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Russell Crowe says he’s “slightly uncomfortable” with ‘Gladiator 2’

Russell Crowe has spoken about Ridley Scott‘s Gladiator 2, revealing that he’s “slightly uncomfortable” that a sequel is being made. Speaking to Kyle Meredith, Crowe said: “I’m slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one — because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done. But a couple of the things I’ve heard I’m like ‘No, no, no, that’s not in the moral journey of that particular character’. But I can’t say anything, it’s not my place, I’m six foot under. So we’ll see what that is like.” Watch Crowe’s comments on ‘Gladiator 2’ at the 33:10 mark below. [embedded content] Advertisement Crowe continued: “I reflect back: the age I was when I made that film and all the things that came after it, the doors that particular movie opened for me. This is just me being purely honest: there’s definitely a tinge of melancholy, a tinge of jealousy. I remember when I had tendons.” Crowe starred in 2000’s Gladiator as Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed and enslaved as a gladiator. He fights his way up the ranks to avenge the murders of his family and the emperor. Gladiator 2 will… Read More →

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Scowl and Speed drop out of Download Festival over Barclays sponsorship

Scowl and Speed have become the latest bands to pull out of Download 2024 over its partnership with Barclays and the bank’s ties to Israel. The news follows a similar move from Leeds hardcore band Pest Control who announced they would be pulling out earlier today (June 10), saying that they would not “take part in an event whose sponsor profits from facilitating a genocide.” In a statement posted to their social media, Scowl wrote: “We will not be playing Download fest this year due to Barclays Bank sponsorship of the event and Barclays’ connection to Israel and the genocide Israel is committing in Palestine. “Free Palestine!” Advertisement They directed fans to the Bands Boycott Barclays campaign for more information and thanked Pest Control “for bringing this to our attention”. Meanwhile, Speed wrote on their social media accounts: “SPEED will no longer be playing Download Festival this Friday June 14 due to the recent news of Barclays Banks sponsorship of the event and their involvement in the war in Gaza.” SPEED will no longer be playing Download Festival this Friday June 14 due to the recent news of Barclays Banks sponsorship of the event and their involvement in the war… Read More →

Eagles – Co-op Live, Manchester, June 7 

For a band synonymous with California sunshine rock, overcast Manchester may seem an unlikely place for the Eagles to bow out. However, it’s here that they have chosen to play their last ever shows on British soil, as their Long Goodbye tour draws to a close. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! After a rocky start, with several of its opening shows having to be moved or postponed due to issues with the building, the Co-op Live arena is now in full swing. The Eagles are a good advert for its “exceptional acoustics”, with the band themselves remarking on the venue’s crisp sound, though its “cutting-edge visual technology” goes largely unused. There is little in the way of pomp or spectacle for these final shows. “We’re just a bunch of guys with guitars,” said Don Henley from this stage earlier on in this five-night residency. “There’ll be no fireworks, wind machines, confetti cannons or butt-wagging choreography.” Advertisement Instead, what we get is a seasoned band running through two hours of hits with professionalism, poise and seamless delivery. To this day, Eagles’ Greatest Hits (1971–1975) remains one of the biggest-selling albums of… Read More →

Introducing Ultimate Record Collection: Taylor Swift

As her Eras tour lands in the United Kingdom, we’d like to welcome you to the Ultimate Record Collection: Taylor Swift. If you can’t find any in the shops, you can get yours here. The incredible albums. The game-changing singles. We’ve reviewed them all to bring you a definitive guide to the music of Taylor Swift. Alongside, we’ve told the story of her journey from aspiring Nashville singer-songwriter to global pop phenomenon, unpacking the easter eggs, profiling the characters, and creating the definitive timeline as we go. But that’s not all. Our people have been on the ground to report back on how Taylor has brought all this music to her audience at key moments on the Eras tour. We’ve reviewed Taylor on film, as she’s travelled from breaking records in front of the camera to writing and directing behind it. We’ve also located an classic interview conducted in the record-breaking first week of 1989’s release, a week of massive sales with which Taylor, not for the first time, proved her doubters wrong. Advertisement And has all this acclaim changed her day-to-day life? “The only places I can’t really go are huge carnival-type things…” she says, “…where there could be some… Read More →

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Red Velvet announce new mini-album ‘Cosmic’, out this month

