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After debuting last month, Squid Game has rocketed to the top of Netflix charts all over the globe. The dystopian drama is putting up record numbers for the streaming company, and it’s on track to be Netflix’s biggest show ever (as well as fully dominate Halloween this year). Turns out making people compete in children’s games to the death is the key to a guaranteed genre hit. However, Squid Game almost never saw the light of day, and a new report reveals that the show’s creator spent over a decade trying to convince network execs to take a chance on the dark drama.

While living with his mother and grandmother, Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk developed the idea over a decade ago, and the show’s treatise on class warfare took on a personal meaning as Hwang was forced to sell his laptop while writing the now international juggernaut. Unfortunately, Hwang couldn’t get anyone on board with the series because it was deemed too unrealistic, but that all changed when Netflix stepped in and basically agreed that, yup, actually the world is messed up enough that Squid Game makes total sense. Via The Wall Street Journal:

Back then, potential investors and actors bristled at the brutal killings and implausibility of individuals competing to the death for money. But two years ago, Netflix thought the class struggles outlined in “Squid Game” spoke to reality.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the global economy, it exacerbated the disparity between the rich and the poor, said the 50-year-old Mr. Hwang. Even vaccine rollouts vary greatly based on whether a country is wealthy or not, he said.

“The world has changed,” Mr. Hwang said. “All of these points made the story very realistic for people compared to a decade ago.”

And there you have it. The world got dark and depressing enough that a game show where contestants risk getting shot in the face for a million dollars doesn’t sound crazy at all. It’s the feel-good story of the year.

(Via Wall Street Journal)

The Weeknd recently wrapped up his After Hours era, and since then, he’s been looking forward. There’s been talk of a new album, and now the Weeknd says it’s “complete.”

The Weeknd — who has been referring to his upcoming album as the “dawn,” although it’s unclear if that is the actual title of the project — said on the October 4 episode of his Apple Music show Memento Mori:

“Some exciting features coming out in the fall before the album drops. We’ll slowly be unraveling that info in the next couple months. Some dawn updates: Album is complete. Only thing missing is a couple characters that are key to the narrative. Some people that are near and dear to me, some people that inspired my life as a child, and some that inspire me now. More to come in the following months.”

The Weeknd’s upcoming music was described in greater detail in an August profile in GQ. It reads, “The music hit the studio like a Mack truck. The new project is packed with party records. Like real-deal, illuminated-white-tiles-on-the-floor party records. Quincy Jones meets Giorgio Moroder meets the best-night-of-your-f*cking-life party records. Not anachronistic disco stuff. (Not ‘cosplay,’ as Abel put it.) That sort of retro thing is having a moment right now in pop music, but these records are new. Sweaty. Hard. Drenched-suit, grinding-on-the-girl/boy-of-your-dreams party records.”

As a child actor and recent hit maker who was briefly the subject of a media-fueled scandal over a teen love triangle, Olivia Rodrigo knows all too well what it’s like to exist in the public eye as a teenager. That’s why she’s expressed her support of the #FreeBritney movement, an online social media campaign to release the pop singer from her 13-year-long conservatorship.

Rodrigo applauded all the developments in Spears’ legal battles in a recent interview with Teen Vogue, which took place just before Spears’ father was removed as her co-conservator. “I’m so excited to see her making leeway in her case,” Rodrigo said. “I think it’s a step in the right direction. I’m so happy that Britney’s case is getting so much attention, and I just hope that she gets all the justice she deserves and lives the best life she possibly can.”

The singer continued to note the pressures place on young women in the spotlight. “It’s one example of this culture that so often tears down women in the spotlight for sport,” she said. “As a society we definitely have to reexamine the way we treat women in the entertainment industry, and not just for ourselves — it’s unhealthy for young girls to be looking at all that stuff in the media. It paints a bad picture.”

It’s not the first time Rodrigo has showed her support of Spears. In the recent video alongside her track “Brutal,” Rodrigo poses the question: “Who am I if not exploited?” She asks this while sporting the same Roberto Cavalli dress that Spears wore to the 2003 American Music Awards, an ice blue Tinkerbell-inspired look adorned with sequins.

Read Rodrigo’s full interview with Teen Vogue here.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is continuing to reveal disturbing information about the social media company she used to work for.

After leaking documents to the Wall Street Journal, alleging that Facebook is actively choosing profits over the best interest of its users, and giving an interview to CBS’ 60 Minutes that detailed how the company is hiding its shortcomings from investors, Haugen appeared before the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security to expand on her view of how Facebook (and Instagram) is harming young children.

After WSJ reported on the negative side effects that Instagram and Facebook have on young people’s mental health, the Senate decided to launch an investigation into the company’s practices when it comes to protecting its youngest users. Haugen was brought on as a product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team after she witnessed someone close to her become radicalized while spending a lot of time on Facebook. But during her time there, as Haugen told the subcommittee, she saw Facebook’s products “harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.”

