GoneTrending

From Post Malone announcing his new engagement and the birth of his baby daughter to the chaotic crashing of Britney Spears’ wedding by her ex-boyfriend, a lot of things went on this past week. Most importantly, though, we were blessed with new songs from some of the best pop sensations, including Halsey, Demi Lovato, Lizzo, BTS, and more.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop releases. Listen up.

Halsey – “So Good”

After publicly accusing their label of not letting them release this song until it had a “viral moment” on TikTok, Halsey has finally unveiled “So Good.” Their storytelling is at the forefront of the track; the heartbreak and feeling of betrayal is undeniably powerful: “Maria calls me and she says she’s gettin’ married / She asked me if there’s any extra weight I carry / And do I think about the one that got away,” they sing.

Demi Lovato – “Skin Of My Teeth”

Diehard Demi Lovato fans know that the “Heart Attack” singer’s pivot to heavier, edgier pop is more of a return to roots. “Skin Of My Teeth,” though, is better than anything they’ve ever released, strengthened by complete vulnerability and bravery. They’re confident and honest, making the song absolutely impactful.

Lizzo – “Grrrls”

Lizzo’s feel-good anthems keep getting better. “About Damn Time” has taken over the world with its playful and catchy vibes, and this new hit “Grrrls” leans into unabashed idiosyncrasy and humor while also keeping the theme of friendship at the center.

BTS – “Yet To Come”

This new hit from BTS is instantly wistful as the members reflect on the past and the fleeting nature of everything. But as the song moves forward, buoyed by their bewitching voices, hope seeps in and prevails. The repetition of the refrain “The moment is yet to come” is inspiring, shedding light on the importance of gratitude and optimism.

George Ezra – “Dance All Over Me”

George Ezra’s new single “Dance All Over Me” is a sonorous, jangly anthem that thrives through simplicity. Ezra repeats over and over: “Dance, dance, dance / Let it be, be, be / Dance all over me,” and his voice is so distinct and urgent that he almost puts the listener in a hypnotic daze.

Joji – “Glimpse Of Us”

Off the bat, Joji’s new song “Glimpse Of Us” is unafraid of vulnerability. The intimate piano ballad depicts heartbreak so vividly that it feels contagious: “Maybe one day you’ll feel lonely / And in his eyes, you’ll get a glimpse / Maybe you’ll start slipping slowly / And find me again,” he croons achingly.

Marshmello, Khalid – “Numb”

Marshmello and Khalid prove to be a perfect match for this collaboration “Numb.” Marshmello’s irresistibly upbeat and unique beats mixed with Khalid’s one-of-a-kind voice and succinct lyrics make for a great spurt of pop. At less than three minutes, it makes sure every second is worth it.

Dixie – “Someone To Blame”

Dixie, known for her TikTok personality as a D’Amelio sister, is proving that she can craft a catchy, meaningful pop song with “Someone To Blame,” which calls out unnecessary drama: “Guess you need another villain for your story / God knows without it, that sh*t would be boring,” she sings. Along with the detailed lyrics, it has a sticky, pleasant melody.

Mia Rodriguez – “Superglue”

19-year-old singer Mia Rodriguez’s new song “Superglue” instantly hooks the listener in with its eccentric, hyperpop-esque atmosphere that’s not worried about speed. It’s simultaneously lively and tame; her voice imbues the track with energy, and her lyrics add a layer of relatability: “Why is it the hardest thing to do / To let somebody love you?”

Grace Ives – “Lazy Day”

Janky Star is the title of Graces Ives’ new album, and it aptly captures the aura of her music. It’s messy, but that’s what makes it good; the chaos is completely original, like in this stunning, transcendent track “Lazy Day,” whose synths meld with her hums to create a beautiful wall of sound.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Cowabunga, motherf*ckers! Wu-Tang Clan and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles together at last?! You gotta figure the Turtles still owe us after having to weather the ’90s storm of the Vanilla Ice x TMNT “Go Ninja Go” collab. The dawn is now upon us as Ghostface Killah and Raekwon have officially penned a new track for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtled: Shredder’s Revenge video game and it’s awesome, dude.

