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Ladies and gentlemen, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is finally here. Prior to its release, the last piece of music that fans received from the project came more than a year ago thanks to “Laugh Now, Cry Later” with Lil Durk. The Toronto rapper also released Scary Hours 2, but for the most part, things have been fairly quiet in terms of Certified Lover Boy content. All of that changed this week when Drake kicked things into high gear to prepare for the album’s arrival. The past few days were filled with opinions on its controversial artwork, billboard takeovers, and more, but at long last, Certified Lover Boy is finally here and it’s highlighted by “Way 2 Sexy” with Future and Young Thug. The track is a braggadocios effort that sees the trio speaking confidently of their sex appeal towards the ladies.

Elsewhere on Certified Lover Boy, listeners will catch additional appearances from Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Travis Scott, Rick Ross, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Giveon, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Durk, Yebba, Masego, Tems, and Project Pat. Drake spent the week leading up to the release of Certified Lover Boy using digital billboards in each of the guest acts’ homes to reveal their inclusions on the highly-anticipated album

You can listen to “Way 2 Sexy” in the video above.

Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO Sound/Republic. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Tucker Carlson routinely espouses theories found in murderous manifestos, so it’s no surprise his latest rhetoric about the coronavirus is equally dangerous and unhinged. As the coronavirus pandemic continues thanks to the Delta variant and large portions of the United States (and the rest of the world) still unvaccinated, businesses and other entities are becoming more strict about requiring proof of vaccination in a variety of ways.

On Thursday, during a segment about anti-vax people being prosecuted for buying fake vaccine cards, Carlson defended the practice and straight up told people to break the law in order to remain unvaccinated. During a segment in which he discussed how one lawmaker called buying a fake vaccination card a “serious crime,” Carlson called that a “lie” and tried to claim it was patriotic to not get vaccinated in a country where hundreds continue to die from coronavirus every day.

“Except that’s a lie. Buying a fake vaccination card is not a, quote, ‘serious crime,’” Carlson said. “It’s not even close to a serious crime. Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants.”

Carlson, who many have pointed out works for a company that’s required employees to divulge their vaccination status and has a vaccine passport system in place, continued to bemoan the vaccine during the segment and alluded to violence once again when discussing vaccine mandates.

“You know what’s a serious crime? Forcing Americans to take drugs they don’t need or want. That’s a very serious crime,” Carlson said. “And let’s hope, in the end, someone is punished for it, severely.”

In the grand scheme of things, it might be one of the more tame things he’s spouted in the history of his alternate reality Fox News program. But it’s certainly something to hear Carlson, a man oh-so concerned about law and order, telling his viewers to willingly break the law in order to keep being a public health menace.

[via The Daily Beast]

The true release Anderson .Paak fans are waiting is his and Bruno Mars’ upcoming joint album as Silk Sonic. The duo recently revealed the project would be delayed until 2022 as they focus on “touching up parts that need a little more… grease,” as they revealed in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. Until then, listeners will just have to enjoy their two singles, “Leave The Door Open” and “Skate,” but now they can also indulge in .Paak’s latest track, “Fire In The Sky.”

The singer’s new track is a dreamy effort that captures him riding shotgun with his soon-to-be romantic partner. .Paak sings about the time he met her and promised that she’d be his next lover as well as the moment that prediction became true. All in all, “Fire In The Sky” is a passionate tale about falling in love what happens after one does just that.

The track is one of 18 songs on the newly-released soundtrack for the Marvel film, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. The project also includes features from Rick Ross, Earthgang, Swae Lee, Jhene Aiko, Guapdad 4000, Rich Brian, and more.

You can press play on the new song in the video above.

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings: The Album is out now via Marvel/Hollywood Records. Get it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Over the summer we put the best grocery store vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice creams to the blind taste test in an effort to rank the very best. That’s a whole lot of scoops and now that we’re through the classics, what’s left? A lot actually, in fact, there are too many flavors to hit in a single summer, so who knows how long it’ll actually take us to get around to ranking popular flavors like Chocolate Chip, Cookies and Cream, or Rocky Road. But with the big three out of the way, we figured we’d take a break on the single flavor focus and show some love to the brand new flavors of 2021 before the summer ice cream eating season is over.

