Year: 2022

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Listening to Beach House is a little like praying: Under the right circumstances, any and everyone will turn to them. What listeners take from the experience probably depends on their mental state at the time, but the music is always there. At this point, they loom more as a mystic force in indie rock than as an actual band. Beach House’s dreamy, spiritual sound has been pretty much unchangeable for eight albums, and Once Twice Melody might expand their palette a bit, but it’s no experimental reach or brand new direction. Why mess with perfection? Their gauzy soundscapes are vague enough to sustain quite a bit of emotional projection, but there’s depth of meaning lurking within the songs that few other bands yield.

Victoria Legrand’s strangely neutral, always mesmerizing vocals continue to lead the way, with her longtime creative partner Alex Scally on backup vocals and various production duties (all songs are credited to Beach House, jointly), and in this case, no one else involved. Live drums were added later, but no other collaborators were involved until the mixing and arranging phase. The band also self-produced this album entirely on their own, a shift after years of working with co-producer Chris Coady, who joined them on Teen Dream and also worked on Bloom, two of their most critically-acclaimed releases. The choice to work on the record at home, and in isolation, was mostly due to the pandemic, but if anything, it only seems to enhance the fogginess and softness of the record, which is mammoth compared to past releases: exactly double their more standard offering of nine songs per release.

Because it’s so long, it will be up to each listener to winnow out their favorites, and that’s an experience the band is looking forward to giving to fans. “There’s a real joy in the expanse,” Scally told Pitchfork of the band’s choice to keep all 18 songs. Spread out over months across four smaller EPs, the space between each “chapter” gave longtime fans and newcomers alike the space to really sit with each section. Then again, when was the last time Drake released a proper album that was less than 18 tracks? (The answer is 2013) Maybe Beach House is leaning into the structure of the future; all the rare bits, all the deep cuts, and all the bangers, released as one. In terms of semantics, Once Twice Melody is described as a “double album,” but despite the song’s disparate moods, it still feels apiece.

From the first “chapter,” early on “Superstar” was tagged as the standout, a classic, repetitive Beach House synth line that slowly explodes into all sorts of floating pieces about halfway through, and surges into an extended outro rather than fading. My pick from that EP, though, is “Pink Funeral,” a song that’s more Swan Lake than Teen Dream, completely buoyed by their newfound inclusion of live string arrangements and whining electric guitar alike. Chapter two’s “ESP” is vintage Beach House, a sighing, simmering anthem punctuated by organ and more strings. Similarly, “Sunset” is a standout from chapter three, incorporating acoustic guitar in a way that feels fresh for this band, even if, in some ways, that was a sound they were replacing when the band debuted in the early 2000s.

Part of the ethos of Once Twice Melody does seem to be that zen-like conclusion that everything comes back around. Just before the release of their final chapter, and subsequently, the entire album, the band opted to share “Hurts To Love” as a stand-alone single on Valentine’s Day, a more openly sentimental move than they might have adopted in the past. More midi than some of the other offerings here, this song’s lyrics also seem to be more direct than most of the others, confronting the confluence of pain and pleasure that any deep relationship necessarily invokes. “If it hurts to love / You better do it anyway,” Legrand sings. “If it hurts too much / Well, I loved you anyway.”

The track before it, “The Bells,” is much more romantic though, again leaning into guitar tones that might come as a pleasant surprise to veteran fans. More than starlit skies or cosmic forces, Legrand finds comfort in what ties us to earth, the tolling of the bells, the neighborhood bar: “I can’t live without you, I’ll be the last one at the bar.” More Lorde’s “Big Star” than Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells,” the essence of both seems to run through Beach House’s approximation. Of course, the most blatant love song on this record is about a familiar, ordinary sound that evokes the strongest connection of all. Like a prayer, it might all be nothing. It all depends on who is listening.

WARNING: Spoilers for Peacemaker below.

After Peacemaker (John Cena) and the team of ARGUS agents spent all season gathering intel on the “Butterflies” — a race of tiny alien creatures that look like multi-color praying mantis and bloodily burrow into a person’s brain through their mouth and take over their body — the situation comes to a head as what’s left of the not-so-covert team prepares to destroy the “Cow.” That’d be the massive caterpillar-like creature that provides the only source of food for the Butterflies.

