For Mark Foster’s next trick the Foster the People frontman has cooked up a triple-headed remix of songs titled “Houdini.” In an Instagram video posted on Tuesday (July 2), Foster explained, “alright, so there’s like two ‘Houdini’s on the radio right now, one from Eminem, one from Dua Lipa,” while sitting at a keyboard in a recording studio.

“Thought it’d be fun to bring in our OG ‘Houdini’ from our first record and, you know, mash the three of them up together,” he said of the beat-heavy track that was the fifth single from Foster’s 2011 debut album, Torches. Dua Lipa released her “Houdini” in November as the lead single from her Radical Optimism album, while Eminem dropped his song of the same name in May as a preview of his upcoming album The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), which is due out on July 12.

Foster’s remix video then pivots to the band leader at a computer cueing up Dua’s song while playing keyboards and triggering the beat from his group’s track as he mixes in some Slim Shady. “Kinda cool, right?” he said of the resulting mash-up he dubbed: “Houdini x Houdini x Houdini” aka “Battle of the Houdinis.” He then presented the final mix, with Dua singing over the booming Foster beat and Eminem rapping as Foster danced around the studio to the result.

Eminem’s “Houdini” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 100 singles chart, while Dua’s topped out at No. 11; Foster’s OG take reached No. 37 on the Billboard U.S. alternative airplay chart.

Watch Foster create his mega-“Houdini” mix below.

Over the last three years, Odesza‘s The Last Goodbye Tour has spanned 54 shows at 48 venues throughout North America, including headlining sets at festivals like Governor’s Ball and Bonnaroo.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of its end. From July 4-6, Odesza will play the three finale shows of The Last Goodbye run at The Gorge Amphitheatre, the iconic venue roughly 150 miles southeast from the duo’s hometown of Seattle. 66,000 fans are expected over the three nights, and if things go according to plan, almost all of them will pass through an on-site installation the band has created as a tangible, extraordinary and this time truly final goodbye.

Called Echoes, the installation is built from six 30-foot towers, 120 LED screens and loads of cutting-edge tech that will involve projection mapping and, naturally, sound. Made of brushed aluminum so the installation reflects sunlight by day, after dark Echoes comes to life with video content incorporating brand new visual content from the band, the epic three-year tour and which is also, says the project’s head of creative Steve Bramucci, “in part inspired by the fans.”

This eight-minute video loop will be synced with sound mixed by Odesza’s Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight. Known for the meticulous attention to detail they bring to their music and all elements of the Odesza universe, the pair have also been heavily involved in the design and execution of Echoes.

Their 10-minute soundscape is built from gentle ambient music mixed with voice notes left for the band by fans about what the Last Goodbye era has meant to them, with people offering comments reflecting on things like how they never felt comfortable dancing in public until seeing the show, how the music helped them deal with the loss of parents, grandparents, best friends and relationships, how attending shows expanded their friend group and how this chapter of Odesza generally contributed joy to their lives.

It’s a soundtrack with the power to make one tear up while listening to it at their office desk, and it’s thus likely to have high emotional impact when experienced by fans onsite at The Gorge. (For fans who can’t make it The Gorge, the final show on July 6 will be livestreamed on Veeps.)

The project is designed “to be experienced in the ramping-up period before a show or ramping down after a show,” says Bramucci, “but you can tell that Odesza is thinking people are going sit in here for a few minutes. They’re not just gonna race through, take a couple Instagrams and bounce.” Given crowd flow at The Gorge, Bramucci expects “97 to 98%” of attendees will pass through Echoes. (Another 3% will enter through the VIP area that doesn’t lead past the installation.)

The hope is that fans will indeed spend some time in a project that a global team has dedicated the last two months of their lives to creating. Echoes takes influence from a design originally built in Russia by Russian creative studio Setup, with a second creative studio, The Vessel, expanding on that design and project managing Echoes in the States. The Vessel’s operator Jenny Feterovich serves as Echoes’ creative director.

Meanwhile, Bramucci’s team at Uproxx was tasked with user experience, coordination and storytelling around the project, with a host of other companies involved with AV and scenic building. A 30-person crew has been on site since June 30, working around the clock to get Echoes up and functioning by the time doors open tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.

This challenge has been compounded by the logistics of working at The Gorge. “It’s literally in the middle of nowhere,” says The Vessel’s co-founder Jenny Feterovich. “We have to truck everything that’s going there, and there is no room for error, because you can’t run back to an office that’s three hours away to go get something. Preparation here is of utmost importance.”

The other major challenge is the weather — with the build teams preparing for possible high winds and assured heat, with temperatures during the build in the mid-80s and temperatures on show days forecasted to hit the 90s, and Saturday expected to reach 100 degrees.

Echoes was designed on PCs equipped with Snapdragon, a microchip from Qualcomm that uses predictive AI to anticipate a user’s movements, in order to shut down and reignite programs and save battery life. On-site, Snapdragon-powered PCs will be used to projection-map, troubleshoot and modify designs in real time, with the team also running visual and audio elements with Snapdragon PCs. Qualcomm also subsidized the project, with the hard costs totaling in the high six figures.

“We’ve found that there are a lot of synergies between Snapdragon technology and this genre of music,” says Qualcomm CEO Don McGuire. “EDM artists embrace innovation and are open to experimenting with technology and new tools, making them great partners.”

Ultimately though, all of the tech is intended to elicit an exclusively human response.

