Music Review: My Morning Jacket's 10th album 'is' a joy for fans and newbies alike
Twenty years ago, the Louisville-based jam-infused rock band led by Jim James released 'Z,' one of its most heralded records. And now comes 'is," their 10th full-length record.
So, is 'is' any good?
Yes, 'is' is.
Nearing their third decade as a band, My Morning Jacket's veterancy shines on 'is." They continue to improve on their ability to write melodic and focused psychedelic rock songs.
And for that reason, seemingly every track on 'is' could be a single for the band, a highlight of their live set or a launching pad for improvisation on stage.
For 'is,' My Morning Jacket handed the producer duties over to Brendan O'Brien, who has worked with Phish, Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam — a rarity for a band that prefers to self-produce and has for nearly a decade.
It's paid off. O'Brien doesn't mess with the sound that My Morning Jacket fans love and expect. Instead, he seems to have focused the band in a way that allows them to deliver a unified, 10-song collection. The songs are meant to communicate 'a sense of presence in the now,' as James described the album titled in a press release.
'Hopefully those songs will be helpful to people and give them some kind of peace as they try to deal with the insanity of the world," James said. 'Because that's what music does for me.'
That happens at the jump. Opener 'Out in the Open' leads with a catchy guitar riff.
'I'm realizing what's at stake now," James sings. 'I can't pretend that I'm not scared / But I'll live while I'm still free.'
On the love song 'Everyday Magic,' James finds transcendence in the mundane. 'Everyday magic / A ripple in the fabric," he sings. "Of all space time / Oh you have it / In your heart.'
'Time Waited,' another love song, seems destined to become a standard for the band, with its easy-going melody and inventive sample of pedal steel giant Buddy Emmons' 'Blue Jade."
That song may find a place on the playlists at weddings of neohippies, especially those who connect a little later in life. The evidence is in its lyrics: 'We know real love takes forever / And the clock ticks faster every year / But time waited / For you and me,' James sings.
My Morning Jacket shifts the weirdness to a higher gear with 'Squid Ink,' a blues-y rocker with a propulsive beat. It is certain to come alive in front of audiences.
From the longtime fan to the newbie, 'is' delivers with familiar, elevated songs.
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For more of reviews of recent releases, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/music-reviews
Scott Bauer, The Associated Press
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New York Times
13 hours ago
- New York Times
The trade within the trade: How Jhoan Duran's electric entrance accompanied him from Twins to Phillies
PHILADELPHIA — He had driven hundreds of miles Friday to bring his 13-year-old son to a baseball tournament in Louisville, and it was almost 9:30 p.m. by the time Dustin Morse arrived at his hotel. That is when Jhoan Duran introduced himself to a new city with flames and spiders and a song that everyone whistled into the night. Advertisement Moments later, the first messages appeared on Morse's phone. 'Wow,' a colleague said. 'You traded the entrance.' 'Yeah,' Morse said. 'I had to.' Morse, the Minnesota Twins' vice president of communications, found the videos on social media. There it was, an almost exact replica of the eye-popping entrance the Twins had created with Duran to use at Target Field. The Undertaker's bell. The ballpark lights going dark as fans shine their phone flashlights. The song — a custom remix by a Minnesota DJ of 'El Incomprendido' by Farruko and 'Hot' by Pitbull and Daddy Yankee. The flames on the LED ribbon boards. The crawling tarantula across the screens. JHOAN DURAN IS — Barstool Philly (@BarstoolPhilly) August 2, 2025 More Twins staff members sent Morse messages. Sam Henschen and Jeremy Loosbrock, the two who Morse said oversaw a project that took 500 hours over a few years, were happy and sad. They were the ones who made it what it was, who had the idea to incorporate fans with their phones. The team's president messaged Morse to reiterate what they all knew. 'It's the right thing to do,' Morse said. 'We did the right thing here.' In 2025, when a team trades for a closer, it is trading for the entire experience. Duran is one of the best ninth-inning men in the sport, and his entrance in Minnesota became part of his ethos. Soon after the Phillies acquired him Wednesday evening, Duran had a call from Morse. Morse had too many of these calls to make as Minnesota stripped its big-league roster in a fire sale. 'But his was different,' Morse said. The two had grown close as Duran morphed from a little-known prospect into a force. 