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Royel Otis Lands First Billboard No. 1 With ‘Moody'

Royel Otis Lands First Billboard No. 1 With ‘Moody'

Yahoo08-07-2025
Royel Otis tops a Billboard chart for the first time as 'Moody' lifts a spot to No. 1 on the Adult Alternative Airplay tally dated July 12.
'Moody' exceeds the No. 2 peak of the duo's cover of Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 'Murder on the Dancefloor,' which hit No. 2 on Alternative Airplay in July 2024.
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Prior to 'Moody,' Royel Otis' high on Adult Alternative Airplay was notched via 'If Our Love Is Dead,' which reached No. 39 this January.
Royel Otis is the first act to score an initial No. 1 on Adult Alternative Airplay in 2025. James Bay last achieved the feat with 'Up All Night,' with The Lumineers and Noah Kahan, for a week last October.
Royel Otis — duo Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic, which formed Sydney, Australia, in 2019 — boasts two career top 10s on Alternative Airplay, with 'Murder on the Dancefloor' joined by the No. 10-peaking 'Sofa King,' last November.
'Moody' concurrently reaches a new No. 15 high on Alternative Airplay.
The track also ascends 16-14 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 2.4 million audience impressions, up 11%, in the week ending July 3, according to Luminate. The act's best there so far is 'Murder on the Dancefloor,' which rose to No. 5.
'Moody' is the lead single from Hickey, Royel Otis' second studio album, due Aug. 22. A second song from the project, 'Car,' was released in June.
All Billboard charts dated July 12 will update Tuesday, July 8, on Billboard.com.
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Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back
Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back

