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Music

The 50 Albums Everyone Needs to Own, 1963-2013

By Tom Hawking on

No one buys albums anymore, goes the music industry truism. And yet, for all that the format’s commercial viability may or may not be on the wane, sitting and listening to a great album from start to finish is one of the greatest pleasures that music can bring. Flavorwire recently got to thinking about how one might build a record collection if you really only did buy one record a year. So here’s the result of our thought exercise: 50 albums you really should own, one a year from 1963 until the present… Read More

Music

The Most Hilariously Bizarre Commercials Starring Musicians

By Tom Hawking on

If you’re a brand seeking some measure of credibility with the kidz, the concept of getting a musician to flog your product for you makes perfect sense — the only problem is how you go about doing so without making it look like a crass commercial cash grab that will arouse only contempt in your target audience. This dilemma has led to some pretty bizarre advertisements over the years, some successful, some rather less so. Anyway, in light of the glut of such adverts recently (in the last month or so, there have been recent ads starting Billy Corgan, Wayne Coyne, and Tyler, the Creator) we thought we’d round up some of the weirdest we could find, both past and present. … Read More

Music

The Musicians That Make the Best Music Videos

By Tom Hawking on

As we noted last week, we were both intrigued and disconcerted by the arrival of the new Beach House video for “Wishes,” which features the ever-terrifying Ray “Leland Palmer” Wise lip-synching to the song as he directs some sort of weird gymanstic-centric cult meeting in a sports stadium. It’s the latest in a series of pretty awesome videos from Beach House, and it got us thinking about other bands who’ve really embraced the medium as an art form, making consistently great videos over the years. Here are some of our favorites! … Read More

Music

A Selection of Great Post-1970s Glam Rock Albums

By Tom Hawking on

We’re super excited about the return of Suede, both because their new single “Barriers” is really great and because, honestly, we’re hoping for some sort of glam re-revival in the year to come — surely it’s time for the return of bands whose ambitions extend beyond bedroom laptoptronica and/or determinedly anonymous we-just-do-what-we-do-and-possibly-have-beards indie? Hey, David Bowie’s surprise album announcement certainly can’t hurt the possibility of a glitter resurgence, either! While we wait, we’ve been digging out our old Suede CDs and also exhuming other examples of glam rock from after the genre’s mid-’70s golden age. Here are some of our favorites — what are yours? … Read More

Music

Gang of Misfits Battle “Preppy Scuz” in of Montreal’s Fabulously NSFW New Video

By Judy Berman on

We’d say of Montreal’s new video for “Sails Hermaphrodite,” off their rarities album Daughters of Cloud, comes just in time for Halloween. But the timing might well be a coincidence, because every day is Halloween for Kevin Barnes’ band of beautiful glam-pop freaks. The video intersperses scenes from a full-contact (to put it mildly) and eventually Jell-O-covered football game between “The Preppy Scuzz” and of Montreal’s own gang of misfits, “The Sleep Rats,” with some fluorescent-lit dance/sex footage that Stereogum notes “may or may not involve actual on-camera fucking.” Well, then! Make sure your computer screen is turned away from any potentially sensitive onlookers and enjoy the NSFW video after the jump. … Read More

Music

10 of Music’s Most Bizarre Alter Egos

By Tom Hawking on

This week sees the release of the utilitarianly titled Banks, the first solo release under his own name by Interpol singer Paul Banks. It’s not his first solo release, though — Banks has already put out an album and an EP under the pseudonym Julian Plenti. He appears to have retired the alter ego now, which only makes the whole thing more bizarre — despite the fact that Julian Plenti’s records sounded awfully like Interpol, Banks even insisted on being interviewed in character, reputedly refusing to answer questions that weren’t addressed to “Julian.” In memory of Julian Plenti, then, here are a selection of music’s most strangest and most memorable alter… Read More

Music

The 15 Albums You Need to Hear in October

By Tom Hawking on

After a bumper month in September, the good news is that there’s a heap more good albums due in October — especially tomorrow, which is shaping up as one of the busiest/best release dates of the year. Hurrah! As we do every month, we’ve devoted ourselves to poring over the release schedule and separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff and all such things. There’s also a roundup of everything else that’s out, encompassing the good, the bad, and the Barbra Streisand. What are you looking forward to hearing this month,… Read More

Music

25 Intimate and Revealing Backstage Photos of Famous Musicians

By Tom Hawking on

We all know what our favorite musicians are like on stage — whether they’re shy or flamboyant, whether they’re chatty or businesslike, whether they’re funny or taciturn. But we also know that what we’re seeing on stage is ultimately a performance. Off stage, however, it’s a completely different matter, and thus backstage photography has always provided an interesting insight into the music world, particularly when the photos in question aren’t posed or contrived. We’ve pulled together a collection of such photos, images that seem to capture sides to performers that we rarely get to see, giving a glimpse of the person behind the persona — whether it’s a tearful Kurt Cobain slumped in a corner, Bob Marley playing soccer, or Lemmy reading a book (with nary a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in sight!), these are like all great photos in that they capture a moment in time and in doing so also capture some part of the subject’s personality. We hope you enjoy… Read More

Music

A Selection of Great Duets We’d Love to See

By Tom Hawking on

As we’ve written here in the past, the duet is an inexact science — some of the collaborations that you’d think should have been roaring successes proved to be disastrous, and vice versa. We’re still on the fence as to which group the new St. Vincent/David Byrne collaboration Love This Giant, which is out today, falls into — but either way, the fact that two of our favorite artists have made a whole record together got us thinking about other dream duets we’d love to see. We’ve started the discussion with a bunch of suggestions. Who would you like to see in the studio together? … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Gird your loins: A new comedy created by former Daily Show showrunner Josh Lieb and comedian Nick Thune that is currently known as “Untitled Hipster Project” is headed to NBC. The basic premise? “A decidedly un-hip anthropology student finds himself living with – and studying – the wild, untamed hipsters of Brooklyn, New York.”… Read More