Of course, ice cream is good at any time of the year, but there is something special about serving up a refreshing scoop of ice cream on a hot day.

These ice cream flavors aren’t your average flavor blends, you likely won’t find these chilling at Baskin Robbins or the freezer aisle of your local grocery store, most of them are unique to the brands we’ve chosen. So grab a bowl and a spoon — or a cone if that’s your vibe — and let’s dive into the best new ice cream flavors of 2021.

Salt & Straw — Maple & Bacon Streusel (Dane Rivera)

The idea of bacon in ice cream is something that I initially scoffed at when I first came across this flavor from Salt & Straw’s Camp collection. I’m on board with the winning flavor combination that is salty meets sweet, but the smokey quality of bacon just isn’t something I want to experience in a sweet scoop of ice cream. Or so I thought. As soon as a spoonful of this ice cream hit my palate my tastebuds were transported through a flavor journey that brought me a harmonious combination of brown sugar streusel, maple, and the occasional burst of savory bacon.

Salt & Straw’s Maple & Bacon Streusel doesn’t try to balance salty and sweet qualities, instead this ice cream’s major focus is on that brown sugar maple blend and it’s better for it. When the flavors all come together that combination of classic breakfast flavors answers the question, “What if breakfast was a dessert?” No one has ever asked for that, but Salt & Straw gave it to us anyway and we’re thankful for that.

The Bottom Line

The consistency is fantastic here, it’s dense and creamy and when the occasional bacon bit hits your tongue it’s like having breakfast in a bowl. Start those hot summer mornings off with this over a traditional breakfast meal and your day will be off to a great start.

Buy it here.

Van Leeuwen — Earl Grey Tea (Dane Rivera)

Cool and complex, Van Leeuwen’s Earl Grey Tea manages to capture the distinct flavor of the tea blend it shares its name with perfectly. It tastes exactly like what you’d get if you tossed a scoop of cold ice cream directly into a hot freshly brewed cup of Earl Grey. Only without melting all over the place.

Flavors of vanilla mingle with bergamot producing a rich and complex flavor that is enhanced by Van Leeuwen’s always velvety smooth consistency. It’s hard to eat a scoop of this and not feel refreshed, so save this one for those early mornings or late nights that are a bit on the warmer side. If we have any of those left. To get the flavor, Van Leeuwen harvests real organic Rishi tea from the Yunnan Province and infuses it with bergamot citrus oil, which is what makes it Earl Grey and not just regular old black tea. Then Van Leeuwen steeps a bag in whole milk before adding cream, sugar and eggs and turning it into ice cream. Like a cup of Earl Grey with some milk in it, the ice cream itself has a milky grey appearance to it.

The Bottom Line

Complex and rich, a single scoop of Van Leeuwen’s Earl Grey Tea ice cream completely unaltered feels like a restaurant-quality dessert. Matcha ice cream doesn’t compare to this.

Buy it here.

McConnell’s — Honey & Cornbread Cookies (Dane Rivera)

Apparently this year I’ve been obsessed with ice creams that capture the experience of eating foods that aren’t ice cream. Salt & Straw gave me breakfast in a bowl, Van Leeuwen turned tea into ice cream, and now here we are with Honey & Cornbread Cookies. This flavor from Santa Barbara-based ice cream parlor McConnell’s brings together chunks of sweet and salty cornbread cookies with a honey ice cream base made from real California honey, and it’s f*cking fantastic. Yes, it’s so good that it deserves a “f*cking.”

The best feature of this flavor is those cornbread cookies. Using real cornbread would’ve only made this ice cream mushy, instead, the cookies used in this thing have a better consistency that soaks up ice cream perfectly but still provides a great mouthfeel and texture. The subtle inclusion of salt acts as a nice counterbalance to that strong honey flavor but doesn’t get in the way or distract from the overall sweet quality of this ice cream.

The Bottom Line

You won’t find a better experience than scooping up and eating that final piece of cornbread cookie that has been soaking up all the ice cream at the bottom of your bowl.

Buy it here.

