Category: News

Mariah Carey is the undisputed Queen of Christmas. And in case there was any doubt, “All I Want For Christmas” is breaking what seems like every holiday music streaming record with over a billion spins. Heck, she even has an all “Mariah Menu” available now until Christmas at McDonald’s. So when Carey sits for a video interview from her immaculately decorated Christmas set, alongside a cheerily placed McCafe and brown McDonald’s bag with the words “The Mariah Menu” printed on it, surely any questions seems fair game, right? Well, maybe not all of them…

In a conversation with E!’s Rebecca Ray, Carey spoke about everything from ’90s nostalgia to what it is that she specifically loves about Christmas. While Carey admits that she was too busy in the ’90s to know Seinfeld the show, she adds that “I love Jerry Seinfeld now!” and that her favorite part of Christmas is “The actual feeling that I have during the holiday season.” These were fairly innocuous answers, but when Ray asked Carey about music executive LA Reid’s suggestion that she and Beyonce should do a Verzuz battle and whether she would A) Be open to it? and B) Who would win? Carey got serious with her answer:

“Oh stop. That’s the worst… I’m sorry, I love you Rebecca. We can’t ask that question. First of all, I love Beyonce and I admire her so much as a performer, for what she’s done for the world, and everything else. So I ain’t answering that question. ‘Cause I’d be disrespecting myself and I’m not gonna do ’cause [singing in perfect tone] it’s Christmastime!”

She also took advantage of the opportunity to address anyone who thinks that her love of Christmas isn’t authentic: “Whatever Scrooges! I don’t care what you say. This is the truth. I DO love the holidays. And what?!”

The one and only Christmas Queen is a very powerful one. But we already knew that.

After she opted out of participating in the Sex and the City revival series, And Just Like That…, due to her lengthy feud with co-star Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall popped up in the first trailer for How I Met Your Father, and people are loving it. Following Hulu releasing the trailer on Thursday afternoon, the reactions started pouring in on social media as Cattrall was revealed to be the series narrator and the future version of Hilary Duff‘s character Sophie.

While Duff’s involvement was previously known, Cattrall’s was not, and the surprise went over huge as fans of the actress were happy to see her thriving after the whole Sex and the City mess. (Not to mention the recent developments involving Chris Noth.) In fact, Cattrall’s involvement has already turned How I Met Your Father into a must-watch for people who were going to skip the How I Met Your Mother spinoff series entirely.

You can see some of the reactions below:

Here’s the official logline:

In the near future, Sophie (Hilary Duff) is telling her son the story of how she met his father: a story that catapults us back to the year 2022 where Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options.

How I Met Your Father premieres January 18, 2022 on Hulu.

For decades now, a certain myth has persisted about pop stars: namely, that they’re fake — vacant vessels to be filled by (male) producers, young women without ideas of their own, and therefore not real artists. Putting aside the fact that even the best and most beloved musicians frequently work with teams of songwriters and producers while maintaining artistic integrity, Beyonce comes to mind, the sexist narrative that pop stars, in particular, are not real artists is part of the age-old rockism dynamic. Quick refresher for the uninitiated, that school of thought repeatedly asserts that rock is real, true, gritty music that’s deeply felt, and pop is music that’s only created in service of capitalism and earning money, purely for commercial gain and with no authentic feeling behind it. Any ideas as to who helped perpetuate that dichotomy for years? Regardless, that fallacy is being put to bed for good, and one of the main forces beating it into submission in 2021 is Olivia Rodrigo.

Rodrigo’s Sour would’ve been a pop hit in any era, and though her emergence is unlike any pop star we’ve ever seen, there’s something familiar about her, too. That’s because great songwriting — vulnerable, self-on-the-page, committed songwriting — is always familiar. Great songwriting feels like home. And for so many listeners, from Gen Z humming and dancing along on TikTok, to elder millennials reminded of their own early aughts favorites (Avril Lavigne, anyone?), Olivia’s words rang true. Sour is a record about the anger, sadness, regret, and despair that can accompany losing a relationship — plenty of writers, including me, have mined that rich territory for all its worth — but Rodrigo takes it a step further by constantly interrogating how she was complicit in the process of losing herself.

