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The Lonely Island have been making a bit of a comeback in recent months. The Andy Samberg-led comedy-music group popped up on Saturday Night Live in October with “Sushi Glory Hole,” then followed it up in November with the Charli XCX-featuring “Here I Go.”

Beyond Charli, the group has quite the list of collaborators that includes everybody from Kendrick Lamar to Justin Timberlake to Michael Bolton. One person they’d really like to add to that list: Eminem.

On a recent episode of The Lonely Island And Seth Meyers Podcast (above), Samberg and Jorma Taccone (Akiva Schaffer was absent from the episode) answered listener questions, and one of them was about who their dream collaborator is, somebody they haven’t worked with yet. Taccone was quick to respond with Eminem, and Samberg agreed.

Samberg also added, “We always said we wanted to get Bill Clinton on sax. That dream still lives. If it ever gets to Bill Clinton — who now is no longer president, by quite a long while, so he might have some free time — if he ever wants to come shred some sax on a Lonely Island track, we’d be very, very excited.”

The Q&A segment also featured some good news for fans of the group. One of the questions was about if the group would ever tour again. Taccone responded, “I’m going to say yes, Andy’s gonna say no.” Samberg added, “I’m going to say hopefully, but no plans.”

Listen to the full episode above.

Glastonbury 2025 is gearing up to be another notable installment. However, the festival faced a temporary roadblock when Neil Young announced he would be boycotting the event and not performing.

Today (January 3), Neil Young has walked back his public boycott of Glastonbury 2025. Come June, festivalgoers can catch the “Love Earth” musician performing live on the Worthy Farm grounds as part of his band Chrome Hearts.

“Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury Festival, which I always have loved,” he wrote in an updated post. “Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary, and we look forward to playing. Hope to see you there!”

The “error in the information” Young referred to was Glastonbury’s supposed takeover by the BBC. In his initial post, Young expressed extreme displeasure in the idea.

“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favorite outdoor gigs,” he wrote. “We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

Despite the public bashing, BBC seemingly did not release a response to Young’s statement.

In recent years, the Cleveland, Ohio-based Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame has done a better job of inducting influential acts that aren’t “rock,” in the traditional definition of the genre. In 2024, it was A Tribe Called Quest and Cher. In 2023, Missy Elliott. In 2022, Eminem. And so on.

When asked whether the name of the museum should be changed to the Music Hall Of Fame, chairman John Sykes told Vulture, “Rather than throwing the name out, [the Hall is] doing a better job of communicating to people where rock and roll came from and what it’s truly about. Once they hear it that way, they understand.”

He then gave a specific example involving Jay-Z.

“The best story to convey this was when a great friend of mine, Jay-Z, got inducted a few years ago,” Sykes said. “I was so excited. But he told me, ‘Rock is dead. It should be called the Hip-Hop Hall Of Fame.’ And I said, ‘Well, hip-hop is rock and roll.’ He goes, ‘No, it isn’t.’ And I said, ‘We’ve got to do a better job explaining it. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Chuck Berry — these artists were the cornerstones of rock and roll. If you look at the sounds over the years, those artists ended up influencing hip-hop.’ Jay-Z hemmed and hawed, but he showed up to the ceremony. That made me feel like we had done our job to communicate that rock and roll is open to all.”

Well, everyone except Chic, Iron Maiden, and The Smiths, that is.

The end of the 2024 NFL regular season is here, even if it technically arrives in 2025. As often, Week 18 is utterly brutal from a handicapping perspective, with a handful of meaningless games, a few more that might only mean something in very specific circumstances, and all kinds of overall uncertainty. In this space, we’ve had a (very) tough season, but Week 17 was mildly successful so perhaps that can kickstart things into the postseason.

Before we endeavor to actually find five angles to share for Week 18, let’s take overall stock.

• Week 17: 3-2
• 2024 Season: 33-50-2

Come get these winners.

Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers OVER 48 points — Widely Available

One of the only things that has treated us well this season is Overs in NFC South divisional matchups. Honestly, it’s counterintuitive to recent history in that divisional games usually tend to lean under … but not in the NFC South. This game (and the next one) does have implications for the playoffs in that Atlanta needs to win to stay alive, but the Panthers have been feisty on offense. We can get to 49.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints OVER 43.5 points — Widely Available

NFC South overs. Rinse. Repeat. It helps that I still don’t trust Tampa’s defense, and the Bucs can probably put up 30 here if we need them to do so.

Kansas City Chiefs (+10.5) over Denver Broncos — Widely Available

Yes, I’m aware that the Chiefs are going to rest players. Patrick Mahomes isn’t playing, for example, and that is why the line is where it is. However, NFL roster rules dictate that it’s functionally impossible to rest EVERYONE and this move went too far. Take us home, Carson Wentz.

Miami Dolphins (-1) over New York Jets — Widely Available

Against all odds, Miami is alive in the playoff hunt. Do I trust the Dolphins on the road? Absolutely not, but it helps that they are playing an untrustworthy opponent in the Jets.

Detroit Lions (-2.5) over Minnesota Vikings — FanDuel, DraftKings

Like most of this column, I wouldn’t give this out in a normal week, but the options are limited. Detroit’s defensive situation definitely scares me at the moment, but I trust the Lions offense and what will certainly be a juiced-up crowd in Detroit. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to watching this one.

Today is January 3, which means that just maybe, you haven’t broken your New Year’s resolution yet. If you have, don’t feel too bad, as Sabrina Carpenter made and broke her resolution in the same Instagram caption.

Sharing a gallery of wintry photos yesterday, Carpenter wrote, “new year’s resolution no more dick jokes it’s gonna be really hard.”