After tracking the Cow to a remote farm where its being milked in an underground lair, Peacemaker, Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and Economos (Steve Agee) concoct a plan to have Eagly place Peacemaker’s sonic boom helmet on the roof of the barn where the Butterflies are gathered. That plan quickly goes awry as Eagly flies right past the barn and dumps the helmet in the woods nearby.

While searching for the helmet, Peacemaker is haunted by a vision of his dead father, the racist villain White Dragon (Robert Patrick), who he killed in the previous episode. Peacemaker “shoots” the ghost of his father with a poisonous blow dart, and Harcourt witnesses the aftermath as Peacemaker is seen yelling defiantly at a tree. However, her concern is cast aside as the sonic boom helmet is found near the same tree.

With the helmet in hand, the team sends an extremely reluctant Economos to drop the sonic boom inside the barn while disguised as a Butterfly security guard. Unlike Eagly, this plan goes much smoother, until a Butterfly notices the duffel bag Economos left on a stairwell leading towards the Cow. The Butterflies begin to swarm on the now-fleeing Economos, which prompts Adebayo to activate the sonic boom helmet. After exhausting all of its blasts, and collapsing a significant portion of the Cow’s lair below, Peacemaker, Vigilante, and Harcourt load up their weapons and charge at the remaining Butterflies.

While taking out as many Butterflies as possible, Harcourt tells Peacemaker to finish the mission and make sure the Cow is dead. However, after he leaves, Harcourt is severely wounded after taking a shotgun blast to the torso. Grabbing two guns, Adebayo ignores her orders to stay back and charges into the fray. Economos attempts to follow her, but instantly drips over a fence and grotesquely breaks his leg, not even a foot from their hiding spot.

Proving that Adebayo was “born for this sh*t” — she is the daughter of Amanda Waller after all — she makes short work of remaining Butterflies and rushes to Harcourt, who is not looking good. She tells Adebayo to help Peacemaker just as Economos crawls up to them with a Human Rocket helmet that the group was warned not to use because it’s dangerous as hell.

Armed with the helmet, Adebayo descends into the underground lair, where she finds the Butterfly-controlled Officer Song (Annie Chang) slamming Peacemaker against a wall. Adebayo activates the human rocket helmet and… completely misses Song by a mile before slamming into the cave wall. Song then releases Peacemaker and tells him she’s not going to hurt him.

Inside the Cow facility, Song reveals that the Butterflies have the same mission as him: peace. (Song is also controlled by the Butterfly Goff, who Peacemaker had kept alive in his house earlier in the season.) They came to Earth after recklessly exhausting the resources on their own planet. However, they soon realized that humans were making the same mistake, their plan was to infiltrate world leaderships and steer humanity away from destroying the planet. All Peacemaker has to do is help them teleport the Cow, their sole food source, to another facility in Maine, and the Butterflies can get back to their mission of protecting the Earth.

While it seems like Peacemaker is about to take the offer, he reactivates the Human Rocket helmet and sends Adebayo straight into the Cow, killing the massive creature and leaving poor Adebayo on the ground in a pile of alien guts. Peacemaker kills Song, but he does not kill Goff when she emerges from her now deceased human host.

After exiting the facility, Peacemaker finds the wounded Harcourt and picks her up so he can get her to a hospital. However, the team has guests. In a move that immediately had social media exploding with reactions, the Justice League appears, minus Batman and Cyborg. Clearly unimpressed, Peacemaker walks right past the superhero group while calling them “d*ckheads” for being late and mocking Aquaman (Jason Momoa) for “f*cking fish.” A rumor which Aquaman clearly hates, so naturally, The Flash (Ezra Miller) jokes that it’s true.

