Following the recent trend of early aughts bands returning with new music, Muse are attempting to make a comeback with their ninth studio album, Will Of The People. On this week’s Indiecast, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen question the band’s current critical acclaim and compare the LP to some of their earlier hits. Plus, Indiecast revisits Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf for its 20th anniversary and discusses the new album by Portland-based power pop artist Mo Troper.
In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian shouts out Callous Daoboys, a band that exemplifies the exciting music coming out of the heavy rock/metalcore genre today. Steven tells listeners to check out Eli Winter, whose recent self-titled project is a perfect Americana-tinged instrumental for the season.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 104 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
If you were going to pinpoint a moment when the music festival landscape began to change, it was in January 2014, when Coachella dropped its annual fest poster. On it, three names stuck out as a bit different, one on the second line of each day: Ellie Goulding, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey. It wasn’t just those artists, either. It was booking artists like Pharrell, Foster The People, Empire Of The Sun, Bastille, and AFI, next to more expected Coachella offerings like The Knife, The Replacement, and Neutral Milk Hotel.
The move signified a sea change, where the festival, at that point 15 years old, realized that in order to survive, it must evolve. At that moment, it nodded to whatever was poppin’ on local station KROQ instead of seeing tickets based on the Pitchfork-approved indie elite. It was programming with diversity in mind, giving shots to then-upstart pop-adjacent female artists that they were willing to bank on playing well in the moment — and looking good in hindsight. It set up the roadmap that the other major music festivals in the US would follow, moving away from rock, dance, and (a little bit of) rap and into pop, international music, (a lot more) rap, and streaming sensations.
And, let’s make this especially clear: this is a good thing. Much of the cultural shift of the last decade has been more equitable and forward-thinking. But — and I say this as a fan of the music that has grown less commercially viable in recent years — it’s also a bummer that some more adventurous tunes and bookings are now considered a bit too niche for the Coachella (or Lollapalooza, or Governors Ball, etc) stage… or a bit too old.
Of late, festivals have been springing up catering to the audience that might feel alienated by Coachella’s shift. Just in Southern California, the FYFs and Burgeramas of the world found themselves mired in controversy, and have given way to newer offerings like Just Like Heaven, next month’s Primavera Sound LA, and, returning for the first time since 2000, last weekend’s This Ain’t No Picnic. Not to age myself too much here, but This Ain’t No Picnic was actually the first music festival I ever attended, as a high schooler in Orange County. The event just ran a couple of times, but the 1999 edition I went to notably offered Sonic Youth (playing with borrowed equipment after being robbed), Sleater-Kinney, Rocket From The Crypt, Guided By Voices, and Superchunk.
Philip Cosores
Its return more than 20 years later — now at Brookside at the Rose Bowl — resembled FYF’s ethos a bit more than its strictly-indie beginnings, but even with a spattering of hip-hop (Isaiah Rashad, Earl Sweatshirt) and R&B/pop (an incredible Tinashe, Jorja Smith), it was clearly a festival designed for those not willing or able to make the two-hour trek into the desert anymore. Both of the headliners were Coachella headlining alums who now find themselves legacy artists, LCD Soundsystem and The Strokes. And while neither are quite a festival rarity at this point, both made convincing arguments for their status as bill-toppers.
LCD Soundsystem, for as divisive of a figure James Murphy has become, can make all the chatter around them fade away with just a few minutes of playing music. Who would have thought that a band that became known for transcendent live shows is… still unreal live? Sure, the stage is just a few dozen black widow spiders short of looking like my dad’s garage, but James Murphy’s voice is one of the most underrated instruments in rock and leads his revered musical compatriots through anthem after anthem. If seeing LCD Soundsystem live every few years is what is needed to maintain good graces with its long-term fans, then so be it. They fulfill their end of the bargain.