“One heart broke / four hands bloody,” she sings on the folksy late-album sleeper “Favorite Crime,” continuing “the things I did / just so I could call you mine.” On a similar note, “Enough For You” describes obliterating herself to please someone else, singing “stupid, emotional, obsessive little me / I knew from the start this is exactly how you’d leave.” Even among the great breakup songwriters, like Olivia’s obvious predecessor and hero, Taylor Swift, or even the almighty Adele, this kind of self-awareness usually comes two or three albums in. Perhaps that’s part of why Olivia is landing so high on year-end lists: another aspect of what makes her a critic’s darling is that in some ways, she’s ahead of her time. Even as she pulls from influences like Paramore, Jack Antonoff, St. Vincent, Courtney Love (at least aesthetically), and more, her deeply personal songwriting is imbued with a self-awareness that’s hard to come by.

And that self-awareness is also why it’s so clear Olivia is in control of her own process. It’s exactly the kind of element that only someone who lived through what they’re writing about would include, it would be impossible to replicate in a studio session with an indifferent professional who tosses off songs for other artists as a day job. Sour is full of all kinds of songwriting twists and turns that make it impossible to ignore, simply because the lyrics are so complex, the emotions are so layered, the story is not one-sided. “Maybe you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor,” is the kind of emotion that young women who are made to feel dispensable and interchangeable have been trying to put into words for years — it’s Olivia who succeeded. Even the first thing she says on tape, the ad-libbed studio commentary “I want it to be like messy!” establishes early on: this album is by and for and defined by Olivia. No sleek, put-together, externally curated project will do. And all the best parts of Sour are the messy parts.

“I’m not cool, I’m not smart / and I can’t even parallel park” brings the listener from the overarching, abject voices of self-deprecation and zooms all the way in on a tiny particular, moving in exactly the same way all of our own inner critics move. Rodrigo doesn’t ditch these embarrassing, shaming voices, but leans into them, puts them on the page so the full picture is clear: “And maybe in some masochistic way / I kind of find it all exciting,” she sings on “1 Step Forward 3 Steps Back,” referencing a relationship where she’s clearly not valued or cherished as a partner or an equal. Acknowledging her addiction to the chaos of unrequited love in the song, along with the pathos the treatment induces, is again, an advanced move, both on the level of emotional awareness and a songwriting level. So many of her little vulnerabilities like this one make Sour feel more like a conversation with a friend than an epic opera blasted from on high. And after a year of disconnect and distrust in higher powers and the celebrity class, Olivia’s songs possessed the tenderness to stay on the listeners level, rolling in the mud with the dark feelings and the self-sabotage.

Which is, perhaps, what makes the album closer so important. “Hope Ur Ok” is one of the few tracks here not focused on the bruised egos and jealousy that a fractured romantic relationship can easily induce. Instead, it’s a song about the people who were going through situations that were, arguably, much more challenging than the dissolution of young love. Singing of friends and acquaintances dealing with abuse, isolation, closeting, and familial rejection, Rodrigo sends a message of hope and support to her peers. It’s the final move of self-awareness on an album packed with personal pain; her concluding concession that there are things so much bigger than her wounded heart. And with that final component, Olivia cements herself as both a fantastic songwriter, a legitimate artist, and a stellar pop star who needs absolutely no help asserting her voice. Her work is so dynamic it uplifts her entire genre, and helps defeat age-old stereotypes for good.

The road to SZA’s follow-up to 2017’s Ctrl has been anything but straightforward. But 2021 has seen her dropping new music consistently in a wave of singles that began at the tail end of 2020 with the release of “Hit Different” with Ty Dolla Sign and then “Good Days” in December. As soon as the new year turned, she said in an interview with Cosmopolitan that “This album is going to be the sh*t that made me feel something in my… here and in here. That’s what’s going to go on the album. I’m making all different types of sh*t every day from different places in my spirit.”

