Phosphorescent is used to long gaps between albums. His most recent LP, 2018’s C’est La Vie, came out about three years ago, and that arrived over five years after its predecessor, 2013’s Muchacho. Now, after some time away, he’s got something new up his sleeve: “The Full Moon Project,” which he launches today with a cover of Randy Newman’s “Bad News From Home.”
At the end of last week, Phosphorescent took to Instagram to explain what this new endeavor is:
“I’ve been thinkin awhile now on how to release more music separate from the modern album release cycle and all its requirements and pressures etc.. Recently my tiny animal brain had an epiphany: ‘How dense are you, bub?’ it said. ‘This is easy. Record it. Then put it out there. Duh.’ And then, ‘Maybe the moon can help. Look to it.’
So starting here at the top of this year of 2022 and I suppose aiming for the rest of my natural life, I’m gonna release a song with every full moon. For now it’s going to be exclusively cover songs as there’s a mile-long list of songs that’ve meant the world to me and I’d like to try my hand at em.
They may be moon related (as the first one is) or they may have nothin to do with the moon at all I’m open to this thing evolving into whatever it wants to be (new songs, working demos, requests, mashups, ??) In honor of the year’s first full moon (The Wolf Moon!), the first track from this project will be released on Monday, Jan 17. I’m so excited.”
A full moon occurs about every 29.5 days, so expect new tunes from Phosphorescent pretty much once a month from here on out.
Listen to Phosphorescent’s cover of “Bad News From Home” above.
There is one more game left to be played in the NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend, but the Cardinals and Rams’ Monday Night tilt was secondary news in the world of NFL takery because the Dallas Cowboys provided an almost unbelievable number of topics to discuss coming out of a dismal six-point loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
The Cowboys awful performance was stunningly complete in terms of who shared the blame, from the coaching staff through most of the team (with some notable exceptions, of course), as there were questionable coaching decisions and an abundance of self-inflicted mistakes and penalties on both sides of the ball, headlined by a catastrophic final sequence that saw Dallas fail to execute a QB draw with 14 seconds left to set up one shot at a game-winning touchdown.
Smith posted his immediate reaction to Twitter on Sunday, but that was just an amuse bouche for what was to come on Monday, because as has been the case all season, Smith was joined by Cowboys legend Michael Irvin on First Take, who could only sit there and watch as Smith took victory lap after victory lap, calling Dallas an “utter disgrace,” and even blaming Irvin for being so quick to embrace and crown a team that hadn’t won yet.
.@stephenasmith is the happiest man in the world after the Cowboys’ playoff L
Smith wasn’t done torturing Irvin at that point, as they then ran a 40-second montage of sad Cowboys fans that CBS cut to throughout the game while Stephen A. cackled.
I’m not sure Smith could’ve scripted a Dallas playoff game that would’ve created more opportunities for him to revel in the Cowboys’ collective misery, from the comedy of errors and penalties to Dak and McCarthy trying to blame officials to the fact that even the most ardent of Dallas supporters at ESPN couldn’t muster up much in the way of a defense for that performance. Smith is going to live off of this for the entire week and, probably, much of next offseason and the lead up to the 2022 regular season.
From American Idol winner to a full-blown pop music sensation, Kelly Clarkson is now a daytime TV darling. With NBC’s The Kelly Clarkson Show, Clarkson is setting herself apart from the daytime clutter with highly shareable segments like the popular “Kellyoke” that sees her challenging herself to cover hits from across the pop culture spectrum. She made waves last year with her covers of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever“and Silk Sonic’s “Leave The Door Open,” and now has showed her dynamism on a cover of Sharon Van Etten’s “The End Of The World.”
Technically a cover of a cover, Van Etten actually first covered the 1962 Skeeter Davis original in 2017 for the inventive soundtrack to Amazon’s The Man In The High Castle. Van Etten’s version gave the perfect cinematic lean for the dystopian show based on a Philip K. Dick novel. But Clarkson’s take is forged deeper in country an Americana. Backed by a five-piece band, it’s the pedal steel guitar that provides the lingering backbone for her to sing over. The performance feels almost like the Grand Ole Opry has come to daytime TV and Clarkson is once again sublime.
