, but a young-adult artist today did.

There’s also some level of two-way professional envy between athletes and musicians. As Lil Wayne succinctly summarized it in 2014, “Athletes wanna be rappers, rappers wanna be athletes.” While most musicians will never be able to fulfill their dreams of becoming a professional athlete (props to J. Cole, though), there’s still a way for them to be involved: through sports video games and their soundtracks. While video games once had a reputation of being “nerdy” fare, they’re now a fully mainstream and accepted pastime. Sports video games are cool, so for a musician, having their song in the latest Madden is something to brag about. Having their song debut in the latest Madden, to have a part of their career narrative significantly intertwined with a gaming franchise they’ve perhaps loved for decades, is extra special.

(There are other reasons, of course, why an artist might want their music in a sports game. NBA 2K22, for example, sold over 10 million copies, making it a sizable platform for a musician to promote their work.)

So that’s my take on how we got to where we are now, but what’s next? Trying to predict the future of games and music is like trying to predict what Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons will be up to next week (I’d probably be wrong), but let’s take a crack at it.

One theory is that we’ll see an artist make an original sports game soundtrack. In a way, it’s not completely unprecedented: Japanese Breakfast created the soundtrack of 2021’s Sable. Stewart Copeland of The Police composed the excellent music for the beloved original Spyro The Dragon trilogy on Playstation 1. There are other examples, but to my knowledge, we haven’t seen anything like that in a sports game yet. Perhaps the closest thing is Jay-Z curating the soundtrack and serving as executive producer on NBA 2K13. So maybe that’s something we’ll see next: A major artist going all-in on a big sports game, creating an original soundtrack that both serves the game and stands on its own as an appealing collection of music. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has pivoted to pumping out successful movie scores, so why not video games next?

Beyond that, who knows. Maybe we get something between that idea and the current reality: a game soundtrack composed of all-new music from various artists? Perhaps something else I can’t yet envision? Whatever the future of the relationship between sports games and music looks like, it wouldn’t be surprising to see it become more involved and bright than it already is. Good luck topping the Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball menu music, though.

SZA’s North American SOS Tour reportedly grossed $10 million but the TDE singer isn’t done yet. While the first part of the tour was attended by luminaries like Adele and Justin Bieber and supported by special guests like Phoebe Bridgers, Cardi B, and Lizzo, SZA just announced a second slate of US and Canada dates scheduled after her return from the European leg of the tour. The additional dates include a makeup show in Philadelphia without opener Omar Apollo, who performed without SZA in March. You can see the new dates below.

THE SOS EUROPE TOUR DATES:
06/01 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Ziggo Dome*
06/05 – Paris, France @ Accor Arena*
06/07 – Zurich, Switzerland @ Hallenstadion*
06/09 – Berlin, Germany @ Mercedes-Benz Arena*
06/11 – Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena
06/13 – Manchester, UK @ AO Arena*
06/15 – Glasgow, UK @ OVO Hydro*
06/17 – London, UK @ The O2*
06/18 – London, UK @ The O2*
06/21 – Dublin, Ireland @ 3Arena*
*With Support from RAYE

THE SOS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:
09/20 – Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
09/22 – Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
09/24 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
09/26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center^
09/28 – Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
09/09 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
10/01 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
10/04 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
10/06 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
10/07 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
10/10 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
10/11 – St. Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center
10/14 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
10/15 – San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
10/18 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
10/19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Arena
10/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
10/23 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
10/26 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
10/28 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
10/29 – Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
^Rescheduled Date from Leg 1 without Omar Apollo

Yesterday, Billy McFarland announced that he’d be returning with a Fyre Festival II, shortly after being released from prison for what occurred during the first one.

For those who don’t recall or hadn’t heard of the first one, McFarland attempted to host a music festival on an island, using celebrity endorsements to sell tickets. (He paid Kendall Jenner $250,000 to reportedly post about it, as just one example.) However, as guests arrived, it was more like a scene out of Lost, rather than a luxurious event. The artists on the lineup, including Blink-182, Migos, and more, had already canceled their appearances.

The disastrous attempt cost investors $26 million and earned McFarland a six-year prison sentence, of which he served about four.

When asked why in the world McFarland would think it was a good idea to try this again, he answered, “It’s in the best interest of those I owe for me to be working. People aren’t getting paid back if I sit on the couch and watch tv. And because I served my time.”

“I was wrong,” McFarland also said last year during a Good Morning America interview. “I messed up. I was so driven by this desperate desire to prove people right. I had these early investors, backers, employees, and I think I was just so insecure that I thought the only way to prove myself to them was to succeed and that led me down this terrible path of bad decisions.”

Late last year, he was also reportedly hosting something called PYRT (pronounced Pirate) that was supposed to be a virtual festival. But why have that when you can have a real thing?

As to who exactly would attend Fyre Fest II this time around, I guess we’ll have to see.

