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Bon Jovi Kick Off Spring 2022 Tour in Omaha: Photos, Recap + Setlist
Arena rock is a genre of music that will never die, as long as crowds convene inside hockey arenas around the country to sing along to our favorite anthems from our favorite artists. That’s exactly what took place when Bon Jovi kicked off their 2022 tour in Omaha, NE at the CHI Health Center on Friday, April 1st, for their first public in-person concert since the pandemic started. Ione, a singer from Sioux City, IA, was the contest winner of the opening slot for the Omaha tour date. With a full backing band — two guitar players, a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboardist — Ione filled the arena with her soulful voice, reminding one of ‘70s singer-songwriters like Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks. She emitted a free-spirited energy on stage, and captivated the audience with her pure, unadultera...
Song of the Week: Harry Styles Is Back, And Nothing Is the Same “As It Was”
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, Harry Styles gives us the first look inside the walls of Harry’s House. “Harry, you’re no good alone.” Artistically, that’s something we know isn’t true. It’s been years now since Harry Styles struck out on his own, re-inventing his public persona through vintage aesthetics and the devil-may-care creativity of a present-day rockstar. His art, both in his self-titled solo debut and the Grammy-winning Fine Line, has always pivoted between the achingly personal and intentionally coy. It might be easy to speculate ...
Rap Song of the Week: J.I.D and J. Cole Carry a Big “Stick” on New Gangsta Grillz Track
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. Today, J.I.D and J. Cole open D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape with “Stick.” Earlier this week, J. Cole surprised Dreamville fans with the news that he teamed up with DJ Drama for a new Gangsta Grillz mixtape. The project doesn’t come entirely out of left field, since the mixtape king is performing a special set at Dreamville Festival this weekend (April 2nd-3rd) featuring Lil Wayne, T.I., and Jeezy, but it was still exciting to see two blog era veterans come together. Once Cole dropped the artwork, it was also apparent how seriously they took the project. With the entire Dreamville roster draped in dark clothing and Photoshopped in front of a wa...
Christian Lee Hutson Shares Origins of New Album Quitters: Exclusive
Origins is a recurring new music feature giving artists the chance to break down the inspirations for their latest release. Today, Christian Lee Hutson opens up about his new album, Quitters. Over the past several years, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson has found himself in some pretty heady company, collaborating with his best friend Phoebe Bridgers on several projects including the indie darling’s collaborative album with Conor Oberst. Hutson’s sophomore album Quitters, out today, reunites him with both artists, who served as producers on the project. With the encouragement of Bridgers and Oberst, Quitters was made directly to tape, rather than the digital recording method used for Hutson’s debut studio album, Beginners, also produced by Bridgers. Another...
Best New Tracks: Dreamville x DJ Drama, Freddie Gibbs x Rick Ross 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 Dreamville x DJ Drama and Freddie Gibbs x Rick Ross, who dropped the surprise D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape project and the new collab “Ice Cream.” Also joining this selection are New Gen honorees Doechii and ENNY with Mychelle, Japanese Breakfast, Toro Y Moi, Bakar, Lil Tjay and joints from Ibeyi x Jorja Smith and Hit-Boy x Pacman Da Gunman. Dreamville x DJ Drama – D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape [embedded content] J. Cole’s Dreamville collective and DJ Drama join forces the surprise project D-Day: A Gangsta Grillz Mixtape. The record features the entire Dreamville roster along with guest appearances fro...
The Bubble Tests Positive for Tone-Deaf Tedium: Review
The Pitch: It’s 2022, which means that we’re now getting the kind of movies that weren’t just filmed during COVID, but conceived during it (see also: Soderbergh’s Kimi, Doug Liman’s Locked Down). For Judd Apatow, that meant a long, hard look at the ways that mainstream studio filmmaking has adjusted to the times: masks aplenty, social distancing, and the much-vaunted “bubble” of fully quarantined people who are trapped together until, well, all this stuff is over. And that’s the environment under which the latest entry in the hit blockbuster franchise Cliff Beasts, Cliff Beasts 6: The Battle for Everest: Memories of the Requiem, is to be made, says the film’s producers (including Peter Serafinowicz and Kate McKinnon). But of course, throwing a group of temperamenta...
