Tumblr is apparently the best thing that’s happened to album covers since Andy Warhol. Last week, we were fascinated and depressed by a blog that Photoshops dead musicians out of classic record sleeves; today, we’re giggling through Clipart Covers, a Tumblr that recreates album covers using clip art and Comic Sans. Enjoy amusingly remixed art for everyone from Neutral Milk Hotel to NWA after the jump, and follow Clipart Covers to see more wonderful remakes and request some of your own.

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If you’ve followed Courtney Love’s online presence from mid-’90s AOL message boards to MySpace to Twitter, you may think there’s nothing you don’t already know about the Hole frontwoman. And yet, if you’re like us, then you’re still all ears for the memoir Love’s just announced she’s writing, to be co-authored by Rolling Stone writer and prolific biographer Anthony Bozza and published by William Morrow in fall 2012. According to ArtsBeat, the book will be an “account of her life from childhood to the present, including tales from her own band, Hole, her stints in Hollywood, her marriage to Kurt Cobain and her relationships with Billy Corgan and Edward Norton.” Surely that gives her a wide enough range of topics that the memoir will include some illuminating insight Love hasn’t overshared yet. As far as we’re concerned, the project is already worth it for the Love-Corgan drama it will inevitably reignite.

This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s iconic album Nevermind, the same week that Pearl Jam celebrates its own two-decade milestone. Nirvana’s commemorations include Jon Stewart’s upcoming Q&A with the surviving members; musicians from Tokyo Police Club and Fucked up playing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” 144 times in a row; and a four-CD Universal re-release consisting of numerous previously unreleased recordings, a DVD of live BBC recordings, and several B-sides. Among Pearl Jam’s goodies are the Cameron Crowe documentary Pearl Jam Twenty (now in theaters), a bunch of anniversary shows and reissues, and a new solo album of Eddie Vedder rocking out on a ukelele.

It’s clear that ’90s rock nostalgia is everywhere this year — so we don’t feel bad indulging in some of our own with a tribute to the era through one of its favorite media: the band poster. Below the jump, peruse a gallery plucked from the golden era of grunge.

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Last night, morbid curiosity compelled us to check out the debut episode of Platinum Hit, a song that has Jewel and Kara DioGuardi searching for America’s next top songwriter. Allow us to save you some time: it’s terrible. We’re not sure whether the problem is the hyper-styled yet uninspired contestants or the show’s tight time constraints, but we feel confident in saying that it’s no Top Chef. The first challenge had the musicians composing odes to Los Angeles — and, despite being New Yorkers, the songs were so nauseating that we couldn’t help but feel for our friends to the west. That has inspired us to help heal their pain by rounding up ten of our favorite songs about L.A. They aren’t all happy, but at least they’re listenable.

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Fresh off an absurdly controversial 90-minute episode that included the songs of Lady Gaga and a gay-bullying story line, Glee is poised to take on a true classic: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. And, as usual, the show has already posted the covers from the episode. The clips we liked — April (Kristin Chenoweth) and Will’s wispy “Dreams” and Rachel’s energetic “Go Your Own Way” — are after the jump. Oh, and we also included our favorite cover of “Gold Dust Woman,” because Glee managed to omit the best song on Rumours. You can click over to Oh No They Didn’t should you want to hear New Directions’ gratingly sugary take on “Don’t Stop,” Finn’s passable “I Don’t Wanna Know,” Artie’s throwaway “Never Going Back Again,” and Santana’s coffee-bar “Songbird.”

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If you were a certain kind of 13-year-old girl in the mid-’90s — and rest assured, I was — few things are more exciting than seeing Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, Melissa Auf der Maur, and Patty Schemel together. So, my inner child was in a pretty good place last night, when Hole’s best (living) line-up took the stage at MoMA for a Q&A after a screening of Hit So Hard, David Ebersole’s documentary about Schemel.

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We will never cease to be amazed by Robyn, even though we have kind of lost track of how many albums she released last year (15? 32?). Now, she’s found the time to work with Savage Skulls and Douster on a wonderful video for the song “Bad Gal” (which was a bonus track on Body Talk Pt. 2). It is weird and great and we love it.

“Bad Gal” got us thinking about all the other immortal bad-girl anthems we’ve rocked out to over the years. There are many. But the ten we’ve listed after the jump are our favorites. Leave your picks for what we left out in the comments. If we get enough great suggestions, we’ll round up ten more songs next week.

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[Editor's note: For the next two Fridays, Flavorwire will be counting down our 20 most popular features of 2010. This post, which originally ran on July 13, 2010, comes in at position number 12.] We always knew to expect great (or, at the very least, interesting) things from the daughter of two of rock’s darkest legends, and Frances Bean Cobain‘s burgeoning art career has not disappointed. The 17-year-old offspring of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love (pseudonym: Fiddle Tim) just put up her first gallery show Scumfuck at L.A.’s La Luz De Jesus Gallery. Cobain’s art is gritty and visceral (kind of like her dad’s), depicting androgynous, obese, or malnourished characters and fringe public figures like punk provocateur GG Allin and cult leader Jim Jones. Oh, and there’s one piece with the caption “Treat me like your mother or I’ll eat the sun.” From what we’ve seen, young Frances Bean’s artwork promises to be as controversial as her parents’ musical legacy. After the jump, check out some images from the show and let us know what you think of the alterna-rock scion’s creations.

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For those of us who are actually rooting for Courtney Love, tonight’s Behind the Music was an ordeal (yes, we teared up) but also a vindication. We heard people who know for sure confirm that Kurt didn’t write Live Through This, learned the true extent of her childhood family problems, and, most importantly, saw present-day Love talking coherently and insightfully about her life. She was smart, sincere, and even, at times, funny. Of course, haters are already hating, but those of us who have actually been paying attention know that this is the most promising Courtney we’ve seen in the 21st century. Our 12 favorite C-Love quotes are after the jump.
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This is an exciting week for Smashing Pumpkins fans. Billy Corgan and, um, whoever else is in his band these days, have released the first volume in their 11-EP Teargarden By Kaleidyscope series. To be totally fair, the group is generously allowing its fans to download all songs from the project free. But if you want a physical version, be ready to shell out some major cash for a painstakingly crafted special edition. Insound notes that the debut installment “is packaged in a silk-screened wooden box (7 1/4″ tall x 8″ wide x 1.05″ thick). Each box contains: a 4-song CD (with four new Smashing Pumpkins songs and instrumental intros), a 7″ vinyl single (containing a new song and a B-Side), and a hand-carved “leopard stone” obelisk, about 2″ tall, similar to marble.” Considering that there will eventually be 11 $33 EPs to buy, Pumpkins completists stand to spend upwards of $350 to own the entire set.

Think that’s bonkers? Well, it’s nothing compared to some of the other insanely expensive (or just plain over-the-top) box sets and special-edition albums we’ve seen. Check out 10 of the weirdest and most expensive after the jump.

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