Year: 2022

The Minnesota Timberwolves have been one of the best stories in the NBA this season, as the young Wolves have finally broken through into being a true playoff contender in the West for the first time since 2018.

On Monday night, Minnesota picked up its 40th win of the season (the team’s first 40-win campaign since 2018) against the Spurs and rode a truly sensational performance from their All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns to get there. In a high-scoring affair in San Antonio — the final score was 149-139 — Towns put up a new career-high with 60 points, which is also the highest-scoring game for any player this season, passing Trae Young and LeBron James’ tie at 56.

Towns did his damage inside and out on a highly efficient night, going 19-of-31 from the field, including 7-of-11 from three-point range, and 15-of-16 from the free throw line on the night, for a final stat line of 60 points, 17 rebounds, and three assists. Early on, Towns was in attack mode, getting downhill and forcing the Spurs bigs to respect his ability to get to the rim which started to open up the three point line as they sagged off of him to protect the paint.

The third quarter was when Towns really erupted, scoring 32 points in the quarter to push Minnesota into a comfortable lead and get him to 56 on the night with the fourth still to come, as San Antonio continually lost Towns at the top of the key, where the Three-Point Contest champ is at his best and lit the Spurs up on this night.

Towns played sparingly in the fourth but was inserted back into the game with a few minutes to go, sitting on 56 as his teammates fed him to try and get to 60. After splitting a pair of free throws, he hit that 60-point mark with a three-pointer that put the dagger in the Spurs (who had missed a three on the other end that would’ve cut the Minnesota lead to six and made things very interesting all of a sudden).

It was a tremendous performance for Towns who has been on a tear of late, as have the Timberwolves, winners of eight of their last nine to stay within a couple games of the 6-seed and the similarly red-hot Denver Nuggets. Towns joins Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson as the only centers since Wilt Chamberlain to score 60 points in a game, and on a night where the basketball world was locked into the MVP battle in Philly between Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, it was Towns who had the performance of the night among NBA big men.

Earlier today, Machine Gun Kelly revealed the cover art to his upcoming album Mainstream Sellout. The artwork features Kelly playing the guitar as pink tomatoes are being hurled at him. Some, including Rolling Stone, believed that the artwork was quite similar to Japanese Breakfast’s 2021 album Jubilee thanks to the presence of spherical fruit. That project helped give the band, which is led by singer Michelle Zauner, two nominations at the upcoming Grammy Awards, one for Best Alternative Music Album and another for Best New Artist. The fuss over the Mainstream Sellout and Jubilee covers earned enough of a reaction to warrant a response from Zauner, who was quite nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

“I don’t actually think it looks anything like my album cover at all,” Zauner said to Pitchfork. This came after she joked about the matter being “2022’s feud of the year” in a tweet. She added, “But I think it’s very funny that Rolling Stone put up an article about it just because there’s a circular fruit in the foreground.” She added, “I mean his is people throwing tomatoes at him, and mine is persimmons peacefully hanging around me, so I think they’re very different concepts.” Zauner called MGK’s pink tomatoes a “very contemporary Avril aesthetic,” adding, “Which, as much as I stan Avril, is an aesthetic I don’t really embrace for myself.”

Zauner continued, “I can’t imagine having rock beef with anyone, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Machine Gun Kelly.” She concluded her message with a nice dose of sarcasm. “I’m honored to have a celebrity feud published in Rolling Stone today, it was not something I had anticipated,” she said. “My manager actually was like, ‘I think you should lean into this. I think it’s so funny that I have to talk about it.’ I’m excited to see what clickbait you come up with. ‘Japanese Breakfast Slams Machine Gun Kelly!’”

You can check out the cover arts and see what the hubbub was about in the posts above.

Earlier today, Machine Gun Kelly revealed the cover art to his upcoming album Mainstream Sellout. The artwork features Kelly playing the guitar as pink tomatoes are being hurled at him. Some, including Rolling Stone, believed that the artwork was quite similar to Japanese Breakfast’s 2021 album Jubilee thanks to the presence of spherical fruit. That project helped give the band, which is led by singer Michelle Zauner, two nominations at the upcoming Grammy Awards, one for Best Alternative Music Album and another for Best New Artist. The fuss over the Mainstream Sellout and Jubilee covers earned enough of a reaction to warrant a response from Zauner, who was quite nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

“I don’t actually think it looks anything like my album cover at all,” Zauner said to Pitchfork. This came after she joked about the matter being “2022’s feud of the year” in a tweet. She added, “But I think it’s very funny that Rolling Stone put up an article about it just because there’s a circular fruit in the foreground.” She added, “I mean his is people throwing tomatoes at him, and mine is persimmons peacefully hanging around me, so I think they’re very different concepts.” Zauner called MGK’s pink tomatoes a “very contemporary Avril aesthetic,” adding, “Which, as much as I stan Avril, is an aesthetic I don’t really embrace for myself.”