WNBA Players Reflect on the League’s Evolution
With March Madness in full swing, the WNBA is eyeing the performances of hundreds of the NCAA’s top players to determine who will continue their career on a professional level. Last Monday, draft-eligible players were faced with a decision – whether to enter the WNBA draft, continue to play at the collegiate level or retire from competing altogether at the end of the basketball season. Featuring 68 women’s basketball teams from the Division I level, parsed via single-elimination, the tournament will wrap up on Monday, April 4. The following week, on April 11, both college athletes and those already playing in the WNBA will gather in New York City for the annual draft, where teams can select new players to join their ranks in the upcoming season. In anticipation of We are the W, a new docum...
New Orleans Energy Pulsed Through the BUKU Music + Art Project 2022
Taking place in New Orleans, Louisiana, the BUKU Music + Art Project returned for its tenth anniversary this past weekend and its first show since 2019. Located along the banks of the Mississippi River near the abandoned Market Street Power Plant, the two-day festival celebrated the spirit and community of the Southern city. Alongside art installations and interactive activities, BUKU featured five different stages, including the Skyline, Bridge, Wharf, Ballroom and Riverside. Between watching acts, attendees, named the BUKREWE community, were able to mint their own NFTs, get real tattoos, visit tarot card readers and receive a lesson in glass recycling from the non-profit Glass Half Full. The collective crowd of visitors and locals were able to take part in a variety of experiences that r...
Bruce Willis’ Retirement Means It’s Time to Rethink Our Perception of Bruce Willis
Gasoline Alley, Midnight in the Switchgrass, Cosmic Sin — these are just a few of the titles the visage of Bruce Willis has graced in the last several years, direct-to-video cash-ins that leveraged a few minutes of screentime from one of America’s most revered action stars to drive VOD sales and move Redbox inventory. Take a chintzy script you can film in Eastern Europe or Atlanta with minimal crew and one or two C-listers, throw Willis at the beginning or the end (aided by obvious body doubles), then slap his face on the poster and you’ve got a movie, baby. Willis’ take on this material, in particular, earned this subgenre of film the moniker “the geezer teaser.” Willis’ recent films in particular have been the subject of a deluge of jokes online, from hour-long Red Letter Media videos to...
The 100 Best Netflix Original Series of All Time
In 2013, you could count the number of Netflix original series that existed on one hand. Nine years later, that number is, well, a little higher. Over that time, the streaming giant became a huge player in the entertainment world, developing a massive catalog of content spanning all genres, for all audiences, in as many languages as the translators can manage. The below list, spotlighting 100 of the best offerings to come from Netflix since those earliest days, does its best to represent how Netflix has provided a home for near-countless series that might never have gotten a greenlight anywhere else, amplifying new takes and new voices just as a new hunger for innovative storytelling on television was being discovered. (For those curious about the rules here, the shows included had to have...
Joe Perry on Aerosmith’s Upcoming Las Vegas Residency, Their Underrated ’70s Output
Aerosmith started whatever day Steven walked in the door, says Joe Perry, his Boston accent flattening those r’s into ah’s. As in Steven Ty-lah. It’s refreshing that after 50 years in one of the most successful bands in history, Perry still sounds like he really doesn’t give a fuck. Like he would be just as content sitting on the beach, reading Lincoln Child novels with his wife Billie (“it gives us something to talk about”) at their new home south of Tampa — as doing the whole guitar-god thing. His aloofness is either a facade or a defense mechanism he’s adopted to stay sane in a band he once quit for caring about too much (more on that later.) Perry returned to Aerosmith in the ’80s, but by then the MTV music-video era was in full swing. The band never returned to that gritty, blue...
New Gen: Spring 2022
New Gen is HYPEBEAST’s biannual series highlighting some of the most promising up-and-coming voices in the music game. Every season, we spotlight talented and buzzworthy names you should have on your radar. With a new season upon us and a new year that seems to be full of promise for the rejuvenated music industry, many rising artists are ready to show the world what the new generation is ready to offer. For Spring 2022, HYPEBEAST is highlighting 10 of the freshest faces across the board — all of whom have transformed hip-hop, indie pop, contemporary R&B and ’60s soul into their own refreshing sound. Check out some names you should have on your radar below. DANNY DWYER For fans of: Gus Dapperton, Jakob, Still Woozy Danny Dwyer is always experimenting. Having risen through the ranks dur...