As Harcourt recovers in the hospital, Adebayo goes public with the team’s actions and also reveals the existence of Task Force X (a.k.a. The Suicide Squad) much to chagrin of her mother. As the group goes their separate ways, Peacemaker returns home where he finds Goff waiting for him and feeds her what little bit of alien goo he has left in jar while sitting outside on his porch. However, the quiet moment is disrupted by Peacemaker’s father showing up on the porch to laugh at his son, who is clearly terrified this is going to become an ongoing thing heading into Season 2.

Peacemaker Season 1 is available for streaming on HBO Max.

Ever since his official debut in 1999, Eminem has been a lightning rod for controversy. He’s mellowed out a lot since then, but it appears he still has the juice to get the establishment all riled up, 23 years later. While many folks agreed with Britney Spears regarding his performance during Dr. Dre’s Super Bowl halftime show, some more conservative viewers freaked out, with one coining the term “sexual anarchy” to describe the largely sexless performance.

One, Rudy Giuliani, went on a baffling tirade against Eminem specifically for kneeling after completing his set, presumably in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s 2016 protests against police brutality. Giuliani, popping up on a conservative talk radio show, seemed to equate Eminem’s action with a (nonexistent) rise in crime in Los Angeles, and said that the NFL “made a mockery out of law enforcement.” Yeah, I don’t know what world this guy thinks he lives in either… I kid. I know he’s just shilling to his paranoia-ridden base.

And while Eminem himself has yet to respond to the bad-faith, disingenuous rant, it looks like Stephen Colbert was more than happy to take over some of that workload on last night’s episode of The Late Show, employing a soundalike — similarly to when he lampooned Nicki Minaj’s “cousin’s swollen balls” tall tale — to imagine Eminem’s frankly hilarious response to Giuliani. Set to Em’s “Lose Yourself,” the song that the rapper performed at the Super Bowl (and one of his least offensive songs ever), the remixed track takes aim at Rudy’s many (many) missteps over the past couple of years, from his Borat embarrassment to his stumping for the failed January 6 coup.

Watch “Eminem’s” response to Rudy Giuliani’s Super Bowl halftime show rant above.

The San Antonio Spurs entered the 2021-22 season making their first real shift towards rebuilding in 25 years, having traded LaMarcus Aldridge a year ago and then sending DeMar DeRozan to the Bulls in a sign-and-trade this summer. With DeRozan in particular gone, the Spurs were fully handing the keys to their offense over to their youngsters, with Dejounte Murray taking the reins as point guard to now run and execute the offense.

Murray has seen his usage rate jump from 23.4 percent last year to 26.6 percent this year, as he has become the catalyst for just about everything in San Antonio. He has rewarded the Spurs for placing that increased responsibility on his shoulders, by having the best season of his career, increasing his production without seeing his efficiency take a hit, and continuing to provide elite-level defense at the point of attack. Murray is averaging career-highs pretty much across the board, with 19.9 points, 9.3 assists, 7.0 rebounds, and 2.0 steals per game (the latter a league-leading number), and while there’s still room for improvement as a shooter (31.9 percent from three), he has answered just about every question about his ability to run the show offensively as a point guard.

Without DeRozan, the Spurs were in desperate need of a shot creator, someone who could both get others shots while also creating opportunities for themselves off the bounce. Murray has accepted that challenge on the young Spurs, and has taken a leap as a result. In terms of creating for himself, Murray is shooting the most unassisted shots of his career (80.3 percent of his twos and 28.4 percent of his threes are unassisted) and he’s actually been a better finisher at the rim (65.8 percent) than he ever has despite having to get those looks more on his own.

Where Murray has really shined though is as a facilitator, where he has taken a massive jump, setting the table for his teammates and being at the center of just about everything the Spurs offense does when he’s on the floor. Murray’s assist percentage has leaped from 25.9 percent a year ago to a staggering 41.1 percent this year, putting him in the upper echelon of creators in the NBA, with only Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Chris Paul, and Nikola Jokic ahead of him in that category, and he’s managed to become an elite facilitator without seeing a noticeable uptick in turnovers (10.2 percent last year to 11.1 percent this year).