The Strokes, on the other hand, are not known for their live show. Their performances often feel like a tightrope walk that could end in disaster… and sometimes does! But not on this night, where the band was incredibly tight and good-humored, and frontperson Julian Casablancas was on his best behavior. They’re a band that doesn’t need to play their biggest hit to satisfy their audience, a band whose vibe and aesthetic sits equal to their craft. Also, the streaming numbers to their recent The New Abnormal indicate that their newer tunes are also hugely popular, to a shocking extent. All that said, there was not a dud in the setlist, including a surprising “Ask Me Anything,” an underrated “Under Cover Of Darkness,” and an inspired “Juicebox.”
Elsewhere, I’d probably be best off just touching on some highlights:
– Phoebe Bridgers’ hometown (literally) show was pretty similar to the tour she’s been giving for about a year… which means it is still terrific. She recalled learning to drive in the Rose Bowl parking lot and told her fans to steal their parents’ credit cards to donate to abortion funds. We stan a young legend.
– Directly in front of her set was Idles. Music festivals are often ripe for culture clashes, but this was an all-timer. After the English post-punk band’s first rager, frontperson Joe Talbot asked the crowd to split in anticipation of a moshing frenzy. From the audience, another group shouted “nooooo” in unison, as the young female Phoebe fans were instructed by security to hold on for dear life. Soon there was crowd surfing and slam dancing and all the other fun stuff that’s probably not seen at typical Phoebe shows. But it was all in good fun, and hopefully both fanbases earned some respect for each other.
– Le Tigre reunited for the first time in more than a decade, and showed that the world still needs them. Frontperson Kathleen Hanna would explain how the group formed as a protest outfit and it’s a shame that they still need to be protesting the same things decades later. But, that said, their “dance away the injustice” ethos and sly wit is as meaningful and impactful as ever, with the importance of seeing them live for the first time visible on many faces, particularly the women that Hanna has inspired throughout her career.
– Ethal Cain, Magdelena Bay, Mdou Moctar, Turnstile, and Slowthai deserve all the hype they’ve been getting.
With Primavera Sound just a few weeks away, time will tell if there’s enough of a market for two similar events in the LA area. But seeing the local music fans that I’ve been running into for the past 15 years at shows all turning out for this, it was hard not to be nostalgic for times when this could have been more than a locally-faced event. Genre fests, whether rap or dance or country or indie, have become more common and might speak towards how audiences want to spend their money, which is especially tight in 2022. Still, it was nice to see indie rock still able to work on this scale, a vibrant music community getting together, and new memories being formed by the many young fans that turned out. Hopefully, they’ll remember this as fondly as I do my first This Ain’t No Picnic.
Check out an exclusive gallery from This Ain’t No Picnic 2022 below.
LCD Soundsystem
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Le Tigre
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On the 20th anniversary of their wedding, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress shared a cute photo on Instagram of her and Prinze Jr. together. She also tagged Stern in an Instagram Story that shows the radio DJ asking the Scooby-Doo actor if he’s willing to marry Michelle Gellar “even though you know it won’t last” from a circa-2001 interview. Prinze Jr. replied, “Oh, absolutely it will last!” Stern remained unconvinced:
Stern then pressed, “You think you know everything?” to which Prinze Jr. admitted, “No, I don’t.” The radio host continued, “You think [you’re] gonna know how you feel at 35? You’re gonna be a completely different man.” But Prinze Jr. doubled down, saying, “And she will be a completely different woman, but that’s all right.”
Stern replied by hedging a bet: “I wanna make a written bet with you. In about 10 years, you’re gonna hunt me down and go, ‘Howard, I owe you money.’” Prinze jokingly agreed, saying, “OK.”
Stern wagered $1 million that they wouldn’t make it. Well, it’s been more than 10 years, and Michelle Gellar is ready to cash in.
(For You)r Consideration is a weekly column breaking down the rappers and singers doing it RIGHT on TikTok and the viral TikTok music trends and top songs taking over your FYP.