WIRED

time2 hours ago

  • WIRED

Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back

Jul 30, 2025 2:51 PM As industry groups decry censorship, players are flooding Visa and Mastercard with complaints and sharing the titles of delisted NSFW games to support developers. The logo of Steam, a video game digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation, shown on a smartphone. Photograph:Trade organizations across the games industry and gamers are speaking out against censorship campaigns taking place across Steam and in an effort to help developers who have been unfairly impacted. The push against adult content is being driven by Australian conservative group Collective Shout, whose pressuring of payment processors has forced platforms to mass deindex NSFW content. In the wake of these delistings, which remove games from search, developers are scrambling to understand if their games have been impacted and why. On platforms like Bluesky, users are compiling lists of 'censored artists' with NSFW pieces and unsearchable Itch pages, whether it's games or comics, many of whom identify their work as LGBTQ+ or kink friendly. WIRED was able to find several of these pages via Google, all of which were tagged by their creators in that document as LGBT and NSFW, but not with Itch's search tools. According to the International Game Developers Association, a nonprofit that supports game developers, this kind of censorship disproportionately affects developers who are queer, trans and people of color, on top affecting a creator's income and reputation. 'The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.' In a statement given to WIRED, executive director Jakin Vela says that the IGDA is 'seriously alarmed' by the delistings and payment disruptions of adult-themed games on Steam and Itch. 'Globally and politically, we are at a crossroads for developer rights, creative freedom, and platform accountability,' he says. 'The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.' Over the past few months, Collective Shout has been campaigning to get 'rape and incest' games removed from online platforms. The group began applying pressure to payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard; Valve removed hundreds titles, some of which included incest. Other developers, however, such as the creators of horror game Vile: Exhumed , say their games did not violate these standards. ' Vile: Exhumed was not banned for its use of gore in storytelling, or violent themes,' wrote developer Cara Cadaver in an update. 'It was banned for 'sexual content with depictions of real people,' which, if you played it, you know is all implied, making this all feel even worse. I refuse to censor or make changes to the game, I will not retell a story about these topics in a way to make people who don't understand feel more comfortable.' Valve did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Itch has deindexed all adult NSFW content. According to GameFile, that applies to over 20,000 games. 'Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform,' founder Leaf Corcoran wrote at the time. 'To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.' Itch did not respond to a request for comment. The company has suspended its Stripe payments on 18+ content 'for the foreseeable future' and is 'actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content.' Reached for comment, Stripe spokesperson Casey Becker said that the company does not comment on users. 'Generally speaking, we take action when we conclude that users violate our terms of service,' Becker says. 'We do not support adult content." The company has a longstanding policy of not working with adult content services. In a previous statement to WIRED, Collective Shout campaigns manager Caitlin Roper said the organization had had 'no communication with payment processors' outside of an open letter. In a blog posted July 28, however, Collective Shout says it 'approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.' According to experts, this is a powerful tactic known as financial censorship that weaponizes financial institutions' aversion to anything controversial. It essentially sidesteps a platform's own rules for what it will allow and puts that decision directly in the hands of payment processors, which impacts what companies are allowed to sell. 'Platforms have long had terms of service restricting content such as non-consensual acts, rape, incest, and material that violates payment processor guidelines,' says Vela. 'The concern today is not the existence of these rules, but rather that their enforcement is adversely impacting games that do not actually violate these restrictions, often without warning or explanation.' In response to one developer on Bluesky, Corcoran said the team is considering 'adding an update to the dashboard to more explicitly show indexing status when the dust settles.' Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. The German games industry association, game, has called developers' artistic freedom 'fundamental to games as a cultural medium.' Managing director Felix Falk said in a statement that restrictions from payment service providers and gaming platforms should not override what's legally allowed, and that service providers like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal's terms and conditions should not conflict with free expression. 'Creative forms of expression or certain themes as games, such as diversity, must not be targeted by individual interests or campaigns from particularly vocal groups, as is currently being observed on Steam or Falk said. The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the game industry in the US, declined to comment. The UK's trade organization for games and interactive entertainment, Ukie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to the Collective Shout's campaign and the subsequent fallout, the IGDA is gathering information from affected developers, which it says will guide its future actions. 'Games that feature consensual adult content, including queer, kink-positive, or romantic narratives, are easily targeted under vague or overly cautious enforcement, often forcing developers into silence or self-censorship because platforms fear perceived risks associated with hosting legal adult content,' says Vela. The IGDA is advocating for concerned parties to contact financial institutions like Mastercard and Visa directly, as well as support online petitions that ask these companies to stop interfering with entertainment and sex work. 'Mastercard and Visa have increasingly used their financial control to pressure platforms into censoring legal fictional content,' reads the campaign for a petition with over 185,000 signatures. 'Entire genres of books, games, films, and artwork are being demonetized or deplatformed—not because they're illegal, but because they offend the personal values of executives or activist groups' Mastercard and Visa did not respond to requests for comment. Since the delistings, gamers have been organizing on Bluesky, X, and Reddit, encouraging people to call companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to protest. One artist who makes adult content, who asked to remain unnamed out of fear of their financial accounts being affected, tells WIRED that they were 'hung up on twice by Visa' on Tuesday. 'The first time I was left on hold for about 10 minutes only to have the call suddenly disconnect. The second time I was told by a clearly frustrated rep that he would not connect me to a supervisor, and that Visa is no longer answering questions about policy.' The artist says that while they're approaching these calls as a consumer, because they sell comics on Itch, they're also directly impacted by the new policies. 'My audience, my friends, and my colleagues are all LGBTQ+, and are being overwhelmingly affected by this kind of censorship, where merely existing as a queer person is seen as inherently pornographic and fetishistic,' they say. 'I also want to stress that all of us are working and creating art well within the bounds of the law." The artist describes Collective Shout and Morality in Media as 'puritanical groups using the very real and legitimate fears of child exploitation to push through their right-wing policies.' In the adult entertainment industry, platforms have faced similar pressures involving anti-porn groups claiming to fight sexual exploitation by using payment processors to get content banned. Visa and Mastercard previously cut off payments to Pornhub; OnlyFans briefly banned, and then reversed a stance on sexually explicit content due to bank influence. Just this week, new child online safety laws in the UK kicked in that now require millions of adults to submit to ID document uploads, face scans, credit card checks, and more to access pornography; similar age-verification laws have been implemented in over 20 states. Critics say although these measures are aimed at protecting kids, they open the door for a mountain of privacy and surveillance problems. On its website, Itch has added an additional FAQ to address complaints, including addressing the difference between Itch and Valve's responses. Because Itch is not a closed platform like Steam, the post reads, it has minimal barriers to platform users publishing content. 'We could not rely on user-provided tagging to be accurate enough for a targeted approach, so a broader review was necessary to be thorough' the post reads. '…If we lose our ability to accept payments from a partner like PayPal or Stripe, we impact the ability of all creators to do business. Losing PayPal, for instance, would prevent us from sending payouts to many people.' The company says it is still waiting for final determinations from its payment processors.

'Raging Bull' 4K UHD Blu-Ray Review - A Knockout Release For A Martin Scorsese Classic
'Raging Bull' 4K UHD Blu-Ray Review - A Knockout Release For A Martin Scorsese Classic

Geek Vibes Nation

time2 hours ago

  • Geek Vibes Nation

'Raging Bull' 4K UHD Blu-Ray Review - A Knockout Release For A Martin Scorsese Classic