All the while, Murray continues to be one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, boasting a rare combination of length and speed that presents a formidable problem for opposing guards. Murray isn’t a household name, as he’s new to a leading role and has been elevated to that on a team on the fringes of play-in contention, but he has more than garnered the respect of players and coaches around the league, who are swift to point out the problems he creates for them on both ends of the floor for a San Antonio team that lacks other elite-level talent.

The Spurs hoped this year would point them in a direction for the future as a franchise, one that has rarely been adrift but found itself seeking a new on-court captain for the first time in a long time this season. It didn’t take long for them to find that in Murray, who has eagerly seized the wheel in San Antonio and gives Spurs fans reason for optimism that their time outside the playoff picture may be short-lived as he takes the leap to being a bonafide star.

(Spoilers for Peaky Blinders will be found below.)

BBC One’s whiskey-soaked gangster saga, Peaky Blinders, is about to drop its sixth season, one that has been (like everything else in the world) delayed due to pandemic-production difficulties. The Cillian Murphy-starring show (which formerly also starred Tom Hardy) will pick up after a cliffhanger, which was one that left Tommy’s safety in jeopardy, but he apparently pulled through. What will come next as the ultraviolence continues, and is this the final season of the beloved series?

Yes, fans will have to get this particular brand of Cockney Rhyming slang elsewhere. The good news, however, is that the sixth season — although it is the last round — arrives very soon (so you can get your fix) on BBC One. That would be February 27, as announced by this mural that appeared in Birmingham, England, which is also the home base of the street gang known as Peaky Blinders.

Yes, Cillian Murphy is back as Tommy Shelby, and the clan is not faring too well as the story picks up. World War II is on the horizon (the outbreak of that war is where the show is scheduled to end), and there’s a lot to tie up in the final season, which (if it matches the previous patterns) will likely contain a half-dozen or so episodes. The good news, however, is that the show’s creator, Steven Knight, has revealed that a future movie will take the story beyond World War II.

Complicating matters here, sadly, would be the passing of Helen McCrory (who portrayed matriarch Polly) in 2021 following her battle with cancer. So certainly, there will be a void left by her absence as the gangster warfare takes a final lap (until movie time).

It’s already been two years since Tame Impala released The Slow Rush in February 2020, but Kevin Parker isn’t done with the LP yet. Today, he dropped The Slow Rush B-Sides & Remixes, an eight-track collection that features the previously unreleased “The Boat I Row,” which skews on the gentler and more hazy side of Tame Impala’s signature psychedelic sound.

Along with “The Boat I Row,” the collection also includes the previously released “No Choice,” “Patience,” an “NTS Version” of “One More Year,” and remixes by Lil Yachty (“Breathe Deeper”), Maurice Fulton (“Patience”), Four Tet (“Is It True”), and Blood Orange (“Borderline”).

Late last year, Tame Impala announced a slew of 2022 tour dates, which will be preceded by a couple festival appearances, at Innings Festival later this month and at Okeechobee in March. Then, he’ll spend the rest of the month playing a baker’s dozen shows before popping up again at Hangout Music Festival in May.

Meanwhile, he recently teamed up with Sepatu Compass for his own shoe collection, and The Wiggles are releasing their rendition of “Elephant” on an upcoming covers album that’s out next month.

Listen to “The Boat I Row” above.

The Slow Rush B-Sides And Remixes is out now via Modular Recordings. Get it here.

In typical James Corden fashion, he decided to celebrate the Super Bowl in a weird way. The Late Late Show host sent his parents to talk to celebrities on the red carpet, and of course the two ran into none other than ubiquitous couple Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox.

In the video, Fox shows off her new ring, which is intentionally painful because the bands are thorns, thanks to Kelly’s design. After Corden’s dad plays sax while Kelly strums a guitar in a surprisingly pleasant collaboration, the pairs recreate the photo that Kelly and Fox took with Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian making out in a bathroom before the Met Gala. You know the one.

Kelly most recently made news headlines with the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in Cleveland, Ohio where he took his selection to the celebrity game’s roster very seriously by hiring celebrity skills coach Chris Matthews to help him brush up on his jumper before the game. He also unveiled his bombastic collaboration with Willow, “Emo Girl,” and Barker appeared in the music video. His album Born With Horns is set to drop in March after being renamed from Mainstream Sellout.

