GoneTrending

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

On her debut album, CTRL, SZA established herself as a household name by way of spellbinding melodies and relatable words. The then 20-something R&B songstress shared poignant accounts of body dysmorphia, heartbreak, loneliness, and growing older. Now, in her early 30s, the old soul we’ve come to know and love reels over a beautiful-yet-cruel existence, accepting the painful wisdom that comes with age. While SZA remains on a spiritual transformation, her new album, SOS serves as a reminder that insecurities, like the ones she sang about on CTRL will persist, no matter how far along you are on your journey. At 23 tracks, it’s not as cohesive as its predecessor, but SOS still is a vital chapter in the SZA universe.

The looseness of SOS allows the album to breathe a little more freely. It opens on its title track, on which SZA addresses plastic surgery rumors (“That ass so fat, it look natural, it’s not”), disavows trifling men (“Punk ass tried to replace me, but the stakes is too high”), and announces that she’s back, and presumably better than ever (“This ain’t no warnin’ shot, case all you hoes forgot.”) While the intro seems to establish the narrative that SZA is now a healed woman, it leads into a collection of stories which see her both regress and grow, and regress and grow again.

On SOS, SZA presents us with a unique and rather polarizing set of coping mechanisms, from tapping into feelings of codependency, fantasizing about killing her ex, and sleeping with other men, for the sole purpose of forgetting one specific man. Her journey manifests by way of expressing herself through her signature brand of R&B with a rap flow, as well as by way of showing her rap chops, spitting rhymes about blocking “your favorite rapper” and going ghost on “your favorite athlete,” as she struggles to move on.

Old habits die hard as SZA experiences the stages of grief, in no particular order. She hasn’t been linked to a significant other since CTRL, however, the overall narrative of the album seems to center around her dealing with a breakup. SZA demonstrates a raw sense of self-awareness, as she accepts blame for the relationship’s demise, but also finds herself in denial that the relationship is over, expressing desperation and longing to mend things.

Songs like “Conceited” and “Far” offer fans a glimmer of hope, as SZA appears to find solace in her own company, despite having just poured her heart out over her ex in the previous tracks. But she also quickly becomes aware of the danger of being alone with her thoughts for too long. On one of the album’s more vulnerable tracks, “Special,” she puts a laundry list of insecurities on display on what feels like a modern-age update of Radiohead’s “Creep.”

The previously released tracks, including “Shirt,” “I Hate U,” and “Good Days,” have already been known and loved by fans for almost two years. While they may feel weirdly-placed on the album, they are still vital parts to the overall narrative of grief and emotional recovery.

Despite having been released two years ago, “Good Days” makes for a solid penultimate track, expressing a hopeful outlook for the future the amid emotional turmoil she just sang of for the past hour. “All the while / I await my armored fate with a smile / I still wanna try / I still believe in good days,” SZA sings on the chorus of the therapeutic self-help anthem.

This pattern of seemingly letting go, only to tap back into feelings of insecurity continues throughout the entirety of the album, but by the end, the listener is introduced to a more affirmed, principled SZA.

SOS is SZA’s riskiest work to date. Dropping an album with 23 tracks in the age of streaming is always daunting, but SZA is never one to shy away from any emotion. Sure, the tracklist could use a slight trim, and while the album’s narrative is less structured than that of CTRL, the order of tracklist and each song’s individual message are reflective of a non-linear healing journey everyone must embark at some point in their lives.

SOS begs the question, has SZA healed since inviting us into the rocky, uncertain world of CTRL? But perhaps a better question to ask oneself may be, is anyone ever really fully healed from their traumas? It’s a painful reminder that our shortcomings and our insecurities will always make themselves known. But it also shows listeners that a now older and wiser SZA will always emerge strong through heartbreak and fear.

This past April, Megan Thee Stallion sat down for an interview with Gayle King about the alleged Tory Lanez shooting. King asked Megan if she was in a relationship with Tory at the time, as Lanez had claimed, and she responded simply, “I didn’t have a sexual relationship with Tory.”

Now, though, Lanez’s assault trial has started, which has brought to light the fact that Meg’s denial wasn’t true. On December 12, in an opening statement, prosecutor Alexander Bott said the two were in fact romantically involved. When Megan took the stand yesterday (December 13), she confirmed she in fact did have an intimate but non-exclusive relationship with Lanez (as NPR reports). Meg said she hid the relationship from Kelsey Harris, who was with them at the time of the alleged shooting, since Harris had a “crush on” Lanez.

Meg was asked she hadn’t previously revealed the nature of her and Lanez’s relationship and she said she was embarrassed “because it’s disgusting at this point.” She continued, “How could I share my body with someone who could do this to me?”

The fight that apparently led to Meg being shot supposedly began when Lanez tried to pit Meg and Harris against each other, by hinting at the relationship and calling them “b*tches and hoes.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Yesterday (December 13) was emotional for Megan Thee Stallion, as she took the stand in Los Angeles Superior Court and testified as part of the Tory Lanez assault trial, stemming from when he allegedly shot her in the foot back in 2020. Megan has discussed that night previously, but in court, she got more publicly vulnerable about it than ever before.

