Spider-Man: No Way Home

De La Soul’s Surprise ‘Spider-Man’ Hit ‘The Magic Number’ Is Officially Available To Stream

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When audiences sat through Marvel’s 2022 hit Spider-Man: No Way Home, Gen Xers, millennials, and zoomers alike were thrilled to hear De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising song “The Magic Number” during the film’s closing credits. However, they were equally disappointed once they checked Spotify (or Apple Music or Tidal, depending on their individual preference) only to learn that De La’s catalog remained woefully out of circulation on DSPs (or Digital Streaming Platforms). This was, of course, due to a protracted legal battle with their former label, Tommy Boy Records, as well as the dozens — possibly hundreds — of potentially uncleared samples throughout their first six albums.

This year, though, those fans got the best news: De La Soul has not only retained their publishing for those albums, but they also sorted their sample issues, announcing that the catalog would be available for streaming this March. And today, fans got the first fruits of those efforts, fittingly, with the debut of “The Magic Number,” the group’s surprise 30-year-old hit, on DSPs. We embedded the YouTube up top, but you can check it out on the streamer of your choice.

Meanwhile, the rest of the catalog comes to streaming on 3/3/23, giving fans the chance to follow Pharrell’s advice about which two albums are must-listens (I argue that they all are).

‘SNL’ Embraces Chaos And Books Willem Dafoe And Katy Perry For The Same Episode

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Over its four-and-a-half decades, Saturday Night Live has had plenty of Mad Libs-y host-musical guest(s) pairings. Al Gore and Phish. Tony Danza and Laurie Anderson. Old school entertainer Milton Berle and free jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Business magazine founder Steve Forbes and anti-capitalist rockers Rage Against the Machine. Some even become memes. There’s even an entire Twitter account dedicated to hosts improbably introducing musicians. So here’s another.

As per Deadline, for the episode of Jan. 29, the live sketch show has recruited beloved character actor Willem Dafoe and — why not! — pop goddess Katy Perry. For Perry, who is in the midst of her first Las Vegas residency, it’s her fourth time on the show. For Dafoe, it’s his first. Dafoe isn’t exactly a comedic actor, preferring serious art cinema and cutting up the occasional blockbuster, but he can be very funny. Witness The Lighthouse, in which he out-there enough to inspire an SNL sketch, well before they finally invited him on.

Besides, who doesn’t look Willem Dafoe? He can currently be seen in two big movies: dusting off his old Green Goblin duds in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is making all the money, and Guillermo del Toro’s star-studded remake of Nightmare Alley, which is not. He had a busy 2021, appearing in yet another Wes Anderson movie (The French Dispatch), yet another Paul Schrader (The Card Counter), and yet another with perhaps his most frequent collaborator, eccentric weirdo Abel Ferrara (Siberia).

Before this hot mess begins, feel free to visit the aforementioned SNL host/musical guest(s) Twitter account, where you see such inventive sights as this.

(Via Deadline)

De La Soul’s ‘Spider-Man’ Soundtrack Placement Frustrates Fans Who Find They Can’t Stream It

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De La Soul‘s streaming woes are well-documented at this point, but now that the crew has landed a soundtrack placement on the biggest movie of the year, new fans are finding themselves frustrated to learn that the pioneer trio’s catalog is unavailable on DSP. The crew’s 3 Feet High And Rising song “The Magic Number” appears over the end credits of Spider-Man: No Way Home, undoubtedly sending many of the film’s viewers to Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal only to discover that the only two De La Soul albums available are The Grind Date and The Anonymous Nobody.

And while both albums are worth several spins, most of De La’s most recognizable work comes from earlier in their career, when they were still under contract with Tommy Boy Entertainment. The trouble with streaming the albums stems from their extensive sample use; over the course of their six projects under Tommy Boy, the band used hundreds of samples of prior works — 3 Feet High And Rising contains 60 samples by itself. While Tommy Boy cleared most of those samples, the contracts only covered physical releases, the only method for releasing music through the ’80s and ’90s. With the advent of streaming, the label considers the albums open to a plethora of potential lawsuits and not worth the hassle of uploading.

The band themselves have offered to take on the intricate work of clearing all the samples backed by an army of volunteers who just want to be able to stream the albums they love, only to get rebutted by Tommy Boy. Earlier this year, De La Soul apparently won back their master recordings after Reservoir Media acquired Tommy Boy for around $100 million, but now comes the nitty-gritty work of actually clearing all those samples, which could take some time considering the age of the records and the labyrinthine nature of copyright law. While the appearance of “The Magic Number” on Spider-Man’s soundtrack could be a promising sign that at least the work has begun (the song mainly samples Bob Dorough’s “Three Is a Magic Number”), all those new fans will have to join the grizzled vets in waiting impatiently for that work to be completed to stream De La’s greatest hits.

Vince Staples Live-Tweets His ‘Spider-Man’ Experience And Wants Into The Marvel Universe

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Spider-Man: No Way Home is out now in theaters and racking up records as one of the most popular movies not just in the series but of the last several years. It’s already crossed the billion-dollar threshold and is being credited with helping save movie theaters after a rough couple of years, and now that it’s been out for a little over a week, fans are sharing their reactions and debating some of the film’s plot points. Those fans include Long Beach rapper Vince Staples, who has — as usual — some uniquely funny takes on some of the film’s action.

Here’s why I give you a chance to click the little “X” in the corner or hit [command+w] or close your laptop or — come on guys, there are hundreds of ways to avoid spoilers. If this “ruins” the movie for you, blame yourself.

Vince was less than enthused about the death of one character in particular, demanding a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the sole purpose of revenge. “Oh it’s up,” he wrote. “They just flipped Aunt May in the lobby!” This development led to more of Staples’ signature snark as he promised, “They need me in the MCU if they tryna have some real get bacc. Where is the vengeance?” He then made his bid for a role in a potential future film and gave a pretty solid reason: “Put me in X-Men I’m marking everything out,” he vowed. “[On the] Dead homies.”

While there aren’t many characters in the X-Men comics that match Vince’s physique, that shouldn’t be a bar from giving him a role; after all, half of the Eternals were recast as people of color, and cape films have shuffled characters’ appearances before. Just imagine Vince Staples as Wolverine. Now, that I’d gladly pay to watch.

Lil Nas X Jokes That He’s Playing Miles Morales In The Upcoming ‘Spider-Man’ Movie

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Lil Nas X has basically taken over pop culture at this point. He’s got inescapable music, he’s in commercials, he’s on billboards, he even took over an entire episode of Maury to extend the pregnancy gag from the rollout of his excellent debut album Montero. His cultural ubiquity is beginning to rival even that of the vaunted Marvel Cinematic Universe — so naturally, he wants a piece of that too, in one of the most iconic roles yet to be cast.

Replying to a fan account’s post with a photo of current and prior motion picture Peter Parkers Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield, Nas joked, “the rumors are true i will be playing miles morales.” Morales is, of course, another Spider-Man from an alternate universe who was recently transplanted into the mainstream Marvel universe (comics are weird, y’all). Considering the plot of the upcoming Spider-Man film, No Way Home, in which a magic spell gone wrong brings visitors from multiple alternate universes to the modern MCU we all know and love (yes, even you haters, stop pretending, man, no one is impressed), it’s well within the realm of possibility that Miles could be one of those visitors. This gives Nas’ “announcement” a non-zero chance of being true.

Look. I know that Lil Nas X is an incorrigible prankster with a wild sense of supremely unserious, internet-bred humor and that very little he says can ever be taken seriously. But, to borrow a phrase from the late, great Stan Lee himself — what if?

Either way, we’ll find out when Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters on December 17.