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Back at the start of the pandemic, social distancing, and the shutdown of the live music industry, artists kept themselves busy and their fans engaged in various ways. Livestream concerts was a big one, but Idles’ Joe Talbot went a different route by launching his own talk show, Balley TV. The most recent episode dropped in August 2020, but now Balley TV is making a return via a new special, “In Defense Of The Arts.”

Idles is teaming up with Vans for the special, which was filmed in the Old Vic Tunnels at House Of Vans London. The special runs for nearly an hour and will feature interviews and performances from Deep Tan, Nuha Ruby Ra, and Katy J Pearons, as well as Idles and Slowthai linking up for a new version of Ultra Mono highlight “Model Village.”

A studio version of the song will drop on the same day and Talbot says of it, “We are fortunate to announce our forces have joined with the enigmatic and vibrant soul that is Slowthai. Go dig.”

The Idles and Slowthai connection will continue later this year when Idles will perform at Slowthai’s Happyland festival. Idles also have a new documentary, Don’t Go Gentle, on the way.

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got the official return of Courtney Barnett, an ’80s cover from Angel Olsen, and a snarling punk number from Australian punks Amyl And The Sniffers. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

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Half Waif – Mythopoetics

On her fifth full-length album under the name Half Waif, Nandi Rose channels her unique brand of dark pop to break the familial patterns that were handed down to her. Mythopoetics turns the pain of breaking tradition into something truly beautiful, a feat that Rose has managed to pull off effortlessly throughout her growing catalogue.

Koreless – Agor

It’s been ten years since Welsh producer Lewis Roberts dropped his debut single under the Koreless moniker, though Roberts has been filling his time with collaboration work alongside artists like FKA Twigs and Rita Ora. Agor doesn’t sound like any of his recent more pop-oriented work. Instead, it takes on a fully experimental approach that illustrates just how far Roberts is willing to go to perfect his craft.

The Goon Sax – Mirror II

Australian indie-pop outfit The Goon Sax have been around for the better part of the last five years, but Mirror II really sees the trio come into their own for something addicting. Melodic, and clever, the LP is what Steven Hyden described as “infectious and introspective” in a recent issue of the Indie Mixtape newsletter.

Museum Of Love – Life Of Mammals

For the first time in nearly a decade, LCD Soundsystem offshoot project Museum Of Love are back with a brand new album. Life Of Mammals allows core members Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany to find ways to incorporate their affinity for visual art into their music, with a James Murphy mix that gives the songs an absolutely massive sound.

Courtney Barnett – “Rae Street”

It’s always good news with Courtney Barnett announces a new project. “Rae Street” is the first original music from the Australian singer-songwriter after a year of releasing covers, and reminds us exactly what made Barnett so special when she stormed onto the scene in the mid-2010s. The single is the first taste of Barnett’s forthcoming LP Things Take Time, Take Time, which is due out in November.

Deafheaven – “The Gnashing”

With the lead single for their new album Infinite Granite, Deafheaven signaled a sonic shift away from their black metal roots. “The Gnashing” continues down the path, a track that, as Derrick Rossignol describes for Uproxx “continues the band’s tradition of their epic guitar-based sound, [while] seeming [to confirm] that Clarke’s less hardcore vocals are here to stay.”

Strand Of Oaks – “Galacticana”

Timothy Showalter’s forthcoming eighth album under the name Strand Of Oaks was “created with so much love and my greatest hope is that it connects with people and provides a momentary space for reflection, joy, catharsis, and whatever else someone might be looking for in their life,” he explained in a statement. Lead single “Galacticana” is a contemplative new track that will certainly get you in the headspace for reflection and joy.

Angel Olsen – “Gloria” (Laura Branigan cover)

After the acclaim of her 2020 effort Whole New Mess, Angel OIsen is looking to the past for an EP of ’80s covers. Aisles is previewed by “Gloria,” a synthy, modernized rendition of Laura Branigan’s track originally composed in Italian by Umberto Tozzi. “I just wanted to have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous, and I think I needed to remember that I could!” Olsen wrote in a statement.

Amyl And The Sniffers – “Guided By Angels”

There isn’t a lot of snotty punk rock to go around these days. Australian rockers Amyl And The Sniffers are here to change that with their forthcoming sophomore LP Comfort To Me. The album is preceded by “Guided By Angels,” a snarling affair that stems from the quartet’s time quarantining in a three-bedroom home after two years on the road.