Robert De Niro stars in Martin Scorsese's biopic of boxing champion Jake LaMotta, joining the Imprint Collection in 4K UHD, premiering in Dolby Vision for the first time worldwide. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Scorsese's seminal masterpiece also stars Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Theresa Saldana, Frank Vincent, and Nicholas Colasanto. Jake LaMotta was the middleweight boxing champion known as 'The Bronx Bull' and 'The Raging Bull' during his brief reign. LaMotta had early lessons in life: to steal and to fight. He channelled his tough childhood into the ring, where his aggression became a way of combating deep-seated anxieties and emotional fears. This determination and rage turned him from a young hoodlum into a champion. But his drive for the title, his brutality outside of the ring and his almost-psychotic sexual jealousy will destroy his marriage, his deepest friendships and the career he fought to build. For thoughts on Raging Bull, please check out my thoughts on No Streaming Required: Video Quality Imprint Films presents Raging Bull on 4K UHD Blu-Ray in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 courtesy of a magnificent 2022 4K digital master approved by director Martin Scorsese in 2160p with Dolby Vision/HDR. This label is based in Australia, but both the 4K UHD and Blu-Ray discs in this set will play in all Blu-Ray players, including those in the United States. The film was previously released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray with HDR10 in the United States courtesy of The Criterion Collection in 2022. We do not have that release to compare, but we do know that it was highly praised for its beauty. This new Imprint release has the benefit of Dolby Vision to fine-tune the experience on the visual side. It assuredly is not a night-and-day difference from the Criterion release, but the Imprint release is likely the best release on the market. Without a doubt, the 4K UHD presentation serves as a valuable uptick from the included Blu-Ray derived from the same restoration. This 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc impresses right away with the perfect amount of natural film grain which is authentically gritty but not noisy or unwieldy. The encoding here is absolute perfection thanks to a thorough handling by Fidelity In Motion. This allows the presentation to excel with a world of texture in the locales, clothing, and production design. The cinematography from Michael Chapman is impeccable as he creates a three-dimensional image that uses the claustrophobic spaces perfectly to feed into the emotions at play. The UHD disc maintains a faithful black-and-white palette that is dynamic thanks to the utilization of Dolby Vision for an exceptional interplay between light and dark. The command over contrast and overall clarity is a marvel to witness. Black levels are deep and allow the picture to retain a daring amount of depth and detail in shadowy spaces. Highlights are richer and offer greater stability without veering into blooming. The clarity of the transfer gives you an unbelievable amount of facial detail. There are no indications of any print damage or other such blemishes that would sully the appearance of this title. This transfer is a wonder by all metrics. It is a TKO for Imprint Films. Audio Quality Imprint Films brings us this new 4K UHD Blu-Ray with a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround sound track and an LPCM 2.0 stereo track that offer a triumphant audio experience. Dialogue holds up effortlessly, coming through clearly without being lost to the music or other natural effects. The environmental effects are delineated nicely including the chatter within the public spaces and the noises from vehicles. The soundtrack of the film comes through with the appropriate fidelity that represents the material ideally for what it is trying to accomplish. The track does not suffer from any unexpected instances of age-related wear and tear. The Imprint Films has delivered an audio experience that holds up with the best of them. Optional English HOH subtitles are provided on this disc. Special Features The Imprint 4K UHD Blu-Ray of Raging Bull includes an exclusive 80-page hardcover booklet with an essay from journalist and filmmaker Bilge Ebiri and production notes. This explores the legacy of the feature, the source material, its themes, the background of the creative figures, and more which is very illuminating. The on-disc special features are as follows: Audio Commentaries: A trio of archival commentary tracks is provided which delves into the production in great detail including the background anecdotes of shooting various scenes, the development of the script, the decision to shoot in black and white, the camera setups, the production design, and more. Audio Commentary #1: Director Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker Audio Commentary #2: Director of photography Michael Chapman, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, music producer Robbie Robertson, actors John Turturro and Theresa Saldana, casting director Cis Corman, and supervising sound effects editor Frank Warner Audio Commentary #3: Writers Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader, boxer-author Jake LaMotta, and LaMotta's nephew Jason Lustig Raging Bull: Fight Night – Documentary: A four-part documentary that explores the production of the film in great detail through interviews with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, director of photography Michael Chapman, screenwriter Paul Schrader, and more. Before the Fight (26:01) Inside the Ring (14:45) Outside the Ring (27:24) After the Fight (15:22) The Bronx Bull – An Introduction to Raging Bull: A 28-minute archival featurette that looks at the real-life La Motta, the legacy of Raging Bull , the editing of the film, the performance of Robert De Niro, and more. De Niro vs. Lamotta – Shot for Shot: A four-minute piece in which you get some comparisons between the film and real-life events. Lamotta Defends Title – Newsreel Footage (1:00) Marty & Bobby: A 14-minute archival look at the relationship between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Raging Bull – Reflections On A Classic: A nearly 13-minute appreciation piece in which notable figures such as Kimberly Peirce, Richard Kelly, Scott Cooper, and Neil LaBute reflect on the legacy of the film. Remembering Jake: An 11-minute reminiscence about Jake La Motta by figures from the boxing world. Marty On Film: A nearly 11-minute discussion with Martin Scorsese about the importance of film on his life. Jake's Jokes: A six-minute piece with La Motta in which you get a sense of his humor. Trailers From Hell – Dan Perri on Raging Bull: A three-minute piece that delivers some interesting anecdotes from the Title Designer. Theatrical Trailer (2:11) Final Thoughts Raging Bull is a major landmark in the career of legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese with his visceral exploration of emotional and physical brutality. Robert De Niro gives one of the best performances of his career, which is saying something for one of the all-time greats. The ensemble likewise supports him to perfection with standout performances from Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty. This can proudly be held up as one of the great films of the '80s. Imprint Films has delivered a new 4K UHD Blu-Ray that offers a 5-star A/V presentation and some top-notch special features. If you are a fan, the film has been treated with the proper respect. Highly Recommended The Imprint Films edition of Raging Bull is now available to purchase on 4K UHD Blu-Ray. Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the 4K UHD Blu-Ray. Disclaimer: Imprint Films has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.

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