The Rise of Ice Spice
If you haven’t heard her Drake-cosigned smash hit, “Munch,” then here’s your wake-up call. The track from the Bronx’s Ice Spice debuted back in August and has become virtually unavoidable on TikTok’s For You page. DaniLeigh used the single as background for a GRWM-style video for the VMAs, Kehlani posted two videos of the Bronx drill hit, and Chantel Jeffries took to her page to make a video with Ice Spice herself! The music video snippet posted to the app has over 1 million views, and over forty thousand videos have been created to the sound. With these numbers, there’s no doubt that “Much (Feelin’ U)” will continue to rise in popularity.
Double standards are frustrating, and if you’ve ever needed an outlet to express that frustration, this trend is for you. Tennessee rapper Finesse2tymes’ latest single, “Back End,” is blowing up on TikTok to call attention to some silly and serious instances of inequality. In addition to lyrics, “It’s cool when they do it (It’s cool, huh?), it’s a problem when I do it, f*ck ’em,” creators are adding some extra flare by using the “Police Runner” filter by byten21, so you can simulate dodging the cops. Dig into the trend below.
Beyoncé finally released her 7th studio album last month. And just as the 16-track project has the world in a chokehold, content surrounding the album can’t seem to fizzle off the FYP. Creators on the app continue to show the album praise and have moved past ranking Bey’s discography and the songs on RENAISSANCE. Now, TikTokers are ranking the album’s critically acclaimed transitions. Self-proclaimed barb and Beyonce stan @shook.individual’s video ranking of the album’s transitions has just under 100k views. With these numbers, members of the Bey hive should rush to the app and hop on this trend.
Pop in some gum, start chewing, roll your eyes, and press play Rosalía’s chiptune track “Bizcochito” to hop on the trend that has populated TikTok all summer. TikTokers are using the track from the singer’s 3rd album, Motomami, to randomly give attitude to their friends and family. Doctors, beauticians, lawyers, and other professionals on the app are taking the sound and rolling their eyes at the widespread misinformation they’ve seen in their respective fields. Rosalía even hopped on the trend, serving up some attitude at the gym, eating sushi, and getting her hair done. There are currently over two hundred and fifty thousand videos and counting made using “Bizcochito,” combined with a cosign from the singer herself, this trend has staying power.
With three solo singles under her belt, a song with her ex-boo Gunna, and several covers circulating social media, the world is ready for Chlöe Bailey’s debut solo album. Last week, the UPROXX cover star took to TikTok in a vacation-ready look to give fans a taste of some unreleased music. The melody Bailey sings is traditional R&B leaning, departing from the uptempo pop tracks she’s released in the past. Fans in the comments expressed the snippet is similar to Brian McKnight records and the intro of cult soap opera Days of Our Lives. Want a taste of Chlöe’s upcoming album? Watch her TikTok below.
Earlier this year, tribute concerts were announced for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who tragically passed in March. The first event honoring Hawkins goes down at London’s Wembley Stadium this Saturday, September 3.
Who Will Perform At Taylor Hawkins’ Tribute Show In London?
The show has a stacked lineup, as taking the Wembley stage are Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, Omar Hakim, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Kesha, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Queen’s Brian May, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson, and others.
It was reported that Paramount has teamed up with Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family to air the Wembley Stadium show live on its various platforms, including CBS, MTV, Paramount+, and Pluto TV. A one-hour special will air on MTV’s global network, starting in Latin America on September 3, before an extended two-hour cut will air later on in the month. MTV will also livestream the concert on YouTube.
This tribute concert is the first of two. It will be followed by one at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on September 27, with a lineup that includes Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett, Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction, Gene Simmons of Kiss, Alanis Morissette, Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, and more.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Sarah Palin came out of the gate running strong when John McCain chose her, the then-governor of Alaska, as his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign and instantly made her a household name. But it soon became clear that, when left to her own devices, Palin could be a bit of a loose cannon, and not a particularly polished one. Which is essentially the reputation she has maintained in the years since — right up to and including her recent failed attempt to fill a House seat in a special election in Alaska. Now that she has had time to let her loss sink in, well, she’s kind of pissed.
