Indie

LCD Soundsystem Show Up As ‘Guardian Angels’ In John Mulaney’s ‘Subway Churro’ SNL Sketch

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Last night’s Saturday Night Live episode was one for the books. Not only were New York indie legends LCD Soundsystem back in the house, but after a fairly rough time in the public eye of late — in a few month streak that included a stint in rehab, a divorce, and a baby with new girlfriend Olivia Munn — John Mulaney returned to host the comedy show. As a staple of the show, and in today’s comedy scene in general, Mulaney was entering his fifth time hosting the show, a “five-timers club” distinction that comedians and actors are proud to achieve.

What else should he be proud of achieving? Enlisting LCD Soundsystem as his guardian angels! Well, it was just for a sketch on the show, but the “Subway Churro” episode, which is, of course, also somehow a musical, casts Mulaney as a newsstand worker in a subway station. At one point, he adopts the stylings of Fiddler On The Roof to wax poetic on the joy of going off the grid, and as more characters emerge, LCD shows up as “Guardian Angels” a group who emerged in reaction to the lawless atmosphere in the New York subway during the ’80s. It’s a perfect casting choice for the rockers, and puts them at the center of one of the funniest sketches of the night. Check it out above.

Kanye West And Beach House Were Spotted In The Studio Together

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Well here’s one that nobody had on their 2022 bingo card: Kanye West and Beach House appear to be in the studio together. Or maybe we could have seen this coming? Does anything surprise us with Kanye anymore these days? On the heels of releasing 16 tracks from Donda 2 directly onto his stem player this week, Ye posted a series of photos on Instagram from a studio session with two people who are very clearly Beach House’s Alex Scally and Victoria Legrande.

Beach House, who just released their double album Once Twice Melody last week, had a tour stop at The Sylvee in Madison, WI last night, and tonight, they’re performing at The Palace Theatre in St. Paul, MN. So assuming the series of photos aren’t from an old shoot, then it’s a good bet that these were taken in or near Madison or St. Paul.

West was in Miami this past Tuesday for the Donda 2 listening party and could be back in Chicago at this point. It’s also plausible that Beach House made a two and a half hour drive to Chicago after the Madison show to link with West and then took an hour and a half flight to St. Paul before tonight’s show.

Donda 2 co-producer John Cunningham took to Twitter to confirm the validity of the photo:

Regardless, even though you didn’t ask for it, we have proof that Kanye and Beach House linked in the studio. And for what it’s worth, this wouldn’t be the first time a prominent rapper has taken an interested in the dream-pop duo. The Weeknd famously sampled “Master Of None” for “The Party & The After Party” on his 2011 debut, House of Balloons, while Kendrick Lamar sampled “Silver Soul” on “Money Trees” off of his 2012 breakthrough, Good Kid m.A.A.d City.

John Mayer Tests Positive For COVID And Consequently Postpones Some Concerts

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John Mayer is in the midst of a tour, and so far, COVID has taken its toll on proceedings. A few days ago, Questlove filled in for Mayer drummer Steve Ferrone, who tested positive for COVID. Now, Mayer himself and other band members got COVID, too, so a few upcoming tour dates have been postponed.

In a post sharing the news yesterday, Mayer wrote, “Whelp. More members of the band tested positive for Covid today, and I was one of them. This means we have to reschedule the next four shows, which we’ve already rescheduled and posted above. I’m so sorry to make you change your plans. This is a bummer for everyone in the band and crew, to say nothing of the question hanging over everyone’s head — mine included — as to how I tested positive on PCR twice in two months. (The first was extremely mild, but this one’s got the better of me.) We’ll give you everything we’ve got at these upcoming shows, just as soon as we rest up and regroup. With love and appreciation… me.”

As for the altered shows, they were originally scheduled for tonight (February 25) in Pittsburgh; March 1 in Belmont Park, New York; and March 4 and 5 in Boston. Those concerts have been moved to May 5, 7, 9, and 10, respectively. It appears Mayer’s next show will be at Las Vegas’s The Grand Garden Arena in March 11.