This comes fresh off a whole ad campaign based on innuendo: In a new commercial for her own espresso-based Dunkin’ drink, Carpenter discusses shaking her “ess.”

Meanwhile, Carpenter recently discussed her initial expectations for the level of success her hit “Espresso” would achieve, saying, “I remember deciding to put this song out in the beginning of summer and thinking espresso, coffee is kind of more of a fall beverage. I really didn’t know if it would connect, but the sentiment and the sound of the song and the confidence that it kind of just carries along with it was something that I really believed in. So I had literally no idea that anyone would like it, but I liked it, and that was kind of all that mattered to me in that moment, and something I try to remember over and over again.”

In an example of icons supporting icons, Zendaya owned a Beyoncé poster when she was a teenager.

“I did have a Beyoncé poster on my wall, because I went to her concert for my 13th birthday,” the Challengers actress told W magazine for their annual “Best Performances” issue (it’s a great performance). “I was devastated that she didn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, because I guess it was close to her birthday and she was singing to the audience.” (Zendaya was born on September 1st; Beyoncé’s birthday is September 4th.)

When her dad offered to lift her up so she could see Beyoncé better, Zendaya replied, “No, that’s so embarrassing.” After she didn’t give her birthday serenade, however, she thought, “Damn, I should have let him put me on his shoulders so she would’ve seen me.”

But Beyoncé eventually saw Zendaya when they met years later. “I’m proud of myself for speaking at all because I was very nervous,” she previously shared The Hollywood Reporter. “But when I met Beyoncé, that was the only time I’ve ever acted like, real not cool. I just lost my cool. My dad even said it because I was with him at the time and he was like, ‘Dude, you nerded out just then.’ And I was like, ‘I know, I’m being weird.’ Usually I can keep it together.”

When the 2024 edition of Spotify Wrapped came out in early December, aside from personalized user data, Spotify also shared some platform-wide superlatives. When it came to the year’s most-streamed song, that honor want to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” That was accurate at the time, but before the year ended, “Espresso” actually lost its top placement.

On Spotify’s list, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft favorite “Birds Of A Feather” was in third place, behind not just “Espresso,” but also Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things.” But, as Variety notes, by the time 2024 was over, “Birds Of A Feather” had 1,775,172,881 plays on the year, squeaking past the 1,774,525,704 plays “Espresso” had. That’s a difference of a hair under 650,000 plays, or a difference of less than one percent separating the two songs’ final play counts.

This latest achievement is a fitting end to Eilish’s stacked 2024, which was satisfying for her in more ways than one, as it was a year that saw Eilish have “a lot of good sex.” Beyond that, in just the past few months, Eilish also made it onto Barack Obama’s year-end top songs list, delivered a terrific Tiny Desk Concert, and was named a “dream collaborator” by somebody who themself has been called that many a time: Rihanna.

The boys are back! Steven and Ian catch up after the holiday break with a quick Sportscast about college football and the NFL. Then they do their Fantasy Albums Draft for Q1 of 2025 and discussing upcoming records from FKA Twigs, The Weather Station, Ethel Cain, and more. (Also, is it possible that Steven didn’t win the Q4 2024 draft after all?)

From there, they review their predictions for musical happenings in 2024 — how accurate were they at anticipating the most hashable trends of last year? Then they set about making predictions for the new year. Will this be the year that Sky Ferreira’s album finally drops? Let’s guess!

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 220 here 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 X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Lil Baby’s new album WHAM (Who Hard As Me) is out now, and with it, the video for the dismissive single, “F U 2X.” While 2024 was a relatively quiet year for Lil Baby, it looks like he’s carrying a bit of the combative energy from last year into the new one, with lyrics teasing his enemies with flagrant taunts. “Claim to be a player, but I fu*cked your wife,” he sneers on the chorus. “You ain’t nothin’ to a real hitter, f*ck your life up… Middle fingers in the air, f*ck ya twice.”

The new album — Baby’s first since 2022’s It’s Only Me — also sees the reunion of the Atlanta rapper with his mentor Young Thug after the latter’s release from Fulton County Jail. Thug was locked up for the past two years fighting racketeering charges; in October, he pled “no contest” to one charge, accepting a deal that would give him a truly ridiculous probation term, but ultimately allow him to go home. He, Lil Baby, and Future all reunite on the WHAM track “Dum, Dumb & Dumber.”

Ahead of his album’s release, Baby noted that it would be one of two full-length projects this year.

Watch Lil Baby’s “F U 2X” video above.

WHAM (Who Hard As Me) is out now via Quality Control / Motown. Listen to it here.

The past couple of years have had a decided dearth of new music from Young Thug. That’s understandable, considering he was incarcerated while enduring a trial for racketeering. The length of his trial — the longest in Georgia history — was miserable for Thug fans, who had to be satisfied with Business Is Business, which was cobbled together without him.

He’s officially free now, though, and returns with a vengeance on “Dum, Dumb And Dumber,” the latest single from Lil Baby’s upcoming album, WHAM (Who Hard As Me), which also rejoins the two rappers with fellow ATLien Future. All three are in top form, but it’s Thug who sounds truly rejuvenated, insisting that he never even felt like he was ever locked up. Still, he sounds relieved to be back on the streets, rapping with all the passion and slippery delivery fans have come to expect from him.

It’s also a great look for Lil Baby, who is hunting for a bounce back after the lukewarm reception of his 2022 album, It’s Only Me. It’s also bittersweet — pun intended — because of who isn’t included on the single: the fourth leg of the increasingly unlikely Super Slimey 2.

Listen to Lil Baby’s “Dum, Dumb, And Dumber” featuring Young Thug and Future.