'What do you want to do?' Morse asked Duran. His trademark entrance was too good to leave behind, Duran said. Morse agreed. He took the idea to top officials in the Twins organization. Advertisement 'We collectively thought,' Morse said, ''This is for the greater good of baseball fans.' This is a fun atmosphere. All baseball fans should get to see it and experience it. We all know that atmosphere at Citizens Bank is already nuts. This would go over well.' The next morning, Twins and Phillies game-presentation officials connected. 'We decided to give them everything we could give them,' Morse said. The Phillies had 36 hours to recreate Duran's entrance, and it manifested in an unforgettable moment with an announced crowd of 43,241 packed inside the ballpark. Duran needed four pitches to record his first of many Phillies saves. Morse texted Duran at 10:55 p.m. It had been a long day for both of them, albeit on different sides of the transaction. Morse did not expect a response. He just had to say it. 'Wow, I'm so proud of you. Entrance looked amazing.' 'Thank you so much, Dustin,' Duran wrote back. 'Thank you for being a part of that creation.' Whenever the Phillies build a new ballpark feature, they have someone program it so all it takes is one button to initiate the light show, scoreboard graphics and music. They did not have enough time to properly program Duran's entrance. So, inside the scoreboard operations room Friday night, everyone had a task. Mark DiNardo, the club's director of broadcasting and video services, took the button that would kill the ballpark's lights once Duran exited the bullpen. The touch screen froze. 'At that moment, your heart's in your throat,' DiNardo said. 'But you've got so much adrenaline going into that moment.' The lights didn't go dark when they were supposed to. Finally, a few seconds late, the button worked. Every other component fired as expected. From the opposing dugout, Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch had a familiar feeling. Duran, a divisional nemesis while with Minnesota, has a career 0.56 ERA against the Tigers. They had seen this entrance before at Target Field. How did it compare? Advertisement 'I hate all of them equally, because it means we're behind, and it means it's a really hard time to score,' Hinch said. 'But that was pretty electric here. I mean, everybody does a really good job with that, but this one in particular … probably about as good of an entrance to a new team in a new circumstance.' Duran's new teammates could feel it. Even a day later, they were still talking about it. The fans were the same. Duran felt the love. 'I can see they love baseball,' he said of the fans. 'They do everything for baseball. I love that.' The Phillies had never done anything like that inside Citizens Bank Park. 'We absolutely knew something special happened (in the) moment,' DiNardo said. 'Then, in this day and age, your phone starts blowing up. It's from people watching the game. Then you're getting calls a half hour after the game saying, 'Oh my God, it's blowing up on social media.' That's icing on the cake. For us, it was critical that we got it right for the guy in the ballpark.' DiNardo's staff had been thinking about Duran the whole week. They followed the trade rumors, and they knew Duran had this special entrance in Minnesota. But they also had three documentaries to produce for this weekend's annual Phillies alumni events that honored Dick Allen, Jimmy Rollins and Ed Wade. DiNardo called a Zoom meeting Thursday morning with Emily Rutzen, Dee Kelchner, Sydney Worek and Arianna Krizek — all producers and graphic designers. They knew the task. 'We have to do this,' DiNardo said. 'This has to be done. And at the very least, we have to replicate the experience that they've had in Minnesota.' Soon after, DiNardo and Henschen, his counterpart in Minnesota, connected through email. The Phillies were trying to recreate Duran's song with their own DJs. They were rendering graphics. They needed more time than they had. Advertisement Then, the Twins sent all of the digital assets they had — including the original song track. The trade was done. 'We were able to pull it off,' DiNardo said, 'in a ridiculous timeline.' There were missing elements; the Phillies did not have a video to run with the entrance because there were no clips of Duran in a Phillies uniform. That will come. The faux Liberty Bell in right-center field turned orange. Next time, it'll have animated flames. The foundation was there. 'It's a great baseball story of teams working together to help keep the experience what it should be,' DiNardo said. 