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Great Albums With Embarrassingly Bad Cover Art [NSFW]

By Tom Hawking on

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Mosquito is officially on the shelves, and our first impressions of the record haven’t changed much: we rather like it. The cover art, though… well, that’s an entirely different matter. We’re sure there’s some reasoning behind adorning the sleeve with a lurid pink giant mosquito sinking its proboscis into the ass of a baby (a baby with green lipstick on, we hasten to add), but until we know what it is, the album is going straight to the top of our list of great albums saddled by awful cover art. Here are some of the… Read More

Music

12 Notable Music Videos Directed by Famous Filmmakers

By Tom Hawking on

As we reported last week, Gaspar Noé — the man responsible for the French films Enter the Void and, shudder, Irreversible — has directed the video for the rather excellent new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds single “We No Who U R.” The video is rather restrained by Noé’s standards, but it fits the song beautifully, and it got us thinking about other well-known directors who’ve moonlighted in making music videos. There have been plenty over the years, some triumphant, some rather less so — so here’s a selection for your viewing delectation! Marvel, giggle, shake your head in despair, and then let us know if we missed any. … Read More

Music

2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Include Joan Jett, Kraftwerk, Public Enemy

By Judy Berman on

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its nominees for 2013, and the group might just be the most diverse yet. The acts that have been selected this time around include many that don’t fit traditional definitions of “rock and roll” — including not only hip hop groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A., but also Kraftwerk, who the Guardian notes would be “the first all-synthesiser group to join the assorted grizzled legends of the Hall of Fame.” Also on the list are Chic and Donna Summer, who were nominated but not inducted in 2011, and ’70s funk stars The Meters.

But don’t worry, Rolling Stone readers — the list still features quite a few rock stars. Both Heart and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts return after frustratingly unsuccessful 2012 nominations. As for the rest of the rock and roll field, from which last year’s nominees The Cure are conspicuously absent? Unless you’re big into prog — Deep Purple! Rush! Procol Harum! — it’s not a particularly inspiring bunch. Sorry, purists, but this year we’re hoping the Rock Hall of Fame puts innovation ahead of genre loyalty. See the whole list of nominees below and share your gripes in the comments. … Read More

Music

10 Great State-of-the-Nation Albums

By Tom Hawking on

The new Dan Deacon album was released yesterday, and it’s perhaps the last thing we would have expected from a man once so interested in the idea of music as a purely sonic entity, devoid of any narrative or greater meaning: it’s a loose concept album about America. Deacon has written some interesting stuff about the ideas behind the album, which is entitled simply America, on his website, noting that “The inspiration for the music was my love of cross-country travel, seeing the landscapes of the United States, going from east to west and back again over the course of seasons,” while “The lyrics are inspired by my frustration, fear and anger towards the country and world I live in and am a part of.” The result is a fascinating state-of-the-nation album, a record that’s both personal and also vocal about the country of its creator. In celebration of its release, here are some of our favorite albums that address similar subject matter. … Read More

Music

Excellent Photos of Awesome Musicians Hanging Out Together

By Tom Hawking on

One of our favorite features run by our friends at excellent UK website The Quietus is their regular excerpts from the Rock’s Back Pages archive. They recently exhumed an old article from the NME, wherein Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan, and Mark E. Smith held a “summit” at a south London pub. As it turns out, we happen to own this exact NME – we found it for $1 in a second-hand record shop years ago — and leafing through the article again got us thinking about similar great meetings of the minds that have been caught on film over the years. We’ve put together a gallery of some of our favorites, with grateful acknowledgment for the title and a few of the shots to the wonderful Tumblr Awesome People Hanging Out Together. … Read More

Music

10 of the Best Political Songs You’ll Ever Hear

By Tom Hawking on

Last week we published a list of what we considered to be some of the worst political songs ever — the trite, the mawkish, the hopelessly naïve. Predictably enough, the feature generated plenty of comment section debate, including one call for a corresponding list of good political songs. We actually ran a feature a while back about good 21st-century political anthems, but still, your wish is our command — so without doubling up any, here’s a selection of songs we consider to be as moving and effective as those other songs are banal and ineffective. Your comments are, as ever, welcome. … Read More

Music

A Selection of the Most Genuinely Terrifying People in Hip Hop

By Tom Hawking on

In a world where hip hop dominates the music business, its roots as a genuinely challenging genre seem a world away. This is one of the reasons why we’re so excited to get our hands on The Money Store, the debut album by Death Grips, which follows their killer mixtape Exmilitary from last year. It’s a reminder of the fact that when hip hop abandons its tiresome obsession with idiot materialism and posturing, it can still sound vital and relevant. And it also got us thinking about the days when there were some truly, and even refreshingly, frightening people working in the genre — so here are some artists who’ve terrified the establishment and/or your correspondent over the years. (And no, we’re not including Big Lurch — PCP-catalyzed cannibalism is a whole category of its own.) … Read More

Books

Literary Mixtape: Randle McMurphy from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’

By Emily Temple on

If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: the lovable rabble-rouser of Ken Kesey’s masterpiece, Randle McMurphy. … Read More

Music

Classic Silent Films and the Musicians Who Should Soundtrack Them

By Judy Berman on

There is something so pleasing about a great pop-culture pairing — Air’s just-released soundtrack to Georges Méliès’ newly restored silent classic Le Voyage Dans La Lune, for example. Who better to score a 100-year-old French sci-fi film than a pair of Méliès’ countrymen who make dreamy, ambient electronic music and already have an acclaimed soundtrack album (The Virgin Suicides) under their belts? The sublime match-up has us yearning to see some of our favorite contemporary musicians composing sounds to accompany classic silent films. We’ve compiled some suggestions after the jump; add yours in the comments. … Read More

Music

10 Great Musical Double Bills That Should Play Occupy Wall Street

By John DeFore on

The Occupy movement is famous for welcoming anyone who wants to join. But you can’t help but wonder if, for campers who’ve endured taunts and snow and pepper spray, some musical guests are more welcome than others. Yes, it’s a thrill to see Philip Glass using the people’s mic at Lincoln Center, but too many of the celebrities who visit OWS seem (at the risk of being uncharitable) to be using its fame for their own good instead of vice-versa. One wonders, for instance, how many impassioned discussions of banking regulations and foreclosure statistics were ever interrupted by the comment, “You know who I’d love to hear right now? Third Eye Blind.”

With that in mind, we offer ten dream concerts for OWS — double bills of music that’s relevant and rousing, from artists (unlike these movement-friendly newcomers) with enough name recognition to draw both fans and media attention to Zuccotti Park, or anywhere else the 99 percent are trying to make themselves heard. … Read More