Now that it’s really summertime (June 20 being the first official day), let it be known: We are living in the summer of Drake. Chris Molanphy wrote about how Drake’s album Views has been dominating the charts for the past five weeks, despite underwhelming sales and challenges from the likes of Paul Simon, Blake Shelton, and Beyoncé: It’s being propped up by huge streaming numbers, leading Molanphy to observe that what we’re seeing now is the changes Billboard made to its chart methodology in late 2014 converging with the ascent of streaming: “A recent Billboard podcast revealed that streaming is up 62 percent in 2016 over the same period in 2015, and more than 200 percent in just two years. We see the results on Billboard’s Hot 100, where stream-heavy tracks like Desiigner’s ‘Panda’ and Drake’s ‘One Dance’ now routinely command the list.” This new formula allows for albums to reign for multiple weeks on the chart again, the way Purple Rain once spent 24 weeks at No. 1. That means Drake is to 2016’s album charts what Prince was to 1984’s.
Speaking of throwbacks, this week brings the opening of Independence Day: Resurgence, the sequel to the 1996 blockbuster. Slate doesn’t have a review yet, however, because the studio declined to screen the film for critics, and Sam Adams explains the implications of that decision: “The running assumption is that movies held back from press must be stinkers, and that’s often true, but not always,” Adams writes, adding that the film’s director, Roland Emmerich, “may not be too kindly disposed to critics right now, given that his last movie, Stonewall, was savaged for telling the story of the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement through the eyes of a white cis man.” Watch this space for a review of Resurgence, and in the meantime, check out Jeffrey Bloomer’s take on Swiss Army Man, yes, the farting corpse movie, but also so much more: He calls it “hilarious, deranged, and always alive with possibility.” Also read Rebecca Onion’s piece on Free State of Jones, the Matthew McConaughey civil war movie that turns out to be more than another white savior story.
While we’re recommending things, have you checked your Amazon account for store credits yet? What about Ticketmaster? You may be pleasantly surprised. Or not: Here’s a list of concerts you can use your Ticketmaster vouchers on—hope you like the ’90s!
A few more culture links to take you into the weekend:
- What you should watch on Netflix before the end of the month
- Brexit supporters are more likely to prefer Blur to Oasis—who knew?
- Bill Simmons’ new HBO show doesn’t quite justify its existence
- What would the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of gun control look like?
- A befuddling Twitter war between Billy Eichner and Ross Mathews
- The rap video you may have missed at the end of Everybody Wants Some!!
- The disappointing fate of Game of Thrones’ Ramsay Bolton
- Maria Bamford’s category-shattering depiction of mental illness on Lady Dynamite
- Don’t read too much into women’s love affair with erotica
- Miss America has its first openly gay contestant
- Did Kirk Douglas really break the blacklist?
- Mac n’ Cheetos and blue wine
