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Song of the Week: Jack White Lets Loose on “What’s the Trick?”
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, Jack White lets loose on “What’s the Trick?” Jack White is nothing if not ambitious. The former frontman of The White Stripes has a penchant for the odd, the atonal, and the avant-garde — the man just likes to get weird with his music, at the end of the day. His new album, Fear of the Dawn, inhabits that same risky space that keeps listeners coming back to see what he’s trying next. While not every big swing leads to a payoff on the album, it’s hard to deny the raw energy of “What’s the Trick?” The track is anc...
Thank God You Can See Master Chief’s Face in Halo the TV Show
The genre-defining video game Halo has been in development for a potential screen adaptation for nearly a decade now, and over that time one question has loomed large: Would we ever see the face of the franchise’s main character, a taciturn super-solider named Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, who has never been unmasked over the course of 16 video games made over 21 years? It’s a question that the Paramount+ series, which debuted this spring, answered towards the end of its first episode, as Master Chief (brought to life here by Pablo Schreiber) removed his helmet while being held at gunpoint by the terrified Kwan (Yerin Ha), in an effort to connect with her. Up until that point, Master Chief had been a man of action but always held at a distance by the show because of the full suit of...
Father John Misty’s Chloë and the Next 20th Century: Doomed Love Songs For the Pseudo-Nostalgic
“What’s ‘deeply funny’ mean anyhow?” Father John Misty asks on “Q4,” a single from Chloë and the Next 20th Century. The song is the album’s clearest, most cutting satire, but this question feels earnest, the stakes intimate to the singer — as a performer and person seeking connection in a modern wasteland. Over five albums, singer-songwriter Josh Tillman has been a craftsman of story-songs delivered via absurdist personae, scaffolding ironic provocation with heartfelt croons and soaring folk-inspired instrumentation. On Chloë, singer-songwriter Josh Tillman returns with his first new material since 2018’s taciturn God’s Favorite Customer. Written and recorded in fall/winter 2020, the album sees Tillman continuing to collaborate with multi-instrumentatlist/producer Jonathan Wilson and engin...
Rap Song of the Week: ScHoolboy Q Proves He Isn’t Your Average “Soccer Dad”
Every Friday, our new music column Rap Song of the Week breaks down all the new hip-hop tracks you need to hear. Check out the full playlist here. This week, ScHoolboy Q made his grand return with “Soccer Dad.” Since dropping his first two albums in back-to-back years, ScHoolboy Q has slowed down his release pace. The TDE rapper’s last LP, 2019’s CrasH Talk, dropped after a three-year hiatus, and prior to Tuesday night, he hadn’t released any solo material since then. With the arrival of the triumphant “Soccer Dad,” however, it looks like a new project could be on the way. Fans of ScHoolboy Q are well-acquainted with his life as a soccer dad, having seen videos on the LA rapper’s Instagram Stories of him cheering from the sidelines while also bragging about his daughter’s accomplishments. ...
The Linda Lindas Are “Growing Up” on Their Own Terms
“I wrote a verse for a song when we were playing kickball in P.E. last week,” says Lucia de la Garza, one of the four members of The Linda Lindas. Beside her, her bandmate Eloise Wong nods seriously. “Kickball is always very inspiring,” Eloise confirms. The Linda Lindas are made up of sisters Lucia and Mila de la Garza, their cousin Eloise, and friend Bela Salazar, whose ages range from 11 to 17. The budding punk group had a breakout moment in 2021 when a performance of their original track “Racist, Sexist Boy” exploded. Music is something they take seriously; even prior to their viral success, they’d secured an opening gig for fellow female punk rockers Bikini Kill, a show for which Amy Poehler happened to be in attendance. Poehler then recruited the quartet to lend a few tracks to h...
Best New Tracks: Pusha T, ScHoolboy Q, Jack Harlow and More
As the week in music comes to a close, HYPEBEAST has rounded up the best projects for the latest installment of Best New Tracks. This week’s list is led by releases from Jack Harlow, ScHoolboy Q and Pusha T x JAY-Z x Pharrell, who released the singles “First Class,” “Soccer Dad” and “Neck & Wrist,” respectively. Also joining this selection are offerings from Vince Staples, Yung Lean, J57 with Lil B, IDK, Aundrey Guillaume, EARTHGANG x Future and Fousheé. Pusha T x JAY-Z x Pharrell – “Neck & Wrist” [embedded content] Pusha T joins forces with JAY-Z and Pharrell for “Neck & Wrist.” Produced by Pharrell, the cut follows the Ye-produced “Diet Coke” and arrives as King Push finally announced the title of his highly-anticipated DAYTONA followup: It’s Almost Dry. Listen...
