For a country that’s so diverse, America has some obvious cultural staples, especially visible to those who don’t live in the U.S. Surprisingly—and thankfully—those staples don’t always conjure up a cringeworthy image of ignorance, bravado or unsavory politics.
Self-described “non-Americans” listed things that would be found in every American home, and a lot of the responses could remind Americans of what they might take for granted—whether it’s the ever-expanding variety of foodstuffs or appliances that make everyday life easier.
But perhaps more importantly, they could add a new level of appreciation (and perhaps a sigh of relief) given the amount of, let’s say, bad press the nation has been receiving as of late.
“This is the most wholesome I’ve felt about my country in a while,” noted one American after reading the thread.
The answers were also astonishingly accurate, as indicated by some of the comments.
“I haven’t seen a single one I don’t have tbh and I don’t know how to feel about it lol,” wrote one American.
The answers were prompted by Reddit user Ryrylx, who asked, “Non-Americans, what do you think every American person has in their house?” to the online forum.
Below are 12 answers—along with a few funny confirmations from Americans—for your viewing pleasure.
1.
“Bbq sauce” — ThrewawayXxxX
“I have at least 5 varieties of BBQ sauce in my fridge at them moment, including 2 that are homemade 😆” — @Ruckbeat🇺🇸
2.
“A switch that when you flick it it turns your sink into a blender.” — @Kingdom-Kome
To be clear, they’re talking about garbage disposals.
@ryder_patash added:
“I’m so astonished by it, like where the trash goes from there…I want to visit America just to experience that!” — @thatsabingou
3.
“Popcorn setting on their microwave!” — @someone_somewear
“Popcorn, pizza, and (oddly) potato.” — @ BracedRhombus 🇺🇸
“Apparently Americans are rather fond of Pickles and Peanut Butter. Is that a fair assumption to make?
Edit: I meant either or not both at the same time. ☠️” — tree_of_lies
“Yes. I have three kinds of peanut butter, and five kinds of pickles. I went and looked.” — judgymcjudgypants 🇺🇸
5.
“Oh oh, the washing machines where you put everything in the top! This fascinated me when we visited the states. They’re huge!” — Tired3250
“Washer Collector Here. Automatic washers became popular in the US during the early 1950’s, and you had your choice between front load & top load. Top loaders had larger capacity (important with the baby boom). Had higher spin speeds so drying time was faster (important when many didn’t yet own a dryer). Went out of balance less often (not trying to distribute a sloshing horizontal load). Had very fast cycle times (clothes washed in 20 minutes). And clothes/detergent could be added at any time after start of cycle. Plus you don’t have to stoop to get the clothes out.
In Europe, the constraints were different. Typically there was no dedicated laundry room or basement for the larger machine. Laundry tended to be done more frequently so capacity wasn’t as much of a concern. Water was/is more expensive so a longer cycle time was acceptable for less consumption. And machine size was dictated by countertop height, as many were installed in kitchens out of convenience (and plumbing).” — @eldofever🇺🇸
6.
“A sofa that faces a studio audience.” — @AlterEdward
“When you walk into your living room and you hear the applause, it really helps you get through your day.” — @donedmeat🇺🇸
“It’s a staple of home renovation shows in the US because it’s so easy. Just knock all the walls down and make it an open floor plan!” — @drinkallthecoffee
8.
“Large quantities of over-the-counter drugs in huge bottles.” — @Wombattalion
“Costco $3.99 for 500 Benadryl and $5.99 for 500 ibuprofen for the Win!!” — @Old_Perspective4835🇺🇸
9.
“Ranch dressing.” — @Killpop582014
“As an American I was expecting guns, but ranch dressing hurt for some reason.” — @tdogg1967🇺🇸
“A plastic bag filled with plastic bags.” — @Sexyhumblebee
“The Bag of Bags is a time honored tradition in many American homes.” — @Left_Debt_8770🇺🇸
11.
“An entire refrigerator door with sauces.” — @Buster_Bluth__
“When your country’s food is made up of parts of every other country’s cuisine remixed and combined, you end up with all the sauces.” — @RoboNinjaPirate🇺🇸
Who’d have thunk that an album named after gout would not only rejuvenate a rap legend’s career and win a Grammy but would also spawn not just one but two sequels? That’s right: Nas and Hit-Boy are returning to the well one more time with King’s Disease III, which they just announced is dropping on November 11. Nas and Hit-Boy both shared what looks like the album cover on Twitter. Hopefully they’ll be able to keep the chemistry that made their last three projects together — both previous King’s Disease installments and 2021’s Magic — such fan favorites.