Blink-182 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown might be engaged and the internet is handling the news about as well as can be expected.

Brown, 19, has been in a relationship with Jake Bongiovi, 20, since November 2021. The pair have attended red carpets together and Bongiovi — who just so happens to be the son of musician Jon Bon Jovi — has been featured heavily on Brown’s Instagram over the years. In January, Brown shared some snaps of the couple on vacation calling Bongiovi her “partner for life,” and now it seems they’re adding a bit of bling to that statement.

The actress shared a black and white photo of the pair embracing on a beach while she wore what appeared to be an engagement ring. Brown was wearing a white lace cover-up and sporting the diamond on her left ring finger. She captioned the post with Taylor Swift lyrics that read, “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, I want ’em all” ending things with a heart emoji.

Brown recently celebrated her 19th birthday with Bongiovi by her side in February and while the couple has a few years under their belt, fans on Twitter seemed shocked that the actress would get engaged so young. So shocked in fact that #She’s19 is currently trending on the social media site.

Glad to see we’re all having a completely normal reaction to another bit of low-stakes celebrity news.

(Via Page Six)

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season four, episode three of Succession.

There were a lot of surprising things in episode three of Succession, but there was one key moment that had everyone shocked: when Roman and Connor shared an awkward hug. There was also the whole dad dying thing, but you already knew that!

In the emotionally-charged episode, the siblings are forced to confront the thing that they had been afraid of (or working towards) the entire show after Logan Roy met his end on a flight to Sweden. The rest of the episode is dedicated to the aftermath of the patriarch’s death, which inspired many Emmy-worthy performances from the Roy siblings. And tears from every viewer at home.

But back to that shocking moment– a hug between Connor and Roman (Alan Ruck and Kieran Culkin). Director Mark Mylod confirmed that it was an improvised moment between the actors. “No, that wasn’t in the script. That just happened organically in a lovely, clumsy way,” Mylod told GQ.

Mylod also shared another pivotal moment that wasn’t initially planned but helped the audience see the impact that their father’s death has had on them. He explained, “One of my favourite moments in the episode just happened, too. Right at the end of the episode when Sarah’s character has just done the press briefing, and the three of them fall into this three-way hug before going their separate ways. That wasn’t in the script. But Sarah’s character and Jeremy’s character holding hands that was in the script, and it killed me on the day.”

Even though it wasn’t in the script, the moment helped put the moment into perspective for the audience. “Any time we just get that window into their childhood is such a lovely thing. It just deepens our connection to those characters and our understanding of them,” Mylod added.

While Logan is really, truly dead, there is still an opportunity for one more “F*ck You” from the patriarch, as Brian Cox confirmed he would “pop back” for flashbacks in a few more scenes. There are still seven more episodes of madness left, so you never know what will happen.

(Via GQ)

Barry has always walked a tightrope. For three seasons now, the show has mined laughs from a plot about a mass-murdering hitman who tries to go clean with the help of a newfound passion for acting. It’s something that’s really hard to explain to someone who doesn’t watch the show. Try it sometime this week. It gets weird fast, especially when you get to the thing about the powerful figure in the Chechen mob who was involved in a panther-related murder and is also now in a forbidden same-sex relationship with a powerful figure in the Bolivian mob and is also the sweetest and kindest man on the show by a factor of about one thousand. People look at you pretty weird by the end of that speech. It’s okay. It’s their loss if they’re missing out.

This is especially true of the fourth and final season, which debuts on HBO this Sunday, April 16. Things are, on paper, incredibly bleak. Barry (Bill Hader) opens the season in prison after his arrest at the end of season three for one of the many murders he very much committed. Sally (Sarah Goldberg) is back home in Joplin to escape the horrors of, well, dating a murderer and beating a dude to death. Gene (Henry Winkler) is getting praise heaped on him for catching Barry with the help of Janice Moss’ terrifying father (Robert Wisdom, holy hell), and eating it up to a degree that — I don’t think this is a spoiler if you’ve seen the three previous seasons of the show and watched Gene do anything — quickly spins out of control. Everyone is spiraling a little in the wake of the big thing that finally happened. Barry was never going to get to, like, star in a sitcom and live happily ever after. The past comes for everyone at some point.

What’s incredible about all of this, though, is that it remains just massively silly in places, and makes it work. There’s always a danger of a tonal whiplash there, where you go from a serious scene where a character grapples with awful things they’ve done straight into a scene with, to choose just one example, a silly stoner beignet guy named Mitch. Or Henry Winkler doing a physical comedy bit that is straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. (I’m serious about this second thing.) Barry is sometimes a midnight black story, a show that takes the dark in dark comedy to uncomfortable places. It is also a show where… this happens.