With her “voice breaking” (as NPR reports), Meg said of how the incident has impacted her mental health, “I can’t even be happy. I can’t hold conversations with people for a long time. I don’t feel like I want to be on this earth. I wish he would have just shot and killed me, if I knew I would have to go through this torture.”

As for how she felt in the immediate aftermath of being shot, she revealed, “I felt shocked. I felt hurt. I wasn’t sure if this was really happening. I looked at my feet, I saw the blood, and I fell to the ground.”

Of the more long-term effects the situation had, Meg lamented, “This situation has only been worse for me and it has only made him more famous. Because I was shot, I’ve been turned into some kind of villain, and he’s the victim. This has messed up my whole life… This whole situation in the industry is like a big boy’s club… I’m telling on one of y’all friends, now you’re all about to hate me.”

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If one thing is certain, Taylor Swift never slows down. Swift started 2022 by becoming the first global ambassador for Record Store Day, encouraging fans to support their local indie music shops. She also appeared on a compilation, Portraits Of Her, that benefitted We Are Moving The Needle, “a nonprofit organization supporting female recording industry professionals.”

Her accolades didn’t end there. Swift went on to receive an honorary doctorate degree from NYU and presented a speech at the graduation ceremony — which, we now know, was riddled with Easter eggs for what’s to come.

Many of which were references from her eventual tenth studio album, Midnights, which surpassed 1989 as the biggest opening week of her career so far. It also became Spotify’s most streamed album in a single day and earned Billboard‘s record for holding all top ten spots on the Hot 100. She then announced her first tour in years, The Eras Tour. Given the heightened demand, many Swifties and politicians have since pushed back against Ticketmaster for their failure to purchase tickets.

Throughout the course of this year, Swift also leaned heavily into her film era. On the heels of her 2021 All Too Well: The Short Film, she appeared for conversations at various film festivals including Tribeca and TIFF. She made a brief appearance in the movie Amsterdam and directed two music videos so far from Midnights, with “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled.”

Most recently, Swift appeared alongside The Banshees of Inisherin director Martin McDonagh for a talk on Variety’s Directors On Directors series. She also has her sights set on the future, with the announcement of her feature-length directorial debut currently being in the works. Nice!

If you watch the video—which has gone mega viral online, with more than 18 million views—you might find yourself thinking, wait a minute, this thing’s in color … that can’t be right. But rest assured, while the clip floating around on Twitter might have undergone a makeover, it’s based on authentic footage.

Below is the original black-and-white film, shot in Lyon, France, and titled “Bataille de neige,” aka “Snow Fight.”

According to “The First Obsession,” which shared the video on YouTube, it was a short silent film produced by the Lumière brothers, pioneers of photography made famous for their inventions that revolutionized cinema—in particular, the Autochrome Lumière, which introduced color photography.

The original video was put through “DeOldify,” an open-source AI tool for retouching pictures and videos (yes, I know AI is a trigger word these days) by history/tech hobbyist Joaquim Campa back in 2020. The clip went viral back then as well, even getting featured by New York Times contributor Sam Anderson, who called the colorized, smoothed-out footage “shockingly modern.” And now it’s taking over the internet once again.

First ever recorded snowball fight (1897) pic.twitter.com/c6t6A0Mgo0

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) December 11, 2022

Though that first recording might have been in the late 1800s, snowball fights date back much earlier. Some say that the trend began in Boston in 1770 between angry colonists and British soldiers, perhaps even being the real “shot heard round the world” that ushered in the American Revolution. But tapestries and artworks from all over the world have been found showing people engaging in this popular winter activity, one of the oldest hailing from the 11th century.

Basically, humans have always known on some primal, instinctual level that hurling softly frozen water at people is insanely enjoyable.

The San Francisco Giants went looking for a franchise cornerstone this offseason and managed to get one of the best players in baseball. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the Giants and free agent shortstop Carlos Correa have come to an agreement on a 13-year contract that will pay the former American League Rookie of the Year and two-time All-Star Game selection a whopping $350 million.

As Passan noted, this is the most money an MLB team has ever dedicated to a shortstop. Correa, who spent the first seven years of his career as a member of the Houston Astros, joined the Minnesota Twins on a three-year deal that afforded him the opportunity to opt out after each year.

Correa had a good season in Minnesota for a team that ended up missing out on the postseason, and shortly after that, he decided to hit the open market. The Twins and the New York Mets were mentioned in recent days as potential landing spot for Correa, who came in fifth place in American League MVP voting during his last year in Houston. But after striking out in their efforts to get Aaron Judge to come to the Bay Area, the Giants were able to get Correa on a deal that will keep him under contract through 2036. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports that includes no opt-out clause and a full no-trade clause.

Last season, Correa hit .291 with 22 home runs and a 140 OPS+.

Shots, bagged wine, unexpected cocktails — Lizzo and Seth Meyers had it all at an unreasonably early time for Meyers’s day drinking segment. Earlier this year, he had Post Malone on to drink and play games, and now Lizzo is the latest to get wasted and have lots of fun.

