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Archer Season 13 Retains the Show’s Signature Amusement and Absurdity: Review
The Pitch: Typically, the longer a hit program goes on, the harder it is for it to maintain its quality and relevance. Thus, Archer’s ability to mostly preserve its trademark wittiness, ridiculousness, and audaciousness across 12 seasons (and 12 years) is commendable. Admittedly, some fans and reviewers feel that it’s fallen from grace in some ways — and maybe it has — but it’s hard to deny that the show remains immensely clever, fun, and (at times) moving. The Season 12 finale “Mission: Difficult” cemented all of that very well. For one thing, it found its lovable band of dysfunctional spies dishing out plenty of biting quips and explosive action before ultimately being acquired by a rival company called the International Intelligence Agency, or IIA, run by British mogul Fabian Kingsworth...
A Woodstock Reminiscence
This week marks the 53rd anniversary of Woodstock — the music and art fair of 1969, originally announced as “An Aquarian Exposition,” which took place at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York, after promoters couldn’t find a festival location in the town of Woodstock itself, a well-known haven for musicians at the time. I always think about Woodstock in August, because I was there. In 1969, I was 15 years old and my progressive parents (read: smart, but drug addled) bought me and my twin brother tickets for what would miraculously turn out to be an experience that unfolded in exactly the same way it was promised: 3 Days of Peace & Music. Could there have been other parents like my parents (is it even possible to imagine anybody can be like anybody else’s parents?) who ac...
Julia Michaels: Authentic, Honest & True
“I love New York,” Julia Michaels tells me, only a few minutes into our interview, from her Los Angeles home. Straight off, the singer and songwriter, who will turn 29 this year, is a lesson in dichotomies. She loves New York because it “feels communal,” in stark contrast to the place that Dorothy Parker once deemed “72 suburbs in search of a city,” a sentiment Michaels seems to echo. “LA is so spread out and nobody really walks here and it doesn’t…it doesn’t have the same liveliness, I think,” she says. In pursuit of an acting career, her father moved the family to California from Iowa when Michaels was a child, changing his last name professionally from Cavazos to Michaels in the process, a tradition she carried on. “I don’t think it’s the environment that makes humans, humans,” she wise...
Westworld Composer on Ending Season 4 With Radiohead and What Might Happen in Season 5
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 4 finale of Westworld, “Que Sera Sera.” To read about the music of Episode 7, click here.] “We’re finally back to Radiohead,” Ramin Djawadi laughs, at the beginning of our final conversation about Westworld Season 4. “I never actually counted, but I feel like we’ve done Radiohead the most — we’re all big Radiohead fans. So this being the final episode we said, you know, ‘It’s time for some Radiohead now. We need another Radiohead song.’” As the Emmy-winning composer has exclusively discussed with Consequence all season long, the unexpected twists and turns of the HBO sci-fi drama have often extended towards the music, calling upon Djawadi’s talent for recreating well-known pop and rock tunes using Westworld’s signatur...
Tales of the Walking Dead Somewhat Succeeds at Putting Fresh Paint on a Fading Franchise: Review
The Pitch: The Walking Dead, the flagship show of the long-running zombie apocalypse franchise, is finally coming to an end later this year after 11 seasons. But the Walking Dead universe is showing no signs of slowing down, with multiple spin-offs on the horizon, including ones for fan-favorite Daryl as well as Maggie and Negan, but the first to premiere is the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead. The series, created by Walking Dead honcho Scott M. Gimple and franchise stalwart Channing Powell, gives a level of freedom never seen before in the Walking Dead universe, allowing new writers, directors, and stars to tell stand-alone tales of the zombie outbreak. As with any anthology, quality can vary wildly between entries, but the three episodes provided for review are more good than ...
A League of Their Own’s Cast and Creators on Why the Show’s Groundbreaking Representation Was “Only Possible Right Now”
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for A League of Their Own, Season 1 Episode 6, “Stealing Home.”] As A League of Their Own co-creator/star Abbi Jacobson tells Consequence, the original film which inspired her new Amazon Prime Video series “is iconic and important to all of us. It’s just people’s favorite movie. So the film doesn’t need to be remade — and we were really focused on telling the stories that were not told in the film for whatever reason.” Those reasons might include, in Jacobson’s words, “the limitations of what stories people were telling in 1992.” For a lot of things have changed between 1992 and 2022, but here’s a big one: Jacobson feels pretty sure that the adaptation’s groundbreaking approach to LGBTQ+ representation could only happen today: “I think a lot ...