Titled “We Ain’t Came To Lose,” the track is bona fide motivation for the sticks in the beat-em-up-style game. Ghostface comes in hot right off the bat, spitting, “Nice to meet ya, now I’m here to beat ya / With full force, mess up ya facial features. Hasta la vista, I’m sonnin’ all y’all, Little Caesar’s / All y’all stuff ya face with is pizza, pizza.”

It’s clear how natural this marriage of timeless city dwellers is before Ghost drops easily the best line in the track with, “My stomach cringes from all o’ ya fake ninjas,” to drive the point home. Raekwon The Chef is on the hook, repeating, “We ain’t came to lose,” like a mantra, leaving any shred of Vanilla Ice’s memory in the dust.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtled: Shredder’s Revenge is due out on June 16 via Tribute Games and Dotemu and will be available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. Peep the audio of “We Ain’t Came To Lose” above.

Rolling Loud has announced the lineup for its 2022 New York edition, tapping a pair of locals to headline along with another familiar face. Nicki Minaj and ASAP Rocky will headline the first two days of the festival, September 23 and 24, while Future will close it out on Sunday, September 25 at Citi Field in Queens. Tickets are going on sale starting Friday, June 17 at noon, and as usual, you can get more information and tickets at RollingLoud.com.

http://RollingLoud.com/nytix

In addition to the above names, the Big Apple-centric lineup will include local faves like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Fivio Foreign, J.I., Lil Tecca, Lil Tjay, Rowdy Rebel, Sheck Wes, and Sleepy Hallow, along with national standouts such as 21 Savage, Big Sean, Chief Keef, DaBaby, Dej Loaf, Don Toliver, Kevin Gates, Lil Baby, Lil Uzi Vert, Moneybagg Yo, Pusha T, and Ski Mask The Slump God. Rising stars on the roster include Abra, Babytron, BkTheRula, Erica Banks, Kali, Symba, and more — many of whom were recently featured on this year’s XXL Freshman Class.

2022 has seen Rolling Loud expand into new territories in addition to its usual locales. While Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Future were booked for Rolling Loud’s hometown Miami show, Rocky and Future were also tapped for the first-ever event in Portugal alongside J. Cole, while mainstay Future joins UK star Dave and Afropop sensation Wizkid to headline Toronto. In addition, Rolling Loud is backing Lil Baby’s upcoming One Of Them Ones Tour with Chris Brown. It certainly looks like Rolling Loud will keep… well… rolling in 2022 — but if I can make a request, give poor Future a rest when it’s time to announce the LA show.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Kanye West musical family tree just keeps growing and adding branches, doesn’t it? Hate him or love him, a huge number of today’s artists owe at least a percentage of their styles to the artists he helped inspire, whether it’s Drake or Kid Cudi. Today’s UPROXX Sessions performer Boslen takes after the latter, incorporating Cudi’s signature hums and moans. If Travis Scott is Baby Cudi, Boslen might be Cousin Cudi, coming through with less distortion than Travis but more precise rapping than Kid Cudi himself on “Levels” from Boslen’s 2022 project Gonzo.

Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, Boslen describes himself in his bio as a “23-year-old hip-hop experimenter” who mixes “trap, pop, punk, and rock melodies” with an underdog mentality that drives him to put his seemingly far-flung hometown on hip-hop’s map. Pursuing rap after back-to-back ACL tears derailed his rugby scholarship at the University of Victoria, he proudly wears his Cudi and Kanye influence on his sleeve. With Gonzo dropping on June 24, the Capitol Records rapper will have the chance to make his own mark on hip-hop, perhaps even inspiring another branch on that ever-growing tree.

Watch Boslen’s UPROXX Sessions performance of “Levels” above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

Are you a Xennial? If you are, you probably already know because you’re staunchly holding on to that moniker until someone pries it from your cold lifeless hands. If you’re not a Xennial then you’re probably wondering what one is and why do they care so much about the distinction. Xennials are a microgeneration born between Gen X and millennials, you may remember them as Gen Y but much like the generation itself, somewhere along the way that was dropped and forgotten. They’re uncomfortably straddling two generations with one foot planted in both, yet somehow not fitting anywhere.