That all of this works at the rate it does is a testament to Hader and co-creator Alec Berg. Especially Hader, who pulls triple duty as star, lead writer, and director. He’s behind the camera for every episode in the final season and, hoo buddy, is he putting on a show. There are shots that linger in a way that unsettle the viewers, and action sequences that rival a big-budget movie (the dirtbike chase in season three might be one of my favorite scenes from any show on television in the last five years), and goofball bits that are staged in a way that remind you that this dude is just really funny, first and foremost. There’s a scene early on in the season where NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and his lover-associate Cristobal (Michael Irby) are giving a presentation about a potential illicit source of income that I backed up and watched a second time just because it was such a delight. I’m excited for you to see it.

I’m also excited for you to see the scene where Hank is dressed like this, not so much for the story it reveals as… I mean, just look at my sweet Chechen prince.

Which is, again, the point I’m making about the wild ping-ponging tone of this show, and of this final season. The stuff with Sally gets uncomfortable and heavy in spots. Barry, mostly to this point a cold and calculated character who has to work to channel real emotion, lets ugly sides of himself spill out in little desperate explosions. Gene remains just the neediest and most pathetic narcissist you’ve ever seen, desperate for attention and accolades even if it puts himself and others at risk. The show started out as a kind of satire of Hollywood and the entire profession of acting, which was cool, but it’s now evolved into a much deeper look at the humanity of people who are barely humans. Which is also cool. And it has Stephen Root in it. Stephen Root rules. I can’t believe I made it this far into the review without mentioning him. Let’s go ahead and file that one under “Barry has an embarrassment of riches” instead of “Brian is bad at his job.” Thank you.

There’s a thing that happens early in this final season where another character talks to Barry and says “I’m sure you’re not a bad guy.” This is something you’ve seen in the other great Difficult Dudes shows in the genre, your Sopranos and Breaking Bads and Better Call Sauls, where the main character is a full-on monster who we come to feel sympathy for as we learn more about his life and personality and dreams. Hell, you even saw it a little bit with John Wick, another story about a hitman trying and failing to go clean that wrapped up this year after its fourth installment. And while there is a cliche to that, to the “I’m not a bad person, I’ve just done bad things” brand of storytelling, I think the bigger point here is this…

I just compared Barry to three of the best television dramas of the last quarter century, and to one of our coolest and most successful action movie franchises, and I bet you didn’t even clock it as it happened. That’s a ringing endorsement for any show. It’s a borderline miracle for a half-hour comedy. I’m going to miss this one a lot when it’s gone. I’m going to enjoy the heck out of it first.

Angel Olsen is always up to something. Last year, she unveiled the seismic indie-folk album Big Time, which came with an accompanying film. She announced a new EP called Forever Means last month, and she shared the title track today.

“Forever Means” possesses the endearing twang of her last LP, as well as the intimate, vulnerable ambiance. In emotive croons, she explores the ephemeral nature of everything: “Forget all I said just look at the way / We are when we’re there together / Each moment arrives and then disappears but the searching goes on / Forever.”

“I was somewhere traveling,” Olsen said in a press release, “stopped for a few days and wandering the city, and I was thinking ‘what does ‘forever’ really mean? What are the things I’m seeking in friendship or love, and how can ‘forever’ be attainable if we’re always changing?’”

The song explores the meaning of forever as she contemplates aloud: “Forever forever / Forever means always looking / Forever means trying to see / Forever means saying what’s on your mind,” she sings, unhurried and thoughtful. It comes with a cinematic, nostalgic lyric video that captures the gorgeousness of the music.

Listen to “Forever Means” above.

Forever Means is out 4/14 via Jagjaguwar. Find more information here.

Doja Cat has lost her blue verified checkmark on Twitter, but she isn’t sweating it. She’s been highly active on the platform lately, using it to discuss her recent surgery, troll fans about her upcoming album, and clap back at trolls who criticized her for doing both. But in the future, she’ll do all that without being verified, so maybe it won’t even be the Doja Cat (it’ll probably be Doja Cat, provided it’s coming from her @DojaCat account).

When fans noticed “no blue tick,” Doja geared up to clown yet again. “Only fans have blue ticks,” she replied. When another fan wondered “What has elon done to you doja?” referencing the controversial businessman who took over the app recently and made some… less than popular changes, Doja unloaded. “Having a blue tick now means theres a higher chance that you’re a complete loser and that you’re desperate for validation from famous people.” … Yikes (this tracks, though).

The Elon Musk Twitter Takeover hasn’t really gone well. He temporarily replaced the iconic bird logo with the DogeCoin dog, the sham currency he backed during the whole cryptocurrency craze, and users hated it. Twitter Circle isn’t private anymore and well, that’s a lawsuit begging to happen. Even notorious cheapskate (his words, not mine) LeBron James has refused to pay for verification, so Doja’s in good company. It looks like the Twitter we all knew and loved really is dead. Thanks a lot, Musk.