Zauner continued, “I can’t imagine having rock beef with anyone, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Machine Gun Kelly.” She concluded her message with a nice dose of sarcasm. “I’m honored to have a celebrity feud published in Rolling Stone today, it was not something I had anticipated,” she said. “My manager actually was like, ‘I think you should lean into this. I think it’s so funny that I have to talk about it.’ I’m excited to see what clickbait you come up with. ‘Japanese Breakfast Slams Machine Gun Kelly!’”

You can check out the cover arts and see what the hubbub was about in the posts above.

As vinyl sales just reached record highs, the issue of vinyl pressing plant shortages is coming to a head. Yes, the prevailing thinking is that the demand for vinyl from pop stars like Taylor Swift and Adele is responsible for the nearly year-long waits for vinyl records to be pressed for smaller (often independent) artists, but no, they are not the reason why these delays exist. Jack White, who owns his own Third Man Records pressing plant in Detroit, has just issued a pointed call to action to the major labels.

“It’s no longer a fad,” White said in a minute-long video message from his Detroit facility posted earlier today. “Vinyl records have exploded in the past decade and the demand is incredibly high. He cites how “a small punk band can’t get their record for 8-10 months,” and then issues one final call out to the majors: “I now ask the major labels, Warner Brothers [sic], Universal, and Sony, to finally build your own pressing plants again. As the MC 5 once said, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. Thank you.”

He also issued a written statement with more details and clarification, which you can read below. Watch White’s briefer video message above.

“At least once a week, without fail, someone will reach out asking me to help expedite their vinyl record manufacturing. It’s a natural thought… knowing that I own a pressing plant and have my own record label, “if anyone could help, it’s this guy!”

With industry-wide turnaround times for vinyl currently leaning towards the length of a human pregnancy, it’s obvious, in a world so contingent on being of-the-moment and timed just right (a single, an album, a tour etc.), these timelines are the killers of momentum, soul, artistic expression, and far too often, livelihoods.

I’ve done everything within my power to help. Third Man Records began a concentrated focus on vinyl in 2009 with hopes of exposing its wider potential to the farthest reaches of the music industry. In 2017 I furthered my commitment by opening Third Man Pressing… a plant which has always been open to anyone and everyone who walks in the door and wants to press a record, from bedroom hip hop artists to field recording documentarians. And in the last year, I’ve doubled down and invested in even more record presses, more employees to run them, and more shifts to try and accommodate the insane growing demand for vinyl product.

There are people who will say – isn’t this good for Third Man? More demand than you can handle? To which I say, even though Third Man benefits in the short term, in the long term it ultimately hurts everyone involved in the vinyl ecosystem given the bottlenecks and delays. Something needs to be done.

While the entirety of vinyl investment and framework in the past decade has originated from independent companies and investors, the bigger problems we now see require major solutions.

In this spirit, I turn to our collegial big brothers in the music world, Sony, Universal, and Warner, and politely implore them to help alleviate this unfortunate backlog and start dedicating resources to build pressing plants themselves.

To be clear, the issue is not big labels versus small labels, it’s not independent versus mainstream, it’s not even punk versus pop. The issue is, simply, we have ALL created an environment where the unprecedented demand for vinyl records cannot keep up with the rudimentary supply of them.

Across the globe, there are now a handful of NEW companies, building both automated and manual vinyl presses. It’s easier to purchase a vinyl press now than it has been in four decades. And with more ancillary innovators popping up every day helping advance every facet of the industry, this isn’t a difficult decision to make. It’s a no-brainer.

We’re all on the same team with the same goals. I truly believe that with a good faith investment in the infrastructure that got us here, we can continue on this upward trajectory and further inspire the worlds around us. Now is the time. Thank you.

jack white
III”

Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Donald Trump Jr. is no stranger to unhinged videos. Sometimes they’re recorded in dimly lit hotel rooms in what looks like the middle of the night. Some are more coherent than others. His latest seems to be a little more together than most. It was shot outside, during a sunny day, possibly at Mar-a-Lago, the resort where his former president father now lives. Speaking of, it was of course about his dad, and the latest indignity heaped upon him, and it still made little sense.