Talenti — Honey Graham Gelato (Dane Rivera)

This one fills a bit more fit for fall than the summer so as the weather starts to change be sure to pick up Talenti’s new Honey Graham Gelato. Beginning with a vanilla gelato base, the Honey Graham has clusters of graham cracker cookies deep inside each scoop with ribbons of wildflower honey wrapped throughout the pint, offering the occasional burst of earthy goodness between licks of refreshing vanilla gelato.

It’s subtle and while we would’ve preferred bigger chunks of graham crackers, and more honey evenly spread throughout Talenti has landed on something truly great here. This flavor was apparently voted to be Talenti’s next flavor by the brand’s fans on Instagram and Twitter, so credit to Talenti fans for having some pretty good taste.

The Bottom Line

Sweet without ever being overwhelming, Talenti’s Honey Graham is refreshing and offers a different flavor experience with each spoonful.

Buy it here.

Häagen Dazs — Rosé & Cream (Dane Rivera)

I don’t even like Rosé but put it in ice cream and I’m fully on board! Häagen Dazs has some of the best ice cream consistency in the game, it’s smooth like butter, dense and creamy, melting in your mouth in the most decadent way. Consistency is an important part of what makes an ice cream good or bad, but it’s even more important when you’re mixing alcohol with ice cream.

Boozy ice cream is a great idea, but alcohol changes the consistency of ice cream in a way that makes it more of a slush than a cream, but that’s not a problem here, this is just as buttery smooth as anything else you’d expect from Häagen Dazs. Probably because it doesn’t go too heavy on the alcohol, it leans heavily on its sweet cream base with the subtlest hint of tart rosé swirled throughout. If you’re looking for a boozy ice cream that is going to give you a head change, this isn’t that, the whole pint has less than 0.5% alcohol but that faint kiss of rosé adds a lot of depth and complexity.

The Bottom Line

I haven’t tried it but I imagine this would pair nicely with a glass of rosé at the end of a hot summer night. This is definitely a flavor geared for late nights as a closer for your home-cooked meal.

Buy it here.

Hardscoop — Madagascar Vanilla (Dane Rivera)

If our previous entry sparked a craving for boozy ice cream but left you wanting more this is one that actually delivers on the alcohol front. It’s still not strong enough to give you a buzz, but it does contain 8% alcohol per pint, which is considerably more than what Häagen Dazs offers. Because of the higher alcohol content, the consistency does suffer as a result, it’s a little airier and slushy than I’d like it to be, but the flavors are rich and the vanilla and alcohol really comes alive with the inclusion of a healthy dose of chocolate syrup poured over the top.

Hell, if you’re feeling especially dangerous go ahead and pour a shot of rum over the top of that with a good sprinkling of cinnamon and then blend it up with ice in a blender! If it’s too early for a rum ice cream smoothy, go ahead and pour a shot of coffee over a scoop and make yourself an affogato. That’s one of the things so great about this ice cream, it constantly inspires new ideas!

The Bottom Line

From the second you scoop a spoonful from the pint, you’ll be able to smell the booze, which should inspire some ideas on how to take it to that next level. The best ice cream from the experimentally minded.

Buy it here.

Jeni’s — Savannah Buttermint (Steve Bramucci)

The Bottom Line

Buy it here.

Creamalicious — Granma Gigi’s Sweet Potato Pie (Steve Bramucci)

The Bottom Line

Buy it here.

THROWBACK FLAVOR: Van Leeuwen — Royal Wedding Cake (Dane Rivera)

Eating this ice cream makes me feel so damn fancy. That’s not because it’s called Royal Wedding Cake, it’s because I ate this after experiencing Van Leeuwen’s Kraft Macaroni & Cheese ice cream, which made me feel downright trashy. The Royal Wedding Cake has a thick and creamy consistency (which adds to the luxuriousness) and combines a sugar, vanilla, and lemon base with real chunks of airy, chewy lemon spongecake and swirls of elderflower frosting.

There isn’t a single scoop of ice cream that I’ve found all year that is more refreshing than this. Right now it’s a limited edition pint from Van Leeuwen so I’d stock up on as much of this as possible before it’s all gone. I have absolutely no interest in the business of the royal family, but if Harry and Meghan can inspire ice cream this good, I say God Save The Queen!

The Bottom Line

A luxurious consistency with a refreshing flavor. It tastes like springtime in a bowl.