This makes for an impressive run for both artists. Nas has never released more than two albums in as many years, and the last time he dropped in consecutive years was literally 20 years ago. Meanwwhile, Hit-Boy has heavily contributed to projects from Benny The Butcher, Cordae, and Dom Kennedy at the same time. It also appears that working with Hit-Boy has sparked Nas’ creativity overall; we’ve gotten more new music from him this year via features with ASAP Rocky, Cordae, DJ Premier, and YG than we did in the last handful of years prior.
You can check out more of Nas and Hit-Boy’s creative chemistry on 11/11 via Mass Appeal.
On Tuesday night, the Inside the NBA crew will make their return for the show’s 34th season on TNT, and the 12th with the current crew of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal, and Charles Barkley all together.
It has become the studio show all others try to emulate, but the magic of Inside is there’s not really a formula to follow. The combination of insight and fun is difficult to replicate, as is the freedom they’re given to go long with a conversation or just get really weird by TNT compared to other networks. It’s so natural compared to other shows that are clearly trying to hit their beats, and their comfort with each other is never more apparent than when they go off the rails and start making jokes, typically at each other’s expense.
On Monday, we learned that Warner Media had re-signed all four members of the show to long-term deals, including a massive 10-year deal for Barkley that could be worth almost $200 million. In honor of the gang getting back together and, happily, being together for the long haul so long as TNT retains their NBA rights, we decided to take a trip down memory road for the funniest moments the show has given us in the last 10 years. There is no shortage of hilarious moments from the last decade of Inside the NBA, but here we picked our 10 favorites (in no particular order) that have made us laugh the hardest as we get set for the 2022-23 season.
Jussie Smollett
It’s sometimes hard to remember just how big a story the Jussie Smollett scandal was, but it provided one of Charles Barkley’s absolute best monologues as he sent the show off the rails by not so subtly making jokes about Smollett’s case. It eventually became a PSA about not committing crimes with checks, which had Shaq in hysterics despite Ernie literally walking over to Chuck and giving him a stare like, “do you really wanna go here?”
The answer, as always, is yes, and this is one of the finest examples of how Shaq’s greatest attribute on the show is gassing Chuck up and egging him on to go further — any time Shaq gets going with a “What’d you say, Chuck??!” it is almost always hysterical. I still randomly think about “if you gonna break the law, do not write a check,” and laugh.
How Long Is The Flight To The Moon?
This is the first in the Shaq Math category (we will return to this later), as Dr. O’Neal has a … let’s call it unique viewpoint on the world sometimes. In this instance, Chuck and Kenny roast Shaq for asking how long the “flight” to the moon is, as if you can hop on a jet from Hartsfield-Jackson to get there, because he knows the flight to L.A. is five hours and he can’t see L.A. from the studio but he can see the moon. Shaq’s refusal to ever give in is what makes these so good, while the rest of the desk laughs at him. If you have never seen this before, the moment where he says how long he thinks it would take is one of the funniest things you will ever see.
Po-lice Presence In L.A.
The gold standard and one of the greatest nights in NBA Twitter’s history. I’m not sure I’ve laughed harder at any segment on TV than this, in part because it just builds and builds. You can tell something is up when Ros Gold-Onwude reports that a player said the whole thing was “very much a rallying around Chris Paul” and someone on set struggles to hide how funny that sentence is. Shaq and Chuck start losing it when Ros brings word there was a “police presence,” but Ernie pushes them over the edge by noting that there are social media reports “LAPD was called.”
Shaq can barely formulate words, which always makes Charles’ antics funnier, because he thrives on trying to make Shaq laugh, while Kenny tries his very best at all times to keep things on track and explain why those two are rolling in laughter. This is the most earnest laugh in television history.
TNT
It also produces maybe the funniest Shaq bit he’s ever had on the show with, “Hello police? Chris Paul is trying to beat me up!”
Shaq Tripping
Something funny usually happens when people race Kenny to the board during halftime of games. This one has the added bonus of someone who is ginormous getting tripped up and hitting the deck. Everything in the aftermath — Shaq accusing Ernie of setting him up, Chuck coming over and laughing, Kenny screaming “DOWN GOES SHAQ” and then getting wrestled down by the big fella — is excellent, too. But let the record show that unless he did it while the camera was on Shaq’s shoe, Kenny never touched the board, so Shaq technically wins this race.