'They were very eager to help because I think they respected Duran a lot. They were proud of what they had done. We will take this and put our own fingerprints on it, as well.' DiNardo's staff stayed late Thursday night to test it. They continued tinkering all day Friday. But, as the Phillies trailed most of Friday night, they were not certain the moment would arrive. Jimmy Sulimay has worked Phillies broadcasts for 20 years; he started as an intern at Comcast SportsNet. He is usually positioned near the Phillies dugout. But, after numerous pregame meetings, he was designated as Duran's tail. Later in Friday's game, Sulimay relocated under the stands in the right-field corner. The Phillies trailed by three runs, then tied it, then surrendered another run. DiNardo had been in contact with Phillies baseball operations officials; they had never sent a cameraman into the bullpen during a game here. It's become popular in New York when an SNY cameraman tails Mets closer Edwin Díaz from the bullpen to the mound. The Phillies didn't want Sulimay to disrupt the tight space in the bullpen unless necessary. 'Should we send him?' DiNardo asked in the top of the eighth. 'I don't know,' a high-ranking Phillies official said. Advertisement 'Send him!' DiNardo said. 'I'm going to send him.' Sulimay darted into the bullpen in the middle of the eighth and crouched near the steps that led to the visitors' bullpen. The Phillies scored two runs. Sulimay started to film Duran. 'All these shots are brand-new, even him warming up,' Sulimay said. 'And then, boom, last out. Here it comes. This is what everyone's been waiting for. Just get the shot for everybody. Because everyone's going to be watching and talking about it. So get the shot. Don't trip. Don't run into anything. Keep it as steady as you can and just try to keep up with him.' NBC Sports Philadelphia shifted some advertisements so they could potentially skip a commercial break and stay live with Sulimay's camera. The scoreboard operations people had also moved end-of-inning ads so they could display instructions: 'Phones out, lights on.' 'From this point forward, everybody will know to do that,' DiNardo said. 'We won't have to run that message anymore.' Sulimay had clear directions. He could only follow Duran to a certain spot. It had to be Friday, Sulimay thought. Saturday was a day game; it wouldn't be dark if Duran had a save chance. And Sunday is an ESPN game. After Bryson Stott beat out a go-ahead infield single, Sulimay focused. He kept pace with Duran. 'It was just exciting for everyone,' he said. 'The workers, the fans, everyone at home watching TV. Us bringing it to them. It was amazing. It was exciting for me, but I was just so locked in on making sure I get this shot. I'm out here for a reason — for that shot.' Morse's career in baseball started in San Diego, back when Trevor Hoffman entered the ninth inning to AC/DC's 'Hell's Bells.' It's one of the classic closer sequences. So, even before Duran became Minnesota's closer in 2023, Morse had wanted to create something like it for the modern age. He'd drive around listening to Pitbull's Globalization Radio, a station on SiriusXM. He worked with Duran and DJ Skee, a Minnesota native, on the mashup that became Duran's song. Morse had heard that minor-league teammates called the hard-throwing righty, 'Durantula.' That was trademarked, but the spiders became an essential piece of the theme. Advertisement But the bell was Duran's idea. He's a WWE aficionado. A few years ago, he sent Morse a photo of The Undertaker. 'Can we add the bells?' Duran asked. This was it. Maybe it's just a coincidence Duran was traded to a team that has a giant bell hanging in the outfield. 'I didn't even think of that,' Morse said. 'It's a perfect fit. It's perfect.' No words. — Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) August 2, 2025 Duran once told Morse he threw harder after the entrance. 'I honestly think it was a showstopper for the visiting team and those first few hitters that knew they had to face Duran,' Morse said. 'I mean, it's a little intimidating.' There was an edge; Morse could feel it through the screen Friday night as he watched the show's debut in a new ballpark. 'It's emotional to sit there,' Morse said, 'when you're kind of in a quiet hotel room, far away from any baseball, and you're just like, 'Yeah. I knew it would be great.'' The Twins are rebuilding; they hope Mick Abel and Eduardo Tait, who were traded for Duran, are part of the next great Minnesota team. The Phillies have the highest expectations. It was a sensible baseball trade, and it was only fair to toss in the show. So, earlier in the week, Morse and other Twins staffers savored the last Duran entrance at Target Field. 'I knew what was coming,' Morse said. 'I'm usually making my way down to the field for the postgame interview, but I sat in the press box and wanted to watch the last one.' That was closure. So was the message from Duran late Friday night. One of the biggest Phillies' deadline deals was officially completed when the lights went out, Duran's song blasted, and the whole thing went viral. 'The two organizations get it,' Morse said. 'I mean, we all kind of work together to entertain and put forward the best show possible. … You try to one-up each other, right? But at the end of the day, we're all just trying to make it enjoyable for fans.'