Watch the video of James Corden’s parents meeting Kelly and Fox above.

It’s time to forgive LeBron James for Space Jam: A New Legacy. It’s still a bad movie, one of the worst of 2021, but as an act of repentance, he’s given us a better basketball movie. Hustle is produced by James and Adam Sandler, who plays a basketball scout who discovers a generational talent (Utah Jazz forward Juancho Hernangómez) with a rocky past. “I love this game, I live this game. There’s a thousand other guys waiting in the wings who are obsessed with this game,” Sandler tells the overseas player who he thinks could become an NBA super-star. “Obsession is going to beat talent every time. You got all the talent in the world, but are you obsessed?” This is how you win.

Hustle was “written originally that I find a player in China,” Sandler said on The Dan Patrick Show last year, but “somehow, Netflix is not in China. So they were like, ‘Would you guys please make it so we find someone in Latin America or Europe?’ So the next thing you know, I’m in Majorca [Spain].”

Here’s the official plot description:

After discovering a once-in-a-lifetime player with a rocky past abroad, a down on his luck basketball scout (Adam Sandler) takes it upon himself to bring the phenom to the States without his team’s approval. Against the odds, they have one final shot to prove they have what it takes to make it in the NBA.

Hustle — which also stars Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, and Robert Duvall, as well as real-life NBA players Anthony Edwards, Tobias Harris, Seth Curry, Matisse Thybulle, and Tyrese Maxey, among others — hits Netflix on June 10.

Ever since Disney+ dropped the first season of Marvel’s What If…, rumors have abound that Captain Carter would make her live-action debut as the MCU movies delve deeper into the multiverse. While the breakout character did not show up in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the evidence that she may appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is starting to stack up.

On Thursday morning, the Twitter account for Disney+ Plus Italy sent out an interesting tweet that not so subtly hints at Hayley Atwell‘s hero popping up in the Doctor Strange sequel. Via CBR:

A translation of the tweet reads, “It seems that shield has recently reappeared somewhere … doesn’t that sound like ‘Madness’ to you #CaptainCarter and all the episodes of #WhatIf are waiting for you on #DisneyPlus!”

As for where Captain Carter’s shield “recently reappeared,” eagle-eyed Marvel fans immediately noticed it in one of the shards of broken glass in the new Multiverse of Madness poster. (Those same fans also swore they saw Deadpool, but Ryan Reynolds is denying the character’s in the movie. For now.) The latest trailer for the Doctor Strange sequel also featured elements from the What If… series, so again, the odds of a Captain Carter appearance are looking pretty good right now.

As shown in the premiere episode of Marvel’s What If…, Captain Carter comes from an alternate universe where Peggy Carter takes the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. She later becomes the leader of a Multiverse version of The Avengers that forms to stop Ultron from destroying every version of reality. Considering the trailers for the Doctor Strange sequel suggest that Stephen Strange is causing the Multiverse to unravel from his actions in Spider-Man: No Way Home, it would absolutely track for Captain Carter to show up and help set things right.

(Via CBR)

When the Wii U was discontinued, there was no fanfare or memorial for the end of Nintendo’s console. While it certainly has its defenders — I am one of them! — the console underperformed in comparison to all of its competitors. It only lasted five years before Nintendo had already moved on to the Nintendo Switch. The Switch has been the company’s highest-selling console ever so let’s just say that it was a smart move by Nintendo to move on from the Wii U. Eventually, due to age, the very popular 3DS would join the Wii U, but fans had much fonder memories for Nintendo’s final handheld-only console.

As consoles fade away, so do the services associated with them, and on Tuesday, Nintendo made a sudden gut-punching announcement: The Wii U and 3DS eShops were no longer going to allow purchases in March 2023. Players would only be able to re-download previously purchased titles and nothing else.