As Yahoo! News reports, Palin now seems to be blaming Alaska’s ranked choice voting system as the reason for her loss. “Ranked-choice voting was adopted in Alaska in 2020 and has been hailed by proponents as a novel system to reduce partisanship and ensure that winning candidates have a majority of support,” Paul Best wrote for Yahoo! News. “Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-place votes after the first tabulation, then they win, but if there is no majority winner, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.”
Which all seems fair enough. In the case of Alaska’s special election, Democrat Mary Peltola received 40 percent of the original vote, while Palin received 31 percent; 28.5 percent of voters chose Republican Nick Begich, so he was eliminated ahead of the next tabulation. Ultimately, Peltola triumphed with 51.5 percent of the second vote versus Palin’s 48.5 percent. While that all seems like a pretty good indicator that Peltola was indeed the people’s choice, Palin’s now complaining about this “new crazy, convoluted, confusing” system, which she claims has “disenfranchised 60 percent of Alaska voters.”
On Thursday, Palin issued a statement that read, in part:
Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. With optimism that Alaskans learn from this voting system mistake and correct it in the next election, let’s work even harder to send an America First conservative to Washington in November.
In other words: I didn’t win, so the system must be broken. Spoken like a true MAGA Republican.
This weekend will play host to one of the year’s biggest music events, as the first Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, at London’s Wembley Stadium, will take place on Saturday, September 3. If you can’t make it out to Wembley, it will fortunately be pretty easy to watch the show either online or on TV.
In mid-August, it was reported that the concert would be viewable in a number of ways aside from actually being there in person. Foo Fighters and the Hawkins family have teamed up with Paramount to air the concert on Paramount’s platforms, including CBS, MTV, Paramount+, and Pluto TV. Furthermore, a one-hour special will air on MTV, starting in Latin America on September 3, before an extended two-hour cut will air later on this month.
This morning, Foo Fighters offered some direct online watching links on Twitter, making finding the show even easier. The event will be livestreamed globally on YouTube via MTV at this link (also embedded at the end of this post). It will also be streamed on Paramount+ (in the US only) and on Pluto TV (both domestically and internationally).
The show is set to kick off at 11:30 a.m. ET (10:30 a.m. CT, 8:30 a.m. PT). The performance lineup includes Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, Omar Hakim, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Kesha, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Queen’s Brian May, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Nile Rodgers, Mark Ronson, and others.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
If the 2018 holiday season taught us anything, it’s that red can be a dangerously divisive color in the political world. One only needs to look back at Melania Trump’s blood-red Christmas trees, which drew comparisons to both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Shining, for proof.
The image of Melania walking alone through the bloody handmaid trees seriously made my morning pic.twitter.com/4KQOFPDIEI
On Thursday night, as Mediaite notes, Joe Biden delivered a scathing speech from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, in which he took aim at the “MAGA forces [that] are determined to take this country backwards.” When it was over, however, the only thing those “MAGA forces” — including Tucker Carlson and his fellow Fox News hosts — seemed to want to talk about were the aesthetics of the proceedings, which included a red background behind Biden’s podium, with two Marines standing guard. (The latter of which was hardly unprecedented.)
As Carlson was on the air at the same time as Biden, he didn’t actually listen to his speech. But he got enough of the highlights to make a dark assessment of its content, and the president himself:
We made fun of it at the top of the show, because we didn’t really know how else to respond. But Joe Biden really has crossed over into a very dangerous — very dangerous — place. Tonight, he declared in a speech in Philadelphia that anyone who disagrees with him is a threat to the country.
Unsurprisingly, that is not what Biden said. What he did say — which Carlson showed a clip of — was that “too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.” (Yep, sounds about right so far…) “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. But the Republican party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.” (Bingo!)
Tucker Carlson reacts to Biden’s speech: “Yeah, ‘they’re a threat,’ says the guy with the blood-red Nazi background and marines standing behind him. It’s a complete outrage … This is truly nuts and threatening to the future of the United States.” pic.twitter.com/SzmLiSMYzh
Carlson, clearly irked by what he was hearing — perhaps because it hit a little too close to home? — decided that extra snark was the best reply, which is where that harmless red background became the story of the night. As Carlson noted:
Yeah, ‘they’re a threat,’ says the guy with the blood-red Nazi background and marines standing behind him. It’s a complete outrage that this is being sanctioned as a White House event. In other words, that this is the approved position of our government. It’s totally immoral.