What was Don Jr. mad about now? His father having a video removed from YouTube. As per Yahoo! Finance, the video streamer pulled an interview he’d done with the Full Send Podcast, run by the Canadian prank group the NELK Boys. They talked about a lot: Ukraine, showtunes, golf. He also, of course, rambled about voter fraud lies, as he’s wont to do. As such, YouTube removed the video after 24 hours, prompting one of his apoplectic fits. “This is what they do in Russia,” he stormed.

A couple days later it was Don Jr.’s turn. In a video posted on Rumble, the far right-friendly service, he speculated wildly about YouTube’s reasons for removing the video.

“There was nothing really controversial spoken about in this thing,” Don Jr. said about a video featuring his dad spreading misinformation about the 2020 election. “What’s scarier for the big tech overlords is the comments on it were awesome and that’s what they’re scared about,” he postulated. “The comments on this thing were overwhelmingly positive, which doesn’t happen on big tech or social or anything like that.”

He also claimed the interview showed a more down-to-earth version of his pops. “People saw my father in a different light. They saw him the way that I see him on a daily basis,” Don Jr. said. “A different demographic was able to see him in a way that they got and understood and said, ‘Wait a minute, I had no idea.’ Because they’ve been spoonfed a narrative by big tech, by media, everything that they haven’t been able to get over or get passed or see through.

“So that scared them most and that’s why the interview disappeared like that!” he said.

Don Jr. also said some word salad about…something. “The conspiracy theory between truth — the time keeps shrinking, guys,” he railed. “It used to take six months for a conspiracy theory to turn into the truth then six weeks then six days. Now it’s about six hours. OK? Pretty soon it will be about six minutes.”

Well, at least he got some UV rays.

(Via Yahoo! Finance and Raw Story)

The start of 2022 marked six years since Rihanna released her last album Anti. The project is often heralded as a favorite among her fans, and it’s left them itching for more. However, Rihanna is quite a busy person these days. Most of her time is consumed by handling her Fenty empire and fulfilling a series of philanthropic efforts. She’s also expecting her first child with ASAP Rocky. As for that long-awaited ninth album, we’ll have to continue the wait for it. In the meantime, Rihanna took a moment to reflect on two songs that she’s proudest of from her career.

During an interview with social media influencer and make-up artist Mikayla Nogueira, Rihanna was asked which records from her career was she the proudest of. Before the singer revealed her answer, the two shared a laugh after Nogueira said her favorite song by Rihanna was “Unfaithful.” “I love ‘Needed Me’ and I also love ‘Diamonds,’” Rihanna said while showing off her diamond rings.

Despite her pregnancy, Rihanna promises that her first child will not stop her from making new music. She shared the comments during a recent interview with ET’s Rachel Smith. It’s there’s that she also spoke about how her pregnancy has been so far. “It’s all an exciting journey so far,” she said. “I’m just taking it as it comes every week. There’s always something new and I’m just taking it and I’m enjoying it.”

You can watch Rihanna’s response in the video above.

It may be hard to imagine this now, but before comic book movies became almost the only game in Hollywood, there weren’t that many of them. In 2003, the year of the Matrix sequels and the last Lord of the Rings film, there were only two: X2 and Daredevil. The first was a monster hit. The second just did alright. Starring Ben Affleck as the blind crime fighter, it was a critical dud whose grosses sharply declined after its opening weekend. Alas, its rep doesn’t appear to have improved.

As per The AV Club, Charlie Cox — who played the character in the much-liked Netflix series (soon bound for Disney+), and who’s back to playing the role in fare like Spider-Man: No Way Home — was in Abu Dhabi at this year’s Middle East Film & Comic Con. He was asked about the Daredevil movie, which also featured Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, and Michael Clarke Duncan and did not spawn a franchise (though Garner did get a spin-off movie, which tanked). And Cox did not hold back.

“I watched it once, and then I wanted to go and do my own thing,” Cox said. He admitted he hadn’t seen it when he got the role a decade-plus after it came out. But when he watched it, it didn’t impress him much. “I don’t love the movie. I feel like the movie tried to do too much and it was a little tonally confused.”

One problem was it, if anything, tried too hard. “They had everyone in that movie — they had Kingpin, they had Bullseye, they had Elektra, they had Karen Page, they had Foggy,” he said. “It was saturated, and it’s two hours. So that was part of that problem. And the suit sucks!”

Did Cox have some kinder words to say about it? He sure did. He said Affleck was “a really good Matt Murdock,” adding, “I like his Matt Murdock.”

This isn’t Martin Scorsese-level dissing. Not even Affleck likes his Daredevil movie. Besides, Cox was at least nicer to Affleck than the Razzies.

