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10 Albums Made for Incredibly Strange (And Sometimes Hilarious) Reasons

By Tom Hawking on

As you’ve probably heard, there’s a new Lauryn Hill song. It sounds… well, it sounds like it was recorded in a hurry to pay off a tax bill, which is apparently exactly the case (unfortunately, the quickie release didn’t save Hill from a three-month jail sentence). The vocals and lyrics are decent enough, but the beat sounds like it was slapped together in GarageBand with deadlines in mind. Of course, Hill’s not exactly the first artist to have to make a record under duress; here’s a selection of records made for weird reasons over the years, some hilarious, some sadly rather less so. … Read More

Music

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

The Fascinating Untold Stories Behind Some of Our Favorite Songs

By Tom Hawking on

Sure, everyone knows that Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” is about about his son falling from a window, Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” may or may not be about Warren Beatty, and “In the Air Tonight” is not about watching someone drown. But there are plenty of other less well-documented backstories behind popular songs — like the one that surfaced over the weekend about The Beatles’ “Get Back” starting its life as a dubious satire called “No Pakistanis.” Wisely, the band rewrote the lyrics before releasing the song, but it remains a pretty fascinating piece of history, and our cue to discuss the less-documented stories lurking behind some of the songs in our iTunes collection. … Read More

Music

Great Bands That Made (Relatively) Forgettable Debut Records

By Tom Hawking on

In an interesting cosmic coincidence, this week marks notable anniversaries for two of the more significant debut albums in the world of rock ‘n’ roll: 25 years ago yesterday, the Pixies released Surfer Rosa, while 50 years ago today, the Beatles released Please Please Me. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is the contrast between the quality of the records — Surfer Rosa was a fully realized artistic vision, while Please Please Me only hinted at what the Beatles would go on to achieve. Still, the Fab Four are in pretty good company as far as bands who overcame relatively unimpressive debut albums go. As these ten records prove, there’s hope for everyone! … Read More

Design

Insanely Detailed Posters Charting Beatles Musical Arrangements

By Judy Berman on

Pop Chart Lab has issued a series of posters that are sure to separate the millions (billions?) of casual Beatles fans around the world from the genuine Fab Four geeks. In three prints that divide the band’s output into three eras (1963-65, ’66-’67, and ’68-’70), the Beatles Song Charts break down the instrumentation on every single one of their songs. Behold all three paeans to songwriting below, and visit Pop Chart Lab to see larger versions — and, if you’re ready to give over your household to an all-Beatles interior decorating scheme, purchase prints. … Read More

Film

10 Movies We Can’t Wait to See at SXSW 2013

By Jason Bailey on

A confession: nothing against Sundance or any of our other regulars, but SXSW is probably our favorite film festival to attend. The warm weather is a nice respite from late-winter NYC, there’s a relaxed and chatty vibe in the lines, and Tex-Mex and BBQ are always within reach. Oh, and the movies are great. If you’re headed down to Austin, we’ve got plenty of cool events for you to check out. And for those of you who plan to spend your days shotgunning as many movies as possible, here are a few of the flicks we’re eager to take… Read More

Design

‘Panto’N'Roll’: Rock’s Most Colorful Songs Illustrated With Pantone Swatches

By Judy Berman on

“You know you enthrall me and yet you don’t call me / It’s making me blue, Pantone 292,” sing The Magnetic Fields on “Reno Dakota.” Of course, the relationship between music and Pantone’s increasingly fetishized pigments isn’t usually that literal. But Paris-based creative studio Chic & Artistic has united the two worlds once again, in a series called Panto’N'Roll, which uses Pantone swatches to represent classic songs like “Purple Rain” and “Yellow Submarine.” Click through to see the designs, which we discovered via It’s Nice That, and visit Chic & Artistic‘s website to learn more about their work. … Read More

Music

What Your Favorite Record as a Kid Says About You Now

By Emily Temple on

Does music make the man? Or does it maybe just influence him a little? Yesterday, the folks over at A.V. Club recommended a few albums meant to positively (whatever that means) influence kids’ future music tastes, and we got to thinking about our favorite records as children and young teenagers and the impact they might have had on our current personalities — for good or ill. After the jump, we’ve collected a few of our (wildly subjective, tongue-in-cheek) conclusions. So read on to find out what your favorite record as a youngster says about you now, and let us know if we’ve got your number — or if we’re way off base — in the comments. … Read More

Music

The Wackiest Conspiracy Theories from the World of Music

By Tom Hawking on

A couple of weeks back, we surveyed some fascinating conspiracy theories about literary characters. The idea has got us thinking about similar whisperings which hail from a place where truth is often stranger than fiction: the music industry! Click through and read some of the most weird and wonderful conspiracy theories the world of music has thrown up over the years, and let us know if you have any to… Read More

Film

Sundance 2013: Dave Grohl, on Making Films and Music: “I Fake All of These Things”

By Jason Bailey on

PARK CITY, UTAH: Dave Grohl is the first one to tell you that he is not a filmmaker. And yet, here he is at Sundance, chatting up the documentary Sound City, which marks his directorial debut. “I don’t even know what directing means,” he laughed at a press conference Monday. “I’m not a director. I’m not a drummer. I’m not a guitar player. I fake all of these things. I never took lessons to do any of this shit. I don’t know — I can’t read music. I hold my drumsticks backwards. I don’t know what a director is. But I do know, if you sit down with a clear idea of what you want to do, if it’s in your head and you can actualize it or visualize it… well, then, you wind up with something that makes sense.” … Read More