Watch Clarkson’s cover of “The End Of The World” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Joss Whedon has been laying low the last few years, and for good reason: Once a beloved TV and movie maven, he’s fallen from grace following a series of accusations alleging all manner of abuse. Now he’s breaking his silence. On Monday, New York published a lengthy profile of Whedon, in which he says he’s in therapy and working on himself. And while he admits that some of the accusations are legit, others get some push-back.
One of them involves Gal Gadot, who — along with Ray Fisher, whom he also addressed in the profile — accused Whedon of abuse on the set of Justice League, which he’d taken over mid-stream for Zack Snyder. Last year, she claimed Whedon “threatened” her, saying he’d make her career “miserable” after they didn’t get along on-set. Whedon denied the claim, saying, “I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” But he didn’t stop there:
He concluded she had misunderstood him. “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.” He recalled arguing over a scene she wanted to cut. He told her jokingly that if she wanted to get rid of it, she would have to tie him to a railroad track and do it over his dead body. “Then I was told that I had said something about her dead body and tying her to the railroad track,” he said.
But New York made sure to get Gadot’s response to Whedon’s claims. And she did not agree with his version of events, saying, “I understood perfectly.”
Whedon also denied Fisher’s claims of abuse, even going so far as to call him a “bad actor in both senses.” It’s some tough words from someone who, earlier in the profile, admits to the New York reporter that he’s “terrified” of “every word that comes out of my mouth.”
When we reported earlier this month that the publishing rights to David Bowie’s entire catalog had been sold for upwards of $250 million to Warner Chappell, little did we know how quickly we’d start seeing the results thereof. Now two weeks after the acquisition was announced, Bowie’s entire discography is about to be available on the Peloton exercise equipment app.
Peloton has introduced The David Bowie Collection, which makes every release in Bowie’s catalog, “from deep cuts to his biggest hits,” available for Peloton users to select as the soundtrack to their workouts. There’s also three new remixes from St. Vincent, Honey Dijon, and Tokimonsta (who all fancy themselves Peloton users) that are also a part of the Collection. St. Vincent remixes “It’s No Game, Pt 1,” Honey Dijon chose “Let’s Dance,” because she says “it’s a true celebration of music and movement,” while Tokimonsta gives “Golden Years” a spin.
St. Vincent’s Annie Clark shared her thoughts on the collaboration in a statement:
“I chose “It’s No Game (Pt. 1)”, because it has a part 2 on the record, and I figured maybe Bowie wouldn’t mind so much if I made a part 3. I wanted to take Bowie’s throat-shredding vocal take from part 1, and make it front and center. ‘Three steps to heavaaaaaaaaaaaahn…’”
The David Bowie Collection becomes available on the Peloton app starting January 19th and is available for all users.
David Bowie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
On Monday, New York magazine published a lengthy profile of Joss Whedon, the fallen TV and film maven who, over the last handful of years, has been accused of all manner of abuse. The allegations include him toxic behavior around actresses (and not just Charisma Carpenter, who came forward last year.) They include women he slept with charging him with emotional manipulation. And they include actors on the set of Justice League, which he took over mid-stream from director Zack Snyder, accusing him of being threatening and, in Ray Fisher’s case, dramatically cutting his role down.
After laying low the last couple years, Whedon finally broke his silence, responding to the many accusations. Some he accepts. (Of one relationship that went south, he says he “should have handled the situation better.”) Some he denies. Fisher’s accusations are among the latter.
In Justice League, Fisher played Cyborg, and it was his first major role. In Snyder’s original version (and somewhat in the so-called “Snyder cut” that was released last year), Cyborg — DC’s first Black superhero — was the center of the story. When Whedon boarded, he cut his role way down. In 2020, amidst the George Floyd riots that sprung up nationwide, Fisher spoke out, accusing Whedon of not only being rude but of gutting his role. He even claimed Whedon had used color correction to change the color of his skin.