The buzzed pair played a game based off the singer’s hit “Truth Hurts.” They had to answer questions truthfully or take a shot. When Meyers asked Lizzo who was more powerful, Oprah or Beyonce, he mentioned he had to answer wisely because both are loyal viewers. She burst into laughter: “Beyonce watches your show? I f*cking doubt it.” She added, “Not to be rude. I know Oprah watches.” Instead of offering an answer, she took a shot.

Unfortunately, she also refused to answer who was the most overrated artist, saying she didn’t want to break the internet. “The internet’s already in shambles,” she said. They end the video wishing the viewers a happy holiday.

Lizzo has been in the holiday spirit lately. She recently posted a video on Instagram of herself twerking in a cosplay outfit of the Grinch with the iconic caption: “100% That Grinch.”

Watch Lizzo and Meyers drink too much above.

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

This week there was more shocking news out of Warner Bros. Discovery, this time involving shows that were unceremoniously cancelled over at their streamer, HBO Max. It came a week after last week’s shocking Warner Bros. Discovery news, namely that the DCEU is in such a mess that the third Wonder Woman outing was probably not happening. There was some speculation about how much that had to do with series director Patty Jenkins, whose latest pitch had been rejected. Some put the blame on Jenkins, but now she’s pushing back, while offering updates on another of her simmering projects.

Let’s tackle Wonder Woman 3 first, and, as Jenkins put I, the “attractive clickbait false story that it was me that killed it or walked away started to spread.” That, she said, “is simply not true.” She said she “never walked away” and that she “was open to considering anything asked of me. It was my understanding that there was nothing I could do to move anything forward at this time. DC is obviously buried in changes they are having to make, so I understand these decisions are difficult right now.”

However, there is a silver lining: That Star Wars film she was working on a while back that seemed to be dead? It only seemed to die because she moved over to Wonder Woman 3. And now that that’s on hold or whatever it is, she’s back on that one.

“I originally left Rogue Squadron after a long and productive development process when it became clear it couldn’t happen soon enough and I did not want to delay WW3 any further,” Jenkins wrote. “When I did, Lucasfilm asked me to consider coming back to RS after WW3, which I was honored to do, so I agree.” They said they even made a “new deal” with her, and that it’s back in “active production” again. Still, she writes, “I don’t know if it will happen or not. We never do until the development process is complete, but I look forward to its potential ahead.”

Since the third Star Wars trilogy wrapped with The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, the franchise has moved largely online, with little hope for future movies. That’s begun to change over the last few months, with Taika Waititi working on his own, though it’s unclear when that will get off the ground. Still, cautious optimism!

The Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks faced off on Tuesday evening in a battle between high-profile teams from their respective conferences. There was intensity on both sides, as evidenced by a bevy of technical fouls, but the Bucks managed to put some distance between themselves and the Warriors on the scoreboard in what became a very nice home win. During the third quarter, however, Draymond Green had an apparent run-in with a fan that led to him consulting with the referees. At the end of their conversation, the fan got ejected from the arena.

Green’s meeting with the officials happened with 5:19 left in the third quarter in a game that the Warriors would go on to lose. One of the major questions that popped up in the aftermath of the incident was what led to Green asking the officials to have the fan removed, and after the game, Green told the assembled media that the fan said “some threatening stuff to my life.”

“I was this close to really going back and diving all the way in,” Green said. “But I just went back and told the official, and when I told the official, he said, ‘Oh, he’s gotta get out of here.’”

While there are no specifics about what the fan said, these are serious and troubling allegations by Green.

Lately, Charles Barkley’s ire for discussing the Los Angeles Lakers has always been evident during his appearances on “Inside the NBA.” Last year, the Lakers won 33 games. This year, they’re 11-15, 12th in the West and 2.5 games behind the No. 8 Dallas Mavericks. They’ve not been a good team over the past year and change. They also happen to be playing the Boston Celtics on the second half of TNT’s doubleheader, much to Barkley’s dismay.

Earlier this season, Barkley said every Lakers game on TNT should be replaced by the Sacramento Kings, a fun, high-powered offensive team vying for a top-four seed out West. Regardless of whether he still holds that specific sentiment, he made clear his unwillingness or preference to avoid discussing the Lakers prior to tipoff Tuesday. As the rest of the panel talked about Los Angeles, Barkley continually sighed. When Kenny Smith said he believes the Lakers will make the playoffs, Barkley gave him the stink eye before vocalizing his grievances.

“It just makes me sick. I don’t know who’s worse: us or the clowns on other networks, who, we feel like — we must get a bonus every time we talk about the Lakers,” Barkley said. “The Lakers stink.”

As Smith tried to contextualize their record and noted they indeed roster arguably the greatest NBA player ever in LeBron James, Barkley repeatedly offered a simple refrain: “They’re still 11-15.”

Shaquille O’Neal chimed in by saying they’re only two games out of eighth. Barkley wanted no part of that, countering with the fact they don’t talk about other teams in close pursuit of the No. 8 seed. Ernie Johnson, the everpresent moderator that he is, proposed a change of subject. The Lakers surely have many more games on TNT over the final four months of the regular season, so we’ll surely witness more demonstrations from Barkley if Los Angeles can’t crack the top eight.