Chuck’s Apology To The Women Of San Antonio
For years, anytime the Spurs got brought up, everyone on set would just wait for Charles Barkley to crack a joke about the “big ol’ women of San Antonio,” typically bringing up churros — which once led to a, uh, interesting demonstration of how they eat them that had Shaq and Ernie dying. It was relentless (and, to be honest, far too much), but the funniest moment in that bit’s history was when he stunned Ernie Johnson by declaring he needed to apologize to the women of San Antonio. Why? Because he finally tried a churro and “I see what all the excitement is about!”
Shaq literally does a spit take and has to walk off set, while Baron Davis, sitting in Kenny’s spot as a fill-in, does a great job of egging Chuck on with a “Talk to ’em Chuck! What was they like?!”
When A Guy’s Banging You In The Post
This clip deceives you in that you think it’s just Barkley doing some analysis, and then, the camera cuts to Shaq, who responds to Chuck saying everything by trying so hard not to laugh that he is vibrating. There is nothing I want more than whatever got recorded after the TNT crew went to break and they could start discussing this. Charles Barkley if you are reading this and wanna send it to me, please, do that.
James Harden Going Last In The All-Star Draft
This moment is unique on this list because the Inside crew isn’t at the center of it. The context: Earlier that day, James Harden was traded by the Brooklyn Nets after things totally fell apart between the player and the franchise, and then, Kevin Durant had to go draft his All-Star team to take on a squad assembled by LeBron James. Because he is a veteran of the All-Star Draft process (and has gotten roasted during the draft in the past), LeBron knew exactly how to play this, the Inside guys knew exactly how to egg KD on, and even though the inevitable happens after it slowly builds, with player after player going off the board before Harden, you cannot help but laugh — and when Chuck says “he got traded, he’s healthy now,” even the stoic Durant starts cracking up. This is exactly why the All-Star Draft exists and also why the TNT crew gets to present it.
$6.99 To Watch Lakers-Bucks
This is one of my personal favorites because it’s one of the times they get Ernie to join in on the fun. The “I dare ya” as Chuck gets ready to rip into this is so good, and they spend the next four and a half minutes losing it over the idea anyone would pay $6.99 to watch that Lakers team (which went 17-65) — “if y’all pay $6.99 for that, y’all get bamboozled.” It’s also made funnier by Kenny, always trying to keep Chuck and Shaq in line, being extremely wrong trying to explain that it’s $6.99 for the season and not one game, which was 100 percent incorrect. Ernie, ever the pro, can’t even keep it together for the next highlight, noting he’s gotta start reading those promos before he does them on air and joking there’s a lot better things to spend $6.99 on that don’t involve the Lakers.
One, Two, Back To One
This one can be any number of times that Shaq gets mad at Chuck. These moments are always way funnier than when Chuck gets mad at Shaq, because when that happens, both of them end up yelling at one another. But when DJ Diesel gets mad at the Round Mound of Rebound, it usually means that Barkley sees a chance to prod and prod and prod and prod and prod, which only leads to Shaq getting angrier and the whole desk laughing. Add in the fact that you never know which things will actually lead to Shaq getting mad and, to quote the great Carl Weathers, we’ve got a stew going. This one has the added bonus of Ernie and Kenny also losing their minds and Chuck laughing so hard that he snorts over and over.
Admit it: There have been times when you have done Shaq’s gas tank math because of this segment. The thing that makes this so great is how every single organism in the entire universe can see how Shaq’s logic makes zero sense, but the one exception to that is Shaq, who is given a platform to keep making this argument because it’s, like, 1:30 a.m. EST on a Friday morning and anyone who is watching by now knows what the show is about. My favorite part comes a little after the 90-second mark, when Shaq says “listen to what I’m saying” and Ernie, who so badly wants to wrap the show and go to bed, says “I am.”
Even by Fox News standards, Jesse Watters has a history of offering up totally asinine takes on whatever’s happening — or not happening — in the news. And on Monday, as The Daily Beast reports, he lived up to that reputation yet again when he launched a bizarre attack on Joe Biden for… eating ice cream?! In case you’re wondering why he was so triggered by POTUS’ choice of frozen dairy dessert, he was happy to explain.
