Month: January 2021

This May will mark four years since Paramore shared her full-length album After Laughter. Since then, the band has been rather quiet, although lead vocalist Hayley Williams did release her solo album Petals Of Armor. While the group has never hinted at a break-up, some are still worried a split could happen. But recently Williams publicly shot that idea down.

On New Year’s Day, Williams shared some articles about Petals Of Armor, which prompted one person to reply, “Omg I thought paramore was breaking up.” The singer then offered a curt reponse: “lol y’all been worried about that too long. aint happening.”

Worries about a Paramore split seem a bit far-fetched, especially considering Williams spoke about Paramore’s sixth album and the idea of a breakup back in May, during an interview with NME. “We’ve found ourselves listening to a lot of older music that we grew up being inspired by… That excitement and curiosity that keeps us a band,” she said. “We won’t let it happen unless we think it’s the coolest thing in the world, I mean, Paramore’s my favorite band. How dare I ever ruin it?”

Paramore is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Talk about a long goodbye: Netflix gave plenty of advance warning that The Office — at least at one point the most streamed show on their platform — would one day be leaving its coffers. It was a whole year and a half, in fact — plenty of time for people to steel themselves for the loss of one of the most watchable (and rewatchable) shows ever made. That didn’t make it any easier. (Nor did Peacock dropping a never-before-seen cold open.) Even with plenty of time to prepare themselves, to make amends, even to sign up with Peacock, its new home, Office bingers woke up on January 1 as beside themselves as they would have been had it been suddenly yanked without warning.

Again, it’s not like The Office is gone forever. It’s just on a relatively new streamer that has entered an already crowded field. Peacock is the brainchild of NBC-Universal, and when it launched in mid-August, it had to contend with such relative newbies as CBS All Access and HBO Max. It wasn’t even on Roku right off the bat! (Though that mistake has since been corrected.) And while the show’s legions of fans will surely add yet another streamer to their monthly bills, it’s not the same as idly firing up Netflix and plowing through a barrage of 20-some minute episodes. Here’s some more people grieving over having to get another streaming service just to watch Michael Scott and company:

One of college football’s most prestigious programs has a coaching vacancy, although it looks like it may be filled rather quickly. The University of Texas announced on Saturday morning that head football coach Tom Herman, who the university hired to much fanfare prior to the 2017 season, is out of a job. As the university explained in a statement, Herman’s ouster comes following an evaluation of the football program, which went 7-3 this year and won the Alamo Bowl, and a determination that a coaching change is needed “to get us on track to achieving our ambitious goals.”

Shortly after, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte released a statement of his own regarding the decision.

The decision to move on will come at quite the hefty price tag.

Herman got the job following two years at Houston, where he went 22-4 and helped the Cougars win the Peach Bowl in his first season. His decision to make the jump to Austin seemed like the kind of move that could have breathed new life into a program that has not come close to its national title aspirations in recent years, but for the most part, things just did not work out. Herman went 32-18 in four years with a 22-13 record in conference play and only made one New Year’s Six Bowl.

As for where the school will go now, Chip Brown of Horns247 reports that they already have Herman’s replacement lined up. The school will reportedly bring Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian on board as its next coach.

While highly-regarded as an offensive coordinator for years, Sarkisian’s head coaching tenure has not been particularly successful. He spent five years at Washington, going 34-29, before jumping to USC in 2014. He led the Trojans to a 9-4 record in his first year, but stepped away from the program five games into his second year and was ultimately fired amid struggles with a drinking program. Since then, he has spent two stints in Tuscaloosa with two years as the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons sandwiched in between.

Last summer, Nicki Minaj sent people into a frenzy after she announced she was pregnant with her first child. Just two months later, the Queens rapper gave birth to a boy. In the following months, Nicki has been pretty tight-lipped about her child, only making public a picture of the baby’s foot. That changed Saturday when she posted the first full picture of her baby boy.

The insanely cute picture finds him relaxing in a button-up and jeans as he stares innocently into the camera. Nicki shared the image on Instagram where she wished fans a happy new year and thanked them for their love and support throughout her pregnancy and first months of motherhood.

#PapaBear thank you so very much for choosing me to be your mama… Wishing you guys a happy & prosperous New Year. Thank you for your love & support throughout this journey. It’s meant so much to me. Becoming a mom is by far the most fulfilling job I’ve ever taken on. Sending love to all the superhero mothers out there. Big hugs to all the women who have been pregnant during this challenging time.

Nicki shared the image after she gushed over motherhood, gifts from Ariana Grande, and advice from Ciara in a recent Q&A session with her followers on Twitter.

They were called his “Elite Strike Force” — the all-star legal team who sought to overturn the 2020 election, allowing their employer, Donald J. Trump, to stay in office for four more years. But not only was there no proof of malfeasance, the lawyers have proven to be bumbling stooges. Rudy Giuliani has borne the brunt of public mockery, but L. Lin Wood hasn’t exactly been laying low. Last month he actually told Georgian Republicans not to vote in the upcoming Senate runoff, which could cost Mitch McConnell his Majority Leader position. Now Wood is calling for the execution of outgoing vice president Mike Pence.