A Great Big Pile Of Leaves – “Beat Up Shoes”

Eight years after their last release, emo idols A Great Big Pile Of Leaves are back with a brand new full-length album. The twinkly, math rock-inspired “Beat Up Shoes” is the first taste of Pono, which may or may not be named after Neil Young’s short-lived high fidelity MP3 player.

Kississippi – “Moonover”

I’ve written in the past about how exciting it is to see an artist emerge from the DIY basement scene with a vision that could catapult them into the pop stratosphere. Kississippi’s forthcoming album Mood Ring is a full-blown pop project, reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s Red or 1989. “Moonover” is one of the most propulsive tracks on the record, and it won’t take long to understand why I’ve been raving about it since the project was announced.

Yasmin Nur – “My Favorite T-Shirt”

Hailing from Wichita, Kansas, Yasmin Nur’s new track tries to find the balance between yearning for acceptance and being comfortable in your own skin. “My Favorite T-Shirt” spends its first few seconds building to a cathartic explosion of a full-band onslaught with distorted guitars and melodic pop punk-infused vocals.

Career Woman – “The Little Dipper”

I’ve had my eye on Career Woman since the release of “Balcony” earlier this year. “The Little Dipper” is a more contemplative affair than its predecessor, existing as almost a diary entry from 17-year-old songwriter Melody Caudill that illustrates the first few months of quarantine in Los Angeles. With just an acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies delivering hefty emotional weight, “The Little Dipper” is reminiscent of early Phoebe Bridgers in the best way.

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

Spotify and Electric Lady Studios have announced a new series of EPs titled Live At Electric Lady, with the first release featuring Jon Batiste, coming on July 29. Additional recordings will feature Patti Smith, Japanese Breakfast, Dominic Fike, Faye Webster, Bleachers, Remi Wolf, and Natalie Bergman, “with more surprises to come,” according to a press release.

As for Batiste, the Oscar-winning Colbert musical director recorded his EP with fellow jazz musicians Kenny Garrett, Ron Carter, Gary Bartz, and Joe Saylor. Meanwhile, according to the release, each artist spent their sessions playing their own music, plus “cover songs of artists connected to the studio’s history.”

Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner had some nice words about her experience recording at Electric Lady, which is famously situated in New York City’s West Village and has hosted sessions by iconic musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and more. “It was an absolute dream to get to record at Electric Lady. The rooms are filled with good, ancient vibes and the engineers there are unparalleled, so it’s no wonder it’s such an iconic studio that holds a place in so many legends’ hearts,” said Zauner. Faye Webster, who recently released the critically lauded LP I Know I’m Funny Haha, also had good things to say: “I’m so excited and honored to be a part of this. For my first time in Electric Lady, to be a part of this series with so many people I love, is something I’ll never forget. I’m going to be processing this for a while.”

Look out for Jon Batiste’s Live At Electric Lady EP on 5/21.

Coi Leray, DDG, Lakeyah, and Morray kick off the 2021 XXL Freshman Cyphers for this year’s class, each bringing their own unique style to a beat produced by algorithm master Nick Mira. DDG opens proceedings with a typical West Coast/Michigan swing flow, then cedes the floor to Lakeyah, who undoubtedly delivers the best straight-up rap verse, hunting for the sort of credit that only comes from being an expert technician. Morray splits the balance between his signature crooning and some off-the-dome rhymes bigging up his cohorts.

That leaves Coi Leray, who is quite possibly the most controversial addition to this year’s list. Despite having three years of tried-and-true material including a handful of viral hits to her name, it was her song “No More Parties” that first exposed her to the wider mainstream audience, drawing comparisons to both Dej Loaf and Playboi Carti in the process. It’s also, oddly enough, the song least like the bulk of her output, so it seemed going in that the Cypher would be her chance to lay skeptics’ doubts to rest.

She absolutely does not do that, instead opting for a choppy, Carti-esque delivery on a relatively short verse that does little to allay the concerns about her placement before giving up and resorting to her trademark twerking. It’s an unusual choice for a rapper who is under fire and facing a make-or-break moment with all eyes on her. While it’s pioneering, to be sure (Megan Thee Stallion once pointed out that a female rapper would face a ton of criticism for rapping like Playboi Carti, and for all intents, it appears she was correct), and a boundary has been broken to allow women to branch out more stylistically, I can see Coi taking a lot more fire now — with this verse undermining much of the evidence that supporters could use to defend her.