USA Today
14 hours ago
- USA Today
America's fascination with the kiss cam: For better or worse, it's here to stay
'Are you not entertained?' Russell Crowe's Maximus famously bellowed to the Colosseum crowd in the 2000 film 'Gladiator.' But for decades, kiss cams have been posing a different question to U.S. sports fans and concertgoers: 'Are you not the entertainment?' Whether lighthearted distraction or comic relief, the ubiquitous arena and stadium feature is as American as apple pie — or at least as American as baking an apple pie and posting it on social media. Live competition and performance offer us communal experience on a massive scale, but they also offer a chance to make memories and — with the aid of kiss cams — to become part of the entertainment ourselves. For a few back-to-back moments, as the camera zeroes in on its various targets, fans watch with curiosity, anticipation, excitement and maybe even self-conscious dread. 'These events are epic, nostalgic, and for some even narcissistic,' said Adam Resnick, founder of 15 Seconds of Fame, a Los Angeles-based company whose app allows participating fans featured on in-venue video boards like kiss cams to download and share the footage as a digital souvenir. The origins of the kiss cam are frustratingly foggy but Resnick and others agree they burst onto sports scenes in the 1980s, in the years after sports franchises began introducing increasingly massive color video screens at ballparks and stadiums. Designed to fill breaks in the action and typically set to cheesy pop ballads, the kiss cam was a major innovation that shifted the focus from courts and fields into the stands. The feature is pretty much a slam dunk, with the camera's roving eye picking out random pairs of people in the stands who may or may not be actual couples — and therein lies part of the fun. Reactions are broadcast on the venue's giant video boards: If they kiss, the crowd cheers, while refusals draw playful jeers or laughter. "We love love," said Pepper Schwartz, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. When couples oblige, she said, "it's a feel-good feeling that transfers from one person to another and makes us optimistic." Kiss cams are cheap entertainment designed to keep audiences engaged when they could easily check out, said Joseph Darowski, an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. 'The energy of the live crowd is incredibly important, and the kiss cam helps to prevent it from dying down,' said Darowski, co-author of 'Survivor: A Cultural History,' a book that in part explores the rise of reality TV. 'Sporting events are not just about the game being played. It's the entire entertainment experience.' Any additional theatrics are generally a bonus — at least for the audience. But as illustrated by the now infamous July 16 incident at a Coldplay concert in Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, that's not always the case for the featured individuals. When reactions tell the story It was the shot broadcast around the world – the TikTok'd footage of a couple at a Coldplay concert caught mid-cuddle. 'Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' Coldplay singer Chris Martin quipped after seeing the video from the stage. The video of the July 16 incident at Gillette Stadium has received more than 129 million views on TikTok alone. The viral moment and its professional and personal fallout, Schwartz said, prompted reactions ranging from amusement and fascination to, for those who've been involved in similar circumstances, schadenfreude and relief. But it wouldn't have unfolded the way it did without the kiss cam. The couple seen on the screen "could have saved themselves from worldwide derision had they waved and looked like, 'This is no big deal,'" Schwartz said. "But they took the second instinct, which was to flee. And that was the funny one." 'It could have been a vanilla, fleeting moment,' Resnick agreed. 'However, their reaction told a story." The episode illustrated how kiss cams have provoked occasional embarrassment and controversy since their debut. In addition to outing potential infidelities, their use in the past has been accused of pressuring unwilling participants to take part and shamed for promoting homophobia by showing same-sex couples for laughs. It also showed the hazards of baring private matters in public in the age of kiss cams, smartphones and social media. 'The expectation of privacy at a public event has never existed, and today, with camera ubiquity, it's preposterous for anyone to take that position,' Resnick said. More often, though, kiss cams offer those attending live events the chance to score a cameo in their own experience, claiming part or even all of those 15 seconds of fame once foretold for all of us. The power of those moments, Resnick said, lies in their organic nature. 'Authenticity can't be staged in real time,' he said. 