The Scoreboard is Uproxx Music’s bi-monthly look at who is putting points on the board and who is taking major Ls in the music world over the past couple weeks.
Apparently the “B” in “Cardi B” stands for “broadcast television,” because the rapper/delightful person has been dominating TV in recent days. First she reigned over Saturday Night Live this past weekend (during which she also unveiled her rumored pregnancy), and then, she became the first person to co-host The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (and charmed the socks off everybody in a 90,000-mile radius in the process). Meanwhile, Beyonce hasn’t been as lucky, since apparently she had some aggressive teeth headed in her direction, Lorde has turned her tour into a live, location-specific jukebox, and music festivals are starting to get their act together when it comes to getting some dang women on stage.
Win: Queen of hip-hop television Cardi B
When a star rises to the top as quickly as Cardi B has, there’s tremendous potential for them to flame out, to disappear into the night as rapidly as they came, but it feels like Cardi B is too darn real for that to happen to her. She co-hosted The Tonight Show yesterday, and she was put through the late night gamut: She did a monologue, performed, played games with Fallon, told stories to John Mulaney, and most excellently, read Go The F-ck To Sleep, which is what I did long before last night’s episode started. That’s not out of lack of interest, of course: I had the YouTube clip security blanket that I knew was coming this morning, and since I’m 26-years-old, I’m in bed by 10 PM now because that’s when my old bones start to get creaky.
Loss: Some Beyonce-biting bozo
Look, who wouldn’t want to get a taste of the life Beyonce leads? It’s surely filled with fun, joy, and high-profile encounters with celebrities who are on everybody’s bucket list of people to hang out with (as well as a lot of rehearsals for Coachella). I don’t know what it’s like to be Beyonce, but I can tell you one thing: Actually tasting her will not get you any closer. Somebody bit Beyonce, and we have no idea who it was. There are theories, of course, but ultimately, it appears that we’ll never know who the toothy perp really is. If Beyonce really wants to make headlines with her Coachella performance (not that she’ll have a problem with that), she should close her set by revealing who owns the guilty set of chompers… and then do an encore of “Single Ladies.”
Win: Lorde getting under the covers
If you come from a place that an iconic musical artist is from, and Lorde has a tour date in that place, good news: Lorde will perform one of that artist’s songs. At the very least, she’ll do a song about that place. That’s the precedent she’s set so far, anyway: On her current tour, she’s performed songs by Drake in Toronto, Kanye West in Chicago, St. Vincent’s “New York” in New York, and Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey. Without having looked at her upcoming tour dates, I predict that the rest of Lorde’s tour will include renditions of songs by The Bee Gees in Isle Of Man, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole in Hawaii, and the My Little Pony theme song in Ponyville.
Loss: Julian Casablancas and James Corden, BFFs for life
I’ve never spent time with Julian Casablancas, and based on the fact that I spend a decent amount of time writing about music from my home in Maine, I’m skeptical that I ever will. So, I have no clue what The Strokes singer is like on an interpersonal level, but if James Corden, perhaps the friendliest guy on American television, can’t relate to him, then maybe Casablancas isn’t the most charismatic guy out there.
The two had a “friendly,” “casual,” and “not difficult to watch” chat on The Late Late Show, and the quotes of sarcasm around those words are entirely necessary. Corden tried to make light banter, Casablancas responded with bizarre statements that were in no way leading, and for fans of Andy Kaufman-like awkward television, it was an awkward dream. When you’re on your deathbed and you know you only have a few minutes left to live, ask to watch the video of this segment, because it will make four minutes feel like four hours in your time of need.
Win: Willie Nelson passing the dutchie
Like Michael Jordan’s basketball sneakers and Mike Tyson’s publicist, Willie Nelson’s weed is the ultimate version of what it is. Few of us would ever have the honor of smoking one up (right there is where you learned that I don’t know how to talk about weed) with Willie, though, but now, Californians can experience the next best thing: Buying Willie Nelson’s cannabis brand in their state. Who knows: If you smoke enough of it, you might even start to believe that the red-headed stranger is in the room with you.
(Yes, weed isn’t hallucinogenic, I don’t know drugs, and I’m not just feigning ignorance in the off chance my parents are reading this).
Loss: Bad blood with Deadpool
The road to the top is lined with the crushed skulls of your enemies, and on her way there, Taylor Swift has made a few. Now, she may be able to add one more: Deadpool, or at least his fans. There was a Deadpool cartoon in the works, and although it seemed like there were multiple reasons that it didn’t work out, the straw the broke the Merc with the mouth’s back was apparently an episode focused on Taylor Swift, which honestly sounds like a reasonable cause for the show to be over. Then again, Taylor Swift could have been what the Harlem Globetrotters were to Scooby-Doo: A cheesy and weird guest star that doesn’t make any sense on paper, but becomes more endearing and charmingly of its era over time.
Or, you know, it’s a stupid idea that got a show with great potential canned. Either way.
Win: Fantastic female-fronted festivals
Women in music have been getting the short end of the stick for years now in a variety of ways, and now, here in the #MeToo era, people are finally doing something about it. The Grammys have a task force to address their problems with the fairer sex, and music festivals have pledged to get more women in their lineups by 2022. It looks like FYF Fest has decided to accelerate that timeline, and follow up on the representationally solid job they did in 2017 by nabbing Björk and Missy Elliott as headliners: This year, the festival is just two days, and headlining those two days are Janet Jackson and Florence + The Machine. The best part is this doesn’t feel like any sort of affirmative action: Jackson and Florence are two headline-quality acts, and this helps prove that as far as women’s relative lack of representation in the music industry, women aren’t the problem.
Loss: Jeremy’s not knockin’ on Heaven’s door
It would be pretty nuts if, say, Foo Fighters, Jack White, and Queens Of The Stone Age went on tour together, right? It’d be a significant event, and in 1991, the classic rock version of that almost happened. There was a very real opportunity for Pearl Jam, U2, and Guns ‘N’ Roses to tour together, but for whatever reason, Eddie Vedder and company weren’t so keen on the idea. Fear not, though, because there’s a way to make this happen in your head: Get too drunk, watch this video of U2 and Pearl Jam performing together, listen to this Pearl Jam/Guns ‘N’ Roses supergroup, check out this video of Axl Rose singing with U2, and maybe when you return to a coherent state, your memory of those separate things will have had an alcohol-assisted combination in your brain!
Win: No ID, no problem
“ID” is a strange shortening of “identification,” right? It’s just the first two letters. Anyway, you should definitely bring proper “I” (my new, more sensical abbreviation of “identification”) to the airport, but apparently, you’re a lot easier to identify if you’re a famous person (fair). For example, G-Eazy recently used his XXL cover as ID at the airport, and it worked. So, they next time I fly, I’m going to see if that newspaper article in which I’m referred to as “Florida man” about a crocodile biting off my foot in a gas station will be suitable (That hasn’t happened, but a man can dream).
Loss: Ctrl+Alt+Delete unprotected sex
Merchandising! Alt-J the music! Alt-J the lunchbox! Alt-J the condom! Alt-J aren’t spending long and hard days at the condom factory making condoms, but they are teaming up with Lifebeat to promote sex education and hand out condoms at their shows. As Uproxx’s Phil Cosores sarcastically noted, Alt-J is definitely who you want to get your condoms from. Also, not to make any generalizations about fans of alternative indie music (mainly because I am one), but it seems like maybe being an Alt-J fan is already an effective birth control method.
Also, abstinence is the only 100 percent effective birth control method, so if you feel the hunger of the pine, maybe get your left hand free instead of sharing some bloodflow with Matilda.