It’ll be interesting to see how this Cypher will be received on social media as well as how it affects future installments and the ongoing debate about whether the Freshman Class even needs a Cypher anymore.

Watch the 2021 XXL Freshman Cypher above.

In April of 2020, international advocacy organization Global Citizen urged people to stay at home to stop the spread of COVID by tapping some of today’s biggest artists for their Together At Home livestream. Now, Global Citizen is announcing another livestream, this time aimed at urging major corporations and foundations to donate funds to deliver COVID vaccines to the vulnerable and help end global poverty.

Global Citizen Live is a 24-hour livestream filmed in several countries across six continents. Kicking off on Saturday, September 24, the concert will feature headliners Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Lizzo, among others, and take place in cities across the world like Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, New York City, Paris, London, Seoul, LA, and Sydney.

Along with Eilish, Lizzo, and Lorde, some other artists set to perform include Adam Lambert, Alessia Cara, Andrea Bocelli, Angélique Kidjo, BTS, Burna Boy, Camila Cabello, Coldplay, Christine And The Queens, Davido, Demi Lovato, DJ Snake, Doja Cat, Duran Duran, Ed Sheeran, Femi Kuti, Green Day, HER, Hugh Jackman & Deborra-lee Furness, Keith Urban, Lang Lang, Metallica, Rag’n’Bone Man, Ricky Martin, Shawn Mendes, The Lumineers, The Weeknd, Tiwa Savage, Usher, and more.

In a statement about Global Citizen Live‘s mission, Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans detailed the devastating affects of COVID across the globe:

“COVID-19 has drastically reversed the progress toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals pushing upwards of 160 million people back into extreme poverty. There are now more than 40 million people on the brink of famine. Progress on climate change has halted, as the majority of the Fortune 500 fail to set science-based carbon reduction targets. We must rectify the damage done and hold world leaders and businesses accountable for ensuring that the entire world recovers from this pandemic together. ‘Equitable recovery’ is not an act of charity — it is the only way we can ensure a fighting chance at achieving a sustainable world free from extreme poverty.”

Echoing Evans’ statement, The Weeknd said he’s honored to join the livestream. “It is very important to me to be a part of this historic event to spread awareness and encourage action toward helping the people of Ethiopia during this devastating humanitarian crisis they are faced with,” he said. “It’ll be an honor to perform and help bring support to these citizens who are suffering so severely.”

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

Team USA’s Olympic roster will take on the WNBA’s All-Stars in the 2021 All-Star Game on Wednesday night. It’ll be the first time we see Dawn Staley’s team — in pursuit of a seventh consecutive gold medal — play in an exhibition game. They’ll play Australia and Nigeria later in the week.

While Team USA will draw attention, there’s a lot on the line for the game’s other participants, too. The event will be a warmup for Australian star center Liz Cambage, who is also set to play in Tokyo, as well as a first audition for 2024 Olympics hopefuls like Arike Ogunbowale, and a potential statement game for 2016 Team USA snub Candace Parker.

Here are a few things to watch for on ESPN when the game tips off from Vegas on July 14 at 7:00 p.m. ET.

1. Who does Team USA start?

With a team as deep as the U.S. Olympic roster, which features six of the last 11 WNBA MVP winners, every lineup is going to see some level of success. But earning a starting nod is an honor of its own.

In 2016, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore, Tina Charles, and Brittney Griner started. Moore is not on the roster, but the other four are. It’ll be interesting to see if they remain in the starting lineup, even with the emergence of Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart, and A’ja Wilson in particular. Dawn Staley has a lot of choices to make. The good news for her is that it’s hard to make a bad one.

2. Will Liz Cambage play big minutes?

Cambage led all scorers at the 2016 Olympics with 23.5 points per game, but Australia fell in the quarterfinals to Serbia. No team is in Team USA’s realm, but Australia — led by WNBA players Leilani Mitchell, Rebecca Allen, Ezi Magbegor, Stephanie Talbot, and Alanna Smith — may have the best chance to upset them.

This could be a warmup for Cambage, who will get to see the USA squad twice in exhibition action in Vegas, before a possible gold medal showdown.

3. How are Team USA’s shots distributed?

One of the most difficult tasks for any superteam is having players understand their new roles. Staley’s group has 12 of the best scorers in the world (seven of the WNBA’s top 10), all capable of leading a team. But USA won’t thrive on pure isolation plays. It’ll need a system that balances all of its stars’ capabilities.

