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Jack Antonoff, Mustard and Sounwave Reflect on ‘GNX’

Kendrick Lamar
Jason Tate

Jack Antonoff talked with Variety about work with Kendrick Lamar in GNX.

Antonoff, for his part, densely laid in bits of guitar and Mellotron to build out the world of “Luther.” “If you really listen to the record, obviously Kendrick and SZA are right there and the beat’s right there and the melody,” he says. “But there’s all this stuff dancing around, like in between them. I wanted to go overboard with the presentation of how special it could be. I ended up sitting alone for a really long time carving out all these little spaces.”

The meticulous nature of “GNX” only intensified as the record sped toward completion. Antonoff recalls working on final mixes as late as four in the morning, just hours before the album’s release. Its impact was instantly tangible — “Luther” held court atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks, while “Not Like Us” picked up Grammys for song and record of the year. But for the producers who helped bring “GNX” to life, it signified that taking risks — sonically and creatively — was the only path forward.

‘Mad Men’ Re-Release Fuck Ups

Mad Men
Jason Tate

HBO’s 4K Mad Men re-release has … problems.

For starters, the Mad Men episodes in 4K on HBO Max were listed out of order and mislabeled, which likely made series creator Matthew Weiner an absolute mad man.

But that’s nothing compared to an actual edit-oopsie in the seventh episode of season one. In “Red in the Face” (what the episode is supposed to be titled, but was not on 4K HBO Max), a drunk (they were always drunk) Roger Sterling (John Slattery) vomits up oysters in the office in front of prospective clients. In the initial 4K stream that released on HBO Max, a Mad Men crew member was very visibly operating a barf hose behind Sterling, in full view of the camera. There was even a second staffer in frame supporting the puke-hose tech. That guy would have been a great friend in college.

Todd Vaziri, with a great observation:

The fun thing about this restoration mistake is that now we, the audience, get to see exactly how many digital visual effects were actually used in a show like “Mad Men”, which most would assume did not have any digital effects component. In this shot, not only were the techs and hose removed, but the spot where the pretend puke meets Slattery’s face has some clever digital warping to make it seem like the flow is truly coming from his mouth (as opposed to it appearing through a tube inches from his mouth, on the other side of his face).

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