The groundwork has been laid, and SZA has been active this year, dropping tracks with Doja Cat, Kali Uchis and her latest single, “I Hate U.” “Honestly this started out as an exercise, she said on Instagram when the latter was released for streaming. “I jus wanted somewhere to dump my thoughts w out pressure..y’all made it a thing and I’m not mad lmao. ask and u shall receive. I HATE YOU OUT ON ALL PLATFORMS.”

“I Hate U” has clearly been on steady rotation for a lot of people since its release. Billboard just reported that it has broken the record for the most-streamed song by a female R&B artist in its first week. It debuted at No. 7 on the Hot 100 this week and still has a ways to go before it can topple Adele’s seven-week reign at the top with “Easy On Me.” But even that track didn’t reach No. 1 until it’s a third week out. Until then, here’s another feather in SZA’s cap.

Donald Trump’s fight for more powerful showerheads — one of the few things he really seemed to care about during his presidency — has finally come to an end.

Via Rolling Stone, the Energy Department, operating under orders from the Biden administration, rolled back a Trump-era rule that had previously eased the restrictions placed on water pressure in showerheads. Trump, whose not-so-secret obsession with water pressure has led to some pretty bizarre rants about everything from flushing toilets to longer bathing times, had managed to change the definition of “showerhead” when enacting new regulations that a single fixture could carry two or three times the previous limit of 2.5 gallons of water per minute. The change didn’t come because of industry lobbying, but because Trump was reportedly worried he wasn’t able to wash his hair properly.

“You turn on the shower — if you’re like me, you can’t wash your beautiful hair properly,” Trump told workers at an Ohio Whirlpool manufacturing plant in 2020. “‘Please come out,’ The water — it drips, right?”

At an earlier White House event in July, Trump also remarked on the water pressure issue. “So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair – I don’t know about you – but it has to be perfect,” he told guests.

The loosened restrictions angered conservationists who said they would lead to more waste and higher energy bill, a fact Biden seems to agree with. His rollback restores 2013 regulations that cap showers, even ones with multiple fixtures, at an output of 2.5 gallons per minute.

So, if you think Trump’s hair looks questionable now, just wait until he can’t rinse down with the force of a fire hose.

(Via Rolling Stone)

The Los Angeles Lakers have steadily started to find their footing, improving to 16-13 on Wednesday night with a thrilling overtime win over the Mavs. Assisting in their recent uptick in play have been, one, the health of LeBron James, and, two, more consistent and positive contributions from Russell Westbrook.

After a rough start to the season with turnovers and poor shooting, Westbrook has started to show signs of finding his place alongside James and Davis and is looking more like the player we saw drag the Wizards to a playoff berth a year ago. Unfortunately, right as he was starting to look like his old self, he will go on the shelf for up to 10 days as word emerged on Thursday afternoon that Westbrook was entering the league’s COVID protocols.

In addition to Westbrook, Avery Bradley was placed in the protocols.

That news came shortly after the Lakers picked up Isaiah Thomas on a 10-day following his big G League debut, and Westbrook’s absence explains how L.A. gained a hardship exemption to create the roster spot for Thomas. Westbrook is the latest NBA star to go into COVID protocols, as the league has seen a sharp uptick in positive tests and there is chatter that changes to testing and day-to-day protocols could be coming, with the NBA and NBPA in discussions on what needs to be adjusted to keep this season going, because it is on an unsustainable track with absences that have some calling for the league to take a pause.

Last month, Dr. Luke, despite accusations of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse by Kesha, charted at No. 1 on Billboard’s ranking of hot producers. Also last month, The Recording Academy nominated comedian Louis C.K. for a Grammy, despite numerous accusations of sexual misconduct. This is all to say that the music industry often has no regard for the safety of women.