In a trio of tweets, Wood — who rose to prominence by defending Richard Jewell, the rent-a-cop wrongly accused of the terrorist bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics — turned his ire not on Democrats but on Republicans, who he accused of conspiring with “Globalists,” George Soros, the Chinese Communist Party, and “other foreign countries.” Wood has regularly promoted conspiracy theories, so this wasn’t new for him.

However, Wood soon went next level. When replying to someone with the handle “American Dawg,” who questioned his reasoning, the attorney doubled down, saying Pence should face a “firing squad.”

Wood’s comments were roundly mocked and condemned on social media.

Even Jenna Ellis, fellow “Elite Strike Force” member, distanced herself from her colleague.

But Ellis’ attempts to disavow herself from one of her deranged coworkers was also met with derision.

Even her attempt to clap back failed miserably.

In any case, maybe holding a press conference at a random landscaping company or having melting goo run down the side of your face isn’t as bad as publicly calling for the death of an elected official.

(Via Business Insider)

Last month, Eminem shared a deluxe reissue of his 2020 album Music To Be Murdered By. One of its highlights was “Zeus,” which features multiple name-drops. One of them was a diss of Snoop Dogg. “Last thing I need is Snoop doggin’ me / Man, Dogg, you was like a damn god to me,” Eminem rapped. “Nah, not really / I had ‘dog’ backwards.”

Back in July, Snoop told The Breakfast Club that Eminem was not in his top 10 greatest rappers of all-time, and in a recent Shade 45 appearance, Eminem said he accepted that. However, there was one comment from Snoop during that conversation that really rubbed him the wrong way.

“Everything he said, by the way, was fine, up to a point,” Eminem said. “Him saying Dre made the best version of me, absolutely, why would I have a problem with that? Would I be here without Dre? F*ck no, I wouldn’t. The rappers he mentioned from the ‘90s—KRS One, Big Daddy Kane, [Kool] G Rap—I’ve never said I could f*ck with them.” He added:

I think it was more about the tone he was using that caught me off-guard ‘cause I’m like, where is this coming from? I just saw you, what the f*ck? It threw me for a loop. I probably could’ve gotten past the whole tone and everything, but it was the last statement where he said, ‘Far as music I can live without, I can live without that sh*t.’ Now you’re being disrespectful. It just caught me off-guard

Afterwards, the Detroit rapper explained that he had no idea how he was going to respond to Snoop’s comments. “I didn’t know what to do about it because it confused me ‘cause I’m like, bro, same team,” he said. “We’re on the same team. And I have never in my career, my entire career, said a disrespectful word about Snoop.”

You can watch the full video above. His comments about Snoop being at the 29:45 mark.

A new year doesn’t always bring glad tidings. While 2021 is already shaping up to be better than 2020, with both a new president and a vaccine en route, there was one piece of bad news, albeit one that was announced ages ago: The American version of The Office was leaving Netflix. Its new home was Peacock, NBC’s newish streaming service. And while many who’d turned the show into one of the most binged in history were bummed out, Peacock tried to soften the blow by releasing a never-before-seen cold open.

It’s pretty epic, too. It finds Rainn Wilson’s Dwight being the brunt of one of the more convoluted Jim-Pam scams, with the latter two trying to convince him that the Matrix — which is to say the alternate reality introduced in the 1999 blockbuster — was real. Jim and Pam even trained a feline to recreate the movie’s version of Schrödinger’s cat, whose appearance in the first film tips Keanu’s Neo that there’s been a glitch in the fake world’s programming.

Eventually Dwight meets with Hank the security guard, played by the late Hugh Dane, who died in 2018. Decked out in full Morpheus regalia, he informs Dwight that he’s the brother of the leader played by Laurence Fishburne, and offers him the choice of a blue or red pill. Dwight’s choice is surprising, even moving. And you can watch it above before you finally sign up for Peacock.

The third-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes will play for a national championship after going to war with the second-ranked Clemson Tigers in the Sugar Bowl on Friday night and coming out on top emphatically. The Buckeyes picked up a 49-28 win over the Tigers, earning a spot in the national title game against No. 1 Alabama next week.

It was a particularly sweet win for the Buckeyes for a few reasons. One is they lost to Clemson in the semifinal last year in a very close game. Another is that Tigers coach Dabo Swinney rubbed some Ohio State fans the wrong way in the lead-up to the game, ranking them 11th in the Coaches’ Poll and citing the fact that they only played six games this season, which he swears he did on principle due to the number of games and not because of the caliber of the opponent.

Still, the Buckeye faithful latched onto that, including one particular fan of the scarlet and gray who is based out of Los Angeles. LeBron James watched as his college football team came out on top after the Lakers picked up a 109-103 win over the San Antonio Spurs and was satisfied that Ohio State got some payback.

He was particularly impressed by the play of Buckeye quarterback Justin Fields, who out-dueled Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and torched the revered Tiger defense for a Sugar Bowl record six touchdowns.

