The Notorious BIG

This Year’s Essential Record Store Day Exclusives

Yes, this Saturday is 4/20, but if you can detach yourself from the bucket bong, it’s also Record Store Day. The annual celebration of independent record stores has grown into quite an industry, and as ever, there’s a heap of awesome-looking releases to trawl through once you’ve fought your way through the crowds and thrown enough judicious elbows to make your ways to the crates of vinyl — so much so, in fact, that the selection can be somewhat overwhelming. Never fear, though, because we’ve sifted through the list of this year’s RSD exclusives to bring you the best of the best. What’s on your shopping list? … Read More

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The Most Distinctive Singing Voices of the 1990s

We’re big fans of Suede here at Flavorpill central, and as such we’re delighted to report that their new album Bloodsports is better than we dared to hop for — in fact, it’s the best thing they’ve made since Coming Up, which is pretty impressive considering how utterly dry Brett Anderson’s well of ideas seemed to have run on their last couple of albums. And best of all, Anderson still sounds great; his voice is rich as ever, and listening to the album got us thinking about what a distinctive vocalist he is. His was one of the most recognizable voices of the 1990s, and as such we thought we’d round up some of the others to go with him. … Read More

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10 Fascinating Early Demos by Famous Musicians

We do still read the NME, god help us, and as such we were interested to see this feature about dodgy demos of classic songs on their website a couple of days back. Setting aside the question of whether anything ever recorded by Muse can ever be considered a “classic” (spoiler: no), the piece did get us thinking about early demos from our favorite musicians, especially in light of the recent reissue of Interpol’s Turn on the Bright Lights, which comes with a bunch of studio outtakes and other rarities. Anyway, we thought we’d run with the idea and share some early demos by some of our other favorite bands, which we think make for pretty fascinating listening. Let us know if you have any you’d like to share. … Read More

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