Buy it here.

What We Do in the Shadows is back for a third season, which is terrific news on a number of fronts. It’s terrific because it’s always nice to have good shows back. It’s terrific because I can’t wait to see what kind of antics the Staten Island Vampires get up to this time around, especially after the season two reveal that their human lackey Guillermo may actually be a vampire slayer from the Van Helsing bloodline. And it’s terrific because it gives me a solid excuse to ask a question I’ve been pondering for a while now, one that resurfaced yet again while I was zipping through a season two rewatch last week: Is What We Do in the Shadows, at present, given everything we know about it and where it’s been and might be going, the funniest show on television?

I know this is a bad idea. Nothing dooms a show in the court of public opinion quite like too much hyperbolic praise from writers. Look at what happened with the Ted Lasso Discourse in season two. After a full year of everyone generally agreeing that it was a sweet and good show that did the thing it does very well, everyone suddenly went full-on thunderdome about it all. It was weird. It’s still weird. I do not want that to happen to this show. I am begging you. I know I’m poking the bear here but I swear my intentions are good. And to prove they are good, I’m going to try to present both sides of the argument, fairly, so everyone gets a voice. Do not write a thinkpiece on this. Please. Just let us have our fun and leave us alone.

Okay, here we go. The Case For and Case Against What We Do in the Shadows being the funniest show on television.

CASE FOR

It is so funny. Like, all the time, in a million different ways, almost all of them powerfully silly. Look at that screencap up there. You’ve probably seen it a million times and chuckled at the sheer audacity of the phrase “Jackie Daytona: Regular Human Bartender,” but have you actually gone back and watched the episode again recently? I really recommend you do that. It is so damn goofy and delightful all the way through. The whole reason he’s on the run is because Mark Hamill shows up as a rival vampire in the opening and accuses Laszlo (Matt Berry, perhaps the world’s finest comedic actor) of skipping out on a month’s rent for a beach house in San Diego. That’s it. That’s why he flees and leaves his life behind. And his entire disguise is a toothpick in his mouth. It’s so stupid and so perfect. I can’t believe anyone is allowed to be this silly as a profession. It’s kind of inspiring, really.

Or what about this? What about the thing where the show did an entire episode about Laszlo and Nadia being musicians whose crude and innuendo-laden songs from centuries gone by have apparently been stolen and co-opted into popular hit songs like “Come On, Eileen” and “Kokomo,” or the thing where they apparently just discover this in the present-day, over 30 years since both songs were all over the airwaves. Don’t click on this video if you’re somewhere where repeated lascivious utterances of the word “cream” are acceptable. Or do. Go ahead and get weird. I’m not the boss of you.

This is what the show has been for two full seasons now, just one hilarious flight of fancy after another, all starting from the also-silly premise of “What if four vampires lived in Staten Island but made no effort to blend in with the modern world?” It is so good and so surprising throughout, with twists like the vampire-slaying business coming out of nowhere and being somehow flabbergasting and perfectly sensible at the same time.

And that’s before we even get to Colin Robinson (played by Mark Proksch, in a perfect bit of casting), the show’s energy vampire, who gets his power not from sucking blood but from quite literally draining the energy from those around him by being boring and frustrating in any number of ways. Watching him do this — say, troll people online, or tell awful stories, or whatever — and then seeing the glee in his face as he explains it to the fake documentary crew that’s following him around is maybe my favorite thing on the show. Maybe. It’s certainly up there with “everything Matt Berry says and does,” which is just about as high a compliment as I know how to give.

It’s a good show. And it’s so funny. I might be willing to give you “other shows are as funny,” but I don’t know if I can get to “another show is funnier.”

Unless, of course…

CASE AGAINST

Comedy, more so than any other genre, is a subjective thing. Things that are funny to one person might be a complete zero to another. Things that were funny to you five years ago might be a zero to you today. It’s all so weird and fluid that it makes it almost impossible to make firm declarative statements about any of it. A fool’s errand, really, says the fool who pitched the very piece you’re reading right now.