Watters began his berating by advising his viewers to “never underestimate Joe’s ability to F things up!” The Fox News host seemed to take issue with the fact that it was a Monday, three weeks before the midterms elections, and that the president was doing “nothing.” Except that part of the president’s job revolves around what some might deem “doing nothing,” a.k.a. “normaling,” in Veep parlance. In Monday’s case, that meant chomping on an ice cream cone in Portland, Oregon, and talking up the economy.
But Watters seems to have a lot of rules about the dos and don’ts of eating ice cream — and Biden clearly stirred up some anger in Watters, as he chastised the president for all the things he did wrong. For example:
A man should never lick an ice cream cone in public.
A man can only eat ice cream on vacation. I guess Biden’s always on vacation, so it makes sense. But if a man needs to eat ice cream in public, he should scoop it out of a bowl with a spoon. The President of the United States licking things, especially ice cream, is childish. It’s frivolous and it’s too casual a look for the country.
The way Watters was talking, you might have thought that Biden had decided to masturbate in the middle of a Baskin Robbins. Alas, no. He simply ate an ice cream cone, which Watters clearly believes there’s a very specific time and place for. And an ice cream shop in Portland on a Monday in October is not it.
“You’re not at a birthday party, Joe!,” he shouted.
Watters next set his sights on Chuck Schumer, who was spotted busting a move “like he was on Solid Gold,” according to a very unamused Watters. Which seems like a double standard…
ABC
You can watch the full video above. The bizarre ice cream rant starts around the 3-minute mark.
Jeopardy! contestants usually don’t get to say much on stage unless they’ve rang in with their signaling device, but put a bunch of actors and comedians on stage raising money for charity and things get a bit looser. Which is why Celebrity Jeopardy! has had a number of off-the-wall moments during its newest run on ABC. The looser and more conversational style has seen contestants poking fun at each other a bit more, and in the latest episode, Simu Liu called out an awkwardly-worded answer that got some laughs on stage.
Liu had a great run on Celebrity Jeopardy!, the ABC prime time event hosted by Mayim Bialik. Making his way to the show’s semifinals, the Shang-Chi star had a matchup with comedians Ike Barinholtz and Iliza Shlesinger. Early in the game, a question appeared that stopped the show cold.
“October is the history month for this Asian-American ethnic group that includes Olivia Rodrigo and Jo Koy,” Bialik recited. And Barinholtz correctly guessed, “What are Filipinos?” It was a bit awkward phrasing, using “what” instead of “who” perhaps in the answer. Which is probably why Liu decided to ask what Barinholtz meant.
“What do you mean, ‘What are Filipinos?’” Liu asked as Barinholtz tried to pick another answer off the board. “What do you mean by that, Ike?”
“Oh my God, that’s not what I meant,” Barinholtz said, laying on his own podium in embarrassment as he tried to come up with an explanation. “You have to answer in the form of a question.”
Liu kept going, asking Shlesinger, “Did you hear him? I heard him.”
Liu saying something certainly makes sense here: not only is he known for his quick wit and willingness to speak out, the answer hits pretty close to home. Considering the actor was playing for the Stop AAPI Hate charity, he probably felt the need to speak up here. If only to lighten the mood a bit. Liu didn’t win the semifinal, but he certainly made an impact on the game and raised some money in the process. All in good fun.
Not me WINNING CELEBRITY JEOPARDY and realizing I could no longer make my dinner plans later that day because I had to compete in semis pic.twitter.com/65CtPd89xE
Family Guy is in its 21st (!) season. It’s hard to find an unexplored plot after nearly 400 episodes (let alone over 700 episodes), but to the animated show’s credit (?), it found one during Sunday’s episode. In “The Munchurian Candidate,” Peter gets hypnotized to become an expert at performing oral sex on Lois — and Lois’ mom, Barbara (?!).
On the ride home after Peter is unwittingly triggered by the Extra theme song to, uh, [REDACTED] on Barbara, he and Lois sit in awkward, horrified silence. But the quiet is interrupted by a song on the radio: “Eat It” by “Weird Al” Yankovic, a spoof of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” about eating food… and only food, not anything else you might potentially chow on. The innuendo-filled scene caught the attention of the parodist, who tweeted, “Yeah, I’m not gonna bother describing the context of this joke.”