“The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer,” she continued. “But won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”

Haugen also addressed the company’s blackout on Monday in her opening statement:

“I don’t know why it went down,” she said. “I know that for more than five hours Facebook wasn’t used to deepen divides, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.”

She testified before the subcommittee that Facebook needs more regulation if we hope to see its culture change.

“As long as Facebook is operating in the dark, it is accountable to no one,” she said. “We have financial bankruptcy because we value people’s lives more than we value money. Facebook is stuck in a feedback loop they can not get out of. Hiding this information because they feel trapped. They need to admit they did something wrong and they need to help solve these problems. That’s what moral bankruptcy is.”

(Via NBC News & ABC News)

Longtime ESPN host Sage Steele has made headlines in recent days after an appearance on “The Uncut with Jay Cutler” podcast in which she made several comments that generated controversy, including saying that Disney’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its employees “is sick and it’s scary to me in many ways.” Beyond that, Steele questioned the Blackness of former president Barack Obama, saying in reference to his identifying as Black on his Census forms, “I’m like, ‘Well, congratulations to the president, that’s his thing.’ I think that’s fascinating considering his Black dad was nowhere to be found, but his white mom and grandma raised him, but hey, you do you. I’m going to do me.”

Steele said she is sorry that her comments “created controversy for the company,” while ESPN said that it was in the midst of direct conversations with the SportsCenter anchor. In the aftermath, Front Office Sports reports, Steele won’t be on the air for at least the next week and will miss out on the espnW: Women + Sports Summit, where she was previously scheduled to appear as a host.

While it is unclear if this is directly in response to what she had to say — which Front Office Sports reports got a ton of heat within the walls of the Worldwide Leader, which did not specific if this was “due to internal discipline or possible suspension” — Steele’s absence will, in part, be due to the fact that she tested positive for COVID-19.

Steele has tested positive for COVID-19, according to sources. But her not appearing on air goes beyond her diagnosis.
…
Her critical comments about Disney did not over well in Bristol or Burbank. Both ESPN and Steele thought it was appropriate for her to take some time off, said sources.

Steele explained to Cutler that did receive the vaccine in accordance with ESPN’s mandate.

Cristobal Tapia de Veer composed the music for HBO’s Hawaii-set breakout hit The White Lotus, but the anxiety-causing voices were originally meant for Kanye West.

“I went to his place where he works” in California, Tapia de Veer revealed on the Broken Record podcast, “and then I was trying to understand what he wanted.” But because West is “always talking about a million things at the same time,” he didn’t know what he was there for. It had something to do with Nike and a prototype for a new shoe and “how this Nike shoe relates to music,” so Tapia de Veer started to work on something “really striking” on his laptop. He continued:

“I had those voices and I tried to find a way to play melodies that is really striking, and this happened by accident and I was like, at that point I knew that this was like gold. And I was like, ‘OK, this I’m going to show to Kanye.’ I was there for like a week and I had to leave, and there was problems, and Kanye started firing people and his lawyers and everything was too long… It was a mess”

This was, Tapia de Veer notes, a month before all the Trump stuff.

Anyway, West never called Tapia de Veer back, so when The White Lotus came up, he knew “those tribal voices” would be perfect for the show. “So I went back to my system and started finding the right melody,” he said. Tapia de Veer found it: creator Mike White said that he wanted “music that makes you feel like there’s gonna be some kind of human sacrifice at some point… Cristobal nailed that — and then some.”

You can listen to the Broken Record episode above.

Ed Sheeran has one of the most distinctive and beloved voices of the past decade. So, it’s not that surprising, then, that he has signed on to play a role in the current season of The Voice, the show’s 21st. It was announced today that Sheeran will serve as a “Mega Mentor” to help contestants prepare for the upcoming Knockouts Rounds.

Sheeran joins an esteemed list of artists who have made guest appearances in advisory roles on the voice, a list that includes Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey, Chris Martin, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, and many others. Sheeran himself was also previously involved with the show, during its fifth season in 2013.

While Sheeran is cool with The Voice, he’s not as keen on other music TV broadcasts. He recently spoke disparagingly about American award shows, saying, “The room is filled with resentment and hatred towards everyone else and it’s quite an uncomfortable atmosphere. In England, our awards shows are just like, everyone gets drunk and no one really cares who wins or loses. It’s just sort of like a night out. All of the artists are sweet people, but they’re surrounded by entourages that want them to win too, so it’s one artist surrounded by ten people and another artist surrounded by ten people, and everyone is kind of giving each other the side eye. […] It’s just lots of people wanting other people to fail and I don’t like that. It’s a really horrible atmosphere to be in. I always walk away feeling really sad, and I don’t like it.”

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

Mayim Bialik — who is trading off Jeopardy! hosting duties with Ken Jennings for the rest of the year following the disgraced Mike Richards’ exit — recently declared that she gunning for the permanent hosting gig, and it sure looks like things are going promisingly for her. The former Blossom and Big Bang Theory actress’ first stab at the post-awkwardness vibe of Richards’ sole week of taped episodes revealed that audiences are digging her much more than Richards.

