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Great Bands That Made (Relatively) Forgettable Debut Records

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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

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Music

The Most Hilariously Bizarre Commercials Starring Musicians

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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

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Music

The Year in Memorable Musical Controversies

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2012 has been a crazy year in many ways, and the music industry hasn’t exactly been immune to its air of pervading insanity. (In fairness, the music industry is rarely immune to any sort of insanity, but still, humor us here.) This year has given us a particularly rich vein of memorable controversies, conflicts, and contretemps, and as part of our ongoing end-of-year wrap-up, we’re looking back at some of the most significant. Some of these are hilarious, some of them depressing, some of them hilariously depressing, and some just plain old bewildering — but from the resurrection of dead rappers through homeless people functioning as wifi hotspots to a record company suing an entire country, all of them have been worth remembering. … Read More

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Music

10 Amusing TV Theme Song Covers by Famous Musicians

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If you were watching Late Night With Jimmy Fallon the other night, you might have been rather taken aback and amused by special musical guest Alicia Keys’ choice of song. Instead of performing one of her hits, she broke out a cover of the theme song to 1980s Disney TV series Adventures of the Gummi Bears. The bizarre spectacle got us thinking about some of the other covers of TV themes that have surfaced over the years — surprisingly enough, there aren’t that many to choose from, especially once you set aside the inexplicable ’90s/’00s trend of dire punk bands doing self-consciously goofy TV covers for reasons only they can explain. Still, there have been some to buck the trend, so here’s a New Found Glory-less roundup of famous bands doing TV theme songs for your listening pleasure. Did we miss any? … Read More

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Music

Amanda Palmer’s Amanda Palmer-Loving, Wayne Coyne Co-Directed NSFW “Do It With a Rockstar” Video

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Everyone is talking about Amanda Palmer. The drag queens are squabbling over whether she’s “fugly” or what she does is “art, bitch.” The hipsters in “Pave-adoh” T-shirts think she’s “a Scientologist and an ableist and a Klan member — and she hates men, she hates women. She hates everything!” But they actually all secretly love Amanda Palmer, because they end up at her show anyway to watch her rock out and get covered in glitter. And one of the hipsters, played by “porn star, feminist, smart alec, FORCE” Stoya Doll, ends up going home with Palmer. Yes, of course, there is girl-on-girl action in this video.

So, basically, according to Amanda Palmer — and Wayne Coyne, who co-directed the video with her, George Salisbury, and Michael McQuilken and appears in an extremely brief and death-defying cameo — everyone who says they hate Amanda Palmer actually wants to sleep with Amanda Palmer. Yup. So, if you’re interested, watch the NSFW Amanda Palmer controversy train roll on below! … Read More

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Music

10 Gloriously Absurd Albums That Actually Exist

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We’ve been thoroughly enjoying the new Prince Rama record, Top Ten Hits of the End of the World, here at Flavorpill central, and not just because of its rather topical apocalyptic overtones. We’re all for outlandish concepts and wild ambition, and this record certainly satisfies both those criteria — it’s based around exactly what its title suggests, with the Larson sisters channeling the spirit of ten bands who’ll die during some sort of unspecified future holocaust to create a sort of post-apocalyptic compilation record (with a healthy dose of the band’s “Now Age” philosophy on the side). The whole thing’s as endearingly ridiculous as it sounds, and it’s also pretty great — so to celebrate its release, we thought we’d look at some of our favorite records in a similar vein, albums based around concepts that sound too outlandish to be true, but do exist nevertheless. Let us know if you have any to add! … Read More

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Music

Famous Musicians in Hilarious Halloween Costumes

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Happy Halloween, people! If you’ve ever wondered what Paul McCartney would look like as a cat, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s celebrate the day by looking at Halloween photos of famous musicians, shall we? We have Kurt Cobain as Barney, Justin Vernon as Garth, MGMT as the cast of Scooby-Doo, and more. Check ‘em out after the jump, and hit the comments to let us know who would win your costume contest. … Read More

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Music

Who Wants to Play Flaming Lips Bingo?

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If you’ve ever been to a Flaming Lips show, you know what to expect: a giant screen projecting psychedelic naked-lady videos, confetti cannons, womb imagery — and, without fail, Wayne Coyne stepping into a giant hamster ball to wade out into the crowd like a certain messiah walking on water. In honor of last night’s Lips performance at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur (perhaps the most appropriate combination of band and venue in history), LA Weekly pointed us to a set of Flaming Lips Bingo cards for fans to use at their live shows. Although we’re not sure how practical it would be to actually play while watching the relentless spectacle of the band’s performance (not to mention while in the throes of certain Lips fans’ substances of choice), the game is spot-on. Check out one of the cards after the jump, and click here to download the entire set, created by St. Louis’ Riverfront Times. … Read More

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Music

Flaming Lips, Santigold to Play Stephen Colbert’s StePhest Colbchella in New York

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You know how Coachella is doing that cruise thing? Well, Stephen Colbert can top that. He announced last night that he’s throwing his own all-star boat concert next Friday, August 10th, at New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum (aka the U.S.S. Intrepid). Officially titled StePhest Colbchella ’012 — RocktAugustFest, the festival will feature The Flaming Lips, Santigold, Grizzly Bear, and fun., about whom Colbert cracked, “I hear their songs are a ton of band.” The legendary Grandmaster Flash will DJ, and seeing as he lives on Colbert’s bookshelf these days, we wouldn’t rule out a surprise appearance from Michael Stipe. Best of all, Colbchella is free. Tickets will be available today, and you can enter your email address at Colbert Nation for updates. … Read More

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Music

5 Albums to Stream for Free This Week: The Flaming Lips, Fleetwood Mac, Sebadoh

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It’s Monday, which means it’s time for another edition of our regular start-of-the-week stream-a-thon, wherein we scour the Internet for worthy and/or noteworthy albums that are streaming this week at absolutely no cost. This week, our ears are equally balanced between better-than-expected group efforts and bands we’d almost forgotten about surging back into our hearts with a vengeance — with some preciously new Irish indie in the mix just for fun. Click through to get a little of everything — from updated punk rock to Antony Hegarty’s excellent cover of “Landslide” to Wayne Coyne weirdness to the first new stuff from Sebadoh in 14 whole years. … Read More

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