Eurovision Bans Russia From The 2022 Song Contest Just A Day After Opting Not To

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This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is set to take place in Turin, Italy in May, when musical representatives from many countries will take to the city to show off the best of what their nations have to offer. Given the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, many wondered if Russia would be allowed to participate in this year’s event. Initially, Eurovision organizers (the European Broadcast Union) told NPR yesterday, “The Eurovision Song Contest is a non-political cultural event. The EBU is however concerned about current events in Ukraine and will continue to closely monitor the situation.”

The EBU has quickly changed its tune, though, as they’ve now gone ahead and banned Russia from the 2022 contest. In a new statement today, they said:

“No Russian act will participate in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The decision reflects the concern that, in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s contest would bring the competition into disrepute. The EBU is an apolitical member organization of broadcasters committed to upholding the values of public service. We remain dedicated to protecting the values of a cultural competition which proves international exchange and understanding, brings audiences together, celebrates diversity through music, and unites Europe on one stage.”

In recent years, Russia has been one of the strongest-performing countries in the contest: As BBC notes, they’ve had five top-five finishes over the past decade. They last won in 2008 and the next year, the contest was held in Moscow. Meanwhile, the Eurovision website notes of Ukraine, “Ukraine first entered the contest in 2003 and rapidly became one of the most successful countries in the competition. In 15 appearances at the Eurovision Song Contest, Ukraine has never missed a Grand Final. 9 of those 14 entries have finished in the top 10, 5 have finished in the top 3, and 2 have been winners.” Those wins came in 2004 and 2016.

Dominic Fike Discusses A ‘Euphoria’ Fan Theory He Might Actually Believe And Performs On ‘The Tonight Show’

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Dominic Fike is in the midst of a major moment: His music career is going swimmingly and he’s a star of one of the biggest shows of the moment, Euphoria. He brought both those sides of himself to The Tonight Show yesterday, where he performed and sat down for a chat with Jimmy Fallon.

Fallon presented a few Euphoria fan theories to Fike, and the first of them is one that Fike said had him really thinking about it. Regarding the idea that Fike’s character Elliot is actually Nate’s estranged brother, Fike said, “I’m not even going to lie: I saw this one online, and I looked at it for a while and there were so many things connecting and so many people were talking about it all through these Reddit threads, and at the end of it, I was like, ‘Am I Nate’s brother?’ I almost called him up and asked him.”

He wasn’t as convinced by the idea that Elliot doesn’t actually exist and he skirted a question about whether Tom Holland, Zendaya’s Spider-Man co-star, would appear on the current Euphoria season.

Fike also spoke about working with Paul McCartney on his McCartney III Imagined album and said that he initially blocked McCartney’s phone number, telling Fallon, “Naturally, when you get a call from anything that you think is spam, you block the number, you delete it, you know what I mean?” Fallon asked, “You blocked Paul McCartney’s number,” and Fike responded, “Immediately, yeah.”

He also performed “Babydoll” on the show and smoothly found his way through a minor mishap. About a minute into the performance, he accidentally knocked down a microphone stand while turning around. When he realized what happened, he slipped a quick “Oh, that fell” into his lyrics and didn’t miss a beat as Fallon helped out by picking the stand up.

Check out the interview and performance above.

Warner Music Invests $750 Million In Female And Diverse Artists With BlackRock

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BlackRock investment management company and Warner Music Group have made a huge investment in female and diverse artists according to The Wall Street Journal, putting $750 million into a fund dedicated to collecting rights catalogs from such artists in what the Journal calls a novel approach to the current trend of funds buying up artists’ catalogs.

While many of those efforts have focused on collecting older artists’ catalogs such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen — both of whom recently sold their catalogs for huge payouts — the new fund is buying up music rights from artists who are still actively writing, particularly women, who want to maintain stakes in their catalogs. So far, $300 has been paid out for 20 catalogs, including those of Tainy, the reggaeton star who has worked with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, the Stereotypes, who co-wrote “24K Magic” with Bruno Mars, and popstar Jessie Reyez.

