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Music

The 10 Best Songs We Heard This Week: These New Puritans, Arthur Russell

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday, which means we basically can’t wait to get into bed and sleep all weekend, and also that in the meantime we’re rounding up the best songs we’ve heard this week. The past several days were curious, largely devoid of big-name releases, etc., but there’s still notable new work from These New Puritans, The-Dream, Sharon Jones, and Eric Burdon (with help from Jenny Lewis.) Elsewhere, there’s pleasantly spaced-out electronic music from Airbird/Napolian and Stellar Om Source, an unreleased Arthur Russell track, wacky Ethiopian dubstep, and more! All this goodness is streaming now, and it all awaits you after the jump. … Read More

Music

‘The Great Gatsby’ Soundtrack Isn’t Good — But It’s Perfect for ‘The Great Gatsby’

By Tom Hawking on

There’s plenty about Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby that evokes an instinctively negative reaction — including, to an extent, the whole idea of a Baz Luhrmann adaptation of The Great Gatsby in the first place. So it goes with the film’s soundtrack; if you take a look at the tracklisting, you might blanch at the presence of Lana Del Rey, Fergie, and (gulp), will.i.am. But if you suspend your expectations for long enough to evaluate the way the music works within the context of the film — which also merits consideration on its own terms — you might find it works better than anyone might have guessed. … Read More

Celebrity

Celebrities as Media Critics: How Grimes and Jay-Z Are Dictating Their Own Mythology

By Tom Hawking on

If you’re a Grimes fan, you’ve probably already read her fantastic Tumblr post about how she’s tired of the way she’s portrayed in the media. If not, it’s definitely worth a look, because it’s basically everything we love about Claire Boucher — it’s articulate, intelligent, and heartfelt. Given her ambivalence about her Tumblr posts being reported as news, it’s not clear how she’ll feel about the response to the post, which is being reported everywhere. Still, it’s a pretty fine example of how today’s celebrities — for want of a better word — are using their Internet presences to push back in a meaningful manner at how they’re portrayed in the media. … Read More

Pop Culture

What Your Favorite Pop Culture Idols Were Wearing as Teens

By Alison Nastasi on

Our favorite photo of the week belongs to Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Wil Wheaton who shared an uber nerdy image of himself wearing ankle watches (with friendship bracelets!), acid-washed jeans, and a ratty Depeche Mode tee. We’ve featured the image of the Stand by Me star after the jump, along with photos of other pop culture idols and their (mostly) regrettable teen fashions. It’s a snapshot of simpler times, before the stylists and PR managers thoroughly preened them. See what a few of your favorite, famous teen heroes were wearing back in the day, below. … Read More

Music

The 10 Best New Songs We Heard This Week: The National, Jay-Z

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday afternoon, which means that we’re resolutely ignoring the rain as we contemplate the weekend, and also looking back over the best new songs we heard this week. Over the last seven days, we’ve gotten all gloomily excited about the new National album, reminded ourselves that Jay-Z can still actually rap every so often, got all summery to new songs by Beaches and Woods, marveled at how beautiful the new Eluvium track is, enjoyed new stuff from Standish/Carlyon and Tin Trails, and more. All these tracks await you below — get streaming and/or downloading, readers! … Read More

Film

10 Trailers That Were Better Than the Movie

By Jason Bailey on

Plenty of people grumble about trailers not delivering the movie they promise, but only one man — New Zealander J. Congdon — got Paramount Pictures to refund the cost of his Jack Reacher ticket, because the movie didn’t include the badass cliff explosion that got him to spend money on a Tom Cruise movie in the first place. In fairness to Paramount, this kind of thing happens all the time; trailers are often cut months before the picture itself is finalized, leading to all sorts of shots, jokes, and scenes that don’t show up in the finished product. It’s all part of the tricky world of film advertising, where the goal is to lure you into the theater, and not necessarily to reflect the tone, story, or (certainly) quality of the film in question. Trailer cutting is kind of an art form unto itself, which is why we so often see trailers that get us all in a tizzy, only to wander out of the movie they’re selling in a befuddled and disappointed stupor. After the jump, we look back at ten movies that were far better in two-minute form. … Read More

Celebrity

When Celebrities Sue Celebrities: A History

By Jason Bailey on

The news that Donald Trump is dropping — for now, anyway! — his monumentally stupid (even for him) lawsuit against Bill Maher may be good for the humorless blowhard and reality TV star, but it’s disappointing for late-night comedy writers and celeb jurisprudence fans. C’mon, admit it: that would’ve been a fun trial, if for nothing else than Maher’s testimony. At any rate, while we’re waiting to see if Trump holds true on his threat to return to the matter at a later date, here’s a look back at other instances of celebrities — real and C-list — who’ve taken each other to court. … Read More

Art

Awesome Street Signs Commemorating Iconic Rap Lyrics

By Tom Hawking on

The little plaques you see all over cities like NYC that commemorate where famous people used to live… well, they tend to be rather biased in favor of long-dead white guys, don’t they? This is why we’re rather enamored of these hip hop-centric street signs, which commemorate a whole heap of New York locations mentioned in iconic rap lyrics, encompassing Jay-Z’s early days in the Marcy projects, the corner where Redman’s associates used to “sling rocks,” and a Smooth B lyric referencing “125 and St. Nick” (where your correspondent used to live!), amongst many others. They’re the work of artist Jay Shells, who posted over 30 of the signs all over the city — our friends at ANIMAL went and photographed them all in situ. We’ve chosen some of our favorites after the jump, and you can see the rest right here. … Read More

Music

The 10 Best New Songs We Heard This Week: Savages, John Vanderslice

By Tom Hawking on

It’s Friday afternoon, which means that we’re counting down to beer o’clock, and amusing ourselves during these long beerless hours by recapping all the best music we heard during the past week. Happily, there’s plenty of good stuff to stream — most notably, there’s the new Savages song, which is many many kinds of awesome and augurs very well indeed for their debut album. There’s also the John Vanderslice “Diamond Dogs” cover that we premiered earlier this week, most excellent remixes of Kendrick Lamar and Phoenix, new songs from Cold Cave and Stephin Merritt, the entire new Flaming Lips album (live!), and more. Get streaming, peoples! … Read More

Television

The Best and Worst of Last Night’s ‘SNL’ with Justin Timberlake

By Alison Nastasi on

Saturday Night Live brought back beloved characters, former cast members, and some of our favorite gags. The resurrection business proved to be a lucrative one for the writers, with Timberlake in top form as host and musical guest — including a special appearance from Jay-Z during a retro-styled performance of “Suit & Tie.”

Fresh sketches didn’t fare as well for the five-time host, who sold them with gusto even when they involved a stupid “sex pig” and one too many dick jokes. The cold open with J.T. doing his best Elton John impression, singing about the wacky exploits of Hugo Chávez, made us wish the singer’s link to an Elton John biopic were a reality.

“There are so many exciting things about hosting five times,” Timberlake told us in his monologue. “You get to see old friends. You get to try new things. You get to inevitably let everyone down thanks to overly high expectations — thanks, Internet!” See if J.T.’s prediction came true in our recap. … Read More