On the DVD commentary for the wonderful The Weird Al Show, Yankovic revealed that Family Guy could have been to The Weird Al Show as The Simpsons was to The Tracey Ullman Show. Creator Seth MacFarlane “approached the network with the original blueprints for Family Guy, hoping to turn it into a series of animated segments for the show,” but it didn’t work out. Harvey the Wonder Hamster is too pure for oral sex jokes.
Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d cityand Mr. Morale & The Big Stepperseras have been put on a collision course. Today (October 18), Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Video announced that Lamar’s The Big Steppers Tourstop at Accor Arena in Paris will livestream this Saturday (October 22), which is conveniently the 10-year anniversary of his seminal major label debut, good kid.
— Amazon Music is on tour with oklama (@amazonmusic) October 18, 2022
The stream will begin at 2 p.m. EST. Varietyadditional relayed, “fans will be able to watch the livestream for free exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, and on the Amazon Music app. The stream will also feature sets from pgLang’s Tanna Leone and Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Baby Keem. Lamar’s performance will be available to view on-demand on Prime Video following the livestream event.”
The publication also shared a statement from Amazon Music’s Head of R&B and Hip-Hop Tim Hinshaw:
“As a kid from the west side of Compton, hearing Good Kid, m.A.A.d City for the first time and seeing Kendrick’s journey from neighborhood hero to global superstar ignited a fire in me that I’m forever grateful for. It showed me that no matter where you start in life, hard work and dedication will put you where you hope and dream to be. Now, 10 years later, it’s almost poetic that two kids from the same city with similar, but different dreams have landed in Paris to celebrate not just that record but Kendrick’s latest revolutionary album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. We’re honored to sponsor this tour and bring this show to fans around the world.”
Lamar launched his world tour in July, and the North American leg wrapped with back-to-back shows at Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena in mid-September. The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper began his Europe run in Amsterdam on October 7, and the trek will last until November 16. Lamar has four Australian dates and one New Zealand date in December.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers arrived in May, his first album since 2017’s DAMN., and debuted at No. 1 with a record-breaking first week.
Lil Baby keeps the It’s Only Me rollout rolling with the video for “Stand On It.” There aren’t any bells or whistles here, just Baby going all the way in over a beat produced by Mattazik Muzik, NicoOnTheKeys, and Figurez Made It as he and his crew post up in the streets. The crew breaks out their ATVs as Lil Baby shows off the immaculate wardrobe he keep in his trunk, then he gets down to business, rapping like his life depends on it.
“Stand On It” was one of the new album’s breakout songs almost immediately but not just due to Lil Baby’s boastful rhymes. In the song’s first verse, he snarls, “I don’t want your bitch, we can’t swap out,” which many fans on Twitter took as a response to a remark fellow Quality Control artist Quavo made on Instagram last year. When a rumor surfaced that Lil Baby was dating Quavo’s ex Saweetie, the Migos member wrote, “Ain’t trippin’ we can swap it out!”
And although it appears that Lil Baby’s lyric is a direct response to that statemtent, Quavo seemingly addressed the rumor again on his and Takeoff’s new song “Messy,” rapping, “B*tch fucked my dog behind my back, but I ain’t stressin’ / You wanted the gang, you should’ve just said it, we would’ve blessed it.” Whether that means he holds resentment toward Baby or not is unknown but fans have speculated that the two Atlanta rappers are on less-than-friendly terms ever since.
Watch Lil Baby’s “Stand On It” video above.
It’s Only Me is out now via Quality Control Music/Motown Records. Get it here.
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.
In March of 2020, Sorry had just released their critically acclaimed debut album 925 and were playing a heavily buzzed-about show in New York. And then the COVID lockdown began and all of a sudden Sorry were stopped right in their tracks.
“Two years ago it was literally like I came home and then it was lockdown for like six months or whatever,” notes singer, songwriter, and guitarist Asha Lorenz.
Lorenz formed the band with her childhood friend Louis O’Bryen, bonding over their love of the Brooklyn rap crew Pro Era, and later discovering Elliott Smith, The Beatles, and Alex G together. And while they released early singles via SoundCloud, over time Sorry has turned into a full-fledged, five-person unit, with the spiky, sometimes chilly post-punk of their debut evolving into a warmer, more cohesive sound on their acclaimed follow-up Anywhere But Here. Produced alongside Portishead’s Adrian Utley, the album is filled with songs that balance tales of longing and heartbreak with an undercurrent of hopeful resistance. Standouts “Let The Lights On” and “Key To The City” feature melodies and guitar tones that nod to several eras of British rock music while never sounding bogged down in the past.