This becomes more and more obvious over time. Earlier this year, it seemed like we, as a collective society, were reflecting on the way we treated Britney Spears. Our recognition of this situation of sexism, though, was quickly commodified and made into a documentary, which happens quite frequently, giving the impression that speaking out about trauma in this industry is only necessary if it is profitable.

So maybe it was inevitable that some of the biggest releases this year would consist of women verbalizing the poor treatment they deal with in the process of making and releasing art. Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, which arrived in May after the unspooling of memorable, wildly successful singles, painted a portrait of a young woman who’s tired of having to constantly prove herself as smarter and more mature than anyone would typically estimate. Many people — mostly men — were surprised that they took a liking to this female pop star; lots of pretentious music-lovers argued with one another over the genre of her songs. Are we allowed to throw the term rock in there? Alternative? Punk? (On a similar note, a lot of headlines dubbed Sour as a breakup album, and a lot of other headlines claimed it is not “just” a breakup album. They’re right, it’s not, but would it be a problem if it was?)

But that’s beside the point. There’s reason to distrust Rodrigo; she was, after all, a Disney kid, and that can’t be ignored when discussing the colossal impact her debut album had in the music world this year. However, one of the reasons Sour did so well is that it makes you forget all about that. The fierce first track, “Brutal,” is both vulnerable and bombastic, especially when she sings: “And I’m so tired that I might / Quit my job, start a new life / And they’d all be so disappointed / ’Cause who am I, if not exploited?” This — coming from an 18-year-old woman who played a role in the High School Musical mockumentary series — felt monumental. How often is exploitation referred to in pop music, let alone named specifically?

And a lot of this returns to the fact that, well, she is literally a teenager. A majority of the attention that’s placed on her is due to her youth, and Sour seemed determined to not let any listener find her to be naïve. She doesn’t want to be condescended or underestimated.

More recently, Taylor Swift expressed a similar sentiment on her re-recording of the 2012 Red. Her struggles with the industry were made apparent in 2020 when Scooter Braun sold her masters so that she would no longer own her past work. “Nothing New” is a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers that’s on the new version of Red, the version she created in order to have ownership and agency over it. The beginning lines capture the treatment of women in an industry that benefits from belittling them: “They tell you while you’re young / ‘Girls, go out and have your fun’ / Then they hunt and slay the ones who actually do it / Criticize the way you fly when you’re soarin’ through the sky.” Having Bridgers hop on this track conveys the way this problem hasn’t changed since Swift wrote the song around 2012; Bridgers is the next woman in the spotlight who is wondering: “Lord, what will become of me / Once I’ve lost my novelty?”

Billie Eilish wonders this on Happier Than Ever. After turning 19, she sings on the opening track: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well / I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself.” It’s quite obvious that the music industry often pedestals women who are in their late teenage years; the younger women are, the easier they are to be exploited and fetishized. Yet the pressures are higher, and the rate at which they grow up is intensified. This is all only exacerbated by the fact that millions of people jumped at the opportunity to sexualize and objectify these women as soon as they turn 18, as if they never viewed her as an actual person to begin with.

Similar to Rodrigo, she sings: “Things I once enjoyed / Just keep me employed now.” It really portrays the loss of sincerity and genuine creative drive once art is transformed into a career. A lot of the album reckons with these sort of meta themes; the title itself refers to the dissonance between Eilish’s private and public life. Her personal priority to be happy is constantly skewed by what stories the media are making up about her.

So much is lost when a woman puts vulnerable art into the world. It is often judged to fit into stereotypes; the “sad girl” genre is the prime example of this, showing that women cannot express feelings in music without being lumped into a category that reinforces the idea that their gender inherently makes them “hysterical” and “too emotional.” What else is lost is the musician’s ability to exist as just a being; on “Blouse,” from Clairo’s July album Sling, she repeats: “If touch could make them hear / then touch me now.” She’s sacrificing her boundaries just to be listened to, and this seems to be a requirement for every woman who makes music. It doesn’t help that the industry intentionally spotlights young, white, skinny, cis, and conventionally pretty women; the media can view them as an interchangeable type. This can obviously weigh on a musician, who is offering something sincere to an industry that repays by treating them as disposable.