Also complicating matters: there are so many funny shows on television. I Think You Should Leave is a riot, one that actually has about two or three different avenues of being funny, starting with the actual sketches and moving on into the next-life memes that develop around various screencaps from those already funny sketches. Shows like Mythic Quest and Hacks are really funny, even if the humor there is sometimes punctuated by surprise bursts of feelings, which is not a complaint in any way. They might be better “shows” than What We Do in the Shadows, like as complete and well-rounded pieces of art, just not, like, funnier. Again, there are booby traps like this everywhere in this discussion.

There’s also the thing where there are about five or six different kinds of humor. I love a good long-developing, well-crafted bit. I love it when a show makes me think about a goof a little, or makes me feel like I earned it by knowing enough about the world to get a laser-focused specific punchline. I also like to watch a never-ending supply of bozos get walloped by obstacles on Holey Moley. Like this.

What I’m saying here, really, if we want to summarize things in a way that both gets me out of this trap I have waltzed myself into and satisfies absolutely no one, is that comedy is a land of contrasts.

You’re welcome and I am sorry.

Let’s try to wrap this up with a final decision on the matter.

VERDICT

Well, I was fully prepared to weasel out of giving a firm answer on this. I was going to throw my hands up and give all of you a perfectly unsatisfying “Who’s to say what humor is as long as you enjoy it?” like the most insufferable weenie you’ve ever seen. But then I remembered the thing where Colin Robinson held a seance to bring his deceased Nana back from the dead for the sole purpose of extracting energy from her via the worst Updog joke you can imagine.

Yes.

Yes, fine.

I’ll just go ahead and say it…

What We Do in the Shadows is the funniest show on television.

At long last, after nearly seven years, the world has received new music from Bobby Shmurda. The rapper’s last official release came at the end of 2014. Soon after, Shmurda was arrested and sentenced to prison for conspiracy to commit murder and weapons charges.

In February, after nearly seven years behind bars, the rapper was released from jail which opened the door for him to make an epic comeback to the hip-hop world. After taking some time to get reacclimated to the world and deliver some performances like the one he did at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival, Shmurda is back with new music.

The rapper returns with a “No Time For Sleep” freestyle. The track presents him as a wide-eyed hustler who’s on a constant grind to earn his riches and survive, even if it means missing out on a doctor’s order of eight hours of sleep per night. The track also comes with a fiery matching visual that finds the rappers posted with a heavy collection of weapons and women who are down to fire away if necessary.

Shmurda’s “No Time For Sleep” freestyle comes after he teamed up with J Balvin and Daddy Yankee to remix Eladio Carrion’s “Tata.” Shortly after that was shared with the world, the rapper opened up about his post-prison mindset in a recent interview with the New York Times. “I ain’t mad about going to jail, because my mind-state now versus my mind-state before — I probably would’ve been in jail for life before,” he said. “The stuff that’s going to get you in trouble or put you in that situation, you can see that from miles away.”

You can listen to the freestyle in the video above.

When our last ranking of grocery store marinara sauces ended up doing really well, my editor Steve piped up with another request. “You should do Alfredo sauces next.”

I let out a long, pained groan. If I had been disapproving, but mostly agnostic about store-bought marinara (I don’t buy it, but I don’t consider it actively harmful), Alfredo sauce is closer to an abomination before God. Jarred marinara sauce is a little lazy; jarred alfredo is a product that maybe shouldn’t exist. Whereas pre-made marinara mostly has the same few ingredients you’d use at home, making a shelf-stable jar of dairy and cheese would seem to necessarily involve a lot of weird bullshit — reverse engineering a very simple sauce using all manner of thickeners, stabilizers, and various space-age polymers (I can only assume).

And… for what? Alfredo sauce is easy. Like, really easy. Even easier than marinara, which is already super easy. Contrary to the assumptions from certain parts, it’s also really good.

When I was growing up, alfredo sauce, in the form of the ubiquitous “Fettucini Alfredo,” was one of those orders that instantly marked you as a bumpkin — the Italian food equivalent of going to a fine steak house and ordering your meat well done and slathering it with A1. I have a weirdly enduring memory of my cousin slumming it with some Fettucini Alfredo over the objections of the rest of the family at a nice red sauce joint and then puking it up later that night.