Playing pass-first guards like Chelsea Gray, Skylar Diggins-Smith or Sue Bird on the floor at any given time in the game feels like a must.

4. Will Tina Charles take over?

Before the season started, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Elena Delle Donne, and Candace Parker’s names dominated the MVP conversation.

Since then, Jonquel Jones — who will compete as an All-Star — has asserted herself as the frontrunner, but Charles is inching closer and closer as the season wears on. The forward is leading the league in points per game at 26.3 per game, which is a 5.3-point lead over the next-best Jones. Though she isn’t firing as efficiently as Jones, she is making 46.8 percent of her shots from the field and 37 percent of her 3-pointers. That’s super solid, and a breakout showing in a matchup of the game’s best could open more eyes to the Mystics’ leader for MVP.

5. Will this be Arike Ogunbowale’s night?

Nneka Ogwumike was Team USA’s biggest snub, but she won’t compete for the All-Stars. Ogunbowale was the next-biggest cut, though, and will play. Last year’s WNBA leading scorer is just 24 years old but saw a few other players her age — including Napheesa Collier and Ariel Atkins — make the cut. That stings.

Ogunbowale — debatably the most clutch player in basketball right now — has never once in her life been shy of a big moment. If the game-winning shot in the 2018 Final Four wasn’t enough proof, the game-winning shot in the 2018 championship game damn sure was. She’s always ready when the lights are brightest, and this will be her first unofficial audition for the 2024 Olympics.

6. How will Candace Parker play against Team USA?

Parker’s already downplayed the importance of this game to her, and for good reason. She’s already one of the best basketball players of all-time. She has two season MVP awards, a Finals MVP, and a WNBA championship. Everything else is extra for her already legendary career.

But maybe things will feel a bit different after the ball is tipped. Her beef is, of course, not with her Team USA opponents, but rather, the people who chose to keep her off the 2016 roster. It could be hard for her not to want to go full-speed knowing they’re all watching.

At this point, it seems like everyone has their own podcast. We live in an era where celebrities are more accessible than ever, and podcasting is the most direct way to have the kinds of lengthy, unfiltered conversations that fans of any medium — sports, culture, etc. — cannot get enough of.

Basketball players are generally good about being candid and forthright, no matter the medium, but that’s especially true for players who have launched podcasts in recent years. On today’s Dime Breakdown, we decided to highlight some of the best NBA podcasts in the game right now. For example, if you’re a podcast listener and don’t subscribe to J.J. Redick’s “The Old Man and the Three,” or “Pull Up with C.J. McCollum,” or Kevin Durant’s podcast “The ETCs,” you’re missing out on endlessly fascinating and entertaining conversations about life as a basketball player and all the things that go into that, from what they do on the court to some of their pursuits off of it. Plus we showed some love to dudes like Gilbert Arenas, Matt Barnes, and Stephen Jackson, the retired players who have made the smooth transition into life as podcasters.

After running through those, we wanted to identify the players who we think could thrive if they ever decided to get into podcasting. The list could go on for hours, but in our eyes, there are a number of guys who really stand out among the rest.

Stephen A. Smith dominated sports headlines on Monday for all of the wrong reasons, as he bungled the names of Nigerian basketball players while ripping Team USA for losing to D’Tigers and then later said Shohei Ohtani being the face of baseball wasn’t what the sport needed because he speaks through a translator.

The latter point, in particular, caused quite the uproar and garnered an awful lot of response from his own ESPN colleagues on Twitter, as they pointed out how bad those comments were and how they played into xenophobic tropes that foreign players have for years dealt with across all sports. Smith initially tried to clarify his statement, but eventually came to realize there was no clarifying and issued an apology for his “regrettable” comments, saying he “screwed up.”

On Tuesday morning, Smith again issued an apology saying he was “wrong, period” to open the show.

Joon Lee, who was among the most vocal individuals from ESPN immediately after Smith’s comments on Twitter, was given ample airtime to talk about why those comments were so hurtful to hear as an Asian-American and pointed out the issues the sports media as a whole has in dealing with Asian athletes.

Smith also got an earful from ESPN baseball analyst Jeff Passan, who offered an impassioned explanation for why Ohtani is the type of player and person that First Take, ESPN as a network, and baseball as a whole should be embracing fully, noting he is the embodiment of chasing the American dream — the full segment with Smith’s apology and Passan’s response can be seen in the video at the top.