K-pop girl group Red Velvet have announced a new mini-album titled ‘Cosmic’ to be released later this month. South Korean label SM Entertainment announced details about Red Velvet’s upcoming release through the girl group’s official X (formerly Twitter) account on June 10 at midnight KST. The post revealed both the title of the quintet’s comeback and its official release date, on June 24 at 6pm KST. According to a press statement from the label via Newsen, ‘Cosmic’ is set to include six songs in total, which the company says will take influences from “a variety of genres, which is expected to introduce the expanded world of Red Velvet’s music”. Red Velvet ‘Cosmic’ ➫ 2024.06.24 6PM KST#레드벨벳 #RedVelvet#코스믹 #Cosmic#RedVelvet_Cosmic pic.twitter.com/7LXD4my4eN — Red Velvet (@RVsmtown) June 9, 2024 Advertisement The announcement comes about a week after SM Entertainment confirmed reports of a Red Velvet comeback. It followed member Joy’s comments on June 3 via fan community app Bubble, where she expressed her concern over the lack of confirmation and promotion about the band’s upcoming music. ‘Cosmic’ will arrive about seven months after their third studio album, ‘Chill Kill’. In a glowing four-star review of the record, NME‘s Tanu I. Raj described it as a “deliciously dark, delightfully… Read More →

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Here’s the campaign gameplay trailer for ‘Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6’

The first official look at gameplay for Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 has been revealed – you can watch it below. READ MORE: All restricted guns and gear in ‘Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ Ranked Play Today (June 9), Activision kicked off the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 with the campaign gameplay trailer for Black Ops 6. In the action-packed trailer, we get a healthy mix of gameplay and in-game cutscenes, as we gain more information about the game. Black Ops 6 will be set after the Cold War, instead taking place during the Gulf War. It’s official synopsis reads: “While the Gulf War commands the global spotlight, a shadowy clandestine force has infiltrated the highest levels of the CIA, branding anyone who resists as traitors. Exiled from their agency and country that once hailed them as heroes, Black Ops veteran Frank Woods and his team find themselves hunted by the military machine that created them.” Watch the gameplay trailer for Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 below. Advertisement [embedded content] As well as the campaign mode, the multiplayer mode will similarly be available at launch with a dozen six-on-six maps and four Strike maps. Zombies will also be available… Read More →

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Watch Sabrina Carpenter live debut ‘Please Please Please’ at Gov Ball 2024

Sabrina Carpenter has given her latest song ‘Please Please Please‘ its live debut at Gov Ball 2024. The pop singer took over the Gov Ball mainstage on Saturday (June 7) and performed a vivacious set. She performed ‘Please Please Please’ for the first time following its release on Friday (June 7). Carpenter took a second to read a fan’s sign that read “Please Please Please play ‘Please Please Please’” and said: “Look, I know I said I can’t relate to desperation but I’m just a girl so uhm,” before jumping into the new track. Watch the full performance below: @itsanagricel Sabrina Carpenter gave her new songle ‘Please Please Please’ its live debut at Gov Ball 2024 ♬ original sound – Ana Advertisement Last week, Carpenter teased “a surprise” for Thursday, June 6. That surprise turned out to be a follow-up to her chart-topping ‘Espresso’. Produced by Jack Antonoff, ‘Please Please Please’ sees Carpenter begging a lover not to prove her doubts rights: “Please Please Please / Don’t prove I’m right / Please Please Please / Don’t bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice“. Recommended The singer also went on to release an accompanying music video… Read More →

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Boomtown seek to “blacklist” people from festival after “hate speech” against LGBTQIA+ community

Boomtown Festival has said they will “blacklist” people from their festival after receiving “hate speech” comments to a post supporting the LGBTQIA+ community. The Hampshire festival, which says it is a proud supporter of “the diverse communities” that makes their event come to life, posted on June 1 to celebrate the start of Pride Month. However, it appears that the post provoked a number of negative reactions, leading to the festival saying it will take decisive action against the people behind the “hateful” accounts. There is zero tolerance of any type of hate speech at Boomtown. We are taking steps to blacklist anyone we find spreading hateful messages from coming to the festival. We want to make it very clear that anyone with this type of view is not welcome at Boomtown. pic.twitter.com/Y4W4NAZB8O — Boomtown Festival (@BoomtownFair) June 7, 2024 Advertisement “Recently, we encountered hateful comments on a post we shared celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community at the heart of Boomtown,” they wrote. “We are deeply proud of our beautiful LGBTQIA+ crews, artists, performers and citizens and we will wholeheartedly continue to celebrate the diverse communities that make our city come to life.” “The kind of negativity we saw on Saturday… Read More →