Taking a break from tour rehearsals, we jumped on Zoom with Lorenz, who talked about moving past your early twenties and why Sorry sound more optimistic this time around.
I love the new video for “Key To The City.” It reminds me a lot of classic British music videos from Massive Attack or Catherine Wheel where the band’s playing and there’s all these little dramatic scenes coming in and out. What were you drawing inspiration from?
There’s actually a scene in The Great Gatsby, the newer version, and there’s kind of a scene when you can see all the windows like that. And I just quite liked that, that image and it just fitted with the song. It was quite a fun day. We had like 26 scenes and we only had like 11 hours. So it was just awesome, my friends just making those scenes and trying to make it all work.
So we can back up a little bit. Your first album, 925, comes out in March of 2020, right when the global pandemic hit. I know you’ve been able to do some shows in the US before that, but still, you’re getting great reviews, a lot of buzz and then boom, you have to stop. I imagine that to be really frustrating.
It was frustrating, but I feel like it was just such a mad time in the world. I didn’t really process it that much because it was just kind of so horrible for everyone. So, it was just kind of everyone is in the same boat. I was happy that we could still put it out because I know some people pushed [their albums] back even more. I was happy that people could listen to the music. But yeah, it was frustrating. Also seven months when, you know, you can’t play and you start to go a bit crazy.
I imagine that on one hand, it’s like, “this is supposed to be our time. We were all set to go.” But on the other hand, “you know, it’s just an album. People have much worse going on. I don’t want to complain.”
I just felt like the world was in such a way, so I wasn’t really thinking about the album so much.
For a while the band was basically you and Louis, but this album feels a lot more band-oriented than the last one. Was that how you were approaching it?
Well, we’ve been touring together for like six years and we had a new member, Marco, who kind of came in like two years ago, and he really helped tie together all the production bits and the demo bits into the live show. From the last record, we felt like it was more like we kind of built the songs up from the demos, like we hadn’t really played the finished songs live. And then once we were playing, we were like, “Oh sh*t, sounds actually quite fat, like mixing it together.” We’re like, “Oh, we want to do this album backwards.” So we kind of wrote even the trinkets and like production bits, the electronic bits before, so that we could record them live in the song and so that things didn’t jump out as much. It was kind of conscious, and I think we wanted it to not feel as stagnant, and some of the songs have a different energy. So that’s good for playing live.
When your first single “Starstruck” really started to hit, what was going on in your life at the time?
That is the thing. Like, we haven’t really played mad big shows or anything since the album came out. So it’s kind of hard to tell. I think it happened kind of invisibly because it hasn’t been such a huge jump or an overnight thing or anything. You know, it feels like quite a slow progression of mild success now.
How are you feeling about things now? Where do you think the band is at the moment? And how are you feeling about getting back out there and really giving it a push?
I think I’m kind of happy. It’s “come, come now,” when we have the opportunity to go on tour, because we feel way more grateful to be able to go. And I think as friends, we all kind of feel a bit more mature and kind of just got through the second coming of age of our early twenties. Now we kind of can be a bit more mature and put the music first of it and like just be excited to play, and make the show like, really good.
So, I swear I’m not going to ask you about the Queen. But how is the general vibe in England/London over there? Because, you know, it seems like it’s been a mess ever since Brexit, and then Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Corbyn. And people really don’t like Prime Minister Liz Truss.
I think it’s a very weird vibe a little bit over here, I think London feels quite scared and divided more than it’s felt like from the time that I’ve been, like, conscious politically. I’ve grown up my whole life and had a sense of community and the sense of sort of just knowing your neighbor, not even like literal neighbor, but just knowing the people who walk down the street. I think people feel scared of each other and don’t really know who they are, and I think the media kind of represents people in a weird way, in ways that aren’t true. But because we’ve all become a bit shut off from actually going to meet people, you kind of just make people like into… you create characters from them just from what’s been fed to you. I think it’s a bit darker, but I don’t know, I can only speak from my perspective, but I’m sure there’s lots of pockets of greatness and new hope as well.
Here in America we have Fox News, like always pushing the right-wing fear machine. But I know Rupert Murdoch, like, owns like all the tabloids in the UK and it’s just like nonstop racism and propaganda.
I think that is such a scary thing. Like you don’t really know who to trust or what the f*ck’s going on.