---

The span of years that Xennials were born is 1977-1983 but there’s some infighting on where the cut-off should be. It all comes down to how you grew up and when regular exposure to technology came into your life, and whether it was through you or through your friends. Chances are if you don’t remember computers before they were full color, then you were likely born after the cut-off. Xennials’ parents rarely knew where they were, as they didn’t have cell phones or pagers as kids and they were babysitting by the age of 8.

Xennials’ Gen X siblings supervised them as closely as they were supervised: from a distance, far far away. I know because I am one. We were the Oregon Trail generation—we died of dysentery and drank from the water hose because coming in for water meant you had to stay inside. Google was not yet a thing when we were in high school. We had to Ask Jeeves.

My childhood was vastly different from my clearly millennial husband’s. When I saw that someone decided people born in my birth year were considered geriatric millennials, I was having none of it. So I did the very #Millennial thing of posting to social media to demand that Merriam-Webster stop dallying and finally add Xennial to the dictionary. Turns out I wasn’t alone in my frustration, the responses proved we really are just a generation wandering around confused.

One poster, Becca Zibung Mosier, responded, “1980 here and I’ll die on this hill with you!!!” Another, Jessica Morgan, accurately captured the insanity of being a member of a microgeneration saying, “Yesssss! I’ve always FELT more GenX (‘78), but at the same time not completely. This is perfect!”

Commenter Shane Millsom broke down the general chaos that is the Xennial existence by pointing out that we started high school with encyclopedias and card catalogs but came of age with the internet and cell phones. He noted that we were raised with old-school morals but were the first generation since the industrial revolution not to become wealthier than our parents. Millsom also wrote that we were raised to be environmentalists but have a healthy dose of skepticism, and observed that like Gen Xers, we love straight no-nonsense answers, but we accept everyone as equals like millennials.

The passion in Millsom’s comment captures everything Xennials feel. We were raised to believe we could conquer the world with a college education and hard work ethic, then were quickly disillusioned when student loan bills came rolling in. We in-betweeners are just that—in between. Xennials encompass the best of two generations and that’s not a bad thing, we embrace it.

I’m still impatiently waiting on Merriam-Webster to give us this one. Don’t make me start a petition.

Dry Cleaning’s 2021 debut album New Long Leg was one of our favorite LPs of the year, and now the London group is ready to follow it up, as they’ve announced Stumpwork today. The new record is set for release on October 21 and ahead of then, they’ve shared a video for “Don’t Press Me,” a sub-two-minute tune carried by Florence Shaw’s subdued vocals and contrasting indie rock instrumentation.

Shaw says of the tune, “The words in the chorus came about because I was trying to write a song to sing to my own brain: ‘You are always fighting me / You are always stressing me out.’”

A press release notes the new LP was “inspired by a plethora of events, concepts and political debacles, be they represented in the icy mess of ambient elements reflecting a certain existential despair, or the surprising warmth in celebrating the lives of loved ones lost through the previous year.” It also reads, “Furious indie-pop anthems combine across the record with psych and prog influences, demonstrating the wealth of influences the band feed off and their deep musicality.”

Watch the “Don’t Press Me” video above and find the Stumpwork art and tracklist below, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

1. “Anna Calls From The Arctic”
2. “Kwenchy Kups”
3. “Gary Ashby”
4. “Driver’s Story”
5. “Hot Penny Day”
6. “Stumpwork”
7. “No Decent Shoes For Rain”
8. “Don’t Press Me”
9. “Conservative Hell”
10. “Liberty Log”
11. “Icebergs”