The Last Thing Syd Wants To Be Is Bitter
For anyone asking why it took Syd five years to release her sophomore album Broken Hearts Club, it’s all in the title. The Internet frontwoman, who’s two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, experienced her “first real broken heart” — one she admits she never saw coming. She reveals that fact with a laugh in the present day, as she sits on the floor of her Los Angeles home with two foster dogs, but the painful ordeal caused her to take a long break and put the creation of her Fin. followup on pause. While Broken Hearts Club was released five years after its predecessor, it took the artist approximately two years to complete. Within that two-year time frame, Syd took a three-month break, restarted the record, removed and added songs to the tracklist, wrote new songs and took her sweet time with ...
Sting and KURT Talk Their Spanish Language Collaboration “Por Su Amor,” Share Music Video: Exclusive
When he was younger, Latin Grammy Award nominee KURT used to sing Sting’s songs at bars where he’d perform in his native Mexico. Now, he’s singing one of them with Sting. The two have joined forces for “Por Su Amor,” a new Spanish version of “For Her Love” from Sting’s 2021 studio album, The Bridge. The recording will be released this Friday, April 8th, via all streaming services, along with a video (premiering exclusively below) that was filmed in early March in Los Angeles. It follows Sting’s solo version of the Spanish language track, released back in February. The Spanish rendition of “For Her Love” came about when Sting and his manager-producer Martin Kierszenbaum, were in Cabo San Lucas during a break between shows. “Neither of us are beach people, really,” Sting tells Consequence du...
Here Are the Biggest Moments From Inside the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards
Since 1958, the Recording Academy has presented its annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony to honor the achievements of the music community and its academy members. HYPEBEAST was on the ground at this year’s event — held in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena — and witnessed dazzling musical performances, surprise celebrity appearances and showstopping red carpet looks. Located along the Las Vegas Strip, the 17,000-seat multi-purpose arena played host to the ceremony’s first audience-attended event since the pandemic relegated the show to a nominees and performers-only showcase in 2021. Last year’s ceremony was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center and only allowed nominees and performers to attend without an audience. Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images GRAMMY signage and photo boo...
Olivia Rodrigo Kicks Off Her “Sour Tour” in Portland, Oregon: Photos + Setlist
Olivia Rodrigo was already a two-time Grammy winner before she’d even had her own tour. Not the typical order of operations for artists, but Rodrigo is a new kind of pop star. With her Best New Artist gramophone in tow, the “drivers license” singer finally launched her first-ever headlining tour on Tuesday, April 5th at Portland, Oregon’s Theater of the Clouds — and our photographer Dan Garcia was there to capture it all. The “Sour Tour” kick-off concert featured an entire (if out of order) run-through of the album of the same name — not surprising as Sour is Rodrigo’s only LP. The setlist was padded with a pair of covers: Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” (in honor of “the pop-punk princess herself,” as Rodrigo put it) and Veruca Salt’s “Seether.” Below, find a photo gallery of Olivia Ro...
Artist x Artist: Kathleen Hanna x The Linda Lindas
Every so often a band comes around that captures your heart, but not your mind. In the case of Los Angeles-based teenage sensation The Linda Lindas, it’s both. Last year, the quartet went viral for the right reasons. Their song, “Racist, Sexist Boy” was a big hit with the music world and librarians as well. One of those famous fans, Bikini Kill/Le Tigre frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, has been a supporter of the band for a long time. In fact, The Linda Lindas opened for Bikini Kill in 2019. So, with the group’s debut album, Growing Up, out on Epitaph on April 8, we thought it would be a good idea to get the band and Hanna together for a chat. The result? The two parties went deep. In their conversation, they exchanged questions about their origins, how they discovered each other and described w...
Metal Lords Review: Game of Thrones’ D.B. Weiss Delivers A Light Comedy About Heavy Metal
The Pitch: Heavy metal, with its knowingly ridiculous embrace of deafening volumes and over-the-top violent imagery, and predominantly young male audience, has been fertile territory for comedy since This Is Spinal Tap. And over the last few decades, some enduring comedies have irreverently paid tribute to hard rock bands and the adolescents who love them, including School of Rock, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Detroit Rock City. Screenwriter D.B. Weiss, best known as the co-creator and co-showrunner of Game of Thrones, has brought us a potential new addition to that canon with Metal Lords. In 2019, Weiss and his Game of Thrones creative partner David Benioff inked a $200 million deal to produce films and series for Netflix. And while some of Benioff and Weiss’s more ambitious ...