Do you find that kind of paranoia seeped its way into your lyric process and or even just the way the music feels?
I don’t really know. I think it’s more about relationships. It’s not really too political. Well, in some ways, but not within the lyrics. It’s not necessarily saying things are bad, but you can’t help but react to your circumstances.
I really love the song “So Many People Want To Be Loved” and it’s really unabashedly romantic and very sweet. I think it’s the most open-hearted song we’ve heard from Sorry. Where did that song come from?
The title kind of came to me and I knew that I wanted to write the song around it and I had the verses and then I played it with Louis and I kind of demoed it, and then all the lyrics just kind of spilled out like that. I kind of heard it like a Lou Reed or Daniel Johnston song. I just kind of thought that I could see myself in all those people in the choruses.
And it kind of seems like it all ties back to what you were saying about like young heartbreak and learning, like, you’re going to be okay.
I think it’s more just like trying to put a bit of humor with the sadness. My mom always told me, if I felt sad, to just imagine that I was like, in a story or something or like, take myself out of it. So I think if you can kind of see things like taking yourself out of them, then you can kind of see it for something else and for what it really is.
It’s kind of hard to Google your band name and to find it in the first results page or to find it on Wikipedia. Do you ever feel like it’s limited you in a way, or do you like the fact it’s something of that nature?
I do, yeah. I think it’s funny. It’s just music at the end of the day.
Are you personally an apologetic person?
I think it’s just a British thing. I mean, I do say so. I think I’m always the first to say sorry, because I just can’t be bothered.
Women are generally socialized to apologize more and British people apologize in order to avoid awkwardness or faux pas.
I think it’s funny. And then, like, if the band ever got famous or something, then people will say, “Oh, sorry, Sorry.”
The album title and a lot of themes are about people that don’t necessarily love their surroundings, for whatever reason, but they also don’t want to give up on ever finding something better. Was that intentional?
I think a lot of these songs were kind of like written about feeling quite helpless, that “I don’t want to be here” kind of vibe, but then you put the song into something else.
Whenever you feel helpless, do you sometimes have to force yourself to not feel that way? Does writing songs help?
If I can’t make sense of what’s really going on or people’s thoughts and stuff, then I flip it into a song and I can kind of put it away because I can see it for something else.
Anywhere But Here is out now via Domino. Get it here.
Don’t Worry Darling once stood as a hotly anticipated project, given Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut with the well-received Booksmart. Once the publicity tour began, however, a boatload of drama commenced. The thriller itself didn’t impress much, even though it did manage to reduce a right-wing figurehead to tears. And the film’s legacy shall be one of drama, a vibe that Wilde only seems to be perpetuating while continuing to discuss the chaos. Most recently, Wilde lashed out over how people paid so much attention to the sex scenes when Olivia actually spent a lot of time discussing those same scenes while promoting.
This followed Olivia calling “horsesh*t” on reports that her Harry Styles romance broke up her relationship with Jason Sudeikis. Rumor up on rumor piled up, and it didn’t help that Olivia received custody papers while onstage at CinemaCon. That’s a whole other mess, and it’s overlapped, and mostly, Olivia seems to be blaming “misogyny” for Don’t Worry Darling failing to set the cinematic world on fire. At Elle‘s Women in Hollywood ceremony, Wilde pointed towards Twitter for making her job more difficult, although she stresses that she loves the gig.
“Sometimes it’s tempting to excuse ourselves from the burning hellfire of the misogyny that defines this business and say ‘Goodnight, good luck, I’d rather eat glass for a living,’” she said but added that women in the entertainment industry don’t let each other give up, and she’d recently gotten encouragement from other Hollywood ladies in “the form of a tight grip of your shoulders and a tense stare into your eyes and a defiant, ‘Do not let them fuck with you.’ And it’s always really tempting to reply, ‘Well if I didn’t know things were bad before, I do now.’”
That wasn’t all. Wilde added, “Let’s face it, you’re not a woman in Hollywood until you’ve begged to be placed into a medically induced coma until your press tour is finished.” She appears to be alluding towards the “Twilight Sleep” method of childbirth brought into the pop-cultural consciousness by a key Mad Men episode, but yep, Olivia is kind-of feeding the continued drama here. She’s also dealing with nanny-induced drama as well, so let’s hope that all parties can move on, to other relationships and other projects, and find some peace in life.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