“If I see the face of even one fan who has a serious emotional connection to it, who’s like, ‘the aperture of my appreciation for music and what it means to connect to music has shifted because of this installation, then that’s the perfect win,” says Bramucci.

Karol G kicked off the summer season with her merengue-powered “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” which loosely translates to “if I had met you before.”

The song’s style is an homage to the decades-old genre and the Dominican Republic. “I worked on part of ‘Mañana Sera Bonito’ there, and when I need to disconnect from the world and connect with myself, I also go there,” she wrote on Instagram. “Its culture, its music, its colors, the hospitality, the energy… everything feels very authentic and special there. Its people have embraced me in a way that fills my heart and inspires me all the time.”

Produced by Edgar Barrera, Sky Rompiendo and Karol, “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart (dated July 6).

Below, Billboard translates the Spanish lyrics of “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” into English:

What would have been
If I had met you before
Surely, you’d be dancing this song with me
Not like friends

Like something else
You close to me makes me dangerous
For a kiss, I’ll do anything
Your girlfriend gets me jealous and although she’s beautiful
Ey!

She won’t treat you like I would
She won’t kiss you like I would
She’s not as good as I am
She’s shy and I’m not
I’d be willing to eat you both
Today you’re hanging with her
But maybe later you won’t be

What would have been
If I had met you before
Surely, you’d be dancing this song with me
Not like friends
Ey!

What would have been
If I had met you before
Surely, you’d be dancing this song with me
Not like friends
Ey!

I see you and I don’t know how to act
Baby, to seduce you, someone give me the manual
Whatever it is, I won’t back down
I have faith those eyes will see me one day
I’ll marry you
My name sounds good with your last name
I’m waiting for the first slip-up
So I can introduce you as my husband
I’ll marry you
My name sounds good with your last name
I’m waiting for the first slipup
So I can introduce you as my husband
You haven’t understood that

She won’t treat you like I would
She won’t kiss you like I would
She’s not as good as I am
She’s shy and I’m not
I’d be willing to eat you both
Today you’re hanging with her
But maybe later you won’t be

What would have been
If I had met you before
Surely, you’d be dancing this song with me
Not like friends no, no, no
Ey, ey, ey, ey
What would have been
If had met you before
Chiqui-chá, chiqui-chá, chiqui-chá, chiqui-chá (Ja, ja, ah)
Uh-uh-uh-uh
(What would have been)
(If I had met you before)

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With summer in full swing, it’s a good time for fun in the sun for the Fourth of July and throughout the rest of the summer season. Well, that starts with cookouts with friends and family. And aside from good food and cold brews, a premium outdoor griddle is part of a successful barbecue.

Priced at $197 at Walmart, the Blackstone “Adventure Ready” Propane Griddle is a versatile and high-performance outdoor cooktop that’s speedy and powerful, as it is sleek and stylish.

And because its from Walmart, you’ll get the Blackstone “Adventure Ready” Propane Griddle shipped to your home for free as soon as it’s available if you’re a Walmart+ member.

If you’re not a member, then you’re in luck. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial to take advantage of everything the retailer’s rewards program has to offer with perks such as free, fast delivery; fuel discounts’ streaming access to Paramount+ to watch hit originals such as Halo, Evil, 1883 and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; additional savings with early access deals and much more. Learn more about Walmart+ here.

Blackstone ‘Adventure Ready’ Propane Griddle

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The griddle itself has a large cooking area of 524 square inches to cook multiple food items at the same time. In fact, it also has two heated H-style burners that work independently, so you can have one area for heavy-duty cooking for meats and another area for warming for all sorts of buns.

It also comes with a removable shelf and foldable legs with two wheels for storage and transportation, respectively.

The Blackstone “Adventure Ready” Propane Griddle (propane is not included) is available for $197 at Walmart.

Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.

Rumors that Taylor Swift will make a cameo in the third Deadpool film have been swirling for years, and they definitely aren’t dying down any time soon. That’s because the franchise’s star, Ryan Reynolds — who also happens to be a close friend of the pop star’s — recreated her Evermore album cover in a post on Instagram Stories Tuesday (July 2), dressed as the project’s titular character.  

On Swift’s 2021 Evermore artwork, the 14-time Grammy winner is photographed from behind in an autumnal forest, her braided hair falling down the back of a plaid jacket. In Reynolds’ post, he stands in the exact same position in a similar wooded area, wearing Deadpool’s red-and-black suit and showing off two blades strapped to his back.  

Amid contrasting reports about Swift’s possible involvement over the years, fans have long believed that the musician would be featured in Deadpool‘s next installment. Now that the July 26-slated Deadpool & Wolverine — which also features Hugh Jackman reprising his Marvel role — is less than a month away, those rumors have once again reached a fever pitch, with respect to the fact that the “Anti-Hero” singer is a self-professed fan of the franchise.  

In 2016, for instance, Swift borrowed the Free Guy star’s actual costume to dress up as Deadpool for Halloween. Two years later, Reynolds’ character sported a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of the Eras Tour headliner’s cats Meredith and Olivia in Deadpool 2, after which Swift recorded her pets’ “reactions” to the tribute in a video on Instagram Stories. 

Plus, Reynolds himself has said that he isn’t opposed to having his friend join the Deadpool cast. “Are you kidding me?” he told Entertainment Tonight when asked about the subject in 2022. “I would do anything for that woman. She’s a genius.” 

See the actor’s Evermore tribute — as Deadpool — below.