Alternative Music
Lucrecia Dalt: ¡Ay!
Lucrecia Dalt is gleefully cerebral. Over the last decade, the Colombian artist has used her oblique experimental music to ponder metaphysical phenomena and the nature of human consciousness. Dalt has a fondness for philosophical contemplation, and concepts from her training as a geotechnical engineer often creep into her work. On her new album ¡Ay!, she reprises this erudite mode. This time around, the story centers on Preta, an extraterrestrial entity that arrives on our planet and confronts earthly conceptions of temporality, embodiment, and love for the first time. Across 10 tracks, Dalt sketches a sci-fi vision of bolero, son, and other classic genres she grew up with, traced with ambling congas, jazzy double bass, and quivering tides of distortion. Unspooling the rhythmic threads of ...
The Joy Luck Club Sequel in Development, Original Cast Expected to Return
The Joy Luck Club — Wayne Wang’s 1993 drama film based on Amy Tan’s eponymous novel — is getting a sequel, Deadline reports, with the original cast in talks to reprise their roles. The Joy Luck Club offered a poignant and nuanced depiction of relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese immigrant mothers. In its second iteration, the multi-generational saga will welcome a new array of family members as we see the mothers become grandmothers, and their daughters become mothers. Of course, it’ll also continue to explore the characters’ relationships and attitudes towards family, love, and womanhood in the context of their Chinese-American identity. Not only did The Joy Luck Club pave the way for future Asian-American-led blockbusters like Crazy Rich Asians an...
Cartoon Network Studios Swallowed by Warner Bros. Animation After Layoffs
Warner Bros. Television Group cut 26% of its workforce on Tuesday, October 11th as part of its parent company’s continued cost-cutting measures. Among the hardest-hit divisions was the animation department, which will consolidate Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) and Cartoon Network Studios (CNS) as part of a “strategic realignment.” “We are implementing a new streamlined structure in which the development and main production teams will now work across both Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios,” chairman Channing Dungey wrote in a company-wide memo (via Deadline). Both the development and production teams at WBA and CNS will be merged, with Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe operating independently from the other studios. As Cartoon Brew points out, the consolidation will likely make an...
Highway to Spell: AC/DC Inspire New Children’s Alphabet Book
Rock heroes AC/DC have inspired a new children’s alphabet book, The AC/DC AB/CD High-Voltage Alphabet, due for release on November 11th in the band’s native country of Australia. The book was designed and produced by Paul McNeil and is targeted at pre-schoolers who are learning their ABCs. Each letter features a reference to the band, and the viewable page samples on the publisher’s website are downright adorable. “A is for Angus [Young], who thinks it’s good luck, to wear a school uniform, and walk like a duck,” reads the page for the initial letter of the alphabet. The facing page features a cartoon caricature of the iconic guitarist. Meanwhile, bassist Cliff Williams gets the third letter of the alphabet: “C is for Cliff, who plays on the bass, likes only 4 notes and has a nice face.” A...
M.I.A. Questions Why Alex Jones “Pays for Lying” But Not “Celebrities Pushing Vaccines”
If Kanye wasn’t disappointing enough, M.I.A. is back to spread some weird, anti-vaccine bullshit in the form of a false equivalence. The musician took to Twitter on Wednesday to compare vaccinated celebrities to Alex Jones, because, in her eyes, they’re both pushing equally harmful conspiracy theories. “If Alex Jones pays for lying shouldn’t every celebrity pushing vaccines pay too?” M.I.A. asked. As a refresher, Alex Jones was ordered to pay $965 million in defamation damages after he spent a decade claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened, that the parents of the slain elementary school children were lying, and that said murdered children were crisis actors. People vaccinated against COVID-19, meanwhile, have simply taken scientists at their (clinically proven) word in saying...
Jury Orders Alex Jones to Pay Nearly $1 Billion for Sandy Hook Lies
Alex Jones is a huckster, a conspiracy theorist, one of the worst people ever to work in media (and that’s saying something), and, perhaps soon, a negative billionaire. A Connecticut jury ruled on October 12th that the InfoWars founder must pay out $965 million for defamation after he spent a decade spreading lies about the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. As reported by Reuters, CNN, Variety, and more, the case had 15 plaintiffs, including family members of eight victims of the shooting, plus a former FBI agent. Jones has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the shooting never happened — that 28 people, including 20 children didn’t die — and that anyone claiming otherwise was a paid actor for a government plot to unlawfully confiscate American’s guns. Jones called the ma...