In the New York profile, Whedon pushed back:
Whedon says he cut down Cyborg’s role for two reasons. The story line “logically made no sense,” and he felt the acting was bad. According to a source familiar with the project, Whedon wasn’t alone in feeling that way; at test screenings, viewers deemed Cyborg “the worst of all the characters in the film.” Despite that, Whedon insists he spent hours discussing the changes with Fisher and that their conversations were friendly and respectful. None of the claims Fisher made in the media were “either true or merited discussing,” Whedon told me.
Whedon ended up describing Fisher as a “malevolent force,” calling him “a bad actor in both senses.” (Fisher reportedly didn’t respond to multiple interview requests for New York’s article.)
There’s a lot more in the profile. Whedon shoots down Gal Gadot, who’s also accused Whedon of on-set abuse, even threatening her career, saying she simply didn’t understand the nuances of his discussions with her because “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.” In an e-mail, Gadot said, “I understood perfectly.”
At midnight ET on January 7, The Weeknd released his latest album, Dawn FM. At that very same time, he hosted a livestream event, “103.5 Dawn FM,” for which he put on a live show in Los Angeles, playing the whole album from front to back. When the event was announced, The Weeknd said of it, “The power of the 103.5 Dawn FM experience is that maximum fulfillment comes when all who hear it are tuned in at the same time.”
So, while the window for maximum fulfillment has come and gone, fans who missed out on the livestream now have the chance for at least some fulfillment: Today, The Weeknd shared the full “103.5 Dawn FM” livestream on YouTube. During the performance, The Weeknd, in the gray-haired old man look he’s sported for much of the Dawn FM era so far, stands behind an illuminated table on a raised platform as fans watch and dance on the floor below, with The Weeknd playing the role of DJ (fitting considering the album’s radio themes) all the while.
Meanwhile, The Weeknd recently indicated that Dawn FM is actually part of a new trilogy, writing on Twitter, “i wonder… did you know you’re experiencing a new trilogy?”
Hip-hop fans got a pleasant surprise over the weekend when Freddie Gibbs popped up in a Saturday Night Live sketch, one that didn’t make the broadcast but was still shared on the SNL YouTube page.
The skit is a music video for a song called “All On Me” by an up-and-coming rapper named Lil T (played by Chris Redd), who just got signed to a record deal and is celebrating by spending loads of money in the club alongside his entourage, played by Kenan Thompson and host Ariana DeBose. Lil T is taken aback when he sees the massive tab he’s run up, though, so he starts being more frugal. Partway into the song, Gibbs pops up, rapping, “OK, Lil T, you up in the big leagues / See you spending big G’s like your boy Freddie G / Young’uns making money is something I like to see / Send him one big bottle of Ace, it’s on me.” Then, in accordance with the “club code,” Redd sends Gibbs something back: a bottle of Diet Coke. After chastising Redd for that move, Gibbs continues, “Old dude’s just being cheap / Shots for everybody and they all on T.”
Gibbs shared a clip of the skit and wrote on Twitter, “Man shout out my dog Chris Redd for putting me on this SNL sh*t. Live from New York!!!”
Man shout out my dog Chris Redd for putting me on this SNL shit. Live from New York!!! pic.twitter.com/eJoLQxyMQQ
Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Cordae knocking out of the park on his highly anticipated new album and Earl Sweatshirt doing much of the same. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
Cordae kept busy last week, dropping a Tiny Desk concert and visiting The Tonight Show and The Breakfast Club. All of the fuss was related to Cordae’s new album, From A Birds Eye View, which was, as evidence indicates, the week’s headlining hip-hop release. The album was full of headlining features, too, including a track with Eminem (“Parables (Remix)”) and another with both HER and Lil Durk, the similarly titled “Chronicles.”
