Remember that festival line-up formula jpg that did the rounds a couple of years back? It sets out a hilarious generic line-up by categorizing the type of bands you find on every festival bill (“increasingly mainstream headliner,” “good headliner playing shitty latest album,” “fat bearded jam band,” “African tribal music everyone will clap politely for,” etc). Anyway, we got to thinking that a similar formula applies to end-of-year best album lists — and, specifically, that there’s always precisely one token hip-hop release lurking in or around pretty much every rock-centric top ten. Join us as we embark on a retrospective of the last ten years’ worth of such albums, and ponder what it all means. Read More »
Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!
Borders Books recently filed for bankruptcy, and has been closing down stores across the country. As a result, passive aggressive signage and product displays are popping up all over the place.
Tuesday marked the 50th anniversary of the day that Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. While he was famously quoted for saying the Russian equivalent of “off we go” just before lift-off, his final pre-flight words were actually a bit of dialogue about sausage and moonshine.
Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of the most talked-about items on the web that week. Enjoy!
* After beating Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber for Album of the Year at the Grammys, Arcade Fire was met with a resounding “Who?”
* When Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist, Beliebers collectively lost their minds on Twitter.
* It sounded like Justin Bieber implied that rape is all a part of God’s plan when his words were twisted in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
Here at Flavorpill, we’re eagerly anticipating the release of Jay-Z’s memoir, Decoded, which comes out November 16th and promises to be, at the least, a lively read. But though Hova’s autobiography may be the most anticipated rapper-penned book of the year, it’s hardly the first one worth reading. From the RZA’s musings on philosophy and kung fu to Chuck D’s explanation of the racial politics of rap, there’s a surprising range of literary offerings from hip-hop stars. To tide you over for the next few weeks, we offer this curated bookshelf full of scintillating, intellectually stimulating, and just plain great books by rappers.
Ditching his signature horn sounds, super-producer Mark Ronson drafted in a raft of friends to create Record Collection, an album of seductive retro pop and soulful dance-floor jams.
Dubbing his new collective the Business Intl, Ronson put his talented pals to work both in front of the mic and behind the scenes. Guest vocalists include Q-Tip, MNDR, Ghostface Killah, Miike Snow frontman Andrew Wyatt, Spank Rock, D’Angelo, and even Boy George, while members of Kaiser Chiefs, the Zutons, and the Drums all contributed to the songwriting.
This week’s mixtape brings genre-defying cuts from Mark Ronson and Wild Beasts, in addition to a boatload of fresh new faces (Winter Gloves, Strange Talk, Oh Land) that are about to make some waves in your ocean of noise. As per usual, Right Click + Save As your next ten after the jump and prepare to add to your list of favorite summer jams.
In case you weren’t sure if British TV is better than American TV (as if The Office wasn’t already enough of an indication), the folks over at BBC 1 stumbled upon a video gold mine when Christopher Walken arrived as a guest on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and out-Gaga’d Gaga. Sure, Jude Law may have already done this here in America, but we don’t recall him ever prescribing more cowbell as a remedy for, well, anything.