Fan Chant: A Stray Kids MAXIDENT Breakdown and Beyond
Welcome to Fan Chant, a weekly column for K-pop fans, stans, and newbies alike. Each week, I’ll be rolling out interviews, lists, and all kinds of content to keep you in the loop on the latest and greatest from our friends in Seoul and beyond. Also, make sure to subscribe to my companion newsletter! It’s been a busy past week for STAY, as Stray Kids dropped their latest mini-album, MAXIDENT, and plenty of content has been rolling out around the eight-piece act. This, of course, includes our own interview with the group — in case you missed it, I sat down with Stray Kids recently to chat about the album, their ongoing world tour, and how they’ve been filling their time lately. You can find the full interview here! This is the second time I’ve had the joy of speaking with Stray Kids (wa...
Local Natives Share Sleek New Single “Just Before the Morning”: Stream
Local Natives are continuing to keep themselves busy between albums, and today, they’ve shared a new single called “Just Before the Morning.” While “Just Before the Morning” teeters more towards the pop end of the scale for the indie rock veterans, it still feels quintessentially Local Natives: Taylor Rice’s lead vocals are gorgeous as ever, and there’s no shortage of their distinct sweeping harmonies. With its sleek production, “Just Before the Morning” evokes the effortless cool of the band’s Los Angeles home base, recalling the heavy haze of a peculiarly warm autumn night. “‘Just Before the Morning’ came from a burst of creativity after we finally reconnected in the studio,” the band explains in a press release. “The song explores the cyclical nature of life and the many ways in which w...
Armageddon Time Review: James Gray’s Coming-of-Age ’80s Drama Proves Unsatisfying
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: James Gray, an experienced outer-borough tour guide, brings us closer to his own Queens past in Armageddon Time, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama (though he says he wasn’t aiming for that genre; more on that later). The film follows 12-year-old aspiring artist Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) as he struggles with school, makes a friend in his classmate Johnny (Jaylin Webb), clashes with his parents Irving (Jeremy Strong) and Esther (Anne Hathaway), and takes solace in the love of his grandfather (Anthony Hopkins). The 1980 presidential contest looms in the background; at one point, kids at a posh private school start an impromptu chant for Reagan at the mere mention of elections, just before an assembly ...
A Timeline of Blink-182’s Lineup Changes
Millennials rejoiced when Blink-182 announced that their most iconic lineup — bassist Mark Hoppus, drummer Travis Barker, and guitarist Tom DeLonge — was reuniting for new music and a world tour. Since 2015, Hoppus and Barker had carried on the pop punk band’s tradition with Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, but the return of DeLonge signaled a return to their goofball heydey — complete with a ridiculous announcement video that repeated, over and over, that they were “coming.” On October 14th, the classic Blink-182 lineup will officially return with a new song called “Edging,” and next year, they’ll embark on a world tour that includes stops in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand (equally noteworthy is a headlining show at the second addition of the When We Were Youn...
Eric André Sues Atlanta Airport Police Over “Unethical” Drug Search Program
Eric André and fellow comedian Clayton English have filed a lawsuit against the police program at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport claiming they violate the constitutional rights of passengers — particularly Black passengers. According to The Associated Press, the suit filed Tuesday (October 11th) alleges that André and English were racially profiled and illegally stopped while boarding a flight, as part of the police program’s effort to combat drug trafficking. Their lawyers claim that Clayton County police officers and investigators from the county district attorney’s office selectively stop passengers in the jet bridges while boarding, interrogate them, inspect their boarding pass and ID, and sometimes search their luggage before allowing the passengers to board. André...
Blink-182’s 10 Best Songs
This feature originally ran in February 2015. We’re revisiting it in celebration of Blink-182’s upcoming reunion tour and new music. “What is it about 20-somethings?” asks the title of a New York Times Magazine article published in 2010. The subtext to that question is another question: “Why are people in their 20s finding it so hard to grow up?” The answers range from changing social mores to an uncertain job market, but maybe it’s even simpler than that. Maybe a new generation of so-called “millennials” is finally starting to understand a line they heard in a song back in 1999: “Nobody likes you when you’re 23.” If you’re a sociologist searching for Ground Zero — that time when the 20s shifted from a life stage of “emerging adulthood” to one of “prolonged adolescence” — an album called E...