All of these releases have done extremely well this year, whether it be through sales or streams or award nominations or placement on year-end polls, like Uproxx’s. But the industry has failed to actually listen to the actual work it’s uplifting. Change starts with viewing musicians as more than workers and women as more than objects.

Finding Magic Mike: Season 1 (HBO Max series) — Producers Steven Soderbergh and Channing Tatum bring their Magic Mike-themed reality series to life while zeroing in on a bunch of dudes who want to recapture their own mojo, so they go to a stripper bootcamp and let it all hang out. No word whether Ginuwine’s “Pony” will make an appearance or if we will see Tatum, but guest hosts will include Whitney Cummings, Nikki Glaser, and Nicole Scherzinger. Lighten up and enjoy this one from afar as these guys compete for a cash prize and notoriety aplenty.

MacGruber: Season 1 (Peacock series) — This past spring, Will Forte told us that he was patiently waiting for Peacock to officially greenlight the MacGruber TV show, and it’s happening, approximately 11 years after the MacGruber film, which was (of course) based upon Forte’s recurring SNL sketch. The raunchiness of the film, co-starring Kristen Wiig as MacGruber’s sidekick (Vicki St. Elmo), surpassed the network incarnation of the sketch, but sadly, the title character’s sitting in prison these days, and only he can save the world. It’s no wonder that Forte once promised fans that that this series (written by Forte) was too “filthy” for network TV.

Firebite: Season 1 (AMC+ series) — Finally, we’ve got a new vampire series, and this one looks highly original and stars Yael Stone from Orange is the New Black. The story goes down in Australia and follows indigenous hunters who want to take out the only remaining vampire colony in the South Australian desert, which sounds wild because, you know, sunlight.

Dead Asleep (Hulu film) — This true-crime documentary turns the usual thriller format on its head while exploring whether Randy Herman Jr., who appeared to be remorseful, committed murder while asleep (which would be violent parasomnia) or if it was all a ruse. Forensic psychiatrists and prosecutors and journalists take center stage here to explore this shocking crime.

Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss (HBO, 8:00pm) — This documentary film takes a verité approach to charting rapper Juice WRLD’s rise to superstardom, a ride that was cut short when he passed away only a few years after his breakout hit. Expect a dive into drug abuse and mental health, both of which complicated this artist’s raise to fame.

Station Eleven: Season 1 (HBO Max limited series) — This post-apocalyptic drama series revolves around survivors of a flu, and hopefully, their society is faring a lot better (at least in terms of cooperating with each other) than real life.

Jimmy Kimmel Live — Neil Patrick Harris, Daniel Ranieri

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Scarlett Johansson, Bowen Yang, Toni Cornell

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Kyle Mooney, Joe Russo

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Crosswalk Concert: BTS

A California Christmas: City Lights (Netflix film) — It wouldn’t be the holiday season without some cheesy holiday movies, and this story revolves around a beautiful couple who runs a dairy farm and winery and loves life. However, they must trek back to the city due to unavoidable circumstances, and that threatens their romance as well.

In case you missed this pick from last week:

And Just Like That…: Season 1 (HBO Max series) — Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) are back, along with the Big Apple, y’all. No Samantha will be found, given that Kim Cattrall declined to return, but at least Samantha isn’t dead, unlike a certain other character who bit the dust in the premiere. *Cough*

Anne Boleyn (AMC+ limited series) — Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) stars in this reimagining of Tutor England’s era of King Henry VIII, and history will tell us that Anne, his second wife, did not fare well, given that no male heir surfaced from the marriage. The story leans toward psychological thriller rather than period drama, and the patriarchal society gets a feminist twist here.