This is terrible news for anyone that is a fan of many of the digital-only games that were released to both the Wii and 3DS. Hundreds of games are going to no longer be available to players and some of them might not have any alternative at all. There are even a handful of physical games that are either incredibly difficult to find, or have expensive physical copies, and haven’t received a port. Say what you will about the Wii U or the age of the 3DS, but not letting anyone ever have access to that library of games is not good for anyone.

This is why we wanted to point everyone in a direction. While nobody can possibly buy every game that is available on the digital stores, we have a few games that we think most people will be interested in getting before they shut down for good.

Virtual Console, 3DS/Wii U

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way early. The biggest reason this news is terrible is that the Wii U virtual console, and in some ways the 3DS one, was the best source for Nintendo retro games out there. For all the faults of the Wii U, anyone that was a fan of previous Nintendo games could buy them on the console. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it had an expansive library of options that we haven’t seen anywhere else even come close to matching. It even had Turbo Grafx 16 games! Don’t know what that is? That’s okay, because the Wii U is there to let you experience it.

All of this is an even bigger bummer when we look at how Nintendo has chosen to handle retro games since the launch of the Switch. While it’s very cool that we get unlimited access to NES, SNES, N64, and SEGA Genesis games for a monthly subscription price, the library pales in comparison to that of the Wii U. We can’t even give the excuse of age, because the Switch will turn five in March and the Wii U virtual console options are still far deeper than the Switch ones. Even worse is that Nintendo made it abundantly clear in a now-deleted Q&A answer that it doesn’t feel it’s the responsibility of the company to maintain game preservation.

If anyone has a retro game that they want to make sure they own before it’s too late, and happen to own a Wii U, we strongly suggest exploring the expansive library of games on its virtual console.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, 3DS

The fifth mainline game in the Ace Attorney franchise, Dual Destinies took the franchise in a new direction. As an at-the-time 3DS exclusive, Dual Destinies made heavy use of the handheld’s capability of providing higher graphics and more power. It was the first mainline game in the series to feature voice acted cutscenes and it moved away from sprites to 3D animated models. It even made itself a great entry point for newcomers to the series with a fairly self-contained story.

Unfortunately, this game and its DLC were released as a digital-only title for the 3DS. There is no possible way to get this game for 3DS other than the eShop. Once the eShop has officially shut down, the only way to play it will be to purchase the game on mobile through your phone’s app store. This is a perfectly viable way of experiencing it, but not everyone wants to play a 25-to-30-hour game on their phone. If you’re one of those people and have always wanted to experience this series, then make sure to buy Dual Destinies before the deadline passes.

As an aside, all of this can be said for the sequel, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Spirit of Justice, which was also a 3DS only digital title that has since been released on phones.

Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars, 3DS and Wii U

The Mario vs. Donkey Kong franchise is a series of puzzle games primarily made for handhelds since 2004. It was a spiritual successor to the original arcade game Donkey Kong, and while it wasn’t the most popular franchise Nintendo made, it had enough support behind it to get six different games. Two of the final games, Minis on the Move and Tipping Stars, were digital-only releases unless you wanted to import a Japanese copy of Tipping Stars.

This is an example of the kinds of games that are going to disappear with no way to play them unless they’re eventually ported to the Nintendo Switch. This is a franchise that received enough support from Nintendo to get six different games, but soon, two of the, will not be accessible to anyone, and these aren’t just one off-budget titles. They’re Nintendo-published properties with Mario on the box.

Xenoblade Chronicles X, Wii U

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a spin-off of Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii. Unlike Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it isn’t an official sequel and the plots are essentially unrelated to one another. Since it was also released late in the Wii U’s lifespan, it is one of those forgotten titles for the console that only fans of the franchise really played. As a result, finding physical copies of the game these days can be extremely difficult and very expensive. It’s not impossible, but compared to other games currently exclusive to the Wii U like Star Fox Zero, it’s one of the least accessible games on the console.

That accessibility is going to become even more difficult when the eShop is shut down for good. The Switch currently has Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is on the way. The only odd game out? X, which currently hasn’t been ported and there hasn’t been any indication of a plan to do so yet. Fans of the franchise, or of gigantic JRPG worlds, might wanna pick this up before getting a copy of the game becomes even harder when the eShop closes.