Gunna — “P Power” Feat. Drake
Gunna and Drake’s collaboration “P Power” was supposed to be on DS4EVER, but when the album dropped the song was nowhere to be found. Eventually, though, the tune came out, and it’s dedicated to the women and a certain power they possess, as hinted at by the title. The song is built on a sample of Donna Summer’s “Could It Be Magic,” which Metro Boomin used to give the track a bit of subtle funk.
Earl Sweatshirt — “Sick!”
A few months ago, The Alchemist discussed a 21-minute Earl Sweatshirt project he worked on, saying of it, “He has an album that is done and it’s incredible. […] I couldn’t even describe it… that would be a disservice to it.” Well, that project might just be Sick!, which dropped a few days ago and runs for about 24 minutes. A highlight is the title track, a 2-minute effort that sees Earl in his woozy bag.
King Princess — “Little Bother” Feat. Fousheé
Fousheé’s emergence over the past year or so has been real, as she’s built up a roster of collaborators that includes Lil Wayne, Lil Yachty, Vince Staples, and now, King Princess. Last week, they linked up on “Little Bother,” a driving tune that borrows from ’80s pop and rock while putting a contemporary spin on both.
Earthgang — “All Eyes On Me”
Earthgang’s highly anticipated second album, Ghetto Gods, is coming out at last towards the end of January. In the meantime, they held fans over last week with a new single, the smooth “All Eyes On Me.” Uproxx’s Wongo Okon notes of the track, “The track finds the duo acknowledging the many eyes that might be on them as both successful musicians and Black men in America.”
JID — “Surround Sound” Feat. 21 Savage and Baby Tate
It looked like JID’s The Forever Story might have been released in 2020, but he decided to delay it for pandemic-related reasons. We’re still waiting for that LP, but in the meantime, JID shared a 21 Savage and Baby Tate collaboration, the hard-hitting “Surround Sound.” Uproxx’s Wongo Okon notes that “JID leads the way with a quickfire verse that sits perfectly over the song’s thumping production,” then Savage and Tate do their thing, then JID comes back “to lay another cut-throat verse to conclude his grand return. ”
FKA Twigs — “Jealousy” Feat. Rema
Before dropping Caprisongs on Friday, FKA Twigs unveiled one last advance single from it: “Jealousy,” a collaboration with Nigerian singer/rapper Rema. On the chill cut, Twigs sings of somebody who needs to get it together: “Jealousy you put on me / You’re in your feelings way too deep.”
NLE Choppa — “Too Hot” Feat. Moneybagg Yo
After two projects in 2020, NLE Choppa came up empty in 2021 but has Me Vs. Me coming later this week. Ahead of that, he linked up with Moneybagg Yo on “Too Hot,” which sees both rappers flexing as they rap about guns, wealth, and related topics of the sort.
Raveena — “Rush”
On the strength of her 2019 debut album Lucid, Raveena impressed enough to land herself a label deal with Warner Records. Now, she’s back with a fresh new tune, “Rush,” a rhythmic melding of cultures. Uproxx’s Adrian Spinelli notes the song “meets at the intersection of sweet, sensual R&B, with the sounds of her Indian roots.”
Mitski — “Love Me More”
Mitski is releasing Laurel Hell in under a month, an LP she previewed last week with “Love Me More.” The song borrows from both throwback pop and indie rock, as the song’s verses are generally a blend of those genres while the hook is pure ’80s pop. When releasing the song, Mitski noted that it was written pre-pandemic, which both changed some of the song’s meanings and enhanced others.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
At least, that’s what a new trailer for Euphoria suggests. The teaser for next week’s episode — yes, we’ve reached full saturation of teaser culture — features a new song from Del Rey. So far, all the info about the song seems to be confined to rumors, but it is reportedly called “Watercolor Eyes,” and will mark Lana’s first collaboration with producer and songwriter Nasri. In the clip, you can hear a few lyrics from the song, along the lines of “making love, just to make me mad” and “love don’t always last forever.” So Lana is very much staying on trend with her most common themes.
Check out a snippet of the song below, and keep an ear out for the song’s debut in the next episode of Euphoria, which will air on January 23.
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