And then the guy who encouraged riots in 2020 accused ‘MAGA Republicans’ of somehow threatening the rule of law in the United States… This is truly nuts and threatening to the future of the United States. It’s hard to believe he just did that, but he did.
Of course, Tucker wasn’t the only talking head on Fox News to take umbrage with Biden’s… choice of background color. Monica Crowley, Trump’s former treasury assistant secretary, described it as being “almost Satanic with that blood-red lighting and the two marines behind him. It was just insane.”
“The imagery was almost satanic with that blood red lighting and the two marines” pic.twitter.com/gdLbHxCheA
Former Trump speechwriter/37-year old man still on his parents’ cell phone planStephen Miller, meanwhile, praised his former boss for “pour[ing] his heart, his soul, his spirit everyday to build a better America,” then castigated Biden for delivering what Miller deemed “the speech of a dictator, in the style of a dictator, in the visual of a dictator, using the words of a dictator.”
Miller: President Trump poured out his heart and his soul everyday to build a better America… President Biden gave the speech of a dictator.. pic.twitter.com/CJ83ydCJxy
Timothée Chalamet got deeply philosophical about the state of the world while promoting his new cannibal movie, Bones & All, at the Venice Film Festival. The film, which re-teams Chalamet with Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, is about two disenfranchised youth trying to navigate life in the American Midwest in the ’80s. The experience led the young actor to examine how hard it is to grow up in these heavily scrutinized times where everything is blasted all over the internet.
“I can’t imagine what it is to grow up with the onslaught of social media, and it was a relief to play characters who are wrestling with an internal dilemma absent the ability to go on Reddit, or Twitter, Instagram or TikTok and figure out where they fit in,” Chalamet said during a press conference (via The Daily Beast). “Without casting judgment on that, you can find your tribe there, but I think it’s tough to be alive now.”
Chalamet took things even further by warning that society is in danger, and that’s why movies are more than important ever. “I think societal collapse is in the air—or it smells like it—and, without being pretentious, that’s why hopefully movies matter, because that’s the role of the artist… to shine a light on what’s going on.”
The press conference was a decidedly different tone from Chalamet, who last promoted his star turn in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune by revealing he kept Zendaya entertained on set with fart jokes. But what is youth if not the fluctuating swing from the death of the world to flatulence humor?
In David Fincher’s 2014 psychological thriller Gone Girl, Nick Dunne, played by Ben Affleck, calls his wife Amy (Rosamund Puke) a “c*nt,” “delusional,” and “insane,” and although he once loved her, that affection only led to resentment and them trying to control each other. Amy’s response: “That’s marriage.”
Affleck quoted one of his movies during his wedding to Jennifer Lopez, but unfortunately, it wasn’t this one. Instead, he chose a less-amusing option from Live by Night, a box office flop that he wrote, directed, and starred in. The line: “This is heaven. Right here. We’re in it now.” Lopez called it “one of my favorite lines that Ben wrote from a movie he directed called Live By Night,” she revealed in her “On the JLo” newsletter. “He also said it the night of our wedding reception in his speech, and I thought… how perfect.”
Lopez shared more details about the wedding:
“The truth is everyone’s story is different and we all have our paths to travel. No two people are the same. But for us, this was perfect timing. Nothing ever felt more right to me, and I knew we were finally ‘settling down’ in a way you can only do when you understand loss and joy and you are battle tested enough to never take the important things for granted or let the silly insignificant nuisances of the day get in the way of embracing every precious moment. We find ourselves in that long-desired time of life: having gratitude for all that life has shown us, even its trials and tribulations. That night really was heaven…”
That sounds heavenly, but it could have been better. Hear me out:
PASTOR: “Do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”
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