And then, there was Swinney. While Clemson’s coach has never shied away from poking the bear — something he can do because his team is really good and backs up what it says off the field with results on it — Ohio State topped his team, and Buckeye fans loved it. In the stadium, a loud, prolonged “DAAAAAAABO!” chant came through the television, and elsewhere in the United States, James thought it would be fun to chirp at Swinney. He brought up that Coaches’ Poll ranking, and after that, he dove into a stash of The Last Dance memes.

We don’t always see the sports fan side of LeBron. It’s something that comes out when the Buckeyes win big games, when the Cleveland Browns win big games, and when Liverpool wins championships. But with all due respect to the Browns and the Reds, this one seemed to be particularly sweet for the reigning NBA Finals MVP.

In a pair of blowouts, the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Ohio State Buckeyes punched their tickets to the 2021 College Football Playoff championship game. The No. 1 Crimson Tide took care of business against fourth-ranked Notre Dame in a result that darn near everyone saw coming, while the No. 3 Buckeyes put forth the performance of the season to pull off a shockingly one-sided win over No. 2 Clemson.

The earlier New Years Day tilt was as drama-free as it could have been. While Alabama came out on top, 31-14, it never seemed like the Tide had to get out of first or second gear to take down the Irish in the Rose Bowl, which took place in Texas this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The talent gap was evident early on — Alabama scored on its first three drives of the game, with Heisman finalists Mac Jones and DeVonta Smith connecting twice for scores that sandwiched Jones finding Jahleel Billingsly.

Notre Dame was able to score once in the first half on a gorgeous 15-play, 75-yard drive that took just a hair over eight minutes, but otherwise, there wasn’t much that the Irish could do. That was the case in the second half, too — the Tide only scored 10 points, with Jones and Smith connecting for a third time, but they stayed stout on both sides of the ball, didn’t allow a score until the game was essentially done and dusted, and punched their ticket to next week’s title game.

Jones was magnificent, going 25-for-30 for 297 yards and four touchdowns. Smith, the game’s offensive MVP, looked like the guy who will win the Heisman, catching seven passes for 130 yards and three scores. And while he did not find the end zone, Najee Harris was a monster running the ball, toting the rock 15 times for 125 yards and showing off his hops in an impressive way.

And then, there was the other semifinal, which gave football fans a rematch of last year’s classic between the Tigers and the Buckeyes. Clemson came out on top last year, and this time around, Ohio State took the field at the Sugar Bowl looking like a team that spent the last 365 days thinking about getting their hearts ripped out by the squad on the other side of the field.

The Buckeyes looked nothing short of sterling, beating the brakes off of the Tigers en route to a 49-28 win. It was one of the more surprising results of the Playoff era, not because no one thought Ohio State could come out on top, but because you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought they would be able to make Clemson look like a lower-level Big Ten squad.

The story of the night was Justin Fields, as the signal caller who ended last year’s game with a pick and was coming off of a putrid Big Ten championship game against Northwestern was out of his mind. Fields went 22-for-28 with 385 yards, a Sugar Bowl record six touchdowns, and a pick, along with a number of throws that carved up the stout Clemson defense.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this performance was that much of it came after Fields got licked by standout Clemson linebacker James Skalski, who was ejected for targeting after his helmet went right into Fields’ ribs — the QB went down in serious pain, but only ended up missing a play.

On the whole, the Buckeye offense was humming — they went for 639 yards between Fields letting it fly through the air and a stout rushing game led by Trey Sermon toting the rock 31 times for 193 yards and a score. And in what will almost certainly go down to a bittersweet end to a wonderful college football career, presumed No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft Trevor Lawrence looked mortal en route to losing for the second time in his tenure under center for the Tigers. Lawrence, despite falling, went 33-for-48 with 400 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick.

Now, the title game is set, with the Tide and the Buckeyes facing off on Monday, Jan. 11 in Miami. It will mark the first game between the two powerhouse programs since the 2015 Playoff, when Ohio State took down Alabama, 42-35, in the semifinals en route to winning a championship.

Ever since she became a makeup, skincare, lingerie and fashion mogul in addition to being a top-tier pop star, Rihanna fans have been impatient with the amount off time she’s begun to take between albums. It’s almost something of a joke between the star and her fans now, and she isn’t afraid to get feisty in response to fans who push things too far with their demands for new music. Add in a rumored new relationship with ASAP Rocky, and it’s clear, this woman is busy.

So it’s not that surprising that after she posted a flaming hot photo celebrating the new year, and a fan came at her with questions about new music, that she clapped back. In a poolside shot clad in a golden bra, long flowing skirt, and stringy sandals, Rih captioned the first photo of 2021 with “new year’s resolution: apply the pressure.” One insistent fan shot back “resolution should be releasing the album.” To which Rihanna responded: “This comment is sooo 2019. Grow up,” and then later “2021 energy” with a laughing emoji and a flexed arm.

2021 energy indeed! Well, if pressuring her is going to make R9 come slower as an act of resistance, then it’s probably time for all of us to zip it. Because seriously, it would be great to get that reggae album we’ve been hearing about for so long.