Before we get to the annual Uproxx Music Critics Poll, let’s talk about sports.

Every year, no matter the league, sports fans have the same conversation: Do we like dynasties, or do we find them annoying? In the NFL, the sustained brilliance of Tom Brady over two decades has simultaneously made him the most admired and loathed athlete on the planet. You can’t help but marvel at his greatness and feel extreme agitation at once again seeing his shiny stupid face at the Super Bowl. Which is why, over in Major League Baseball, many people were delighted this year that the Atlanta Braves — rather than a perennial contender like the Boston Red Sox or Los Angeles Dodgers — won the World Series in spite of having the worst record of any team in the post-season.

This is the appeal of novelty in competition. But is novelty actually inspiring?

In 2020, the most dominant NBA team of the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls, returned to “must see TV” status courtesy of the popular documentary The Last Dance. Next year, HBO hopes to replicate that success with Winning Time, a dramatization of the most dominant basketball team of the 1980s, the Los Angeles Lakers. If we hate dynasties so much, why aren’t there TV shows about the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers or the mid-’90s Houston Rockets, two teams who won championships between those aforementioned behemoths?

Sports is not music, and music is not a competition. But there are nevertheless imperfect metrics for determining which music is “best,” and one of them is year-end lists compiled by critics, including the annual Uproxx Music Critics Poll. These lists measure critical consensus, which is one of the ways — not the only one, and perhaps not the most important, though it’s certainly somewhat relevant — in which music history is catalogued, contextualized, and committed to memory.

Many years, these lists are topped by what I would call “dynastic” albums. These are the albums that most informed onlookers would predict in advance are most likely to “win” out with critics — because they are well-reviewed, well-pedigreed, and have a general patina of “importance” that will compel music writers to feel as though the record signifies something vital about contemporary culture. (To be clear: I’m not merely speaking of aesthetic judgements here, which are obviously subjective and don’t slot comfortably into the inherently reductive list format. This is discourse about “the discourse,” which as a relative veteran in this game I always find both fascinating and, well … what can be said of the music-critic discourse that hasn’t already been said of root canals?)

In the previous three years of the Uproxx poll, the list-topping record was extremely predictable. In 2018, it was Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour. In 2019, it was Lana Del Rey’s Norman F*cking Rockwell. In 2020, it was Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters. In terms music criticism prognostication, this lineup is about as chalk-y as you can get, the equivalent of Tom Brady, the Red Sox, and the Lakers winning in the same year.

This year, however, is defiantly anti-chalk. Surveying the top 10 of the Uproxx poll, all of the choices will be familiar to those who have already pored over previously published lists by prominent outlets. But among these consensus picks is uncommon parity. Nearly all of the records at the top have been no. 1 on a list, but there are no out-and-out juggernauts. Jazmine Sullivan was the fave at Pitchfork and Vulture, and Olivia Rodrigo bested the field at Rolling Stone and Billboard. But Stereogum favored The War On Drugs, Spin gave the nod to Turnstile, Consequence Of Sound tapped Tyler The Creator, and Paste flipped for Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders.

And then there’s Japanese Breakfast, whose album Jubilee tops the Uproxx poll. According to a spreadsheet compiling rankings from various year-end lists put together by my friend, the music writer Rob Mitchum, Michelle Zauner’s acclaimed indie-pop project has thus far topped just one critics list, by the website Slant, though (tellingly) she also came out on top of the Pitchfork readers poll. The strength of Jubilee is that it’s an album a lot of critics like quite a bit, even if they might not necessarily love it the most. This also helps to explain how Lucy Dacus’ fine third album Home Video and Low’s excellent Hey What — which according to Rob’s spreadsheet haven’t topped any lists — also ended up in the top 10 of our critics poll. These are well-liked grinders, not unstoppable phenomenons.