06/16 — Edinburgh, UK @ Hidden Door Festival
06/17 — York, UK @ Castle Howard w/ Duran Duran
06/18 — Helsinki, FI @ Sideways Festival
06/21 — Zagreb, HR @ INmusic Festival
06/24 — Pilton, UK @ Glastonbury Festival
07/02 — Ewijk, NL @ Down The Rabbit Hole
07/03 — Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
07/09 — Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
07/10 — Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop
07/11 — Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
07/12 — Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
07/14 — Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
07/15 — Detroit, MI @ El Club
07/16 — Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Music Festival
07/23 — Nottingham, UK @ Rough Trade (in-store)
07/24 — Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling
07/29 — Co Waterford, IE @ All Together Now
07/31 — Thirsk, UK @ Deer Shed Festival
08/06 — Katowic, PL @ OFF Festival
08/11 — Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival
08/19 — Crickhowell, UK @ Green Man Festival
08/25 — London, UK @ All Points East
08/27 — Manchester, UK @ Dept Mayfield with The National
09/18 — Los Angeles, US @ Primavera Sound LA
11/11 — Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who? Festival

Stumpwork is out 10/21 via 4AD. Pre-order it here.

There are some things that you can just tell will turn out to be a bit of a disaster. A life or death reality competition where nearly 500 people who are down on their luck will try to win money doing various lethal tasks is one of them! ’90s sitcom revivals are another, by the way.

Along with a second season of the smash-hit series, Netflix is developing Squid Game: The Challenge, which will be the biggest reality competition series ever, with 456 real players competing for $4.56 million. This surprising move comes just weeks after Netflix experience a massive dip in subscribers. The company says, “In this game the worst fate is going home empty-handed.” But there will probably be some sort of waivers against show-like outcomes…we hope?

In a press release, Brandon Riegg, Netflix VP of Unscripted and Documentary Series said, “Squid Game took the world by storm with Director Hwang’s captivating story and iconic imagery. We’re grateful for his support as we turn the fictional world into reality in this massive competition and social experiment,” Reign explained. “Fans of the drama series are in for a fascinating and unpredictable journey as our 456 real world contestants navigate the biggest competition series ever, full of tension and twists, with the biggest ever cash prize at the end.”

The 10-episode series will be filmed in the U.K. Any interested fans are encouraged to sign up online to be one of the 400+ competitors. There are a lot of logistical questions regarding the move. How is the money distributed? How will all of these contestants be able to be monitored at once? And will there be a giant creepy doll? Only time will tell. One thing is for certain: fans are…confused.

Maybe everyone should just watch MTV’s The Challenge. There are 38 seasons of that.

Old habits die hard, they say. Last night, Cardi B took to Twitter to reminisce about her former days as a stripper, prior to her explosive launch as a rapper. As many of her fans know, part of Cardi’s rise to fame was sharing videos and images on Instagram and Vine, posing with cash following nights of stripping.

While she mostly raps and occasionally acts these days, Cardi still recalls her days as a stripper fondly. So much so, she still possesses some of the skills she acquired while at the clubs.

“Every time I go to a strip club I start calculating in my head how much I would of made that night if I was still stripping,” she tweeted. “I don’t know why ….I just automatically do that.”

Last year, Cardi spoke to Mariah Carey for Interview Magazine about her stripping past and how it helped her find power.

“I felt on top of the world,” said Cardi. “I felt so untouchable and so sexy, because there were rappers that all these girls lust over who would come to the strip club and request me to go to their section.”

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

Brittney Griner has been in the custody of Russian police since February 17 when she was detained at an airport near Moscow for alleged possession of hashish oil cartridges, and her pre-trial detention will be extended for another 18 days — until July 2 — in spite of the growing public push for her return to the United States from those in the WNBA, NBA, and beyond.

Russian state media outlet TASS reports (via ABC) the court has provided investigators an extension of nearly three weeks in the case, leaving the Phoenix Mercury star stuck in Russian custody until at least next month as she faces charges that carry up to a 10-year sentence.

This comes as her fellow WNBA colleagues have pleaded with the United States government to increase their pursuit of her release back to the United States. The WNBA has put Griner’s number and initials on every court leaguewide and players have continually used their time speaking with the media and on their social media accounts to call for a greater response from president Joe Biden and the U.S. government to her detainment.

Griner’s status was officially designated as “wrongfully detained” in early May, but to this point there has been little in the way of positive news regarding any efforts to bring her home.