This is, naturally, somewhat unfair. FA’s poor reputation partly stems from the fact that most of us were raised on this cream-heavy, Americanized perversion of the original dish (I call it a “dish” rather than a “sauce,” because ideally, noodle and condiment should be inseparable like that). Zach has already written about the history of Fettucini Alfredo. To make a long story short, the good news is, there’s a better Alfredo, and it’s really easy.

Again Zach has the whole recipe here, but even that is sort of the date night version, if you want your Alfredo to turn out absolutely perfect. It’s only a few ingredients, and I’ve made it without using a sieve on the cheese like Zach did and it seemed to work just fine.

• Cooked Pasta
• Pasta Water (about a third-ish cup of the salted water you just used to cook your pasta)
• Softened Butter
• Parmesan Cheese
• Black pepper to garnish.

You just combine your cooked pasta with softened butter, lots of grated parmesan (a younger parmesan melts better and probably works best for this), and add just enough pasta water to create a creamy emulsion. You should end up with noodles individually coated in a creamy, cheesy sauce. Add black pepper and you’re done. There’s your Alfredo sauce. It’s a one-pot meal! And a total crowd pleaser.

Of course, the “real” Alfredo is time sensitive, and most of these jarred Alfredos seem to be attempting to recreate the old, 1980s Italian-American restaurant version of Alfredo sauce, with onions and garlic and flour, with enough crap in them to make them shelf-stable and pourable (everything from vegetable stock to dehydrated milk to powdered egg yolks). Their flavor usually lands somewhere in the vicinity of ranch dressing, bechemel sauce, New England clam chowder, and French onion dip. Not great, Bob! (Spoiler: There were many weird aftertastes in this tasting.)

So, now that I’ve done my best to debunk the idea that anyone would need jarred Alfredo sauce, here is my ranking of every Alfredo sauce I could find on the shelves of my local grocery stores for some reason. Let this be a lesson: every popular thing inevitably warrants a sequel, and sequels are never as good as the original. If my marinara ranking is Michael Corleone, Alfredo is Fredo.

Just as a little slice of my life, I should add that as I was checking out of the grocery aisle with my cart full of gross Alfredo sauces that I didn’t want to eat, one of the jars rolled out of plastic bag and shattered on the floor. I watched helpless as a big glop of nasty white sauce flew from the shattered bottle and landed on a bagger’s black shoe and pant leg in slow motion, as if a giant seagull had gotten loose inside the store. I apologized profusely and scurried out of there like an insect.

METHOD:

Just like I did with marinara, I tasted all of these sauces blind, dunking my cooked pasta in them after a short nuke in the microwave (again, using a separate pot to gently warm jarred sauce felt contrary to the spirit of the endeavor). I rated them on look, smell, and taste.

THE COMPETITORS:

I tried to limit this just to sauces labeled “Alfredo” with as few modifications as possible, but I did throw a few vegan ones in there just for fun. In my head, vegan ones have more of a reason to exist than the non-vegan ones, considering how easy it is to make non-vegan Alfredo yourself.

1. Dave’s Gourmet Aged White Cheddar Alfredo
2. Classico Four Cheese Alfredo
3. Sonoma Gourmet Creamy Alfredo
4. 4 Newman’s Own Alfredo
5. 5 Rao’s Homemade Alfredo
6. 6 Bertolli Alfredo Sauce
7. 7 Sonoma Gourmet Creamy Cauliflower Alfredo
8. 8 Primal Kitchen No Dairy Alfredo Sauce With Cashew Butter
9. 9 Ragu Classic Alfredo
10. 10 Whole Foods Alfredo With Roasted Garlic
11. 11 Victoria Vegan Alfredo Sauce
12. 12 Botticelli Alfredo

12. Whole Foods Alfredo With Roasted Garlic, $8.99

Looks: More like bechemel than queso, clearly a thickener in there, probably flour.

Nose: Not much, just pepper and flour.

Taste: Oh God, what is that? What IS that? This is awful. Reaching for the water.

The Whole Foods marinara was one of my favorites in the marinara competition, and this was clearly another attempt at a premium product. It just had a very strange aftertaste that I found off putting, like maybe the garlic was over roasted and bitter? I generally like garlic, so I’m scratching my head a little bit at my reaction to this one. Something about it tasted very off though.