Hardwell Opens Up About His Soul-Stirring Road to Reinvention: “It Feels Way More Like Freedom”
If you peered through a window into Hardwell‘s soul in 2018, you may have seen nothing but emptiness. But after returning from a four-year hiatus, the Dutch electronic music icon has torn hell for leather into a new creative frontier. Hardwell is now the cynosure of all eyes as his long-awaited comeback album, REBELS NEVER DIE, approaches. “I’m really happy with the whole decision, and I’ve never been more productive and happy in the studio as I am right now,” Hardwell tells EDM.com in a video interview. “It feels way more like freedom right now than following the rules of the particular formula that went straight into big room.” Within a nanosecond of Hardwell’s resurgence, it was clear the euphoric big room house style that longtime fans were accu...
Look Inside SOMA Tent, the Best Dancefloor at Outside Lands 2022
Not all festivals even try to deliver nine separate stages. In fact, most don’t. But for anyone who was in attendance for San Francisco’s 14th annual Outside Lands festival, it was a variety-lover’s paradise. Some stages were in open fields and others were tucked away in acoustically advantageous pockets in the sprawling hills of Golden Gate Park. One of the most lovable features of Outside Lands is the emulsion of crowds. In addition to offering ample opportunities to discover new music, when you find your vibe you’re probably not too far from finding your tribe. Alive Coverage The importance of this relationship doesn’t escape the leadership at Another Planet Entertainment and SuperFly. In fact, they produce a degree of scale that greatly eclipses other music festivals on the...
Hypegolf Japan Showcases Its Brand of Modern Golf in Ibaraki
Hypegolf Japan returned to Eagle Point Golf Club in Ibaraki on August 8, 2022, for the second edition of the Hypegolf Japan Invitational, a truly 360° experience where Japanese celebrities and influencers within golf, streetwear, and fashion got together for a day of friendly competition, live performances, experiential activations, great food, coffee and much more. From casual players, to artists, influencers and professionals, the Hypegolf Invitational saw an attendance of approximately 150 participants across all levels of golf experience to embrace a forward-thinking interpretation of golf culture. Yosuke Kubozuka, Ryuhei Matsuda, Itsuki Fujiwara of THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE, Masahiro Sunada and Mirai Fukahori of BALLISTIK BOYZ from EXILE TRIBE, YAMATO, Niki, Haruka Okuyama, Mira Ha...
Jessie Baylin Shares Origins of ’70s-Inspired Single “Time Is A Healer:” Exclusive
Origins is a recurring new music series giving artists the opportunity to share exclusive insights into their latest release. Today, Jessie Baylin shares the background of her vintage-inspired new single. Jessie Baylin is taking a journey to the past for her new music, in more ways than one. “Time Is A Healer,” the Nashville singer-songwriter’s new single, feels like it was pulled out of a 1970s daydream. It arrives ahead of a new album, titled Jersey Girl, which will be landing in full on September 23rd. Baylin was born and raised in New Jersey, but left as soon as she could; this album encompasses her experience unpacking her roots from her current vantage point. Related Video “Time Is A Healer” is a meditative, acoustic rock track that Baylin describes as the “rock outlier” o...
Song of the Week: Megan Thee Stallion Delivers an Ode to Perseverance with “Her”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Megan Thee Stallion reminds us all exactly who she is. “I don’t care if these bitches don’t like me, ‘cause, like, I’m pretty as fuck,” Megan Thee Stallion asserts in the opening lines to “Her,” with all the casual matter-of-factness of a happy hour gossip session. But, jokes aside, how could she even have the energy to care? Though her consistent string of feel-good, booty-shaking anthems — and her astonishing ascent to hip-hop royalty — would have you convinced otherwise, the H-Town Hottie’s personal li...
Director Katie Aselton on Moving From Mumblecore to Mack and Rita
In Los Angeles, it feels like everyone wants to be young — except for Mackenzie “Mack” Martin (Elizabeth Lail), a 30-year-old woman who’s ready to skip to her senior citizen days and live her best life. Cue some magical realism (via an ad hoc past lives regression machine/tanning bed), and Mack finds her consciousness now inside a 70-something woman who starts going by Rita (Diane Keaton). It’s a fun, 2022-esque spin on high-concept body-swap classics like Big and Freaky Friday, which did mark a big change from director Katie Aselton’s past experiences as a filmmaker. While Katie Aselton’s not a first-time director, she tells Consequence that she was eager to take on this project because “I hadn’t done a full-fledged comedy as a director, so I was really excited to lean into that.” Plus, s...