The Decemberists – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again

It’s a bold statement, 24 years into your career, to label an album your band’s best, as Colin Meloy, the songwriter behind The Decemberists, has described As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again. Assembled with the vinyl revival in mind – fitting across four “sides”, each with a distinct sonic feel – it’s an album that riffs on over two decades’ worth of operatic literary references, shape-shifting indie-folk whimsy and prog-rock experimentation, offering sonic easter eggs to long-term fans while both charming and bamboozling newcomers to their world. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! In 2020, the Portland-based five-piece – Meloy, multi-instrumentalists Chris Funk and Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query and drummer John Moen – were poised for a celebratory 20th-anniversary year. The band, Meloy in particular, were exhausted from promoting 2018’s I’ll Be Your Girl: the John Congleton-produced album was written amid the turbulence of the 2016 US Presidential election, and reliving that despair onstage every night (sample lyric: from “Everything Is Awful”, “What’s that crashing sound following us around?/It’s the sound of all things good breaking”) had taken a toll. An anniversary tour was ultimately cancelled, and… Read More →

Bill Janowitz – My Life In Music

The Buffalo Tom general on his essential listens: “I have this thing for big, sprawling double albums” JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! BOB DYLAN Advertisement Highway 61 Revisited COLUMBIA, 1965 My grandparents had these neighbours who were getting rid of a ton of records, which are still among some of my most cherished albums. On the same day, I got Out Of Our Heads by the Stones, Wild Honey by The Beach Boys, and some others. But of those, Highway 61 Revisited has just been a constant for me. You can imagine being seven or eight years old and trying to make sense of it… It was raw, kinda sloppy even, but that voice singing those words blew my mind open. It was forbidding and inscrutable, but also compelling. He’s singing about Rimbaud, which opened my mind to literature and poetry. That kind of thing was edifying to my songwriting later on, for sure. Advertisement THE BEATLES The Beatles APPLE, 1968 The Beatles were omnipresent when I was a kid. I was born in ’66, so I missed out on that whole, ‘I saw them on Ed Sullivan and it… Read More →

Einstürzende Neubauten – Rampen (apm: alien pop music)

In their own peculiar way, Einstürzende Neubauten have always been ruthlessly efficient. In their early days, they smelted completely new music from the ruins of West Berlin, scavenging everyday and industrial objects due to the necessity of poverty, to transmute, alchemically, into musical manna. In 2023, that practicality manifested differently. Ready to record a new album, but with limited time on the schedule, the group decided to use their ‘rampen’ – in-concert improvisations – as base material for the 15 songs that constitute Rampen (apm: alien pop music). JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! It’s also an album that’s particularly rich with the much under-recognised Neubauten sense of humour. In recent interviews, Neubauten’s leader Blixa Bargeld has made knowing parallels with The Beatles, from the suggestion that in another solar system, Neubauten are as famous as The Beatles, to the way Rampen (apm: alien pop music) reflects The White Album in its one-colour artwork and double-album presentation. (Apparently, member NU Unruh suggested the album should be called Gelb (Yellow).) The subtitle of the final title is the clincher, though, with Rampen offering the listener a kind of pop music for the… Read More →

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How many episodes of ‘My Hero Academia’ are there?

When it comes to anime shows, few names are bigger than My Hero Academia. Based on the manga series by Kōhei Horikoshi, the show follows Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without superpowers who is enrolled in a prestigious high school for superheroes after being granted a “quirk” by the world’s greatest hero, All Might. The series became a worldwide hit following its debut in April 2016. The show has also spawned three animated films, titled My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, and My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission. A live-action film adaptation is currently in the works at Netflix, from Alice In Borderland director Shinsuke Sato. How many episodes of My Hero Academia are available? Advertisement Prior to the seventh season, My Hero Academia consisted of 138 episodes in total, with every season having 25 episodes apart from the first which has 13. The seventh season, which is set to conclude later this year, will have 21 episodes in total, bringing the total episode count to 159. [embedded content] How many volumes of the manga are there? Recommended The manga, which first began in 2014, spans 40 volumes in total as of April 2024. This, however,… Read More →

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Denzel Curry announces ‘King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2’ and new song featuring A$AP Ferg and TiaCorine

Denzel Curry has shared details of his forthcoming project ‘King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2’ alongside new single ‘Hot One’ featuring A$AP Ferg and TiaCorine. Find more details below. The project is as a sequel to 2012’s ‘King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 1 Underground Tape 1996’ – one of the mixtapes that started Curry’s career. It will arrive on Friday July 19, and marks a return to the sound of the original mixtape. In celebration of the announcement, Curry also released new single ‘Hot One’ that features rappers A$AP Ferg and TiaCorine. Following the more experimental, old school hip-hop and jazz influences that defined his 2022 album ‘MELT MY EYEZ SEE YOUR FUTURE’, ‘Hot Ones’ sees Curry revisit the DIY energy of his early Soundcloud releases. Advertisement The project’s 15-song tracklist includes star-studded features, including A$AP Rocky, Maxo Kream, Key Nyata, Ty Dolla $ign, Juicy J, That Mexican OT, 2 Chainz and Armani White. Influenced by the rap scenes in Memphis, Houston and Curry’s home state of Florida, ‘King Of The Mischievous South Vol. 2’ will pay homage to the musical heritage of the American South. In 2022, Curry sat down with NME to discuss the influence of… Read More →