'It resonates in the social zeitgeist.' Kiss cams 'an important metric' of acceptance The kiss cam's evolution hasn't been without its stumbles. In 2015, Syracuse University discontinued its kiss cam feature after a letter to the local newspaper cited a pair of troubling instances at the football team's game against Wake Forest. Steve Port of Manlius, N.Y., wrote that the kiss cam segment had twice featured young women who expressed unwillingness to participate but were forced to anyway, either by their male counterpart or by surrounding students. Meanwhile, a dozen or so years have passed since some major league sports franchises were accused of promoting homophobia by using kiss cams to poke fun at other teams. In those cases, after featuring a series of smooching male-female couples, the kiss cam segments ended by focusing on two of the home team's rival players, or even fans – suggesting they might kiss, and that doing so would be comedic. As a fan of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars complained after such a segment in a 2013 letter to team owner Shahid Khan, initially reported by Outsports: 'Hilarious, right? No, and the message is clear. Jaguars are heterosexual and approved. The opponent is 'gay,' disapproved and the butt of a crude joke.' A year earlier, pitcher Brandon McCarthy of Major League Baseball's Oakland A's had similarly condemned the practice after a game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 'They put two guys on the 'Kiss Cam' tonight,' McCarthy posted on the social platform now known as X. 'What hilarity!! (by hilarity I mean offensive homophobia). Enough with this stupid trend.' Later, McCarthy — now sporting director for the USL Championship's Phoenix Rising FC — told the San Francisco Chronicle: "If there are gay people who are coming to a game and seeing something like that, you can't assume they're comfortable with it. If you're even making a small group of people ... feel like outcasts, then you're going against what makes your model successful." Before long, franchises were striving to be more inclusive, and in 2015, MLB's New York Mets told the Huffington Post they would no longer feature opposing players in their kiss cam segments; that same year, the Dodgers included a gay couple in its kiss cam. 'Kiss cams are an important metric in measuring how acceptable certain people are in a given community,' said Stephanie Bonvissuto, an adjunct assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Hunter College and Brooklyn College, both part of the City University of New York system. In early 2017, the Ad Council's 'Love Has No Labels' campaign produced a commercial featuring kiss cam footage from that year's NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people had been killed seven months earlier in a mass shooting at gay nightclub Pulse. 'Kiss Cams have been a part of sports culture for years,' the opening text read, but at that game, it continued, they 'became part of something bigger.' The images showed pairs of individuals, outlined by a heart, broadcast on Camping World Stadium's giant screens. Friends were featured. So, too, were same-sex and interracial couples. Then the camera zoomed in on two women in the stands, one of them wearing a shirt reading 'Orlando survivor.' The two turned and kissed, to the crowd's delight. Still, Bonvissuto said it's still rare to see LGBTQ couples featured on kiss cams beyond Pride Night events. While cautioning that she hasn't seen any statistics on such representation, she said the footage she's viewed largely features white, able-bodied and seemingly cisgender individuals. 'Kiss cams act as a means to exclude certain people,' she said. 'They're incredibly important in thinking about representation — who we're seeing and not seeing.' 'Socially acceptable' voyeurism But for the most part, kiss cams have offered streams of harmless fun, fodder for highlight and blooper reels and glimpses into the relationships of everyone from fellow citizens to celebrities and sitting and former U.S. presidents. Kiss cams, said BYU's Darowski, offer audiences the constant thrill of knowing they could be onscreen combined with 'a socially acceptable, safe form of voyeurism that is traditionally taboo.' The presumed authenticity of couples' raw, unrehearsed reactions is key, too, he said. 'So much of our entertainment is highly mediated, edited and packaged for our consumption,' he said. It doesn't always play out as planned – and not all of it is necessarily genuine, thanks to some sports teams' creative minds. Many couples share crowd-pleasing kisses. Others, not so much. Some, snubbed by their companions, stomp off in a huff or peck adjacent fans instead, while youthful pairs looking to lock lips are thwarted by chaperoning adults. Whether any of it is staged doesn't matter much. Fans and audiences alike have enjoyed their moment in the limelight. Resnick, of 15 Seconds of Fame, recalled a moment in June 2024 after a Dallas Mavericks loss in game five of the NBA Finals. The arena cameras zeroed on a fan tearful over the outcome. While it wasn't part of the kiss cam feature, 'the minute he saw himself on the Jumbotron, he smiled and kissed the girl (who was) with him,' Resnick said. 'That's all you need to know about what those 15 seconds mean to fans.'
