FEATURES
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...
5 Things to Know About Brothers Osborne, 2022 Grammy Nominees and Performers
“I’m not for everyone.” This mantra, a lyric stripped from their latest release Skeletons, has become a rallying cry for Brothers Osborne’s most recent album cycle. The simple, defiant phrase leads press releases, dons their merch, and titles their current expansive tour. But as their profile continues to grow and they rack up additional award nominations, it’s starting to feel more and more like everyone loves those “not for everyone” brothers. Made up of T.J. Osborne, who takes lead vocal responsibilities, and John Osborne, the group’s lead guitarist, Brothers Osborne’s unflinching attitude has been garnering them unlikely success in the famously rigid Nashville country scene. While they break the country music mold in numerous ways, from their mix of genres to their politics, the band b...
Morbius Review: Maybe It’s Time for Sony to Give Marvel Back Its Toys
The Pitch: The first trailer for Morbius, the newest effort by Sony Pictures to hold onto the Marvel characters to which it still owns the rights, originally premiered in January 2020, in anticipation of its planned July 2020 premiere. That premiere didn’t happen for, y’know, reasons, but in the literal years since, new trailers for the film have continued to appear online and in theaters, with one of them buttoned by a reasonably funny joke: Its central character, in full monster face, growling “I… am… Venom!” at a thug, then abruptly shifting to a smile to say, “I’m just kidding! Dr. Michael Morbius, at your service.” That moment didn’t just name-drop a previous Sony/Marvel collaboration, but showcased a clever reversal on expectations, not to mention star Jared Leto doling out some very...
Who Is DJ Susan? Meet the Exuberant DJ Who Captured the Hearts of Miami Music Week 2022
With great mustache comes great power—and DJ Susan has it in droves. Based in San Diego, Susan made a cross-country flight last week to immerse himself in the hedonism of Miami Music Week, a pilgrimage he takes annually. And he made his presence felt. But that wasn’t by design, as if he concocted some kind of masterplan to kick up dust in the name of fame like a hellbent TikToker. It’s just in his nature. In many ways, the gregarious Susan was emblematic of the triumphant ethos of the return of dance music in Miami after a brutal pandemic. If his unbridled personality didn’t pull you in like a magnet to a fridge, it was his giant bear-hugs. DJ Susan (via Instagram) While hundreds of thousands of people flock to Miami for the week’s pièce de résistance, Ultra Music Festival, the city’s vari...