11. Victoria Vegan Alfredo Sauce, $5.99

Looks: Greyish and presumably vegan. Has that liquidy pasty texture, like tahini. Micro droplets of oil on the surface.

Nose: There’s a jolt of some perfumy herb that I can’t identify. Spice forward.

Taste: All kinds of lemon and pepper and spices. Weird. Definitely doesn’t make me think “Alfredo.”

I’ve had things with cashew butter or cheese that I’ve enjoyed, but this one was just a strange lemon-herb bomb. Too many flavors going on.

10. Sonoma Gourmet Creamy Alfredo, $5.99

Look: Beige, with some visible microdroplets of oil on the surface.

Nose: Again, very ranch like. What is that smell? Cauliflower?

Taste: Legit gagged on my first bite of this one. Just tastes like straight up ranch. Really gross. I would use this for wings, maybe, but absolutely not pasta. Nasty.

Oddly, of the two Sonoma Gourmet sauces, the one that reminded me of cauliflower was this regular Alfredo, not the vegan one made with actual cauliflower. Anyway, this one was really ranch dressing-y tasting. In retrospect, I think the ranch dressing flavor I detected in some of these might come from dried onions and/or dried garlic. This one’s ingredient list includes vegetable stock and dehydrated vegetable stock which might account for the ranch dressing qualities. In any case… not good.

9. Primal Kitchen No Dairy Alfredo Sauce With Cashew Butter, $7.99

Look: Like grey baby puke. With pepper flakes. I assume this one is the cauliflower one. (Truly the most disgusting looking of all the sauces).

Nose: Herbs, pepper, inorganic matter.

Taste: Oh God, why is it so gelatinous? This one looks like a jellyfish just shit a chia seed smoothie. It tastes quite a bit better than it looks, I’ll say that for it. More sort of just savory and very herb forward.

If I was full on blindfolded and hadn’t been expected something that resembled Alfredo, this might not have been so awful. It was just hard to overcome that bizarre color and texture.

8. Sonoma Gourmet Creamy Cauliflower, $6.99

Looks: Weird and chunky. Looks a little like New England clam chowder.

Nose: Sort of ranchy again.

Taste: Like lemony and grainy? What even are those chunks? It tastes like lemon juice thickened with drywall paste. I think there’s dried onion in there?

In retrospect I assume those chunks were the cauliflower, which is much less gross when you know what they are. But as with their non-Vegan sauce, all that veg stock and dried veg made it taste like ranch dressing.

7. Rao’s Homemade Alfredo, $8.99

Look: Pastier, almost tahini-like in appearance. A little more grey than the others, with micro oil droplets on surface.

Nose: Smells like what I imagine alfredo to smell like. Nothing too unnatural smelling.

Taste: Gross. Not the worst one, but not natural in texture or flavor, despite the welcoming smell.

Rao’s was my favorite marinara, but their dominance apparently doesn’t extend to the realm of Alfredos.

6. Newman’s Own Alfredo, $2.99

Look: Whiter, with more pepper flakes. Very uniform texture.

Nose: Not much going on. Just savory plainness.

Taste: Thick, coats my mouth, with a foul, unnatural aftertaste. I actually said “Yuck” and had to drink water right afterwards.

This one definitely wasn’t good, but the phrase “Newman’s Own Alfredo” makes me giggle.

5. Boticelli Alfredo Sauce, $6.99

Looks: White with whiter specks in it, very gelatinous. Looks like it has some weird thickener like guar gum or tapioca paste. Almost a barbecue sauce texture.

Nose Lemon pepper.

Taste: I taste mostly parmesan, but also some kind of slightly disconcerting herb and/or preservative.

“Tasting mostly parmesan” is a big win for jarred Alfredo sauce.

4. Classico Four Cheese Alfredo, $2.50 on sale, regularly $3.49

Look: Whiter and more ranch dressingy.

Nose: Kind of even *smells* ranch-like. Can’t tell if I’m imagining this.

Taste: Guessing this is one of the vegan ones. It doesn’t taste awful, it just has that odd, processed texture.

Is it bad when a non-vegan Alfredo reminds you of vegan Alfredo? Probably.

3. Bertolli Alfredo Sauce, $3.15

Looks: Very white, kind of like queso dip. Thick like queso too.