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Plain White T’s react to ‘Wah Gwan Delilah’, the Drake-featuring Toronto parody of ‘Hey There Delilah’

Chicago rock band Plain White T’s have reacted to Snowd4y’s Drake-featuring parody of ‘Hey There Delilah’ – see what the band had to say below. READ MORE: Drake – ‘For All The Dogs’ review: banger-less, bitter and deeply mid Earlier this week, Toronto rapper Snowd4y (pronounced Snowday) shared a remix/cover of Plain White Ts’ ‘Hey There Delilah’ featuring a verse from Drake. The track – out now exclusively via Soundcloud – sees the two rappers alter the original Plain White T’s song to bizarre effect featuring parody-esque lyrics and a wealth of autotune. Now, the Plain White T’s have shared on social media their reaction to listening to the song for first time. With a puzzled expression frontman Tom Higgenson said upon hearing Drake’s verse: “That’s not Drake. It’s crazy that everybody thinks that it’s real. It seems like it’s very obvious. I don’t know. But it’s cool. Whatever.” Advertisement Higgenson’s reaction seems to suggest that he believes the song was created by AI. However, after the track’s release, Drake shared it onto his Instagram story, confirming his involvement in the tune. ‘Wah Gwan Delilah’ marks the second release featuring Drake to drop since the last blow in his rap beef with Kendrick… Read More →

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Kerry King says Slayer “will never tour again”

Kerry King has opened up on Slayer and has said that the band “will never tour again”. King – the band’s guitarist – appeared as a guest in a new interview with Jonathan Clarke, the host of Out Of The Box on Q104.3, New York’s classic rock station. During the chat, King was asked about Slayer’s forthcoming reunion gigs and how they came about. The band’s reunion tour comes five years after Slayer completed their last run of gigs which were billed as their farewell tour at the time. Now, the band will be headlining two festivals this September, namely Louder Than Life Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, and Riot Fest in Chicago. The line-up will be the same as it was when the band ended, featuring co-founders King and Tom Araya, guitarist Gary Holt (also of Exodus) and drummer Paul Bostaph. Advertisement “I’ll put it in the perspective everybody can understand. We’ve been turning down offers since the beginning of 2020, pandemic and all. And then it started getting near the five-year anniversary of us stopping playing, so I’m, like, ‘You know what? This is a three-show package. I think it would be fun to do.’ It’s kind of a five-year… Read More →

Listen to the MC5’s new track, “Boys Who Play With Matches”

The MC5‘s new album, Heavy Lifting, will be released on earMusic on October 18. Ahead of this, they’ve shared a new track, “Boys Who Play With Matches“, which you can hear below. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! [embedded content] The album is the band’s first for 53 years and features the final recordings of Wayne Kramer and Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, who died in February and May, respectively. Advertisement The album was produced by Bob Ezrin and features special guests including Slash, Tom Morello, William DuVall (Alice in Chains), Vernon Reid (Living Colour) and Don Was. Speaking to Uncut last year, Kramer discussed the album and said: “Live long and stay creative. This is my attitude. And this album continues from where ‘High Time’ left off. In that, I think it’s an artist’s responsibility to reflect the times they’re going through. And I think that we made an album that is in sync with where we’re at today and the challenges that we’re facing, and that carries a positive message.” Pre-order HEAVY LIFTING on CD, Vinyl and digital download in addition to bonus 2CD and bonus 2LP here. Advertisement Tracklisting (CD/LP): Heavy Lifting… Read More →

Sturgill Simpson unveils Johnny Blue Skies

Sturgill Simpson returns with a new album under new name, Johnny Blue Skies. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! Passage Du Desir is released on July 12 on his own independent label, High Top Mountain Records – you can pre-order a copy here. The album was produced by Johnny Blue Skies and David Ferguson and recorded at Clement House Recording Studio in Nashville, TN and Abbey Road Studios. Passage Du Desir is Simpson’s first new music since 2021’s The Ballad of Dood And Juanita. The tracklisting for Passage Du Desir is: Swamp of Sadness If The Sun Never Rises Again Scooter Blues Jupiter’s Faerie (Morning Dawn) Who I Am Right Kind of Dream Mint Tea One for the Road The new album follows the tenth anniversary reissue of Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.