If you are the sort of person who reads a lot of these lists, this lack of hegemony is no doubt refreshing. Sure, there is clearly some consensus with these lists, but 2021 feels like the most diverse year for critical opinion in possibly a decade. The range of favorites is real and palpable. And this makes these lists more interesting to look at, shaking them out of the boring stultification that inevitably sets in at this time of the year.

But should this really be taken as evidence that critics are being more adventurous with their choices this year? Or is this merely a field of very good albums without an all-time classic that can stand apart from the pack? Was 2021 a paradigm-buster, or an off-year between Bulls championships?

Frankly, I think there is evidence for both conclusions. On the “I find this refreshing” side, I would point to the post-Trump uncertainty that loomed over music writing in 2021. During the previous four years, the former president was like a Christmas tree on to which culture writers could hang narratives that made art signify grand truths that allegedly elevated albums beyond “just” entertainment. Golden Hour wasn’t “just” an engaging crossover country record, it was a progressive act of subversion aimed directly at the conservative Nashville establishment. Norman F*cking Rockwell wasn’t “just” a lush set of mythic story songs, it was a grand summation of American culture on the brink of apocalypse. Fetch The Bolt Cutters wasn’t “just” a stirring comeback by a genius singer-songwriter, it was a distress signal from inside the hell of a pandemic for a nation on the verge of a do-or-die election.

But this year, with Trump gone and Covid (at least partly) diminished, albums went back to just being albums, and songs suddenly mattered most if they … happened to sound good. What a concept! I suppose it’s possible to glean political messages from albums as disparate as Jubilee, Sour, Glow On, Promises, and New Long Leg. But what I found refreshing about this music is how it took me away from the narratives dominating my social media feeds, and made me feel lighter as a result. In 2021, albums that didn’t inspire thinkpieces seemed to gain the most committed followings. The lack of contextual baggage only made them seem more likable.

On the other hand, I think about my favorite album of 2021, The War On Drugs’ I Don’t Live Here Anymore — which topped my list because I played it more than any other LP this year — and how it’s probably not even the best album by that particular band. (I still give the nod to Lost In The Dream.) I wonder how many Tyler The Creator fans would put Call Me If You Get Lost over recent beloved works like Igor or Flower Boy. I believe Japanese Breakfast, Low, and Lucy Dacus did put out career-best music in 2021, but I suspect there will be disagreement about that among each act’s respective fanbases. While I like all of the albums in the top 10 of the Uproxx poll, I’m not sure any of them, in the grand scheme of things, are slam-dunk, money-in-the-bank, first-ballot Hall Of Famers.

Ultimately, what all of this confirms for me is that you can’t really a judge a year when you’re in the middle (or even at the end) of it. Nobody knows which of these albums will still sound good in 10 years. And then there’s the matter of the music that critics slept on in 2021 that will in time blow all of these records out of the water. Perhaps that elusive all-time classic is still hiding in plain sight. We just have to keep listening.

Before Travis Scott and Cardi B were considered hip-hop’s consummate pitch people, Chance The Rapper was the poster child for brand partnerships. In recent years, he’s fallen back a bit as he embraced family life as a husband and father of two, but that doesn’t mean he won’t still do the occasional deal — especially when it’s for a good cause.

His latest is a crossover with ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s which will see him grace a new flavor of the ice cream. It’s a mint ice cream loaded with fudge brownie pieces and it comes in both dairy and non-dairy versions. According to a press release, the new flavor was inspired by Chance’s childhood experiment with adding his mom’s brownies to mint ice cream, which wound up becoming his favorite. A portion of the proceeds will go to his SocialWorks non-profit, with both versions coming to stores in early 2022.

From a musical standpoint, we haven’t heard much from Chance this year, but what we have heard has been marked by notable collaborations. Early this year, he reunited with longtime his Chicago brother Vic Mensa for “Shelter” with Wyclef Jean, their first work together in years. Meanwhile, more recently, he made good on the promise of collaborating with R&B legend Dionne Warwick, sharing “Nothing’s Impossible” in November.