Passan is right in that Ohtani is the type of player that should be celebrated across sports media. He is a magnetic, seemingly endlessly positive personality on the field who shows that joy for the game constantly, without even needing to express it verbally — which, again, he’ll happily do through an interpreter because that’s what is most comfortable. He also pointed out that Smith mentioned on Monday’s show that they’ve barely discussed Ohtani this year, and Passan pointed to that being a First Take problem, not an Ohtani one.

Smith has gotten rightfully blasted for his comments and has seemingly taken that in and recognized just how off-base he was. That said, we’ll have to see how long this lesson sticks with him, but it’s clear that there was no gray area here for his comments with his ESPN colleagues and how quickly he has walked it back and apologized has made it abundant he’s seen that.

During last month’s BET Awards, some fans on Twitter expressed confusion at the presence of Jack Harlow at the ceremony and his nominations, as Harlow isn’t Black despite his participation in what he acknowledges is a traditionally Black genre. He addressed the debate in a new interview with Yahoo!, saying, “I feel blessed to have a voice in this period because, one, I’m not a street artist, and two, I’m not Black. The only thing keeping me here right now is that level of authenticity, of being myself.”

Harlow, who was nominated for Best New Artist, Best Male Hip-Hop Artist, and Best Song for his “What’s Poppin” remix featuring DaBaby, Tory Lanez, and Lil Wayne, appears to take in stride both the light backlash against him and the cultural shift that led up to it. He compared the modern era to the blog rap era when artists like Mac Miller and Asher Roth were seemingly being accepted into hip-hop spaces more readily than some of their predecessors. Although white rappers have always flourished economically, not all of them appeared at the BET Awards or received nominations.

“All of this stuff was coming into the fold and it had this energy surrounding it of, ‘We’re letting the white kids come to the party. We’re all in this together,’” Harlow said. However, in conversations with his fellow Kentuckian Nemo Achida, he notes that since the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, some Black folks have expressed a desire to close ranks. “He feels like the country going into these new civil rights moments almost shifted away from, ‘Let’s have the white boy at the party,’” he noted of his friend’s observation. “It became less about let’s all be diverse together and turned back into hip-hop being, ‘It needs to be a Black genre.’”

He accepts this new state of affairs philosophically, saying, “That’s just been the natural transformation of things, I think,” and even agrees that as a participant in a Black genre, he has a responsibility to show up for Black people. “The things I was doing last summer, any fans who didn’t feel like criticizing the police or were on the other side of things, I was going to weed them out. That could have been a moment for them to no longer be fans. But what is important is that I lead by example for all the white kids looking at me. This is what you do. You don’t just enjoy Black culture. You stand up next to Black people in a time of need.”

Read the full profile here.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Friends ran for 10 seasons with every cast member receiving Emmy nominations except for one. Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston both scored a handful of nominations and a win apiece, and the three male stars (Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer) all received at least one nod as well. That leaves only Courteney Cox, who was ignored over and over again through out the show’s run, and if you think she didn’t notice, well, she did. Cox recently told Howard Stern that, yes, it “definitely hurt my feelings” to be snubbed. The good news, though? That streak is over with this year’s nominations.

Sort-of, at least. The HBO Max “Friends: The Reunion” special, which counts Cox as an executive producer, received a nomination for the Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category. Better late than never, right? Cox was recognized, alongside the rest of her cast members and O.G. show creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane. So, it’s not officially an Emmy nomination for performance, but heck, Monica Geller deserves to her day in the sun. It’ll be the shiniest, most obsessively-scrubbed day ever. Variety laid it all out there with previous nomination counts:

During the NBC sitcom’s decade-long original run, the series nabbed 62 total Emmy nominations. Five of these were for Aniston, who was twice nominated in the supporting comedy actress category (in 2000 and 2001) before moving to the lead comedy actress category, in which she picked up noms from 2002 to 2004, winning in 2002. Kudrow scored a whopping six noms during the 10 years the show was on the air, all in the supporting comedy actress category, winning in 1998. LeBlanc was celebrated three times in the lead comedy actor category, getting nods in 2002, 2003 and 2004; Perry picked up a lead comedy actor nomination in 2002; and Schwimmer scored a supporting comedy actor nom in 1995.

“Friends: The Reunion” is up against some stiff competition, including “Bo Burnham: Inside,” “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” “8:46 – Dave Chappelle,” “Friends: The Reunion,” “Hamilton,” and “A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote.”

The Emmys will air on Sunday, September 19.

(Via Variety)