Gastr Del Sol – We Have Dozens Of Titles

David Grubbs has been thinking about this release from the moment Gastr Del Sol ceased, but a few things had to happen in the ensuing 26 years. For one, Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke had to reconnect in person in Tokyo back in 2016. Then, an excellent live recording of the band’s final performance was unearthed from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation archives, captured in 1997 at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in rural Quebec. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! But let’s travel back even further, to 1991, when Gastr Del Sol emerged out of Bastro, Grubbs’ previous post-hardcore band (hence the name: Bastro becomes Gastr del Sol when embedded into Gato del Sol, the name of the racehorse who won the 1982 Kentucky Derby.) Prior to that, Grubbs had cut his teeth playing guitar in Louisville’s Squirrel Bait, moody atonal ’80s punk that presaged math rock and contributed to the birth of post-hardcore (the other major band to come out of Squirrel Bait was of course Slint, a foundational force for anxious, introspective, quiet-loud-quiet post-rock). With each group Grubbs’ interests became more expansive yet more esoteric, and less… Read More →

Willie Nelson – The Border

It is already beyond serious argument that the string of tremendous albums issued by Willie Nelson during his eighties established a formidable benchmark in the admittedly little-contested field of octogenarian discographies. Having blown out 90 candles in April 2023, Nelson is now setting a daunting standard for future nonagenarians who fancy taking him on. JONI MITCHELL IS ON THE COVER OF THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER YOUR COPY HERE! Just as last year’s Bluegrass was a deft reworking of a dozen of his own classics to make them sound even more like traditional standards than they already did, The Border further demonstrates that Nelson feels he no longer has time to faff around overmuch with titles – this is an album located where Texas abuts Mexico, and where the music of each overlap. The cover shows the ochre mesas of the Big Bend National Park, along the frontier. Advertisement The title and opening track is further unsubtle if effective scene-setting. “The Border”, borrowed from Rodney Crowell’s 2019 album Texas, channels the quiet desperation of a US Border Patrol officer, neither song nor its protagonist fishing for sympathy, merely relating that this is how things are (“I work on the border,… Read More →

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Watch Soccer Mommy and Phoebe Bridgers duet Elliott Smith cover at an L.A. show

Soccer Mommy and Phoebe Bridgers have performed a live cover of an Elliott Smith track – you can watch the performance below. Earlier this week (June 4), Soccer Mommy performed at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles, California. During the set, she brought out a surprise guest in Phoebe Bridgers, who walked onstage to raucous applause. After a short embrace, the two musicians performed a cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘The Biggest Lie’. Both Soccer Mommy and Phoebe Bridgers have been longtime fans of Smith, with the latter even writing the title-track of her hit album ‘Punisher’ about her admiration for Smith. Watch fan-shot footage of Soccer Mommy and Phoebe Bridgers covering ‘The Biggest Lie’ below. Advertisement [embedded content] Elsewhere during the set, Soccer Mommy debuted three tracks live in front of an audience: ‘Abigail’, ‘Thinking Of You’ and ‘Changes’. She also performed ‘Blossom (Wasting All My Time)’ and ‘Try’ live for the first time since 2019. Footage of the debuts have yet to make their way online. Soccer Mommy has also recently teased the song ‘Lost’, which is due to release at midnight (June 7). Check out the teaser clip here. Recommended In a four-star review of… Read More →

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Rihanna reveals launch date for new haircare line, Fenty Hair

Rihanna has announced that she will be launching her newest business venture, Fenty Hair, later this month. READ MORE: Rihanna: every album ranked and rated Earlier this week (June 4), the Bajan singer took to Instagram to share the announcement video for her upcoming line. You can see Rihanna walking around in a blonde pixie cut, with colourful shots of her new products spliced throughout. Singer-songwriter Jess Glynne also makes a cameo. In the caption, she wrote: “A new family is moving in! @fentyhair is pullin’ up and it’s time to finally have the hair experience you’ve been waiting for. “You know how much switching my hair up matters to me,” she continued. “I’ve had almost every texture, colour, [and] length – from weaves to braids to natural. So, I am launching a flexible line of products for not only every hair want, but every single product is designed to strengthen and repair all types of hair, which is what we truly need! It’s time to play and get stronger by the style.” Advertisement At the end of the message, Rihanna revealed that the haircare line will be launched next week on Thursday June 13. You can sign up for… Read More →