It’s a December tradition here at Flavorwire that we take a look at Pitchfork’s Top 10 Songs of the Year, and think about what they might say about the generation who’s listening to them. This year’s Top 10 is a diverse selection that perhaps reflects the disconnected and fractured nature of the year that saw their release — so anyway, join us as we overanalyze and overthink just what it might all mean. … Read More
Michael Jackson
124 Songs You Need to Hear Before 2014 Ends
Music is personal. It’s something that I’m never more aware of than I am at the end of every year, when best-of lists dominate the coverage at cultural publications, but the idea of “best” is one that I’ve never quite been comfortable with. It seems too objective to take into account personal taste, not to mention the reality that there’s too much music out there for even the most ambitious listener to have heard everything, or even close to everything. So let’s not use the word “best.” Instead, here are 124 songs released in 2014 that I would recommend to any music lover. Its goal is to highlight not only the year’s biggest hits, both commercially and critically, but also songs that commented on what happened in our world this year, and songs you may not have heard but that you’ll hopefully love as much as we… Read More
The 20 Worst Made-for-TV Biopics About Musicians
Historically, television hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to making biopics about musicians. Biographical films chronicling a celebrity’s life (musician or otherwise, on television or film) are always going to be hard to do correctly, and will inevitably be subjected to intense scrutiny. Add in TV’s tendency to water down and rush through real-life stories, and it’s nearly impossible to find a made-for-television biopic that’s worth watching. And yet, TV keeps trying — Lifetime will air its ill-advised Aaliyah movie this weekend — and it keeps failing. Here’s a look at 20 of television’s worst musician… Read More
The 50 Best “Ripped From the Headlines” ‘Law & Order’ Episodes, Ranked
Law & Order, the Dick Wolf-produced procedural that paved the way for so many other shows — NYPD Blue, NCIS, CSI: So Many, and so many others — has been running, in one form or the other, since 1990. Since that first season, Law & Order, and all its iterations — SVU, Criminal Intent, and a few other less successful variants — have followed nearly 1,000 criminal investigations. So, it’s no surprise that a lot of those crimes were based on real-life events — some of them even from just a few months prior. … Read More
10 of the Worst Key Changes in Music
The key change is like pretty much any other musical trope: if it’s used well, it can be an effective and inventive way to signal a shift in the mood or tone of a song; if it’s used badly, it can be a godawful cliché that makes your ears hurt and your heart fill with existential despair. We may get around to looking at the former in due course, but for now, it’s more fun to look at the latter — so here are ten of the poorest key changes in music, ranked from the worst to the absolute worst. … Read More
Martin Scorsese’s Weirdest Projects
Over the holiday weekend, Martin Scorsese directed a new film featuring his longtime collaborator Robert De Niro, his current collaborator Leonardo Di Caprio, and Brad Pitt. But don’t mark your calendars just yet to see Jimmy the Gent, the Wolf of Wall Street, and Aldo Raine face off under Scorsese’s direction on the big screen — it was all for a commercial. Well, to be clear, it’s a “casino-themed short film” for next year’s opening of the Studio City resort hotel in Macau, China. In other words, Marty gotta eat — and the whole weird story is a nice reminder that even the most respected of contemporary filmmakers has taken on a lot of very strange jobs between his cinematic… Read More
The History of the World in 15 Music Videos
Even before the advent of videos, pop music did a decent job of educating the youth. As Bruce Springsteen sang on “No Surrender,” he and his fellow baby boomers “learned more from a three-minute record” than they ever did in school. The Boss is a sharp guy, but had he come of age in the MTV era, he’d be about a hundred times smarter. … Read More
Watch “Michael Jackson’s” New Video for “A Place With No Name”
Michael Jackson – or the media team puppeteering his legacy – has further innovated the art of posthumous releasing by unveiling… Read More
The 25 Best Songs of 2014 So Far
Last week we brought you the top 25 albums of 2014 so far, but we couldn’t let the midyear pass without taking a look at the best songs up until this point. This being a singles list, it’s heavy on your Iggys and your Charlis and your Sias, but you’ll also find choice album cuts from some of the year’s best rock LPs, like EMA, The War on Drugs, Against Me!, and more. And finally, we tossed in a few you may not have heard yet, hopefully inspiring you to check out the underrated tunes that haven’t been critical faves or Hot 100… Read More
Read Beyoncé’s Poignant Tribute to Michael Jackson
Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of Michael Jackson’s passing. True to ever-respectful, always-killing-it form, Beyoncé took to her … Read More
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