Business Insider
15 hours ago
- Business Insider
MrBeast's plan to reach a new generation of fans
MrBeast has been in the lab cooking up an animated show that he hopes will hook the next generation on his videos. The world's biggest YouTuber announced a new anime-style series coming in October called "MrBeast Lab: The Descent," based on a wildly popular toy line he launched last summer. MrBeast and his team partnered with Australia-based Moose Toys for both the animated show and his "MrBeast Lab" toys. Those action figures debuted last July and became the best-selling new toy property in 2024 across 12 leading global markets tracked by retail sales data provider Circana, the company confirmed to Business Insider. Stephen Davis, the chief franchise officer at Moose Toys, told BI that his team had been talking with MrBeast about making an animated series for a while. The success of their MrBeast-inspired toys last holiday season convinced both sides to make an animated series that would fuel sales for new versions of their toys — and vice versa. "With the launch of this next product line, it was the right time to now move into animation," Davis said. Besides generating millions of YouTube views and selling tons of toys, MrBeast — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — is moving into animation to grow his already-massive audience, specifically by introducing himself to younger viewers. "We wanted to create a show that was as inviting to a younger demo as it was to an older demo," Davis said. Growing the tent to fit Gen Alpha Animation isn't just for kids, as the recent breakout success of Netflix's "Kpop Demon Hunters" demonstrates. Davis emphasized that point, saying that the "MrBeast Lab" show's "modern anime flavor" could help expand the fandom while also appealing to MrBeast's current YouTube subscriber base of over 418 million. Still, industry insiders told BI they thought viewership for MrBeast's animated show would skew younger than his Gen Z -heavy following. "He's filling a white space for his audience," said Amanda Cioletti, the VP of content and strategy for the licensing group at market-making firm Informa Markets. Gen Alpha children, between the ages of one and 15, appear to be a target demographic for this cartoon. Amanda Klecker, SVP of marketing and franchises at toy and kids' media company called developing both a show and toy line targeting a particular audience "a smart move." Please help BI improve our Business, Tech, and Innovation coverage by sharing a bit about your role — it will help us tailor content that matters most to people like you. Continue By providing this information, you agree that Business Insider may use this data to improve your site experience and for targeted advertising. By continuing you agree that you accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Davis said the audience for the "MrBeast Lab" action figures is kids ages six and older, though he added adults in the so-called "kid-ult" community also buy the toys. MrBeast isn't the only content creator who's dabbling in toys. Kid-focused YouTubers like Ms. Rachel, Ryan of "Ryan's World," and the girl from "Kids Diana Show" have toy lines to reach preschoolers. STEM YouTuber Mark Rober, whose audience is older, is also getting into the mix, with a toy line from Moose Toys coming in 2026. More than a cash grab MrBeast and Moose Toys dream of a virtuous cycle in which toy sales spark interest in their show, and the other way around. Cioletti said that MrBeast likely launched the toys first to feel out the market before making the cartoon. While toy sales data from Circana suggests that the MrBeast-Moose Toys tie-up is lucrative, Davis declined to comment on the terms or structure of his firm's partnership with MrBeast. Klecker said MrBeast's approach to brand building shows he's focused on staying power across generations. "What I appreciate about what MrBeast does is there isn't a 'label slap,'" Klecker said, referring to a hasty money grab trading on a famous name. "He's very thoughtful, it seems, about his brand building and his brand strategy." Smart brand partnerships fulfill unmet needs, she said, adding that MrBeast seems to be on the right track so far.
