As we listened to the new Rapture album on Monday — once the initial shock that it just wasn’t very good had worn off — the thing we couldn’t help noticing was that the lyrics seemed pretty rabidly Christian. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise, considering the band’s name, but as far as we’re aware, their songs have never been overtly religious before. Anyway, it turns out that there’s a story behind this — according to the Village Voice, singer Luke Jenner converted to Catholicism in 2009. He’s not the first musician to undergo a road-to-Damascus experience — so after the jump, we’ve looked at a selection of other famous musical conversions, and what they meant for the both the artist in question and the music they made afterward.
With Slim Shady making his airwave-monopolizing return, as well as our other recent check-ups on ’90s alternative kids and Nickelodeon stars, we thought it might be worth a trip down recent memory lane to trace another group of 1990s icons. That’s right, it’s class-reunion time, hip-hop edition. What’s Doug E. Fresh doing? Has Sir Mix-a-lot expanded his position on butt-bouncing? Can we still not touch this, MC Hammer? The answers to all your burning questions about the hip-hop stars of 20 years ago, after the jump.
Analyze Words is a new and super useful tool for determining other people’s personalities via their posts on Twitter. Developed by James W. Pennebaker, a University of Texas Professor of Psychology, along with his daughter Teal, Roger Booth and Chris Wilson, the program analyzes tweets based on not the “content words” but rather the “style words” — like articles and prepositions — to determine the mental state of the author.
Basically this means that you can plug in anyone’s Twitter handle — including your own — and watch it ranked in Emotional Style, Social Style and Thinking Style. We’ve been playing with this for hours. After the jump, check out some of our favorite tweet analyses of famous people.
His rhymes were addictive, his beats were catchy, and his dance moves were the envy of every bar mitzvah attendee. He was MC Hammer, and from his parachute pants to his “mind to rhyme and two fresh feet” one thing was certain: you couldn’t touch him. If you suddenly find yourself feeling nostalgic, don’t fear: Mixtape king Mick Boogie (ThePressPlayShow) presents Hammertime, a reported “ride through the past, present, and future, using the original samples to intro some of Hammers biggest hits,” as well as remixes by nVme and Good Life Mike featuring some of the best new faces in the game (6th Sense, Mistah FAB). Read More »
Book: A fascinating book about everyday peeps affected by Katrina. [NYT] Dance/Opera: Love the choreography in West Side Story,Fiddler on the Roof or Gypsy? DVR tonight’s Jerome Robbins doc on PBS. [Playbill] Design: There’s no privacy in this proposed Chinese City Center. [Gizmodo] Film: Dirty old filmmaker Pedro Almodovar has released a “naughty” short; it’s a spin-off of his forthcoming Penelope Cruz flick, Broken Embraces. [Telegraph] Music: Rihanna needs an Oprah intervention. [NYDN] Television: Will you be donning a Hypercolor T-shirt when you watch Hammertime? We will. [THR] Theatre: “Legit” critics still have the power to get 41.5 year olds to pay too much to go to the theatre. Yay? [Variety] Visual Arts: A Swedish masters student who submitted a video of “someone” vandalizing a train car for his thesis project is not getting an A. [BBC] Web: Facebook is for the olds. [Fimoculous]