(Via AV Club)

Not that long ago, after months and months of one blockbuster after another underperforming in theaters, something funny happened: A movie made a ton of money. That film was Spider-Man: No Way Home, and it didn’t just end a dry spell. It’s already the fourth highest grossing movie in American history (not adjusted for inflation, that is). Could the pattern repeat itself, perhaps very soon? Benedict Cumberbatch seems to think so.

In a new interview with Empire, the actor, currently Oscar-nominated, got a big head about his next movie: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “It’s a big, big movie,” Cumberbatch told the publication. “It’s going to be an absolute riot. And if it brings off the level of ambition it’s got, we’re going to have a success on the level of Spidey. There you go, I’ll put my flag in the sand.”

It’s not an empty boast: He’s also in No Way Home, which ends with him setting up his character’s own solo sequel. Not only that, it promises even more multiverse madcappery. What it doesn’t have, that No Way Home had, was a two decade back catalogue of action on which to draw. Apart from a 1978 TV movie featuring Jessica Walter as a villain, there hasn’t been much live-action Doctor Strange cinema (though fans are already speculating that it will rope in other guests). On top of that, the character has never engendered the intense love that Spidey has.

Then again, it is a Marvel movie, from aughts-era Spider-Man director Sam Raimi. Besides, as we know way too well, stranger things sure have happened.

(Via Empire)

It hasn’t been too long since we received new music from Lil Baby. Less than a year ago, he teamed up with Lil Durk for their joint album, Voice Of The Heroes. That project topped the albums chart and gave Lil Baby his second No. 1 album. His first was 2020’s My Turn, which stands as his most recent solo album. My Turn grew to be one of the most popular albums of 2020 and it helped to launch Lil Baby into a new tier within the rap game.

More than two years later, Lil Baby is ready to give us his third album and the music on it has him very excited to share it with the world. In a series of posts that he shared on Monday, Baby shared his excitement with the world. “It’s Gone Be A Nastyyyyy Summer,” he wrote in one tweet, before adding in another, “My turn again” with fire emojis. In a third tweet, he continued, “Drop a video every few weeks until [exploding head emojis].” As if the tweets weren’t enough to bring more anticipation towards his upcoming album, Baby took to his Instagram Story to share a short message. “The summers mine,” he wrote in a post.

Lil Baby’s posts come after he delivered collaborations with Nicki Minaj (“Do We Have A Problem?” and “Bussin“), 2 Chainz, and Polo G.

You can view the posts from Baby above.

Phoenix Rising, the Evan Rachel Wood documentary directed by Amy Berg, is nearly upon us. The two-parter (which premiered at Sundance) will further detail Evan Rachel Wood’s allegations of grooming and sexual abuse against Marilyn Manson. These claims include Wood’s allegations that Manson “essentially raped” her on the “Heart-Shaped Glasses” video set (which he has denied), and the project follows up on Evan’s advocacy for legal protections for sexual assault victims.

In early March, Manson sued Wood over her abuse claims. In doing so, Manson accused Wood of “malicious falsehood” in her claims. He also alleged that she’d “hacked into the singer’s computers and social media” and fabricated an FBI letter to sway more accusers against him. Wood has now visited The View, where (around the 3:00 minute mark above) she responded by saying that Manson’s denial of raping her on that video set should bd compared to his 2007 statements, which she summed up like this: “Oh, it does look real, doesn’t it? [wink wink]”

Wood also declared herself to be unafraid of Manson’s lawsuit, which she suggests was timed in accordance with the documentary’s release and meant to intimidate her as a survivor. Via Variety:

“I can’t obviously speak about any of the specific allegations of the lawsuit, but I’m not scared. I am sad, because this is how it works. This is what pretty much every survivor that tries to expose someone in a position of power goes though, and this is part of the retaliation that keeps survivors quiet. This is why people don’t want to come forward. This was expected.

“I am very confident that I have the truth on my side and that the truth will come out. This is clearly timed before the documentary… I’m not doing this [film] to clear my name. I’m doing this to protect people. I’m doing this to sound the alarm that there is a dangerous person out there and I don’t want anybody getting near him. So people can think whatever they want about me. I have to let the legal process run its course, and I’m steady as a rock.”

About halfway through the Phoenix Rising production (in 2021), Wood came forward to name Manson as the previously unidentified domestic abuser that she spoke of while testifying to legislators. That testimony aimed to help pass California’s Phoenix Act, which (as detailed in the documentary) sought to extend the statute of limitations for rape cases.

Phoenix Rising debuts March 15 on HBO.