Nose: Cream cheese.

Taste: Comes on sort of normal in a processed cheese way, like velvetta or Kraft singles. Not bad, though with a sort of processed aftertaste.

2. Dave’s Gourmet Aged White Cheddar Alfredo, $7.99

Look: Beige? Three isolated pepper chunks. Some skin on top.

Nose: Mostly cream, with a little flour.

Taste: Very nutmeg forward, with flour aftertaste. Basically like a bechemel with a pepper aftertaste. Much more reminiscent of bechemel sauce than Alfredo sauce. Don’t hate it, don’t love it.

This one doesn’t have nutmeg on the ingredients list, so maybe it was just the black pepper and I’m insane. It didn’t taste too badly of thickeners or stabilizers though, which was nice.

1. Ragu Classic Alfredo, $2.00

Looks: Another one that’s very white with pepper flakes, kind like queso dip.

Nose: Barely there. Flour?

Taste: Very cream forward, but the least processed tasting so far. No weird aftertaste.

It turns out, not having a weird aftertaste is about the best you can ask of jarred Alfredo. Go figure, the two-dollar sauce was the big winner.

“Winner” being somewhat relative in this case. Maybe I’m just not creative enough to have thought of a situation in which these sauces might be useful yet. For now I’ll just say… make your own Alfredo, folks. Hell, buy your parmesan pre-grated if you have to. I think the moral of the story is that cheese you melt yourself is probably always going to taste better than a cheese product that stays liquid at room temperature.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter.

The world is just hours away from finally receiving the music industry’s most anticipated album: Drake’s Certified Lover Boy. It’s a project that was supposed to be released back in January before the rapper opted to delay it after knee surgery and recovering from it forced him to take time off from placing the finishing touches on it.

Finally, after eight long months, Certified Lover Boy will soon be available for everyone to press play on, but before that happens, Drake unveils the official tracklist for the album.

Drake previously revealed the cast of guest acts for the album Certified Lover Boy, but did not share how they would be paired or grouped up until now. Altogether, the rapper’s new album boasts 21 tracks with features from Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Travis Scott, Young Thug, Future, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Giveon, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Durk, Yebba, Project Pat, Masego, Tems, and Kid Cudi.

You can read the full tracklist for the project below.

1. “Champagne Poetry”
2.” April’s Home”
3. “Girls Want Girls”
4. “In The Bible”
5. “Love All”
6. “Fair Trade”
7. “Way Too Sexy”
8. “TSU”
9. “N 2 Deep”
10. “Pipe Down”
11. “Yebba’s Heartbreak”
12. “No friends In The Industry”
13. “Knife Talk”
14. “7am On Bridle Path”
15. “Race My Mind”
16. “Fountains”
17. “Get Along Better”
18. “You Only Live Twice”
19. “IMY2”
20. “F*cking Fans”
21. “The Remorse”

Certified Lover Boy is out 9/3 via OVO Sound/Republic.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Wonder Woman 1984 was one of the biggest new releases to make its debut on a streaming service when it debuted Christmas Day on HBO Max. The film didn’t have the best box office showing for a number of reasons, starting with a pandemic and its simultaneous release on a streaming service.

The film’s director, Patty Jenkins, has publicly called that release after a lengthy delay “heartbreaking,” and that apparently wasn’t the only criticism of streaming and movies made for that platform. Jenkins spoke at length about Wonder Woman and the current state of movies, and she had much more to say about movies that were meant for streaming first.

The Los Angeles Times detailed her comments from CinemaCon earlier in the week, and one comment that went viral on Thursday night described movies meant for streaming debuts as looking “fake.”

“All of the films that streaming services are putting out, I’m sorry, they look like fake movies to me,” Jenkins said. “I don’t hear about them, I don’t read about them. It’s not working as a model for establishing legendary greatness.”

Seeing a huge blockbuster filmed in IMAX get pushed to HBO Max due to global catastrophe can’t be easy, but the comments may come across to some as sour grapes. There is certainly a difference in quality for some movies made exclusively for streaming, of course, but that’s not been the case with HBO Max releases thanks to Warners. Still, Jenkins certainly caused a stir as her comments made the rounds once again on Thursday.

[via ScreenRant]