Some commentators, according to WSJ, consider these investments higher risk; while older catalogs have proven to be safe bets — think about how many songs from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s are still being used in movies, let alone other commercial uses — newer music isn’t as sure to still be popular in 20 or 30 years. However, some artists have maintained their popularity, so some investors like BlackRock are willing to go all-in as newer music finds more use in streaming, video games, fitness apps, and social media.

Meanwhile, by allowing songwriters to maintain stakes in their own work, it gives them the incentive to not only accept investors’ terms but keep actively promoting their works to keep the checks rolling in.

Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Regrettes’ Video For ‘You’re So F*cking Pretty’ Captures An IRL Girl Crush

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Maybe you first got turned onto The Regrettes because none other than Olivia Rodrigo starred in their “Monday” video, but there’s plenty more reasons to stick around for this band. They’ve showcased a few with today’s new video, “You’re So F*cking Pretty,” a song and visual that captures an IRL girl crush. The band’s lead singer, Lydia Night, dances and mopes through a little house in the clip, which was directed by Serena Reynolds. “Lydia is the best and we just clicked,” Reynolds said of working on the project. “I love how we were able to collect so much beauty, frustration and sadness in the video to formulate this idea of a person we never visually see. I think the magic is that this “lover” really feels all encompassingly joyful in the end.”

Back when the band shared the song in December, Night reflected on what the song meant to her, noting that it’s the first time she wrote about a girl she had feelings for. “It’s the first time I’ve ever written directly about a girl I had a crush on, and it took me a while for me to even allow my brain to accept the fact that I’m bisexual,” she explained. “I always felt like I couldn’t validate my own feelings because I had never been in a relationship with a girl. But I had a pretty big crush on one of my friends a while ago and this song is an exaggeration of that, but it’s still coming from a very real place.”

“It was the first experience where I was like, ‘Oh, these are real feelings, this isn’t just a sexual attraction,’ and that helped me realize I wasn’t straight,” she continued, “This song means so much to me because it also represents the time we spent in Joshua Tree and opening up to my whole band about that experience and not feeling embarrassed or scared of talking about it. Writing this was important for me because it just validated my own sexuality.”

Check out the video up top.

Leon Bridges & Khruangbin Get Lost In An Animated Land Of ‘Chocolate Hills’

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This past Friday, Leon Bridges and Khruangbin released Texas Moon, the second part of their excellent two EP collaboration project. It’s a spiritual and often psychedelic journey from the artists that should not be missed. In our most recent cover story, Bridges said that “I think my collaboration with Khruangbin is really where my heart is. I love how raw our sound is.” And on “Chocolate Hills,” there’s a distinctly transportive nature to the love song, with the new video takes it a step further.

In the “Chocolate Hills” clip, Bridges is strolling along in an animated choco-dreamworld of sorts. He’s a gentle giant making his way through a portal into hills and valleys of this land of chocolate. Along the way, he finds Marc, DJ, and Laura Lee of Khruangbin in the palm of his hand and they become his pocket-sized companions on the trip. It’s an imaginative vision for the Texas Moon highlight.

Elsewhere, Bridges just announced the Boundless Tour with support from Little Dragon, which begins in late July in Las Vegas. Khruangbin has a slew of tour dates on deck themselves, beginning in early March in Madison, WI.

Texas Moon is out now via Dead Oceans/Columbia/Nighttime Stories. Stream it here.

Mitski, Andre 3000, And Others Will Appear On The Massive ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Soundtrack

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A24 has revealed the massive 49-song tracklist for its upcoming science fiction film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Experimental trio Son Lux, who scored the film, enlisted the likes of Andre 3000, playing flute under his birth name Andre Benjamin (as Consequence notes), along with Mitski, Moses Sumney, and Randy Newman for the star-studded soundtrack.

Everything Everywhere All At Once will premiere at SXSW on March 11th, before receiving a wide theatrical release on April 8th. The soundtrack will be released on the same day as the film’s wide release.