That is to say, Bialik, who’s sharing the screen with the same champion (Matt Amodio) racking up wins as Richards did, is doing markedly better than her predecessor, who saw Jeopardy! lose the top ratings spot during his brief tenure. The Wrap breaks it down:

The “Big Bang Theory” alum’s debut as temp host of the syndicated version of the Sony quiz show rose 6% in ratings from the previous week, when Mike Richards was the very short-lived full-time host. Bialik’s week also rose 6% from the comparable week last year.

Ultimately, Jeopardy! (with 8.9 total average viewers) managed to tie with Family Feud (with 8.6 total average viewers) for the top spot, so that’s not a total win, but it’s not a loss, either. Her philosophy towards hosting seems rather healthy, too, given that she previously declared that the host shouldn’t attract too much attention to themselves. And that was one of the problems with Mike Richards. In addition to his history of troubling remarks, it could be argued that engineering himself into the host role was a way to make it, you know, all about himself. Not great! Yet the long-running game show looks to be on the path to recovery.

(Via The Wrap)

When Charli XCX released her 2016 EP Vroom Vroom, it cemented the UK singer as a pop boundary pusher. The effort gained a cult following and became a precursor for the singer’s subsequent glitchy releases. But not everyone thought Vroom Vroom was the beginning of a successful era. Pitchfork originally gave the release a score of 4.5, effectively rating it a flop. But they now feel their original rating was a little shortsighted, seeing as Vroom Vroom was a pioneer of the now-mainstream hyperpop movement.

Re-working the EP’s original score (and that of a handful of other releases from other artists), Pitchfork has now given Vroom Vroom a 7.8. Alongside their re-rating, Pitchfork admits the original score was “homophobic,” based on the effort’s massive impact on the LGBTQ+ community. “At the time, many critics seemed to be paranoid about PC Music’s motives,” Pitchfork wrote. “Nervous that they’d be bamboozled, they obsessed over whether a pop experiment was either satire or sincere.”

When the news about the res-coring of her album reached her, the singer had a succinct response that boiled down most of the online discourse following the list’s publishing. Encapsulating her feelings about the EP’s new rating, Charli wrote: “Lol”

Produced by the late Scottish hyperpop engineer Sophie, songs from Vroom Vroom are clearly fan-favorites, judging by a recent video she retweeted. At her live shows, the crowd goes wild over the bouncy chords, shimmering synths, and glitchy beats introduced on the four-track effort.

Read Pitchfork’s full roundup of re-scored albums here.

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

After spending the better part of a decade as being Super Smash Bros. fans’ most requested addition, Kingdom Hearts’ beloved hero Sora has finally come to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The big announcement comes as a part of today’s Sakurai Presents, a series of live streams hosted by Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai in which the studio legend unveils new characters, maps, cosmetics, and various changes coming to the Nintendo Switch title. The latest Sakurai Presents marks the last one for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as Sora is confirmed to be the final piece of DLC headed to the 2018 game. However, the momentous, shocking, and surprisingly emotional reveal gives us far more reason to celebrate everything the Super Smash team accomplished rather than lament the game’s completion.

For starters, just getting Sora in the game was a feat in itself. As Kingdom Hearts is in-part a Disney property, a lot of fans wrote off the possibility of Nintendo ever acquiring rights to the character. However, obtaining Sora for the game became a priority for Sakurai, late Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, and the rest of the Super Smash team following a roster request survey sent to fans on 3DS and Wii U several years ago that revealed the character was the most requested to join Super Smash by a lot.

The big reveal shows the team did not take Sora’s demand lightly, as nearly unparalleled attention to detail went into designing the character and his assets. The light and flighty fighter uses his keyblade as well as his various spells to attack opponents, and appears to be a pretty solid choice for those seeking a character able to recover from powerful smash attacks with ease. Sora also comes with 9 Kingdom Hearts tracks, a new level that showcases Hollow Bastion and the iconic stained glass stages from the series, and his various outfits from all the series’ mainline games.

Oh, and last but certainly not least, Sakurai also snuck in another huge Kingdom Hearts announcement in his final Presents: the series is headed to Nintendo Switch. Shortly before the live stream came to a close, Sakurai revealed the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, and Kingdom Hearts III are all headed to the console via cloud streaming. As of right now, prices and release dates for each of the games have yet to be announced, but Sakurai stated more information is coming soon.

Sora hits Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on October 18 and, just like the game’s previously-released fighters, can either be purchased individually for $5.99 or as part of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Fighter Pass Vol. 2 for $29.99. While you can expect some push-back from Super Smash fans who are tired of the series adding weapon-wielding characters (or sword-fighters), I gotta say, I think the outpouring of love, support, and tears from long-time Kingdom Hearts fans (and Sakurai himself) truly make up for it.