“Even though we knew from the moment Daniels [directorial duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert] asked us to score this film that it would push us in new and unexpected directions, we couldn’t have predicted how much we’d learn from the project,” said Son Lux in a statement. “What emerged was our most ambitious undertaking to date, over two years in the making, resulting in two hours of new music. It was an opportunity for us to play, to infuse humor into our work, and to experiment from and beyond our various musical backgrounds.”

Check out the tracklist below.

1. “This Is A Life (Extended)” Feat. Mitski and David Byrne
2. “Wang Family Portrait”
3. “Very Busy”
4. “Vvvery Busy”
5. “What Are You Thinking About?”
6. “What A Fast Elevator!”
7. “Switch Shoes To The Wrong Feet”
8. “Nothing Could Possibly Matter More”
9. “A Choice”
10. “Chapstick”
11. “The Fanny Pack”
12. “Jobu Tupaki”
13. “The Alphaverse”
14. “The Mission” Feat. Nina Moffitt
15. “Deirdre Fight”
16. “Waymond Cries”
17. “I Love You Kung Fu”
18. “My Life Without You” Feat. André Benjamin
19. “The Story Of Jobu” Feat. Nina Moffitt
20. “Rendezvous At The Premiere”
21. “It’s You… Juju Toobootie” Feat. Chris Pattishall and Nina Moffitt
22. “Everything Bagel”
23. “You’re Living Your Worst You”
24. “The Boxcutter” Feat. André Benjamin
25. “Send Every Available Jumper”
26. “Opera Fight” Feat. Surrija and yMusic
27. “Dog Fight” Feat. André Benjamin
28. “Drummer Fight”
29. “Plug Fight”
30. “Pinky Fight” Feat. André Benjamin
31. “I Have Been Watching” Feat. Rob Moose and Nina Moffitt
32. “Somewhere Out There In All That Noise”
33. “Jobu Sees All”
34. “The Temple”
35. “Evelyn Everywhere”
36. “Evelyn All At Once”
37. “This Is How I Fight”
38. “In Another Life”
39. “It All Just Goes Away”
40. “Clair de Lune (Pied au Piano)” Feat. Chris Pattishall
41. “Come Recover (Empathy Fight)”
42. “Your Day Will Come (Empathy Fight)”
43. “Let Me Go”
44. “Specks Of Time”
45. “This Is A Life” Feat. Mitski and David Byrne
46. “Fence” Feat. Moses Sumney
47. “Now We’re Cookin’” Feat. Randy Newman
48. “Sucked Into A Bagel” Feat. Stephanie Hsu
49. “I Love You”

Osheaga Unveils Its Full 2022 Lineup, Led By Foo Fighters, Dua Lipa, And ASAP Rocky

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Back in December 2021, Canadian festival Osheaga announced the headliners for its 2022 event: Foo Fighters, ASAP Rocky, and Dua Lipa. Now, the festival, which goes down at Montreal’s Parc Jean-Drapeau from July 29 to 31, has unveiled its full slate of performers and there’s plenty of firepower in it.

Aside from the headliners, the lineup features 100 Gecs, Ashnikko, BIA, Beabadoobee, Big Sean, Bleachers, Burna Boy, Charli XCX, Cordae, Dominic Fike, Freddie Gibbs, Girl In Red, Glass Animals, Idles, Khruangbin, King Hannah, Kygo, Local Natives, Lucy Dacus, Machine Gun Kelly, Men I Trust, Mitski, Pi’erre Bourne, Pierre Kwenders, PinkPantheress, Porter Robinson, Sampa the Great, Slowthai, The Kid Laroi, Tinashe, Tones And I, Tove Lo, Turnstile, Wet Leg, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

This is a big year for the fest, as its 2020 and 2021 editions were canceled for obvious reasons. That said, they did host a mini all-Canadian event in October 2021, which featured Jessie Reyez, Majid Jordan, Dvsn, Roy Woods, Grandson, and Faouzia.

Weekend passes for the 2022 fest are available now, while single-day passes will be available starting this Friday. For more information on that front, check out the Osheaga website.

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